National Humiliation and National Assertion: The Chines Response to the Twenty-one Demands

Abstract

The Japanese Twenty-one Demands toward the Chinese government headed by Yuan Shih-k'ai in 1915 marked a milestone in Sino-Japanese relations as well as in the Chinese response to imperialism. Yet studies on the event, particularly on its consequence and influence in China, are still insufficient. Studies by Chinese scholars have not gone far beyond Wang Yun-sheng's publication of collected materials more than fifty years ago. The only book-length study on the event is the first volume of Li Yu-shu's study, published in Taiwan. This last does not even cover the whole period of Sino-Japanese negotiations. His second volume has not yet appeared. Li's contribution is that he has made use of more Japanese documents than Wang. In mainland China, the most current study on the event is a chapter on the Demands in the first volume of the work by Li Hsin and Li Tsung-i. This chapter is based primarily on the works of Wang and Li Yu-shu. Compared with Japanese studies on other landmarks of Sino-Japanese relations, the coverage of this episode is rather thin. There is only one book-length study, published in 1958. As for works in English, Madeleine Chi's book has a chapter dealing with the Sino-Japanese negotiations. Two general works examine the event from a broader perspective.