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[editar] Guerra Civil China

[editar] The First United Front

Sun Yat-sen, líder del Kuomintang (KMT), buscó el auxilio de potencias extranjeras para vencer a los señores de la guerra que se habían hecho con el control del norte de China a raíz del derrumbe de la dinastía Qing. Las democracias occidentales ignoraron los esfuerzos del líder nacionalista para atraerse su ayuda. Sin embargo en 1921 recurrió a la Unión Soviética. Haciendo uso del pragmatismo político, los líderes soviéticos lanzaron una política ambigua en virtud de la cual apoyaban a Sun tanto como al recien establecido Partido Comunista de China (PCCh). Los sovieticos esperaban la consolidación pero estaban preparados para la victoria de cualquiera de los dos bandos. De este modo se inició la lucha por el poder entre los nacionalistas y los comunistas.

En 1923 una declaración conjunta en Shanghai de Sun y de un representante soviético comprometieron a la Union Soviética a prestar ayuda para la unificación nacional de China. Los asesores soviéticos --el más prominente de los cuales, Mijail Borodin, era agente del Komintern-- empezaron a llegar a China en 1923 para apoyar la reorganización y consolidación del KMT según la línea trazada por el Partido Comunista de la Unión Soviética. El PCCh habia recibido del Komintern instrucciones de cooperar con el KMT y a sus miembros se les animaba a unirse a ellos siempre que los partidos mantuviesen sus identidades, formando así el Primer Frente Unido entre los dos partidos. El PCCh seguía siendo una agrupación menor en aquel momento: tenía 300 miembros en 1922 y para 1925 contaba solo con 1500 militantes. El KMT ya tenía 150 000 efectivos en 1922. Los asesores soviéticos ayudaron a los nacionalistas a crear un instituto político destinado a la formación de propagandistas en técnicas de mobilización de masas y en 1923 enviaron a Chiang Kai-shek, uno de los lugartenientes de Sun Yat-sen de los días de la Alianza Revolucionaria Tongmeng Hui, para llevar a cabo estudios militares y políticos en Moscú durante varios meses. Al regreso de de Chiang Kai-shek, a finales de 1923, éste tomó parte en la creación de la Academia Militar Whampoa en las afueras de Guangzhou, ciudad sede del gobierno durante la alianza KMT-PCCh. En 1924 Chiang Kai-shek pasa a dirigir la academia y se inicia su ascenso hacia la posición de sucesor de Sun Yat-sen como líder del KMT y unificador de toda China bajo el gobierno nacionalista de derecha.

[editar] Northern Expedition (1926 - 1928) and KMT split

Solo unos meses despues de la muerte de Sun, Chiang Kai-shek, en su calidad de comandante en jefe del Ejército Nacional Revolucionario, inició la Expedición al Norte que llevaba tiempo postergada. Era una acción en contra de los señores de la guerra y pretendía la unificación de China bajo el control del KMT.

Sin embargo, ya en 1926 el KMT estaba dividido en sectores de derecha y de izquierda, mientras que la facción comunista interna tambien crecía. En marzo de 1926, tras abortar un intento de secuestro, Chiang Kai-shek despidió a sus consultores soviéticos, impuso restricciones a la participación de los miembros del PCCh en la dirección y ascendió como líder preminente del KMT. La Unión Soviética que aún deseaba evitar una ruptura entre Chiang y el PCCh, ordenó que los comunistas facilitaran la Expedición al Norte mediante actividades clandestinas. La expedición finalmente fue iniciada por Chiang en Guangzhou en julio de 1926.

A principios de 1927, la rivalidad entre el KMT y el PCCh dio lugar a una ruptura en las filas revolucionarias. El PCCh y la facción izquierdista del KMT habían decidido el traslado de la sede del gobierno nacionalista de Guangzhou a Wuhan. Pero Chiang, cuya Expedición al Norte estaba resultando un éxito, dispuso sus fuerzas con objeto de destruir el aparato del PCCh en Shanghai. Chiang, con la ayuda de los bajos fondos de Shanghai, pretextando que las actividades comunistas eran social y económicamente disgregadoras, tomó por sorpresa a los comunistas y unionistas en Shanghai, arrestando y haciendo ejecutar a cientos de ellos el 12 de abril de 1927. La purga ahondó la ruptura entre Chiang y el gobierno de Wuhan de Wang Ching-wei (pugna finalmente ganada por Chiang Kai-shek) destruyendo asimismo las bases urbanas del PCCh. Chiang, expulsado del KMT por estos acontecimientos, creó un gobierno rival en Nanjing. En ese momento China contaba con tres capitales: el régimen de los señores de la guerra reconocido internacionalmente y establecido en Pekín; los comunistas y los izquierdistas del KMT en Wuhan; y el régimen civico-militar de derecha en Nanjing, que seguiría siendo la capital nacionalista durante la década siguiente.

