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December 9, 1935: Student Nationalism and the China Christian Colleges

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Jessie G. Lutz
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In China, as among many of the African and Asian peoples, early nationalism was almost the monopoly of the urban, educated elite. It was nurtured on anti-imperialist sentiment and was brought to maturity by a knowledge of Western civilization rather than a mastery of Chinese tradition. It was often closely associated with the revolt of youth against their fathers, with the younger generation seeking a more rapid modernization than the older generation. Little wonder, then, that student movements punctuate the definition of nationalism and provide exclamation points in its expression.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , August 1967 , pp. 627 - 648
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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1967

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References

1 Edwards, Dwight W., Yenching University (New York, 1959), pp. 319–20Google Scholar.

2 At Yenching so many students were reluctant to return home for vacations that students had to be forbidden to spend the holidays on campus. Lang, Olga, Chinese Family and Society (New Haven, 1946), p. 298Google Scholar. For a useful study of student attitudes based on field research conducted in 1935–37, see Ibid., especially Ch. XX, “Chinese Youth” and Tables IV–XIX of the Appendix.

3 In a different context, Robert J. Lifton discusses the conflict between traditional filialism and nationalistic rebellion among Chinese students; see esp. Ch. XIX, “Cultural Perspectives: The Fate of Filial Piety” in Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism (New York, 1963)Google Scholar.

4 Tsʻao I, “‘Shih-erh-chiu' kei-wo ti chiao-hsün” (The Lesson of “December 9th” for Me), Shih-erh-chiu chou-nien chi-nien tʻe-kʻan (Special Issue on the Anniversary of December 9th), issued by Yen-ching ta-hsüeh hsüeh-sheng tzu-chih hui (Yenching University Student Self-governing Association), (Peiping, 1936), pp. 31–33. Hereafter cited as SECCN.

5 Tso I-li, “Wo ti ta-hsüeh sheng-huo” (My University Life), Wen-hua (Culture), (June 1934), PP. 95–97.

6 “Chinese Students under Fire,” The Student Advocate (March 1936), pp. 11–13. (This article is by a Yenching participant in the December 9th demonstration.) See also, Yen-ching ta-hsüeh hsüeh-sheng tzu-chih hui, “Kao chʻuan tʻi tʻung hsüeh-shu” (Letter to All Yenching Students), December 14, 1935. (Broadside contained in Nym Wales Collection on the Far East, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford University.)

7 Letter of J. Leighton Stuart to Yenching Advisory Council, January 26, 1933. Files of Yenching University: Correspondence, located at United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, NYC.

8 Editorial. “Mayor Yüan and the Yenching Girls,” The China Critic, VII (May 17, 1934), 1463Google Scholar; also, The Peiping Chronicle, May 6, 1934.

9 Yang, Y. C., “China's Modern Aspirations in Education,” The Tung Wu Magazine of Soochow University, III (1935), 60–63Google Scholar; Cheeloo Monthly Bulletin, no. 22 (October 31, 1935), pp. 3, 9; “Higher Educational Reforms,” The China Critic, XI (December 19, 1935), 271Google Scholar.

10 For official statements, see “President Chiang and the Students,” Chinese Affairs (December 15, 1930), pp. 1–4 and “May 4th Anniversary Message to Students,” ibid. (May 15, 1930), p. 8. (The May 4th message was issued by the Publicity Department of Central Party Headquarters of the Kuomintang.) Though the party officially discouraged student political activity after 1930, there were occasions when the party tried to use student protests to strengthen its hand; for example, Nanking at first looked with favor on student demonstrations after the Mukden Incident of September 18, 1931. The Kuomintang resorted to coercion when the movement got out of hand, however; by 1934–35 both the theory and practice of the government generally discouraged political action by students. For an excellent study of Kuomintang-student relations, see Israel, John, Student Nationalism in China, 1927–1937 (Stanford, 1966)Google Scholar.

11 “Yen-ching ta-hsüeh ching-kao tʻung-pao” (An Open Letter from Yenching Students to All Country-men), (Broadside in Nym Wales Collection, n.d. but probably December 1935); Huang Hua (Wang Ju-mei), “Chung-kuo fa-hsi-szu yün-tung hsien-chuang” (The Present Status of the Chinese Fascist Movement), Yen-ta chou-kʻan (Yenching Weekly) (December 6, 1935), pp. 12–14.

