The Internationalization of China: Foreign Relations At Home and Abroad in the Republican Era

Nothing mattered more. Chinese history during the era of the first Republic was defined and shaped - and must ultimately be interpreted - according to the nature of its foreign relations. While few would dispute the contributions of what Paul Cohen has called a “more interior approach”1 to modern Chinese historical studies in the past two decades, there is no point searching for some uniquely “China-centred” historical narrative for this period. Everything important had an international dimension. The period is bordered by the inauguration of two“new Chinas, ” the Republic of 1912 and the People's Republic of 1949, both of which were patterned on international designs. The difference between those governments shows the progression of international influences. Few Chinese were affected in a direct way by the parliamentary experiment of the early Republic. No Chinese would be unaffected by the lethal blend of Leninism and Stalinism that Mao Zedong called Chinese Communism.