How China Was Lost To Communism

11 Pages 2734 Words

opposition to abandon his plans to restore the empire and install himself as emperor. He died in 1916, and political power passed to the provincial warlords for more than a decade. The central government retained a precarious and nearly fictional existence until 1927 (Clubb).
During World War I (1914-1918), Japan sought to gain a position of undisputed supremacy in China. In 1915 Japan presented China with the so-called Twenty-one Demands, the terms of which would have reduced China to a virtual Japanese protectorate (Clubb). China yielded to a modified version of the demands, agreeing among other concessions, to the transfer of the German holdings in Shandong to Japan. The late entry of China into the war on the Allied side in 1917 was designed to gain a seat for China at the peace table and a new chance to check Japanese ambitions (Elegant). China expected that the United States, according to the Open Door Policy, would offer its support. At Versailles, however, President Woodrow Wilson withdrew United States support of China on the Shand...