12 X.A.N. (pseudonym), “Shih-erh-chiu hui-i-lu” (Reminiscences of December 9th), SECCN, pp. 1–3; a translation of the petition is quoted in Snow, Helen F. (Nym Wales), Notes on the Chinese Student Movement, 1935–36 (Stanford, 1959), pp. 13–15Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., pp. 1–3; Snow, Edgar, Journey to the Beginning (New York, 1958), p. 139Google Scholar. Edgar Snow was at the time teaching courses in the Yenching Department of Journalism; Helen Snow was taking courses at Yenching.

14 “Ho Ying-chʻin pei shang jen-wu” (Ho Ying-chʻin's Mission in Peiping), Editorial in Yen-ta chou-kʻan (December 6, 1935), pp. 1–2; X.A.N., “Shih-erh-chiu hui-i-lu,” SECCN, pp. 5–13. X.A.N. says that during the planning stages he and several other students were so afraid of detection and arrest that they avoided sleeping in their own dormitory rooms; once they slept in a dining room and another time they tried the infirmary.

15 Nan-hsaing, Chiang and others, The Roar of a Nation, Reminiscences of the December gth Student Movement (Peking, 1963), espGoogle Scholar. Wan Lin, “In Memory of Comrade Huang Ching,” p. 132; Ilyushchechkin, V. P., “Studentcheskoe dvizhenie 9 dekabria 1935 g. v Kitae” (The Student Movement of December 9, 1935 in China), Institut Vostokovedenia, Kratkie soobshcheniia 7 (1952), 3–19Google Scholar. The official communist interpretation, of course, emphasizes the role of the Chinese Communist Party in the movement. See “30th Anniversary of December 9th Movement,” Peking Review, no. 51 (December 17, 1965), pp. 7–9Google Scholar; Li Chʻang, “Recollections of the National Liberation Vanguard of China,” Chung-kuo chʻing-nien (China Youth), no. 22 (November 16, 1961), reprinted in Selections from China Mainland Magazines, nos. 296, 297. An interesting discussion of communist historiography is available in Israel, John, “The December 9th Movement: A Case Study in Chinese Communist Historiography,” The China Quarterly, no. 23 (1965), pp. 140–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In Student Nationalism in China, 1927–1937, Israel gives considerable detail on the origins of the December 9th movement and the role of Yenching, see pp. 111–20.

16 X.A.N., “Shih-erh-chiu hui-i-lu,” SECCN, pp. 3, 6–7.

17 Yang, Y. C., “Most Pressing Problems of Christian Education,” Educational Review, XXVI (1934), 132–33Google Scholar; China Christian Educational Association, Report of the Religious Life in the Christian Colleges in China, Bulletin no. 37 (Shanghai, 1936), p. 38Google Scholar; Lang, Chinese Family and Society, p. 273.

18 “Dean of Arts College Interviews Freshmen,” Yenching News, November 29, 1934.

19 C. W. Luh to J. Leighton Stuart, Letter dated January 16, 1936, Yenching Correspondence, United Board, NYC. See also the letter of Luh to Stuart, December 9, 1935, written while Luh was awaiting the return of the students to campus after the demonstration.

20 Heng (pseudonym ?), “Shih-erh-chiu hou shang-hai” (Shanghai after December 9th), SECCN, pp. 28–29; Helen Snow, Notes, p. 55.

21 See footnote 10 above. In 1926–27 the Kuomintang and the Chinese communists had deliberately used propaganda corps of young Chinese to precede the troops in the northern campaign.

22 Letters of J. Leighton Stuart to Yenching Advisory Council, January 26, 1933 and March I, 1935, Yenching Correspondence, United Board, NYC.

23 Helen Snow, Notes, pp. 1–2. Among the Tungpei leaders were Chang Chao-lin, president of the Yenching student body; Wang Ju-mei (Huang Hua), vice-president and also chairman of the executive committee of the student council; and Chʻen Han-pʻo, editor of the Yenching student newspaper.

