![]() ![]() Since China was officially neutral, commercial businesses were formed to provide the labor, writes Keith Jeffery in 1916: A Global History.Ĭhinese laborers filled a number of positions in World War I, including at tank facilities like this one. Those laborers would repair tanks, assemble shells, transport supplies and munitions, and help to literally reshape the war’s battle sites. Starting in late 1916, China began shipping out thousands of men to Britain, France and Russia. If China couldn’t fight directly, Shikai’s advisors decided, the next-best option was a secret show of support toward the Allies: they would send voluntary non-combatant workers, largely from Shandong, to embattled Allied countries. Japan, however, refused to allow Chinese soldiers to fight, hoping to remain the powerhouse in the East. By February 1916, with men dying in huge numbers in Europe, Jordan came around to the idea of Chinese aid and told British officials that China could “ join with the Entente provided that Japan and the other Allies accepted her as a partner.” Jordan refused the offer, but Japan would soon use its own armed forces to oust the Germans from the city, and remained there throughout the war. Although China declared itself neutral at the start of the war in August 1914, President Shikai had secretly offered British minister John Jordan 50,000 troops to retake Qingdao. There was only one problem: At first, none of the Allies wanted China to join the fight. “But this was also a period of excitement, hope, high expectations, optimism and new dreams”-because China believed it could use the war as a way to reshape the geopolitical balance of power and attain equality with European nations. “The Chinese people suffered political chaos, economic weakness, and social misery,” writes historian Xu Guoqi in Strangers On the Western Front. But local warlords and clashes with the nationalist party, Kuomintang (led by Sun Yat-sen), continued to threaten his position. Meanwhile in China, a wobbly republican state led by military general Yuan Shikai replaced the imperial system of governance in 1912. The prospect of expelling Germany from the region and taking control themselves was enough to entice Japan to join the fight against Germany, making the Great War a global one in 1914. Capitalizing on the murder of two German missionaries, the country attacked and invaded the city of Qingdao in 1897, establishing what amounted to a German colony in Shandong province. Germany also used military force to insert itself into east Asian affairs. And the downhill slide didn’t end with losing the war a subsequent series of treaties divvied up chunks of China between Russia and Japan, a continuation of the creation of European concessions like Hong Kong or the French settlement in Shanghai. But losing the First Sino-Japanese War to Japan in 1895 put an end to that. Under the rule of the Qing Dynasty, China was the most powerful nation in the East for nearly three centuries. ![]() While China never sent troops into battle, its involvement in World War I was influential-and had impacts that stretched far beyond the war, going on to shape the country's future indelibly. Both Japan and China actually declared war on Germany in hopes of gaining regional dominance. While the Pacific theater was a major and well-known battleground of World War II, it may come as a surprise that Asian nations played a role in World War I. Chinese laborers comprised the largest non-European workforce during World War I, and were tasked with everything from digging trenches to manning factories. ![]()
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