S06: One State, One Party, One Leader

• Li Jinhui collaborated with American jazz trumpeter Buck Clayton in Shanghai during the 1930s.
• Together, they created a form of jazz that served as the foundation for Chinese pop music.
• However, his music was condemned as “Yellow Music” by the Chinese Nationalist Party for its perceived sexual content.

• Why did Jiazhi let Mr. Yee go?
• Was it love? Does it matter?
• Was Jiazhi exploited in the name of nationalism?
• Is there an inherent tension between patriotic love and personal love?

• What role did the war play in the film?
• What did Eileen Chang think about the revolution and student activism?
• What is the nature of emotional reality?

• The Chinese term for collaborator – “Hanjian” – means “transgression,” where “jian” acts as a transitive verb related to adultery, breaking the law, opposition, and violation.
• Illicitly crossing boundaries or transgressing norms by “going over to them.”
• A connection between illicit transgression and sexual excess or lust.

• The importance of women’s labor, both visible and invisible, in shaping China’s transformation.
• Women’s hidden reproductive labor (childbirth, household maintenance, childcare, elder care, community ties, handicrafts) was crucial for household survival and state projects.

• Gender itself performs symbolic work.
• The figure of “Woman” has been repeatedly invoked to imagine and shape a new China.
• “Woman” was used as a symbol of a weakened culture or as a sign of China’s modernization.
• Women were sometimes criticized as a drag on the economy or glorified as saviors of the nation.

• Region, generation, class, ethnicity, urban/rural location, education, and historical context all influence women’s lives.
• Students, white-collar workers, factory workers, prostitutes, teahouse hostesses, entertainers, domestics, activists, and revolutionaries – there is a vast range of norms, activities, and events shaping women’s lives and the idea of “woman.”
• They were victims, targets of reform, and participants in state-building and social development.

• State-building in Nationalist China: How to build a strong, centralized state?
• Political tutelage: One party, one state, one leader?
• Virtue and politics: Confucian fascism as ideology?

• Nationalism: “Pile of loose sands”
• “Three Principles of the People”
• Developmental state
• Northern expedition against warlords and unification of China
• Political tutelage

The Chinese people have only family and clan groups; there is no national spirit. Consequently, in spite of four hundred million people gathered together in one China, we are, in fact, but a sheet of loose sand.

In a nutshell, it is my idea to make capitalism create socialism in China so that these two economic forces of human evolution will work side by side in future civilization.

• Sun’s death on March 12, 1925
• Last wish of unifying China remained unfilfilled
• Set off power struggle between the left wing (Wang Jingwei) and right wing (Chiang Kai-shek) of the KMT

• In the mid-1920s, Whampoa Military Academy cadets formed Sun Yat-senism Study Societies to promote Sun’s ideology and reject Communism.
• Militant nationalists sought centralized state power to modernize China and transform popular beliefs.
• The primary division was between the right wing (aligned with Chiang Kai-shek) and the left wing (aligned with Wang Jingwei), based on their willingness to cooperate with Communists.

• Fengtian clique (奉系)
  • Zhang Zuolin (張作霖)
  • Occupied Northeast China and parts of north China
• Zhili clique (直系)
  • Warlords Wu Peifu (吳佩孚) and Sun Chuanfang (孫傳芳)
  • Occupied central and southeast China respectively.

• Start of 1926: Main force of Wu Peifu hit in Hunan and Hubei provinces; Changsha and Wuhan successfully captured
• Sun Chuanfang’s force defeated in Jiangxi and Fujian provinces
• End of 1926: NRA marches from Zhejiang province to Nanjing and Shanghai

• 1927-01: Nationalist Government moves from Guangzhou to Wuhan; Takes over British concession in Hankou
• 1927-03-23: Nanjing captured; Wu Peifu’s and Sun Chuanfang’s forces eliminated

• Continuation – and culmination – of warfare since the end of Qing
• Instrument for securing Chiang’s leadership
• Reliance on Soviet advisor and military support

• Under single power center for the first time since 1911
• Single-party government under the leadership of one man: Chiang Kai-shek
• Incomplete unification: Regional powers co-opted, but not removed
• Widening rift between CCP, Soviet advisors, and GMD left

Write down top agendas in the following areas:

• Central bureaucracy
• Internal security
• Defense
• International relations
• Economy
• Education
• Media

Then consider:

• How would you introduce these policies to the country?
• What do you need to ensure their successful execution?
• How would you like the people to feel about your administration?

• Implementation of “political tutelage”: China as a “Three People’s Principles Republic”
• Five chambers of gov: administration, legislation, supervision, examination, and justice
• Codification of constitution, civil, criminal, commercial laws

• Recognition from foreign powers
• Recovery of foreign concessions (tariff autonomy, leased territory, etc.)
• Military cooperation, especially with Germany
• Joining the League of Nations

• Etablishing standards for school facilities and curriculum
• Promotion of Mandarin as a standard language
• Literacy campaigns and school expansion
• Creation of national research bodies: Academia Sinica

• Development of national economy (domestic market for industrial goods)
• Development of military-oriented heavy industry
• Construction of national infrastructure: ports, waterways, highways, railroads
• Unsystematic and limited to Manchuria, east coast, and lower Yangtze

National planned economy:

• National Economic Council (1931)
• National Defense Planning Council (1932)
• Three-Year Plan for Industrial Development (1936)
• Work units (1940s)

Insecure dictatorship:

• Communist uprisings
• Unyielding warlords
• Japanese invasion in 1931

• After Chiang’s 1927 purge, the left wing had to reconsider its allegiances.
• From 1932 to 1935, Chiang and Wang formed a coalition government, during which Wang’s faction implemented corporatist economic strategies.
• Chiang Kai-shek’s dominance was not secured until Wang Jingwei resigned in 1935, with support from the CC Clique and Blue Shirts.

