May the fourth Movement 1919

Causes 💥

Key Features 👥

Impacts

Foreign 🇦🇨

German Territory in Japan went to China

3,000 students demonstrated in Beijing against the Peace Conference decision.

More demonstrations and angry protests then occurred across the country, followed by strikes.

a determination to force foreigners out of China.

the government had not done enough to pull China free of foreign interference

Cultural 🤴

a rejection of Confucian philosophy, associated with the Imperial family.

democratic thinking and slogans such as 'mr science' and 'mr democracy'.

Main people involved

Nationalist and Communist numbers swelled as students were attracted to these movement that had been involved in the protests.

Chiang Kai-Shek

un Yat-Sen

Trained at Sun Yat-Sens military academy

Became new leader when Sun Yat-Sen died

Did not trust the CCP or USSR - anti communist but kept alliance as needed them to defeat warlords.

Did not approve of Sun Yat-Sen’s three principles, was a social conservative, wanted moderate reforms (e.g education and finance) to help the middle classes.

a broad collection of scholars, writers and intellectuals were present


Returned to China 1917


Built support for the GMD (Guomindang) party in May 4th Movement

‘Three principles of the people’,

Mao Zedong was present

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Nationalism - get rid of foreign interference.

democracy - self determination.

social welfare - create more equality for people.

Sun Yat-Sen setup a military training academy for the GMD army - wanted to defeat the warlords and reunify China.

USSR told CCP to join with GMD. USSR funded the GMD and sent specialists to help training of military. Also changed the three principles to fit in better with Leninism.

They marched to the house of a government official who had close links to Japan. They burned down the house and beat up China’s minister to Japan.

Burning of Japanese books

foreign impacts

cultral impacts

  • Protests of 4th May 1919 inspired the May the Fourth Movement
    in the 1920’s: a determination to force foreigners out of China.


  • Those following the May the Fourth Movement argued that the government had not done enough to pull China free of foreign interference - to achieve this more radical change was needed.

  • On 4 May 1919, 3,000 students demonstrated in Beijing against the Peace Conference decision.


  • They marched to the house of a government official who had close links to Japan.


  • They burned down the house and beat up China’s minister to Japan.


  • More demonstrations and angry protests then occurred across the country, followed by strikes.


  • The government announced that it would not sign the Paris Peace Treaty.