communist conquest of China in 1949. The second phase began with
communist control of China and continued until about 1978 , when
Deng Xiaoping’s political and economic reforms dramatically changed
the direction of Chinese culture. The third phase started right after those
changes and runs to the present day. In each of those phases the ordinary
practice of martial arts based upon the techniques passed from teacher to
student struggled to define itself in a rapidly changing political and cultural
environment. As so much of China was changing, so too was its physical
culture. The martial arts struggled, and still struggle, tofind a place in the
new society.
The Chinese Nation and Republican China
The collapse of the Qing Dynasty began a familiar historic process of post-
dynastic warfare as warlords and generals emerged tofight for control of
China. With one notable exception, none of the leaders vying for power
were interested in founding a new dynasty. It was clear to most people that
China needed a new and more modern, if not more Western, form of
government. The government of the Republic of China formed in 1912
proved to be a deeply troubled political structure, which struggled to
encompass the vast ambitions of a broad range of powerful men.
Political and military leaders struggled for power in a milieu untethered
from the social and political norms of the previous centuries of imperial
rule. The government was both too unstable to provide rewards for the
ambitious and too weak to restrain them. It seemed as if anything and
nothing was possible.
To these internal political struggles were added cataclysmic external
factors. Two world wars radically reshaped the Western presence in China
and elevated the importance of Japan in Asia. The Japanese invasion of
China completely altered the political and military calculations of the
Chinese forces. Politically, China was taken over by foreign ideologies:
democracy, fascism, and communism. In the end, it was the latter two that
would contend forfinal control of China after the Japanese were defeated
in 1945. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) defeated the fascist, though
nominally democratic, Nationalists (GMD) under Chiang Kai-shek in
1949. Although all sides struggled for political control, the main tool for
accomplishing this was war.
Warfare in twentieth-century China was a decidedly modern and
Western affair. The best Chinese armies were fully trained and armed with
Western weaponry and fought with Western tactics. Less well-equipped and
The Chinese Nation and Republican China 217