A History of East Asia From the Origins of Civilization to the Twenty-First Century

By the beginning of the twentieth century, China’s weakness provoked crisis, and new Western-inspired ideas of nationalism were taking root in East Asia. A Nationalist Revolution in 1911–1912 replaced the Qing Empire with a new Republic of China, and rejection of Chinese tradition was promoted by the “New Youth” of the May Fourth Movement. After the first president of the republic died, China dissolved into warlordism. Under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist Party struggled to reunify China. In 1905 the Japanese defeated Russia in war and acquired Russian facilities in Manchuria. Korea became a Japanese colony, which the Japanese attempted to assimilate. But Japanese rule in Korea was harsh and discriminatory, and a spirit of Korean nationalism was brewing. In the Japanese home islands, universal adult male suffrage was implemented in 1925, and Japan had become a multi-party democracy. In French colonial Vietnam, the 1920s brought accelerating French investment, and Western influences, ranging from Hollywood movies to Marxism. But, despite the appeal of the ideals of the French Revolution, many Vietnamese people felt excluded.