24 Pien, “Wo-men ying-tang chin tai-piao chin ching ma!?” (Should We Send Representatives to the Capital!?), Shih-erh-chiu tʻe-kʻan (The December 9th Special) (January 9, 1936), pp. 1–2. Other reactions to the conference are given in “A Word to the Students,” The China Critic, XII (January 2, 1936), 6Google Scholar; “The Students' Conference,” ibid. XII (January 23, 1936), 78–79; “On the Student Front in Peiping,” China Weekly Review, Vol. 76 (March 7, 1936), 35Google Scholar. Among the older generation, some viewed Chiang's invitation as a conciliatory move, evidence of Chiang's desire to establish a dialogue between Nanking and the New Youth.

28 In Huang Hua, “Chung-kuo fa-hsi-szu yün-tung hsien-chuang,” and Wang Hsiao-feng, “Chung-kuo fa-hsi-szu yü jih-pen” (Chinese Fascism and Japan), Yeti-ta chou-kʻan (December 6, 1935), pp. 12ʻ14, 23–25, there are thinly veiled attacks on Chiang Kai-shek and other Kuomintang leaders; XXX and XX are substituted for the actual names.

26 Bisson, T. A., Japan in China (New York, 1938), p. 88Google Scholar; Mon-lin, Chiang, Tides from the West (New Haven, 1947), pp. 204–05Google Scholar.

27 Mo Ning, “‘;Shih-erh-chiu’ ti chiao-hsün” (Lesson of “December 9th”) and I Chʻien, “Kao chʻüan-kuo tʻung-hsüeh” (To All Fellow Students of the Whole Country), Shih-erh-chiu tʻe-kʻan (December 17, 1935). PP. 1–2, 4–5; “To the American Students' League,” issued by the Peiping Student Union, December 15, 1935, Nym Wales Collection.

28 Yen-ching tzu-chih-hui, “Kao pʻing ching tʻung hsüeh-shu” (Letter to Peiping and Tientsin Students), December 14, 1935 (Broadside in Nym Wales Collection; in the collection there are also English translations of some of the broadsides given out by students on December 9, 1935); W. C. J., “Peiping Students Stage Demonstration Against Autonomy Move,” China Weekly Review (December 21, 1935), p. 100Google Scholar.

29 Edgar Snow, Typed notes ca. December 10, 1935, Nym Wales Collection; Helen Snow, Notes, pp. 161–62.

30 Ibid., p. 85; Edwards, Yenching University, p. 296; X.A.N., “Shih-erh-chiu hui-i-lu.” SECCN, says that many people came to read news items which were regularly posted in late November and early December by Yenching students. Examples of the special editions of Yen-ta chou-kʻan are the issues of December 6, 1935, on Fascism; February 9, 1936, on emergency education; and May 30, 1936, on rural reconstruction.

31 Edgar Snow, Journey to the Beginning, pp. 139–40, 145; “They Get Some of Your China News,” Yenching News, XIV (April, 1935), 2Google Scholar; Edwards, Yenching University, pp. 297–98. Hubert Liang was a staunch and vocal advocate of freedom of the press; and on January 1, 1936, he helped organize the Chinese Journalists Association to fight for this goal.

32 E. Snow, Journey to the Beginning, p. 143.

33 For descriptions by participants see “Hsüeh-sheng lien-ho chʻing-yüan hou ti yi-ke tsʻan-chia-che ti pao-kʻao” (Report by a Participant in the Joint Student Petition), Shih-erh-chiu tʻe-kʻan (December 17, 1935), PP. 5–8; “Chinese Students under Fire,” The Student Advocate (March 1936), pp. 11–13. On December 9, there were, in addition to the 800 students who demonstrated in Peiping, some 800 or more Yenching and Tsinghua students who demonstrated outside the city walls when they found the city gates closed. The estimates for the December 16th demonstration range all the way from 2,500 to 8,000 students.

34 A list of demonstrations with the place and approximate number of schools and students participating in each demonstration is included in the Nym Wales Collection; see also, Freyn, Hubert, Prelude to War: The Chinese Student Rebellion of 1935–1936 (Shanghai, 1939). pp. 29–31Google Scholar.

