The May Thirtieth movement in Shanghai saw a convergence of forces in what was the largest and most influential city to grow up under the old unequal treaties. On the Chinese side there was a new nationalism, whose carriers were not only students and intellectuals, but also businessmen and workers, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the older politicians, the warlords, and the local satraps and their servants. On the other side, were the foreigners, whose home governments were ready to pursue gradualist and reformist ...
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The May Thirtieth movement in Shanghai saw a convergence of forces in what was the largest and most influential city to grow up under the old unequal treaties. On the Chinese side there was a new nationalism, whose carriers were not only students and intellectuals, but also businessmen and workers, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the older politicians, the warlords, and the local satraps and their servants. On the other side, were the foreigners, whose home governments were ready to pursue gradualist and reformist policies in China, but who themselves saw little reason to change their ways and distrusted their home governments. In between were the Peking diplomats, the ministers and their staffs in foreign legations of the capital. Shanghai, 1925 examines the ways in which these forces, these groups, acted on and with one another--the interactions between diplomacy and the popular movement in Shanghai. In particular, it explores how the British, the chief target of the movement, dealt with the attack on their position and their privilege in the greatest of the treaty ports as the revolution began. [xiv]
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