Yuan Shikai accepts the throne

The British chronology of the war records under 11 December 1915 that the President of China, Yuan Shikai, accepted the imperial throne. On that day the question of the monarchy was indeed settled in Peking, but Yuan himself agreed only the next day. On the morning of 11 December the Council of State, which stood in for the dissolved parliament, announced the result of the vote of the provincial representatives: all 1,993 votes had been cast for a constitutional monarchy. In the name of “the nation” the Council asked the President to become emperor. Yuan declined, pleading a lack of virtue and ability. In the evening of the same day the representatives renewed their request, and on 12 December the President accepted it. The American minister in Peking, Paul Reinsch, cabled on the evening of 11 December that Yuan had not accepted the first memorial, but that everyone expected him to give way soon.

Stage-managed unanimity

The movement for a monarchy began in the summer of 1915. In August the President’s adviser, the American law professor Frank Goodnow, published a memorandum arguing that a monarchical system suited Chinese conditions better than a republic. A few days later Yuan’s supporters, led by Yang Du, founded the Society for Ensuring Peace (Chouanhui), which began to campaign for the restoration of the empire. Petitions poured into the Council of State, organised, as historians later established, by officials themselves. Yuan publicly hesitated. On 6 September he had a statement read in the Council that changing the system in haste would be unwise. In October, however, the Council passed a law on an assembly of citizens’ representatives which was to decide the form of the state.

Voting took place in the provinces from the end of October into November. Reinsch wrote on 12 November that results had come in from almost all the provinces and that everywhere the electors had unanimously supported the monarchy. He noted, however, that the circle of voters was narrow, limited by property and education qualifications, and that officials influenced its make-up. Votes were cast in writing and signed, so nobody wanted to take a risk. On 10 December the Manchu Prince Pulun, a member of the former Qing dynasty, himself put forward Yuan’s candidacy as emperor, which Reinsch took as a sign that the Manchus had reconciled themselves to the loss of the throne.

Japan’s warning

Japan came out against the change. The government of Ōkuma Shigenobu, which in the spring had forced China to accept its demands, officially feared unrest, but according to historians above all did not want Yuan’s power to be strengthened. The Japanese Foreign Minister, Ishii Kikujirō, invited the Entente powers and the United States to give joint “friendly advice”. On 28 October the Japanese chargé d’affaires, together with the ministers of Britain and Russia, called on the Foreign Minister, Lu Zhengxiang, and advised postponing the change of system. The Japanese warned that if unrest broke out they would have to protect their interests. The British feared above all disturbances in China while the war in Europe was going on. Washington declined to take part, regarding China’s form of government as her internal affair. The Chinese government replied on 2 November that the will of the nation was clear and that the provincial authorities vouched for order.

Opposition did exist, however. On 10 November the military governor of Shanghai, Admiral Zheng Rucheng, a supporter of Yuan, was assassinated in the city. The assassination was organised by followers of Sun Yat-sen, who at the beginning of December made another, unsuccessful attempt at an armed rising in the city. Reinsch judged on 11 December that the Shanghai incidents had had no serious consequences.

An empire without a coronation

In accepting the throne, Yuan stipulated that preparations for establishing the monarchy should proceed without haste. In fact an office preparing the ceremony had been at work since the end of November. In the following days Yuan handed out titles of nobility to the provincial military governors, and on 31 December it was announced that 1916 would be the first year of the Hongxian era. The state was to take the name of the Empire of China. The coronation, however, was postponed again and again and never took place.

As early as 25 December, in the province of Yunnan, General Cai E, who in November had secretly slipped out of Peking and reached the south via Japan, together with the governor Tang Jiyao proclaimed the province’s independence and came out in defence of the republic. Civil war broke out, in which some of Yuan’s own generals deserted him. On 22 March 1916 he renounced the throne, and on 6 June he died, still as president.