38 Ibid.; Heng, “Shih-erh-chiu hou shang-hai,” SECCN, pp. 23–24.

36 Yen-ching tzu-chih-hui, “Kao pʻing ching tʻung hsüeh-shu.”

37 When a shortened version of this paper was presented at the April 1966, meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, M. Searle Bates of Union Theological Seminary emphasized the fact that there were important regional differences in China in 1935 and that these differences might well have influenced student reactions to Japanese pressure in north China; James T. C. Liu of Princeton University commented that in concentrating on the alienated, activist students, one should not ignore the fact that many students in 1935 remained loyal to the Kuomintang and supported its policies.

38 Yün, “Cheng-tu ti ‘Shih-erh-chiu’” (“December 9th” at Chengtu), SECCN, pp. 30–31.

39 E. H. Munson, “Youth and Religion Movement, Report of Campaign at Foochow, November 26–December 2; Hangchow, Canton and Toyshan, December 13–26, 1935.” Located at YMCA Historical Library, NYC, World Service Folders, Correspondence for 1935–36.

40 “Patriotic Wuhan Students Clash with Government Officials,” China Weekly Review (December 28, 1935) P. 142. According to the report: “Hua Chung students returned to classes and did not continue the more wild and extravagant propaganda of students of government schools.”

41 Day, Clarence B., Hangchow University (New York, 1953), p. 79Google Scholar.

42 Cheeloo Monthly Bulletin, no. 24–25 (December 1935–January 1936), pp. 1–2.

43 Carbon copy of English version of the manifesto with list of signatures is located at YMCA Historical Library, World Service Folders, Correspondence, 1935–36.

44 Heng, “Shih-erh-chiu hou shang-hai,” SECCN, p. 21.

45 Helen Snow, Notes, pp. 195–96.

46 Herman C. E. Liu, Letters to B. A. Garside, June 3, 1936, and June 29, 1936, Correspondence File for University of Shanghai; Y. G. Chen, Letter to B. A. Garside, May 1, 1936, Correspondence File for University of Nanking, located at United Board, NYC; Yali Quarterly, March 1936, and June 1936.

47 Mu Han, “Fei-chʻang shih-chʻi chiao-yü yü hsüeh-sheng yün-tung” (Emergency Education and the Student Movement), Yen-ta chou-kʻan (February 9, 1936), pp. 3–4; Fan Ping, “Hsüeh-sheng yüntung nei ti fen-hua” (Internal Divisions within the Student Movement), ibid., pp. 5–6.

48 Freyn, Prelude to War, pp. 34–50; see letters of a Yenching student, Li Min, to Helen Snow, quoted in Notes, pp. 150–51; also a letter (probably by Wang Ju-mei according to Mrs. Snow) in Nym Wales Collection; Wang Nien-chi, “Tao nung-tsʻun chʻü” (Off to the Countryside) in Li Chʻang, ed. I-erh-chiu hiu-i lu (Memoirs of December 9th) (Peking, 1961), pp. 141–47 (English translation available in Chiang Nan-hsiang, Roar of a Nation, pp. 109–29); Li Chʻang, “Recollections of the National Liberation Vanguard of China,” translated in Selections from China Mainland Magazines, nos. 296, 297.

It is not easy to pinpoint communist influence on the discussion of tactics during the propaganda tour. Wang Ju-mei (Huang Hua), Li Chʻang, Yang Hsüeh-cheng, and others who went on the tour do not seem to have been Communist Party members at the time, though all three of the above joined the party shortly thereafter. They were in touch with Chiang Nan-hsiang and Huang Ching (Yü Chʻi-wei), who were Communist Party members working with students in the Peiping area in 1935–36; but I do not know that Chiang and Huang actually went on the tour. Wang Nien-chi, who was a member of an advance group for the second propaganda brigade was apparently a party member at the time. The appeals and slogans adopted were identical with those used by the communists in establishing anti-Japanese regimes in the countryside during the Sino-Japanese War.

49 See the letter of Li Min to Helen Snow, January 18, 1936, in Notes, p. 151; also Li Chʻang, “Recollections of the National Liberation Vanguard of China,” in Selections from Mainland Magazines, nos. 296, 297.

50 “Hsüeh-lien tʻung-kuo ti fei-chʻang shih-chʻi chiao-yü fang-an yüan-tse” (The Principles of the Emergency Education Platform Passed by the Student Union), editorial in Yen-ta chou-kʻan (February 9, 1936). PP. 1–2; Mu Han, “Fei-chʻang shih-chʻi chiao-yü yü hsüeh-sheng yün-tung,” ibid., pp. 3–4.

