CHINA
Imperialism
China was a country with alot of materials that Europeans where searchin' for. Britain wanted silk, tea and cotton, due to large population Britain expected a good profit from China, many countries also wanted China because of its material but Britain wanted to take full control of China’s raw materials so Britain “stopped” countries like Germany from using China’s materials. Opium was a material that Britain really overused and it was like a very important thing for the Chinese so Chinese weren’t happy with what Britain was doing so thanks to that the Opium War breaks out in 1839. This war led to the Treaty of Nanjing that made peace between Britain and China and made four other Chinese ports were open to make the trading better with other countries specially Britain. During that time China had a lot of internal problems, people weren’t happy in China, there was a lot of inequality, there were a lot of poor people that literally didn’t eat and they all claimed that the wealth wasn’t distributed properly. Thanks to China’s internal instability European countries started to take control of China. Obviously China didn’t like that European countries controlled the nation so a series of rebellions in the country against Europeans started to occur; the most famous is the Boxer Rebellion. The Boxer rebellion not only caused fear to the Europeans but it made Chinese nationalism grow and thanks to that Chinese became more determined to reform the country and take the power of the Europeans down.
-Opium War
World War 1
By the beginnings of 1917 United Stated requested to China to protest against the German use of submarine against neutral ships. China did what the US told them to do but when they protested Germany responded by sinking down the ship “Athas” which had 900 Chinese workers aboard. This made the Chinese president Feng – Kuo- Chang to want to declare war on Germany but The Premier didn’t want to declare war. People started to support the presidents ideas to declare war and thanks to the support China officially joined the allies and declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary in August 14 1917. China didn’t have a major role on the WWI, China only did a few things like invading the German and Austrian settlements in Tientsin and Hankow, which were taken over by the Chinese authorities. The Chinese officials also seized the Deutsche Asiatische Bank which had been financing agent in China for the German Government, and fourteen German vessels which had been interned in Chinese ports. Thousands of Chinese coolies were sent to Europe to work in the Allied interests behind the battle lines. At the end the Allies won and China didn't have to pay for damages or anything just sign the treaty of versailles that settled peace between Germany and the allies including China
President Feng Quo Chang
Chinese served as bodyguards of Bolshevik functionaries, they also formed regiments of the Red Army. This all happened mainly because during and a little bit before the WWI a lot of Chinese people worked in Siberia for Russian aristocrats. Many of these workers were sent to the European part of Russia during WWI because that part didn’t have a lot of workers. It is said that about 10,000 Chinese people were in the Red Army.
White Armies Propaganda: Chinese soldiers wearing braids, they are executing a prisioner and shoveling bones
Bibliografía
Educators, Asia for. AsiaForEducators. 2009. 9 de 2 de 2011 <http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/main_pop/kpct/kp_imperialism.htm>.
Guoqi, Xu. China and The Great War. Kalamazoo, MI: Cambridge, 2010.
Old And Sold. 2007. 9 de 2 de 2011 <http://www.oldandsold.com/articles26/world-war-one-36.shtml>.
Spielvogel. World History-Modern Times. Mc Graw Hill, s.f.
Hector Perez A01175774
Eduardo Guzman A01175842
