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Taking place on May 4th, 1919, May Fourth Movement marked the upsurge of Chinese nationalism, and a re-evaluation of Chinese cultural institutions, such as Confucianism. The movement grew out of dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Versailles settlement and the effect of the New Cultural Movement.

Background

Following the Xinhai Revolution, the Qing Dynasty was overthrown, marking the end of 5,000 years of imperial rule and theoretically ushering in a new era during which political power rested with the people.

However, the reality was that China was a fragmented nation dominated by warlords, who were more concerned with their own political powers and the survival of their own private armies, and by foreigners, who had commercial and semi-colonial interests in China. 

The Beiyang government (北洋政府) of China was preoccupied with suppressing internal dissent and did little to counter the influence exerted by imperialist foreign powers. The Beiyang government made various concessions to foreigners in order to gain monetary and military support against their rivals.

This, together with the tangled warfare among warlords which was still continuing led to great suffering among the population. Furthermore, the development of the New Cultural Movement promoted the questioning and re-appraisal of millennia-old Chinese values.

In addition, defeats against foreign powers and the presence of spheres of influence only further inflamed the sense of nationalism among the Chinese people, particularly in students. These factors were the background which would eventually fuel the May Fourth Movement.

Outbreak and Development

The Beijing government entered World War I on the side of the Allied Triple Entente in 1917, on the condition that all German Empire spheres of influence, such as Shandong, would be returned to China. However, Japan also entered the war as an Allied power and proceeded to attack German interests in China and annexed German spheres of influence when the war ended. In early 1919, the victorious nations of World War I convened a peace conference in Paris.

The representatives of the Chinese government put forth the following requests:

* Abolish all imperialist privileges, such as foreigners' immunity in Chinese courts, in China.

* Cancel the "Twenty-One Demands" with the Japanese.

* Restore Chinese territorial integrity of Shandong, which Japan had taken from Germany during World War I.

The Western Allies dominated the meeting and paid little heed to the Chinese representatives' demands. United Kingdom and France were primarily interested in punishing Germany. 

Although the United States promoted Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the ideals of self-determination at the conference, Wilson often abandoned these ideals in the face of stubborn resistance from David Lloyd George or Georges Clemenceau.

The failure in diplomacy of China at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 became the incident that touched off the outbreak of the May Fourth Movement.

On the morning of May 4th, 1919, student representatives from thirteen different local universities met in Peking and drafted five resolutions.

* The first was in opposition to former German concessions in Shandong being transferred to the Japanese.

* The second was to draw awareness of China's precarious position to the masses in China.

* The third resolution recommended a large-scale gathering of the mass in Peking.

* The fourth promoted the creation of a Peking student union.

* The fifth proposal was to hold a demonstration that afternoon in protest to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.

On the afternoon of May 4th, over 3000 students of Peking University and other schools gathered together in front of Tiananmen and held a demonstration.

They voiced their anger at the Allied betrayal of China and the government's inability to secure Chinese interests in the conference.

They shouted out such slogans as "Struggle for the sovereignty externally, get rid of the national traitors at home", "Do away with the 'Twenty-One Demands'", "Don't sign the Versailles Treaty".

They demanded punishment to figures as Cao Rulin, Zhang Zongxiang, and Lu Zongyu, who held important posts as diplomats. The enraged students even burnt down Cao Rulin's residence.

The Beiyang government suppressed the demonstration and arrested many students.

On May 5th, students in Beijing as a whole went on strike, and students in other parts of the country responded one after another.

From early June, in order to support the students' struggle, workers and businessmen in Shanghai also went on strike. So did workers in other places one after another. The center of the movement moved from Beijing to Shanghai.

In addition to students and intellectuals, the lower class was also very angry at the current state of affairs, such as mistreatment of workers and perpetual poverty of small peasants.

Under intense public outcry, the Beiyang government had to release the arrested students and dismiss Cao Rulin, Zhang Zongxiang and Lu Zongyu from their posts.

Also, the Chinese representatives in Paris refused to sign on the peace treaty: the May Fourth Movement won the initial victory.

This move was more symbolic than anything else. It indicated that this would be an unequal treaty to which the Chinese people would not submit. 

However, Japan still retained control of the Shandong Peninsula and the islands in the Pacific it had obtained during the Great War.

Historical Significance

As a part of this movement, a campaign had been undertaken to reach the common people by introducing the Vernacular Chinese (白话) which meant that people with just a little education could read texts, articles and books.

Classical Chinese, which had been the written language prior to the movement, was only known by higshly educated people and mostly officials. Now people who went to school for just a couple of years could read articles, write articles themselves and participate in the movement.

The literary output of this time was huge: great writers of the coming years published their first works in that time, such as Mao Dun, Lao She and Lu Xun. This variety and diversity in literature and writing was unprecedented in China.

As a result, the decline of traditional ethics and the family system was accelerated, the emancipation of women gathered momentum. The movement also spurred the successful reorganization of the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party later ruled by Chiang Kai-shek, and stimulated the birth of the Chinese Communist Party as well.