CHINA BECOMES A REPUBLIC
While Japan was manifesting this progress in the arts of war, China was making as great a progress in the arts of peace. The building of railroads, telegraphs, modern factories, and other western innovations proceeded apace, modern literature and systems of education were introduced, and the old competitive examinations for office, in the Confucian literature and philosophy, were replaced by examinations in modern science and general knowledge. Yet most surprising of all was the great political revolution which converted an autocratic empire which had existed for four or five thousand years into a modern constitutional republic of advanced type. This is the most surprising political overturn that history anywhere presents.
For many years a spirit of opposition to the Manchu rulers had existed and had led more than once to rebellions of great scope. The success of Japan in war was followed in China by a revolutionary movement whose first demand was for a constitutional government, this leading, on September 20, 1907, to an imperial decree outlining a plan for a national assembly. On July 22, 1908, another decree provided for provincial assemblies to serve as a basis for a future parliament. Later the government promised to introduce a parliamentary system within nine years.
The idea of such a government spread rapidly throughout the country, and the demand arose for an immediate parliament. As the government resisted this demand, the revolutionary sentiment grew, and in October, 1911, a rebellious movement took place at Wuchang which rapidly spread, the rebels declaring that the Manchu dynasty must be overthrown.
Soon the movement became so threatening that the emperor issued a decree appealing to the mercy of the people, and abjectly acknowledging that the government had done wrong in many particulars. Yuan Shi-Kai, a prominent revolutionary statesman, was made prime minister and a national assembly convened. It had become too late, however, to check the movement, and at the end of 1911 a new republic was announced at Nanking, under the provisional presidency of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, a student of modern institutions in Europe and America. The abdication of the emperor quickly followed, in February 12, 1912, ending a Manchu dynasty which had held the throne for 267 years. Yuan Shi-Kai was later chosen as president.
This is a very brief account of the radical revolution that took place and we cannot go into the details of what succeeded. It must suffice to say that the republic has since persisted, Yuan Shi-Kai still serving as president. The republic has a parliament of its own; a president and cabinet and all the official furniture of a republican government. There is only needed an education of the people into the principles of free government “of the people, for the people, and by the people” to complete the most remarkable political revolution the world has yet known.