Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
In a recent article published in the Journal of Military History, Arthur Waldron noted that war in Chinese history has been ‘treated at best as a largely unexamined context’. One has only to look at the cursory treatment given by most textbooks to the incessant civil wars of China's ‘warlord’ period (usually dated from 1916 to 1926) to see the truth of this statement. In the above article, Waldron seeks to remedy some of this neglect by pointing out the important relationship in this period between war and the course of modern Chinese nationalism. Although less ambitious, this article also seeks to explore a more specific, yet also largely unexamined, aspect of this relationship, namely the emergence of anti-militarism, or more specifically anti-warlordism, as a defining theme in modern Chinese nationalism.
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57 Various proposals for the promotion of ‘militarism’ in the form of military education and drill in schools, the militarization of youth organizations, etc., continued to be made even at times when controversies over the military's role in politics raged. See, for example, Shibao, September 4 and 14, 1916; Dagongbao, May 24, 1918 and April 7, 1919.
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62 Waldron, 1991, pp. 1098–9.Google Scholar
63 Zili wanbao, May 6, 1990, p. 6.Google Scholar
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65 Cited in Liangting, Guo, ‘Li, Hao lienshou, Taiwan qianjing shi xi? shi you?’, Guangjiaojing yuekan, May 1990, p. 50.Google Scholar