Political study group

• Kong Xiangxi, aka H. H. Kung (1880-1967)
• Song Ziwen, aka Soong Tse-ven (1894-1971)

Central Club Clique (CC-Clique)

• Chen Guofu (1892-1951)
• Chen Lifu (1900-2001): Investigation Section of the Organization Department; Minister of Education
• Dai Li (1897-1946): Central Bureau of Investigation and Statistics

Whampoa group

• Military affairs commission
• Blue Shirts Society
• Lixingshe (Act Vigorously Society)

• “CC Clique” may be named after the Chen brothers or “Central Club.”
• Formed in 1927 from anti-Communist groups after forming the Zhejiang Society of Revolutionary Comrades in late 1926.
• The Chen brothers controlled the Organization Department, assigning personnel.
• Chen Lifu created a Bureau of Investigation to spy on Communists and Chiang’s rivals.
• They sought to increase their power and reshape China like a company.

Chen Guofu:

• In 1920, Chen Guofu, Chiang Kai-shek, and Dai Jitao created a Shanghai exchange to fund Sun Yat-sen.
• In 1924, Chen Guofu recruited cadets and got supplies for Chiang Kai-shek’s Whampoa Military Academy.

Chen Lifu:

• Chen Lifu studied mine engineering in Pittsburgh.
• He was recalled to China during a strike and left the United Mine Workers.
• By 1926, he was Chiang Kai-shek’s secretary and worked to sever ties between the GMD and the Communist Party.
• His engineering background influenced his vision for an efficiently managed society.

• The Blue Shirts were a series of overlapping, clandestine groups led by Whampoa graduates.
• They aimed to reshape Chinese state and society in a hierarchical manner based on the modern military model.
• Following Chiang Kai-shek’s patronage in 1932, the Blue Shirts grew rapidly, reaching up to 500,000 members by 1938.

Chiang Kai-shek: “Essentials of the New Life Movement”

• What is the New Life Movement?
• What are the key lessons? How would you introduce them?
• Why did Chiang launch this campaign?
• How successful was the movement? By what measures? And at what cost?

The important problem is that of national existence. To save China from destruction we must revive our national spirit. Though we should have only one xian of territory, we can recover the lost territory if we can revive the Chinese national spirit. Our organization should take the responsibility for this fundamental cure - revival of our national spirit….

Zhong [loyalty], xiaoshun [filial piety], dexing [virtue], ai [love], he [harmony] and ping [peace] should be our central guiding principles for the achievement of ii [propriety], yi [righteousness], lian [purity] and chi [sense of shame] - which comprise the national spirit of China. The success of the Japanese fascists and the Italian fascists is due to this. If we want our revolution [to be] a success, we must create a party dictatorship.

First, get into small groups. Every person should answer individually:

• What is your definition of fascism?
• Is it a regime type, an ideology / belief, or a set of state policies?
• Is China in the 1930s a fascist state? Why or why not?
• Which countries today classify as fascist? Why?

Then exchange your views within the group:

• is this definition of fascism too expansive or limited?
• Has the definition of fascism changed over time? How and why?

• Confucian-culturalist, or nativist, shift within the GMD (Kuomintang) right wing from the mid-1920s until the 1937 Japanese invasion.
• “Nativist” refers to the identification of Confucianism as the central component of Chinese cultural and national identity.
• Chiang Kai-shek led the GMD right wing and was supported by the CC Clique and the Blue Shirts.

• National self-confidence as essence of fascism
• Combining military discipline with classic Neo-Confucian view of community hierarchy and lineage solidarity
• Fascist militarization as a way of teaching Confucian citizenship to the people
• Unlike European fascism, inability and/or unwillingness to create a mass movement

• Fascism borrowed symbols, organization, and mass appeal from Marxism, but it lacked transformative substance and reinforced capitalist structures.
• At the same time, labeling fascism as merely counterrevolutionary overlooks the genuine desire of some fascists to create a new social order as an alternative to liberalism, communism, conservatism, and capitalism.

National values

• Prosperity
• Democracy
• Civility
• Harmony

Social values

• Freedom
• Equality
• Justice
• Rule of law

Individual values

• Patriotism
• Dedication
• Integrity
• Friendship

Small group discussion:

• Form groups of 3-4
• Review Cheek chapter “Revolution: Awakening China”

Assignments:

• Hu Shi
• Chun Bulei
• Wu Han
• Deng Tuo
• Zhou Yiliang
• Qian Xuesen

Questions:

• Who this person?
• How did they understand their role and relationship to the party/state?
• What do you find puzzling about their life?