deleted by creator

deleted by creator

deleted by creator

IMO, you have to study the entirety of the Century of Humiliation starting from the First Opium War in order to really understand what's going on.

The extremely simplified version of events is:

1. First Opium War forced the Chinese market to open to British traders and hand over Hong Kong Island to the British.

2. The Taiping Rebellion was one of the most destructive civil war in world history, where more than 20 million people died. The rebellion was launched due to perceived weaknesses of the Qing dynasty. There were other concurrent rebellions as well.

3. Concurrently with the Taiping Rebellion was the Second Opium War where the British teamed up with the French and the US. More of Hong Kong was ceded and more unequal treaties were signed.

4. The Self-Strengthening Movement was a series of reforms enacted during the late Qing where a controlled amount of Westernization was permitted by the Qing.

5. The First Sino-Japanese War ended the Self-Strengthening Movement when Chinese warships build during the Self-Strengthening Movement were sunk by the IJN. The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed which ceded Taiwan and a bunch of other islands to Japan. China gets slapped with the "sick man of Asia" sticker since Japan was seen as an underdog and Western powers began to really colonize China in earnest.

6. The Boxer Rebellion was an anti-imperialist national liberation struggle to expel imperialists from China. The rebellion was put down by the Eight Nation Alliance along with help from the Qing. There were more reforms, but it was too little too late.

7. Around this time was when Sun Yat-sen began building an underground resistance movement to overthrow the Qing through the Tongmenghui, which is the predecessor organization of the KMT.

8. The Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing. This wasn't done by the Tongmenghui since they were largely exiled in Japan, but by various troops loyal to a Qing general Yuan Shikai. Yuan largely did it for warlord reasons on top of being a comprador. Sun Yat-Sen was sidelined because Yuan had an army while Sun didn't. Yuan technically established another dynasty by proclaiming himself emperor but died before it amounted to anything.

9. The clusterfuck that is the Warlord Era began. To simply an already simplified history, the Republic of China existed on paper, but a bunch of warlords on a large scale and various armed gangs on a local scale controlled China in practice. They hold various allegiances, with some as bootlicking compradors and some as ambitious warlords who serve no master.

10. The May Fourth Movement began after the Treaty of Versailles ceded a German port city to Japan instead of returning it to China. It was broadly speaking anti-imperialist, anti-Confucianist, and pro-democracy movement. All the major CPC players like Mao were either part of this movement or heavily inspired by this movement. This could be seen as the birth of the CPC, which was formally established a bit later.

11. Sun Yak-sen died and a line struggle began between the reactionary wing headed by Chiang Kai-Shek and a progressive wing, with the reactionary wing eventually triumphing.

12. The Northern Expedition was embarked by the KMT in order to overthrow the Beiyang clique based in Beijing with the eventual goal of reunifying China. The CPC formed a united front with the KMT because the reactionary wing of the KMT haven't fully taken hold. This would proof to be a disaster with the Shanghai massacre, where thousands of Communists were executed. The Soviet Union, who had been supporting the KMT due to the progressive wing, pulled their support. The Beiyang clique would be eventually overthrown only for Communist insurgency to pop off.

13. The Nanchang uprising was a counter to the Shanghai massacre and is seen in China today as the formal beginning of the Chinese Civil War and the establishment of the PLA. The early stages of the Chinese Civil War would see mostly defeats from the Communist side because they had an urban-focused approach. Mao advocated for a rural-focused approach instead. The encirclement campaigns would prove to be successful to a point.

14. The Japanese conducted a false flag operation called the Mukden incident to invade and occupy Manchuria with the establishment of the puppet regime Manchukuo. The last Qing emperor Puyi would rule as some shitty loser puppet emperor.

15. The Long March was a strategic retreat from Jiangxi in the south to Shaanxi in the north. More than 90% died along the way. This was around the time when the party began to be reorganized under Mao's vision since the disaster at Shanghai was attributed to the previous party line's urban approach. The Zunyi Conference saw the more pro-Soviet faction of the CPC being purged. I supposed this could be seen as a hairline crack that would eventually become the Sino-Soviet split.

16. The Japanese would conduct another false flag operation at the Marco Polo Bridge incident, starting the Second Sino-Japanese War. Chiang Kai-Shek was kidnapped and more or less forced by gunpoint to suspend the Chinese Civil War and form a second front with the CPC. An anti-imperialist national liberation struggle would be waged against Fascist Japan. This would be folded into the broader WWII context although I think WWII should be seen as beginning with the Marco Polo Bridge incident, not the Nazi invasion of Poland.

17. The Soviet Union, having triumphed against western fascism, would set its sights on eastern fascism. The Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, which was signed after attempted invasions of Mongolia by Japan proved to be unsuccessful, was torn up by the Soviet Union with the complete invasion of Manchuria by the Soviet Union. This would prove to be the real downfall of Japan no matter how many losers from the US seething about nukes claim otherwise.

18. Instead of handing over Manchuria to the Republic of China that was nominally ruled by the KMT, the Soviet Union handed control over to the CPC. The Chinese Civil War, which was put on pause, resumed. This would completely turn the tide since the vast majority of Chinese industrialization was located in Manchuria. The US tried to materially support the KMT, but it was too little too late. The entire Cold War policy in Asia until normalization of relations with Nixon was just the Dulles bros seething that the US "lost China" and that they can't lose Korea, Vietnam, or Indonesia.

19. The PRC was formally proclaimed on October 1, 1949, marking the end of the Century of Humiliation. Keep in mind the Chinese Civil War still haven't ended and I don't mean the de jure status of the war between the PRC and ROC today. But in short, the KMT kept on getting owned, they retreated to Taiwan, the 7th Fleet bailed Chang Kai-Shek's sorry ass at the last minute, and various Taiwan strait crises happened since then.

For resources, here's a playlist of Chinese history from a Chinese TV channel dubbed into English. Episode 95 to 100 covers from the First Opium War up to the end of dynastic rule.