51 Among these was Chang Chao-lin, former president of the Yen-ching student body; in December 1936 Chang was in Sian editing a daily newspaper and doing radio broadcasting to foster an anti-Japanese united front. James Bertram, First Act in China, The Story of the Sian Mutiny (New York, 1938), p. 167. Bertram also mentions another Peiping student engaged in propaganda work in Sian but simply gives his name as Liu (p. 169); it is possible that this was Lieu Yü-hsing of Tsinghua University.

52 See letter of Li Min to Hirota (Helen Snow) and Doihara (Edgar Snow) in Nym Wales Collection. A portion of this letter, but not the section about fear of the Communist Party, is reproduced in Helen Snow, Notes, p. 148.

53 Letter of Li Min, ibid., p. 153.

54 Huang Ching (Yü Chʻi-wei), who participated in the December 9th movement, was secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Municipal Committee from 1935 to 1937 and was also director of the Propaganda Department of this committee from 1936 to 1937; Chiang Nan-hsiang was an important member of the Communist Party branch in Tsinghua University in 1935–36. See Who's Who in Communist China (Hong Kong, 1966). Wang Nien-chi, who helped organize the propaganda tour in January 1936, seems to have been a party member at this time.

55 Yen-ching tzu-chih-hui, “Wei pa-kʻo kao shih-chʻang-shu” (Appeal to the Faculty Regarding the Strike), June 17, 1936, in Nym Wales Collection; see also, Helen Snow, Notes, pp. 90, 119, 156–57; Freyn, Prelude to Wear, pp. 100ʻ04.

56 Chang Chao-lin, “Shih-erh-chiu yün-tung yi chou-chi nien-tzʻu” (A Statement on the First Anniversary of the December 9th Movement), SECCN, pp. 1–3; Tsʻao I, “‘;Shih-erh-chiu’ kei-wo ti chiao-hsün” (The Lesson of “December 9th” for Me), ibid., pp. 31–33; Yüan I, “Shih-erh-chiu i-lai chih yen-yüan” (Yen Yüan after December 9th), ibid., pp. 16–20; Mien Chih, “Chung-hua min-tsu chiai-fang yün-tung tsui-yen-chung ti i-yeh” (A Comment on the Great Importance of the Chinese National Liberation Movement), ibid., pp. 13ʻ16.

57 “Appeal to the Whole People to Resist Japan and Save the Country (August I, 1935),” International Press Correspondence (Imprecor), Vol. 15, no. 64 (November 30, 1935), 1595–97Google Scholar; Wan Min (Wang Ming), “The New Policy of the Communist Party of China,” ibid., no. 70 (December 21, 1935), pp. 1728–29. In this discussion of the evolution of the united front policy by the Chinese Communist Party, I have followed the argument of McLane, Charles B., Soviet Policy and the Chinese Communists, 1931–1946 (New York, 1958), pp. 66–76Google Scholar.

58 See footnote 51. Huang Ching (Yü Ch'i-wei) seems to have gone to Tientsin in May 1936, to organize protests there; other leaders, possibly including Huang Ching, went to Shanghai to set up national offices for the student unions and the salvation associations. Helen Snow, Notes, pp. 37–41, 60–61, 197–98.

59 A detailed study is available in Johnson, Chalmers A., Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power (Stanford, 1962)Google Scholar. See also, the review of this work: Gillin, Donald G., “‘Peasant Nationalism’ in the History of Chinese Communism,” The Journal of Asian Studies, XXIII (Feb., 1964), 269–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 This thesis is developed with care in John Israel's, Student Nationalism in China, 1927–1937. Numerous student protest demonstrations between 1945 and 1949 helped to create the impression that the Kuomintang had lost the Mandate of Heaven; though I have done only preliminary research on these movements, there is evidence of communist influence and guidance in a number of the movements.

61 For a brief period during 1937–38, the national government and some provincial governments encouraged students to go to the countryside to arouse anti-Japanese sentiment among the peasantry. In many cases, however, these campaigns were arranged so that the students did not have to sacrifice their college education in order to participate.