The 1911 Revolution and the end of the empire
An uprising in Wuchang topples the Qing dynasty and ends more than two thousand years of imperial rule; the Republic of China is proclaimed.
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Sun Yat-sen — Marie-Claire Bergère, Stanford University Press (1998)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
By 1900 many educated Chinese believed the Qing, a dynasty of Manchu origin, could not save China. Reformers wanted a constitutional monarchy; revolutionaries, led above all by Sun Yat-sen and funded largely by overseas Chinese, wanted a republic. Late Qing reforms, including the abolition of the examination system in 1905, came too late.
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Sun Yat-sen — Marie-Claire Bergère, Stanford University Press (1998)
On 10 October 1911 soldiers in Wuchang (now part of Wuhan) mutinied, and province after province declared independence. Sun returned from abroad and was inaugurated as provisional president of the Republic of China on 1 January 1912. To win over the most powerful general, Yuan Shikai, Sun stepped aside, and in February 1912 the six-year-old emperor Puyi abdicated.
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Sun Yat-sen — Marie-Claire Bergère, Stanford University Press (1998)
The republic quickly disappointed. Yuan dissolved parliament and tried to make himself emperor before dying in 1916, after which China fractured among warlords. In 1919 the May Fourth Movement, sparked by the Versailles decision to give Germany’s rights in Shandong to Japan, turned students against both foreign powers and traditional culture, and helped give birth to both the Nationalist revival and the Chinese Communist Party, founded in 1921.
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
Why it matters today
1911 is honoured on both sides of the Taiwan Strait: the People's Republic calls it a bourgeois democratic revolution and Sun Yat-sen a forerunner, while Taiwan, still officially the Republic of China, celebrates its National Day on 10 October. The young republic's collapse into warlordism convinced many Chinese that the country needed a strong centre.