Chinese Intellectuals on the Outbreak of the First World War

The linkage between the First World War and China is usually regarded after the event, so to speak, in terms of outcomes: the discrediting of Western civilization, the Bolshevik revolution, and what Erez Manela has called the “Wilsonian moment.”  But how did Chinese intellectuals and elites perceive the outbreak of the war in 1914 as a matter of contemporary events and as a global development in the wake of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5, a conflict fought on Chinese territory, and the Chinese revolution of 1911?  Was it seen as an opportunity for some understanding with one or another group of imperialist powers or rather as a harbinger of even more catastrophic things to come?  To explore these questions, my presentation will focus on two historical protagonists: the political philosopher and journalist Liang Qichao and the diplomat and politician Wu Tingfang.