The History of Modern China

Abstract

Imperial and Republican China continue to mould — and to haunt — the People’s Republic (PRC). The political leadership frequently invokes the ‘century of humiliation’, when China was attacked by Japan and the Western powers, as a reason for anti-foreign policies (Box 1.1). The decay of the Qing empire, the movement for cultural regeneration in the 1910s, the disintegration of 1920s’ China into warlord fiefdoms, the brutality of the Japanese occupation, the corruption of the Nationalist regime in the late 1940s, and many other issues and events, some dating back many centuries, are frequently cited in current debates. The Chinese have a tradition of historiography dating back to at least the fifth century BCE; our narrative here starts with a brief overview of events leading to the formation of the Republic of China in 1911, and traces the story down to the immediate aftermath of the 1989 democracy movement.