Sun Yat-sen and the Japanese: 1914–16

1972 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert A. Altman ◽  
Harold Z. Schiffrin
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
First World War ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Fair Share ◽  
Power Struggle ◽  
World War ◽  
Chinese Nationalism ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Grand Prize ◽  
First World

The First World War changed the pattern of international relations in East Asia. What had previously been another arena for the European power struggle became the cockpit for two regional forces, Japanese expansionism and incipient Chinese nationalism. The confrontation between the two, which was to last for a quarter of a century, began as a most unequal contest. Great power rivalry had enabled China to balance off her enemies and to maintain her status as a sovereign entity. But with Europe distracted, China was helpless, and Japan had a unique opportunity to pursue an independent expansionist policy. Instead of cooperating with England and the other powers in order to get a fair share of the China spoils, after 1914 Japan could make her bid for the grand prize, exclusive access to China's resources. Thus the European powers’ pre-occupation with mutual slaughter exposed China to extreme danger, greater than that which she had faced during the heyday of classical imperialism.1 But Japan was not alone in welcoming the European retreat. Japan’s opportunity was also Sun Yat-sen's opportunity.

Kemalism and Beyond

2015 ◽  
pp. 161-179
Author(s):  
Christopher Houston
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social History ◽  
First World War ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Power Struggle ◽  
World War ◽  
The Social ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
First World

Abstract: Despite the ceaseless efforts of what its supporters name the “Atatürk Cumhuriyeti” (Atatürk Republic), Kemalism is seen by many as a discredited ideology and an oppressive political practice. This chapter explores the social history of Kemalism since 1923 and the background to its now decades-long crisis of legitimacy. It compares the orthodox narrative concerning the Kemalist project with its various deconstructive accounts, many of which zero in on the years after the First World War and the 1920s and 1930s as foundational in present-day conflicts. These orthodox and heterodox histories, allied to the interests of different groups, do politics by another means. The chapter then traces how the power struggle over Kemalism’s futures is developing. Rather than pontificate about what the state or civil society should do, it concludes by drawing attention to emerging lineaments of change in existing civil society and social conditions.

scholarly journals The English school and the classical approach: Between modernism and interpretivism

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Bevir ◽  
Ian Hall
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
First World War ◽  
English School ◽  
Classical Approach ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
British Committee ◽  
Hedley Bull ◽  
First World

This article analyses the evolution of the English school’s approach to international relations from the work of the early British Committee in the late 1950s and early 1960s to its revival in the 1990s and afterwards. It argues that the school’s so-called ‘classical approach’ was shaped by the crisis of developmental historicism brought on by the First World War and by the reactions of historians like Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight to the rise of modernist social science in the twentieth century. It characterises the classical approach, as advanced by Hedley Bull, as a form of ‘reluctant modernism’ with underlying interpretivist commitments and unresolved tensions with modernist approaches. It argues that to resolve some of the confusion concerning its preferred approach to the study of international relations, the English school should return to the interpretivist commitments of its early thinkers.

The Chinese Nationalists and the Unequal Treaties 1924–1931

1987 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 793-819 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund S. K. Fung
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Late Qing ◽  
Chinese Nationalism ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Post War ◽  
Political Differences ◽  
Unequal Treaties ◽  
First World ◽  
Treaty Status

The movement to abolish the unequal treaties was the cause célèbre of Chinese nationalism after the First World War. It was an extension of the late Qing movement to retrieve the rights and interests (shouhui liquan yundong) that had been lost to the powers over the decades. Whereas the quintessence of the late Qing campaign was economic nationalism and the means it employed peaceful, the post-war drive was highly political and at times accompanied by a degree of violence. The Chinese determination, strengthened by Germany's and Austria's relinquishment of their treaty status, was a bond that united the whole nation from Beijing to Guangzhou (Canton) despite their domestic political differences.

French War Aims and the American Challenge, 1914–1918

1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 877-894 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
First World War ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
World War ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The First World War ◽  
War Aims ◽  
First World

Between 1917 and 1919 the United States made its first, spectacular intrusion into European power politics. For President Wilson, entry into the First World War was a chance not only to eliminate an immediate threat to American interests but also to transform international relations. The time had come to weld the industrialized countries into a community of interest, based on a shared loyalty to representative government and the market economy, expressed by membership of a League of Nations, and in which economic and territorial causes of tension would have been removed. But hardly had the German obstacle to this programme been overcome before, at the peace conference of 1919, Wilson ran up against almost equally determined obstruction from his former allies. This article examines one source of that antagonism, in the latent conflict before the armistice between American war aims and those of France. It argues that French policy was moulded by a tension between the Paris leaders' own desires for the settlement with Germany and their need to preserve a system of alliances deemed essential for French security in the future as well as for the war itself. By 1917 French governments were already confronted with dilemmas which were to harass them for the succeeding twenty years.

Historiography of the Post-War Turkish Settlement

1992 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 27-48
Author(s):  
Bülent Gökay
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Power Struggle ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Complete Disintegration ◽  
International Power ◽  
Post War ◽  
The One ◽  
First World

The end of the First World War marked the complete disintegration of the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire. This disintegration was followed by a powerful surge of various nationalistic currents on the one hand, and an international power struggle for the control of the region on the other. The 1918-1923 period, therefore, represents a crucial phase, for not only were the overall forms of the international power relations in the area defined during these years, but the political structures and the orientations of various social and political interests within the states concerned were also similarly determined.

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