IB History Regional Study 8: Emergence of Modern China Key Definitions

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded in Shanghai in July 1921 at its First National Congress. Inspired by Marxism-Leninism and shaped by the May Fourth Movement, the CCP initially worked alongside the Guomindang under Comintern guidance before breaking with it in 1927. Under Mao Zedong's leadership it went on to defeat the Guomindang in the Civil War and establish the People's Republic of China in 1949.

The Chinese Labour Corps was a force of approximately 140,000 Chinese workers recruited by Britain and France during the First World War. They served on the Western Front and in Mesopotamia, performing non-combat tasks such as digging trenches, repairing roads, unloading ships, and handling ammunition. China hoped this contribution would earn diplomatic leverage at any post-war peace settlement.

Women, primarily Korean but also Chinese and other Asian nationals, who were coerced or deceived into sexual servitude for the Japanese military during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. An estimated 200,000 women were held in "comfort stations" across Japanese-occupied Asia. The issue remains a major point of historical grievance between Japan and its Asian neighbours and has been a recurring source of diplomatic tension.

Short for Communist International. An organisation originating from the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia, with a mission to coordinate and promote the spread of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism. Largely directed from Moscow, it eventually became a tool of Soviet foreign policy.

The First United Front was the alliance between the Guomindang (GMD) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), formed in 1924 under Comintern guidance. CCP members joined the GMD as individuals while retaining their party membership. The front enabled the Northern Expedition (1926-1928), which defeated many northern warlords, but it collapsed in 1927 when Jiang Jieshi turned on the CCP in the Shanghai Massacre.

The Guomindang government's last attempt to stop hyperinflation, replacing the fabi currency with a new gold yuan in August 1948. Citizens were required to surrender their gold, silver, and foreign currency in exchange for gold yuan at fixed rates. The reform collapsed within months as the government continued printing money to fund the civil war. The resulting hyperinflation destroyed middle-class savings, wiped out urban support for the GMD, and contributed decisively to its political collapse.

The Chinese Nationalist Party, founded by Sun Yixian in 1912 and reorganised in 1923 with Soviet assistance. Under Jiang Jieshi after Sun's death in 1925, the GMD launched the Northern Expedition to unify China, established the Nanjing government (1927–1937), and fought both the CCP and Japan. The GMD was defeated in the Civil War and retreated to Taiwan in 1949, where the Republic of China government it led continued until the present day.

The collapse of China's currency value during and after the Second Sino-Japanese War. The GMD government financed the war primarily by printing money, producing inflation that accelerated after 1945. By 1948, prices were doubling every few weeks. The failed Gold Yuan Reform (August 1948) made things worse, wiping out urban savings and destroying the credibility of the GMD government. Hyperinflation severely undermined support for the GMD among the urban middle class during the Civil War.

Leader of the Guomindang and the Republic of China from 1928 until his death in 1975. Jiang unified China under GMD rule through the Northern Expedition, suppressed the CCP after 1927, and led China's resistance to Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War. His failure to carry out land reform, his reliance on corrupt local elites, and his military missteps in the Civil War (including the defection of key commanders) contributed to the GMD's defeat. He retreated to Taiwan in 1949 and governed the Republic of China there until his death.

The CCP's redistribution of land from landlords to poor peasants during the Civil War and immediately after the PRC's founding. In CCP-controlled areas, land reform was used to mobilise peasant support and recruit soldiers: peasants who received land had a direct stake in Communist victory. The process involved "struggle sessions" in which landlords were publicly denounced and often killed. The policy was enormously effective at building a loyal rural base for the CCP.

The ideological system attributed to Mao Zedong, combining Marxism-Leninism with Chinese revolutionary experience. Key elements include: the primacy of the peasantry rather than the industrial proletariat as the revolutionary class; protracted people's war; the mass line as the method of party organisation; and the use of ideology to overcome material disadvantage. Mao Zedong Thought was adopted as the guiding ideology of the CCP in 1945 and remains enshrined in the Chinese constitution.

