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MODERN HISTORY OF CHINA

Objective chronological listing of significant events leading up to modern China.

• January – Peace conference opens in Paris.
  
• February – Truce negotiations between the Beijing and Guangzhou governments begin in Shanghai. Negotiations end with limited success.
  
• March – Soviet Russia sets up the Communist International (Comintern) to encourage socialist revolutions in other countries.
  
• March - Soviet Russia contacts the Guangzhou government in a failed attempt to form an alliance.
  
• April – At the peace conference in Paris, it is decided that Japan will take over all of Germany’s rights in Shandong province.
  
• May - May Fourth movement. Massive demonstrations against the Treaty of of Versailles. Demonstrators demands the development of science and democracy in China. Confucian tradition is blamed for the country's backwardness. Westernization is viewed as the way to strengthen China against foreign domination.
  
• June – Treaty of Versailles. In Paris, the delegation sent by the Beijing government is prevented from leaving their hotel by a crowd of Chinese students and demonstrators. The Chinese delegation does not sign the Treaty.
  
• September – The Beijing government declares an end to the war against Germany.
• October - The Chinese Revolutionary Party adopts its former name of Nationalist Party (Guomindang or Kuomintang). The new party constitution no longer requires members to swear allegiance to Sun Yat-sen.
  

1919