🔥 May 4, The May Fourth Movement of China

 

China sent approximately 140,000 laborers (華工, Huagong) to the Allied side during World War I. They dug trenches and transported supplies on the Western Front, with thousands losing their lives. China was a legitimate victor of the war and expected fair treatment after its conclusion. Reality, however, proved the exact opposite. ⚔️

Background

At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the great powers made a shocking decision: rather than returning Germany's concessions in the Shandong Peninsula (山東半島) to China, they handed them over to Japan. Behind this betrayal lay the "Twenty-One Demands" (二十一個條) that Japan had forced upon Yuan Shikai's (袁世凱) government in 1915.

The Twenty-One Demands 😡

The Twenty-One Demands were organized into five groups (五號), effectively reducing China to a Japanese protectorate.

Group I: Japan would inherit all of Germany's rights in Shandong, including railway construction rights and port concessions throughout Shandong Province.

Group II: Japan's leases in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia would be extended to 99 years, allowing Japanese citizens to lease and own land, reside freely, and conduct business. This effectively paved the way for the colonization of Manchuria.

Group III: The Hanyeping Company (漢冶萍公司), China's largest iron and steel enterprise, would be transformed into a Sino-Japanese joint venture, placing the heart of China's heavy industry under Japanese control.

Group IV: China was forbidden from ceding any coastal harbors or islands to any other foreign power—an explicit move to control Chinese sovereignty.

Group V (the most shocking): Japanese political, financial, and military advisors would be appointed to China's central government. Police in major cities would be jointly administered by Chinese and Japanese authorities. China would purchase at least half its weapons from Japan, and foreign capital other than Japanese would be excluded from Fujian Province. This clause threatened to turn China into a second Korea. 🔥

Yuan Shikai's government accepted everything except Group V. May 9, the day the treaty was signed, came to be known as "National Humiliation Day" (國恥日). Four years later, when the Paris Peace Conference handed Shandong to Japan, that humiliation was being internationally ratified. The pent-up rage finally erupted.

🔥On May 4, 1919, approximately 3,000 students from 13 universities, led by Peking University, gathered at Tiananmen Square. 

"Return Shandong!" "Abolish the Twenty-One Demands!" "Punish the traitors!"—these slogans flooded the streets. Students set fire to the home of Cao Rulin (曹汝霖), branded a pro-Japanese collaborator, and beat Zhang Zongxiang (章宗祥).

When the Beijing government arrested students en masse, protests spread to Tianjin, Shanghai, and Wuhan. By June, merchant strikes (撤市) and worker walkouts joined in, evolving into what became known as the "Three Strikes Movement" (三罷). The government ultimately dismissed three pro-Japanese officials and refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles.

Intellectual Roots: The New Culture Movement 📚

The roots of the May Fourth Movement trace back to New Youth (新青年), the magazine founded by Chen Duxiu (陳獨秀) in 1915. Hu Shih's (胡適) vernacular language movement, Lu Xun's (魯迅) literary critiques of feudal society, and the rallying cry of "Mr. Democracy (德先生) and Mr. Science (賽先生)" awakened a new generation. The May Fourth Movement was this intellectual current spilling onto the streets.

Two Young Men and the First Domino 🚩

Two figures proved decisive in this movement: an unknown young librarian at Peking University named Mao Zedong, and a student named Zhou Enlai. Both were drawn to Marxism through this experience, and 30 years later, the Chinese Communist Party seized power. May 4 was, in effect, the first domino in China's path to communism.

The Chinese Communist Party was founded just two years later in 1921. The vernacular baihua replaced classical Chinese as the standard written language. Some historians also note that Korea's March First Movement (March 1, 1919) had stimulated Chinese intellectuals.

May 4 Today

China still commemorates this day as Youth Day (青年节), and Xi Jinping invokes it whenever announcing youth policy.