Yuan Shikai And China-Japan 21 Negotiations

During quite a long time in the past, Yuan Shikai's negotiation of"twenty-one items" was simply called "betrayal diplomacy "or "humiliating diplomacy" .The negotiation of "twenty-one items" has also been directly related with Yuan Shikai's ambition to be an emperor. That is to say, in order to get the support from Japan Yuan Shikai positively accepted "twenty-one items".So Yuan Shikai's negotiation of "twenty-one items" was for a long time neglected by academic circles. Since China began the reform and open policy , above all, in the past 10 or more years, due to the realistic historical materialism manner gradually occupying the dominant position in the academic circles and the further opening of the Republic of China's diplomatic files, the academic circles started to estimate the diplomacy of the Peking Government again with the realistic manner.In the past the academic circles often viewed the diplomacy of the Peking Government ideologyically, including Yuan Shikai's diplomacy .That is to say, the history of the Peking Government was called that of the imperialist aggression against China. Nowadays , the researchers have changed the point of view who study history"with the realistic manner.â‘ On the basis of relevant information I think that although many involved books and papers have paid attention to Yuan Shikai's negotiation of "twenty-one items", there is no comprehensive and specific research on Yuan Shikai'negotiation of "twenty-one items" by now.Long before Japan handed to Yuan Shikai's "twenty-one items", Yuan Shikai had been keeping hostile attitude to Japan.When Yuan Shikai stationed in North Korea,Japan wanted to invade North Korea and to alienate the Zongfan relation between North Korea and China.From then on, Yuan Shikai began to view Japan as the enemy of China and did his best to suppress the Japanese forces in North Korea. At the beginning of Yuan Shikai's controlling Xin Hai Revolution political power, he depended mainly upon Britain and the United States with the result of Japan's hostility.Japan wanted to get rid of Yuan Shikai and finally proposed "twenty-oneâ‘ Tang Qihua. Introductory Comments On "the Diplomacy of the Peking Government" [J].Historical Research, 2004.No.1. items" to China.Yuan Shikai thought that "twenty-one items" not only would seriously threaten China's independence and the integrity of its sovereignty, but also would constituted a huge challenge to his status. Yuan Shikai personally instructed in " twenty-one items'one by one and ordered Ministry of Foreign Affairs to negotiate with Japan one by one and do the best to refuse some of the Japan's requests.Moreover, Yuan Shikai held many meetings to discuss how to deal with "twenty-one items" and finally formulated the strategies. In the course of executing of the strategies, Yuan Shikai played a leading role;Although Japan eventually forced China to accept the Japan's ultimatum, Japan gave up some provisions of the original twenty-one items , particularly the most vicious No. 5 provisions (changed to "discuss them in the future"). The strategy of hoping the interference of the United States , Britain and Russia also had a definite impact on China's diplomacy after Yuan Shikai , that is to say, the strategy had gradually developed into a tradition , which is to joint Europe and the United States to resist Japanese aggression.The strategies are the focus of this paper. In this paper, there are four aspects :First, in order to execute the strategies Yuan Shikai replaced the chief foreign minister Sun Baoqi with Lu Zhengxiang who was good at negotiating in difficult situations. Moreover, Yuan Shikai ordered Lu Zhengxiang to delay the time in the meetings ; Lu Zhengxiang is in strict accordance with the instructions of Yuan Shikai, and come up with some tricks to delay the time, which enabled Yuan Shikai to find the time to send some persons to Japan to find out Japan's bottom line, use Japan's internal conflicts, launch an offensive campaign at home by the domestic media to back the negotiation with Japan , and joint the United States , Britain and Russia to put pressure on JapanSecond, to find out the real goals of Japan, Yuan Shikai sent some persons to Japan ; Moreover, Yuan Shikai also made use of the contradiction between Japan's veterans and Japan's government.Third, Yuan Shikai used the domestic media to let Chinese know " twenty-one items" and the comments of the meetings between China and Japan in order to cause a wave of anti-Japanese sentiment in the Chinese mass and the domestic media , which could strengthen the power of the negotiation with Japan. Fourth, Yuan Shikai made use of the contradiction between the United States, Britain , Russia and Japan, hoping that they would put pressure on Japan. Although their attitudes were different and there was a larger gap between their final attitudes and Yuan Shikai's expectation ,in this point of forcing Japan to give up the No. 5 provisions, the United States and Britain played a certain role.