Las previsiones de la Komintern parecían abocadas al fracaso. Se estableció una nueva política mediante la cual el PCCh debia alentar alzamientos armados en las ciudades y en el campo como preludio de una futura ola revolucionaria. Los comunistas trataron en vano de tomar ciudades como Nanchang, Changsha, Shantou y Guangzhou, y los campesinos de la provincia de Hunan emprendieron una revuelta rural conocida como Autumn Harvest Uprising. La insurrección fue dirigida por Mao Zedong.

Pero a mediados de 1927 el PCCh atravesaba su peor momento. Los comunistas habian sido expulsados de Wuhan por sus aliados de la izquierda del KMT quienes, a su vez, fueron derrocados por un régimen militar.

El KMT retomó la campaña contra los señores de la guerra y capturó Pekín en junio de 1928, a raiz de lo cual la mayor parte del este de China quedó bajo dominio de Chiang y el gobierno de Nanjing fue reconocido internacionamente como único gobierno legítimo de China. Los nacionalistas anunciaron que habían alcanzado la primera fase de las tres previstas por la doctrina de sun Yat-sen para la revolución, a saber, unificacion militar, tutela política y finalmente democracia constitucional. Bajo la direccion del KMT China se aprestaba para iniciar la segunda fase.

[editar] Agrarian Revolution (1927 - 1937)

Durante la Revolución Agraria, los activistas del partido comunista se replegaron a la clandestinidad o al campo donde promovieron un alzamiento militar (la revuelta de Nanchang el 1 de agosto de 1927), unieron sus fuerzas a los campesinos rebeldes que aún quedaban y pasaron a controlar varias territorios del sur de China. Los esfuerzos de los nacionalistas por sofocar la revuelta fracasaron pero dañaron seriamente al bando comunista.

Tras abortar Chiang Kai-shek un golpe para derrocarlo llevado a cabo por Feng Yü-hsiang, Yen Hsi-shan y Wang Ching-wei, dedicó sus esfuerzos a deshacer los restantes focos de actividad comunista. Las dos primeras campañas fracasaron y la tercera se abortó a causa del incidente de Mukden. La cuarta campaña (1932-1933) empezó con algunas victorias pero las tropas de Chiang salieron muy mal paradas al tratar de internarse en el corazón de la República Soviética China de Mao. Por último a finales de 1933 Chiang lanzó una quinta campaña orquestada por sus consultores alemanes que implicó el cerco sistemático de la región soviética de Jiangxi mediante blocaos fotificados. Ya en el otoño de 1934 los comunistas se enfrentaron a la posibilidad real de ser completamente barridos. Parecía que había llegado la hora de dar el golpe de gracia al PCCh, ocuparse luego de los últimos señores de la guerra, antes de recuperar Manchuria de sus ocupantes japoneses.

En octubre de 1934 los comunistas decidieron llevar a cabo una gran retirada hacia el oeste para escapar de las fuerzas del KMT que los perseguían. Fue durante esta retirada que duró un año y 6000 kilómetros, llamada luego la Larga Marcha, que termino cuando los comunistas alcanzaron el interior de Shaanxi, la etapa en que finalmente Mao Zedong se proyectó como líder comunista máximo. En su retirada, el ejército comunista confiscó propiedades y armas de los señores y terratenientes locales, reclutando además a campesinos y pobres, consolidando así su atractivo para el pueblo.

[editar] Second Sino-Japanese War (1937 - 1945)

During the Japanese invasion and occupation of Manchuria, Chiang Kai-shek, who saw the Communists as a greater threat, refused to ally with the Communists to fight against Japanese. On December 12, 1936, Kuomintang Generals Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng kidnapped Chiang Kai-Shek and forced him to a truce with the Communists. The incident became known as the Xian Incident. Both parties agreed to suspend fighting and form a Second United Front to focus their energies against the Japanese.

However, the alliance was in name only. The level of actual cooperation and coordination between the CPC and KMT during the Second World War was minimal. In the midst of the Second United Front, the Communists and the Kuomintang were still vying for territorial advantage in "Free China" (i.e. those areas not occupied by the Japanese or ruled by puppet governments). The situation came to a head in late 1940 and early 1941 when there were major clashes between the Communist and KMT forces. In December 1940, Chiang Kai-shek demanded that the CPC’s New Fourth Army evacuate Anhui and Jiangsu Provinces. Under intense pressure, the New Fourth Army commanders complied, but they were ambushed by Nationalist troops and soundly defeated in January 1941. This clash, which would be known as the New Fourth Army Incident, weakened the CPC position in Central China and effectively ended any substantive cooperation between the Nationalists and the Communists and both sides concentrated on jockeying for position in the inevitable Civil War.