A CCP policy of maintaining close contact with the broad mass of the people. Party cadres were expected to gather ideas from the masses, interpret them through Marxist theory, and return them as policy.

The period of Guomindang rule from the establishment of the Nanjing government in 1927 to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. It was the only period of relative peace and stability under GMD rule. The decade saw limited modernisation, including railway construction, banking reform, and legal codification, but was undermined by corruption, reliance on regional warlords, failure to carry out land reform, and the continuing threat from both the CCP and Japan.

The New Culture Movement (1919-1920s) was a Chinese intellectual movement that challenged traditional Confucian values and promoted science, democracy, and vernacular (everyday) Chinese writing. Centred on Beijing University and journals such as New Youth, it grew directly from the May Fourth Movement (1919) and shaped a generation of reformers and revolutionaries, including early Chinese Communist Party members.

The state established by Mao Zedong on 1 October 1949, following the CCP's victory in the Civil War. The PRC replaced the Republic of China government, which retreated to Taiwan. The PRC was initially recognised only by the Soviet bloc and developing nations; the United States continued to recognise the ROC on Taiwan as the legitimate Chinese government until 1979. The PRC has governed mainland China ever since its founding.

The Qing dynasty (1644-1912) was China's last imperial dynasty, founded by the Manchu people of Manchuria. It ruled a vast multiethnic empire but faced mounting crises from the mid-19th century, including military defeats by Western powers and Japan, domestic rebellions, and growing nationalist movements. The dynasty was overthrown by the Xinhai Revolution and replaced by the Republic of China in 1912.

A renewed alliance between the Guomindang and the Chinese Communist Party to resist Japanese invasion, formed after the Xi'an Incident (December 1936). Unlike the First United Front, cooperation was minimal and often hostile: both sides prioritised building their own military strength for the anticipated post-war conflict. The CCP used the period to expand its territorial base and army, emerging from the war far stronger than it had entered it.

Sun Yixian (1866-1925), also known as Sun Yat-sen, was the Chinese revolutionary leader who founded the Guomindang (Nationalist Party) and served as the first provisional president of the Republic of China in January 1912. He developed the Three Principles of the People (nationalism, democracy, and people's livelihood) as the ideological foundation for a modern Chinese state.

The Sun-Joffe Manifesto was a joint statement issued in January 1923 by Sun Yixian and Soviet representative Adolf Joffe. It announced Soviet support for Chinese national unification under the Guomindang, while stating that communist conditions were not yet ripe for China. The manifesto opened the way for Soviet advisers, funding, and Comintern organisational expertise to flow into the GMD.

A Japanese counter-insurgency strategy applied in occupied China, roughly translating as "kill all, burn all, loot all." It was designed to deprive the CCP's guerrillas of civilian support by destroying entire villages suspected of sheltering resistance fighters. The policy killed millions of Chinese civilians and caused enormous destruction across northern China, fuelling hatred of Japanese occupation and strengthening support for the Communist guerrillas among the rural population.

A strategic concept used by Chinese forces in the Second Sino-Japanese War to describe the deliberate exchange of territory for the opportunity to wear down the Japanese military over a prolonged conflict. Rather than defending fixed positions against superior Japanese firepower, Chinese commanders (particularly GMD generals) chose strategic retreat to avoid destruction of their armies, accepting territorial losses in the expectation that Japan's limited capacity for a prolonged war would eventually force a negotiated settlement.

The Whampoa Military Academy (Huangpu Military Academy) was founded near Guangzhou in 1924 with Soviet funding and advisers. It trained the officer corps of the National Revolutionary Army, combining military training with political indoctrination in Guomindang ideology. Jiang Jieshi served as its first commandant. Several future Communist military leaders, including Zhou Enlai, also served there.

The Xinhai Revolution was the Chinese uprising that overthrew the Qing dynasty in 1911-1912. It began with a military mutiny in Wuchang on 10 October 1911 and spread rapidly as provinces declared independence from the Qing court. The revolution led to the abdication of Emperor Puyi on 12 February 1912 and the establishment of the Republic of China.