Feng Kuo-chang, who declared his readiness to endorse the policy of the premier in the matter of declaring war against the Central Powers. The agreement thus reached gave promise of a united administration and a clear-cut policy at Peking; nevertheless, it failed to reconcile the disaffected elements represented by the Kuo Min-tang. These declared the new Government to be illegally constituted and demanded the immediate convocation of Parliament ; failing which (as a proclamation by Sun Yat-sen announced) it would meet, under a provisional Government, at Canton. Undeterred by this opposition, the premier, after receiving certain assurances from the Allied ministers, notified them that China would declare war against Germany so soon as the new President had assumed office. Feng Kuo-chang arrived at Peking on Aug. i; two days later, the Cabinet adopted a unanimous resolution in favour of the declaration of war, which was formally issued on Aug. 14.
The critical situation in Russia and the impossibility of pre- dicting the future policy of that country, made it difficult for the Allied Governments to come to a common understanding in regard to the financial and other advantages to be conceded to China upon abandoning her neutrality. It was eventually agreed to suspend the Boxer indemnity payments and to authorize an increase in the Maritime Customs tariff; and at the same time the Government's immediate necessities were relieved by a loan of 10 million yen from the Consortium banks.
With its foreign debt obligations thus diminished and its revenue materially increased by Sir Richard Dane's highly successful reorganization of the salt gabelle, the Chinese Govern- ment had an opportunity of regaining financial and political equilibrium such as had not occurred since the beginning of the century. Had Tuan Chi-jui seized the opportunity by offering to the southern leaders representation in the Cabinet and a fair share of the sweets of office, harmony might possibly have been restored; but he refused to do so and his new Cabinet (July 17) contained only representatives of the military party and the Chin Pu-tang. The result was a rapid development of a new separatist movement in the South, which had begun in June, after the dissolving of Parliament, by the secession of Kwang- tung. Henceforward, during the period with which we are dealing, the history of China becomes an increasingly hopeless tangle of faction feuds. Almost before the new President had assumed office at the capital, his adherents (the Chihli group of the Pei- yang party) were in conflict with the premier concerning the policy to be adopted in dealing with the South ; Tuan Chi-jui being all for strong measures, and Feng Kuo-chang for conciliation. As the result of these differences, Tuan Chi-jui once more resigned ; but again his friends, the military governors, intervened and pro- claimed their intention of carrying on the war against the South, with or without the consent of the Government. Eventually Gen. Chang Tso-lin, the Tuchun autocrat of Manchuria, put an end to all further peace talk by moving a large body of troops into Chihli; Tuan Chi-jui thereupon resumed the premiership and, with the support of the northern Tuchuns, took up the of- fensive against the southern provinces.
Having " vindicated the Republic," it was necessary for Tuan Chi-jui to maintain the appearance of constitutionalism. He therefore convened an assembly, which proceeded to revise the law for parliamentary elections. This having been duly promulgated (Feb. 17 1918), a new Parliament (considerably reduced in numbers) was elected, in time to deal with the quin- quennial election of the president.
On Sept. 4 the presidential election took place, but the matter had been decided in advance by the military Tuchuns, assembled in conference at Tientsin. Feng Kuo-chang was passed over, because of his inability to work with Tuan Chi-jui, and in his place was elected Hsu Shih-chang (in 1921 President of the republic), a veteran official who had achieved a reputation for sagacity as viceroy of Manchuria and guardian of the heir- apparent under the monarchy.
Meanwhile, headed by the Chinese guilds and chambers of commerce at the treaty ports, a strong movement had begun to manifest itself on the one hand against the continuance of civil
war, and on the other against the subservience and venality of the Peiyang politicians in their dealings with Japanese agents. This attitude of the business community was endorsed and the country's urgent need of peace emphasized, by earnest repre- sentations addressed to the Chinese Government by the Allied ministers at Peking. The new President was well aware of the dangers of China's internal and international position; by tem- perament and training inclined to methods of conciliation, he did all in his power to restore peace and goodwill between the Peiyang party and the Cantonese leaders of the South. On Nov. 16 he issued a presidential mandate, calling upon the commanders of the northern forces to suspend hostilities and to keep within their own lines. This armistice was followed by negotiations for a conference (eventually convened at Shanghai) with a view to removing the alleged grievances of the southern Constitutional- ists and finding means to amalgamate the rival parliaments under a coalition Government. The President's action was undoubtedly influenced, and the peace movement strengthened, by the Allies' victorious conclusion of the war; for a little while it seemed as if the Shanghai conference might lead to some defi- nite and satisfactory conclusion, but in the end it merely served to demonstrate the fact that neither party had anysincere desire to put an end to the civil strife, from which not only the northern Tuchuns but the southern parliamentarians profited.
As leader of the southern delegates at the Shanghai peace conference, Tang Shao-yi demanded the cancellation of the Government's military agreement with Japan, the abolition of the War Participation Bureau, and a pledge that the Peking authorities would accept no further financial assistance from Japan. Most of the eight demands which he laid before the northern delegates (May 1919) evoked but little public interest, but the increasing evidence of Japanese political and financial ascendancy at Peking produced a strong manifestation of opinion by Young China in support of the southern party's atti- tude, which was greatly increased by the decision of the Versailles Conference in regard to the Shantung question. The Sino- Japanese military agreement (March 1918) was the most im- portant of several secret pacts concluded by Tuan Chi-jui's Cabinet. It was ostensibly intended to provide for united action by China and Japan against German and Bolshevik activities in Siberia, and especially for the protection of the Siberian rail- way; but, according to the leaders of the southern party, it not only gave Japan a steadily extending control over China's mili- tary forces in the North, but it virtually reestablished many of the " protectorate " conditions which had been imposed (and subsequently withdrawn as the result of representations by the Powers) under Group V. of the " 21 Demands " of May 1915. So strong was the feeling produced by the student strike, the boycott, and other manifestations of Young China's indignation at the increasing evidence of Japanese ascendancy at Peking, that the Chinese Government was compelled to instruct its representatives at Versailles not to sign the Peace Treaty; and two of the members of Tuan Chi-jui's Cabinet, who were most prominently identified with the Government's financial dealings with Japan, were compelled to resign. The attitude of the southern party remained, however, irreconcilable, and the renewed dis- cussions of the Shanghai peace conference were fruitless; indeed, a fresh cause of offence was proclaimed by the southern delegates in the fact that the military agreement, which should have auto- matically ended at the same time as the Allied intervention in Siberia, remained in force by virtue of a new pact, said to have been secretly concluded at Peking in March 1919.
Since the death of Yuan Shih-k'ai, the position of the group of politicians in control of the Government at Peking had be- come entirely a question of funds, in the sense that Tuan Chi-jui and his supporters were continually confronted by the alter- native of either retiring into private life or of raising money sufficient to retain the support of the northern military governors. It was a position which never offered any prospect of stability or permanency; no Government could hope to ma ; ntain itself in power if once its borrowing capacities were exhausted. In the summer of 1920 the inevitable happened. Denounced by Young
