The spirit of the military (Junren Hun): The tradition and its revival in the Republican period (China)

In the late nineteenth century, the Germans and the Japanese viewed civic militarism as a key factor in the emergence of their nations as great powers. Widespread promotion of military values and universal conscription turned peasants and burghers into citizen-soldiers, and the military as an institution was seen as a leading force in the quest for modernization and national power. The First World War may have tainted militarism in Western eyes, but that did not change the fact that it had contributed in many ways to the creation of strong nations. For those untouched by the horrors of Europe's war, that was the lesson that stuck.; Inspired by the success of civic militarism elsewhere, many Chinese looked to it as the solution to China's weakness in the last decades of the Qing and in the early Republic, and they saw the military as a vanguard institution in their nation's struggle to modernize. The widespread view that traditional Chinese culture was pacific and anti-military has persuaded some historians that this militarism was imported from abroad, but such an assumption ignores China's own military tradition. Indeed, far from advocating the adoption of some foreign martial ethos, proponents of militarism like Liang Qichao, Cai E, and Chiang Kai-shek stressed the importance of reviving China's own military tradition. This thesis examines the nature of this military tradition and its relationship to militarism in the late Qing, Republican, and Nationalist periods.; Part One starts with an examination of the role of war in Chinese history and goes on to explore the status of soldiers in China. The Chinese martial ethos and military role models are examined in detail in order to highlight their continued importance in the modern period. Part Two discusses the role played by the Chinese military tradition in late-Qing and early Republican militarism, and looks at how Warlordism eroded support for militarism as a solution to China's problems at a time when soldiers wielded unprecedented political and social influence. Finally, the thesis examines Chiang Kai-shek's belief in the efficacy of civic militarism, the leading role of the military in the early Nationalist era, and the attempts to mobilize Chinese society around core military values in the years leading up to the war with Japan.