[editar] Post-war power struggle (1945-1947)

Dropping of the atomic bomb and the Soviet entry into the Pacific War caused Japan to surrender much more quickly than anyone in China had imagined. Under the terms of the unconditional Japanese surrender dictated by the United States, Japanese troops were ordered to surrender to KMT troops and not the Communists.

With the sudden end of WWII in East Asia, Soviet forces flooded into the Manchurian Provinces to seize Japanese positions and to take the surrender of the 700,000 Japanese troops still stationed in the region. Later in the year Chiang Kai-shek came to the painful realization that he lacked the resources to prevent a CPC takeover of Manchuria following the scheduled Soviet departure, he therefore made a deal with the Russians to delay their withdrawal until he had moved enough of his best-trained men and modern material into the region. The Soviets spent the extra time systematically dismantling the entire Manchurian industrial plant and shipping it back to their war-ravaged Motherland.

General George Marshall arrived in China and was part of negotiations over a cease-fire between the KMT and the CPC, the terms of which would build a coalition government that would include all of the contending political/military groups in China. Neither the Communists (represented by Zhou Enlai) nor Chiang Kai-shek’s representatives were willing to compromise on certain fundamental issues or relinquish the territories they had seized in the wake of the Japanese surrender. The truce fell apart in the spring of 1946, and although negotiations continued, Marshall was recalled in January 1947.

[editar] Final stage of fighting (1946-1949)

With the breakdown of peace talks, an all out war resumed. To the Communists, this stage was called the War of Liberation (解放战争). While the Soviet Union provided limited aid to the Communists, the United States assisted the Nationalists with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of now surplus military supplies and generous loans of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military equipment.

Belatedly, the Nationalist government sought to enlist popular support through internal reforms. The effort was in vain, however, because of the rampant corruption in government and the accompanying political and economic chaos including massive hyperinflation. By late 1948 the Nationalist position was bleak. The demoralized and undisciplined Nationalist troops proved no match for the communist People's Liberation Army. The Communists were well established in the north and northeast. Although the Nationalists had an advantage in numbers of men and weapons, controlled a much larger territory and population than their adversaries, and enjoyed considerable international support, they were exhausted by the long war with Japan and the attendant internal responsibilities.

After numerous operational set-backs in Manchuria, especially in attempting to take the major cities, the Communists were ultimately able to seize the region and then focus on the war south of the Great Wall. In January 1949 Beijing was taken by the Communists without a fight, and its name changed back to Beijing. Between April and November, major cities passed from KMT to Communist control with minimal resistance. In most cases the surrounding countryside and small towns had come under Communist influence long before the cities.

Ultimately, the Communist Party was victorious. On October 1st, 1949 Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China. Chiang Kai-shek and a few hundred thousand Nationalist troops and 2 million refugees, predominantly from the government and business community, fled from the mainland to the island of Taiwan, there remained only isolated pockets of resistance. In December 1949 Chiang proclaimed Taipei, Taiwan, the temporary capital of the Republic of China and continued to assert his government as the sole legitimate authority in China.

[editar] People

[editar] Kuomintang

• Chiang Kai-Shek
• Wang Ching-wei
• Liu Chih
• Tu Yü-ming
• Fu Tso-yi
• Sun Li-jen
• Li Tsung-jen

[editar] Communist Party

• Mao Zedong
• Zhu De
• Zhou Enlai
• Lin Biao
• Peng Dehuai
• Chen Yi
• Liu Bocheng
• Nie Rongzhen

[editar] Warlords

• Zhang Zuolin
• Zhang Xueliang
• Feng Yuxiang
• Yen Hsi-shan

[editar] The War after 1949

Most observers expected Chiang's government to eventually fall in response to a Communist invasion of Taiwan and the United States initially showed no interest in supporting Chiang's government in its final stand. Things changed radically with the North Korean invasion of South Korea in January 1950, thus triggering the Korean War. At this point, allowing a total Communist victory over Chiang became politically impossible in the United States, and President Harry S. Truman ordered the U.S. 7th Fleet into the Taiwan straits, ending any possibility for a successful Communist invasion.

Some American historians have theorized that the loss of mainland China to the Communists enabled Joseph McCarthy to purge the "China Hands" from the U.S. State Department. In turn, it is possible that John F. Kennedy lacked the advice of any real experts on East Asia when he was trying to formulate a policy on Vietnam, which would imply that the Chinese Civil War can be linked causally to the Vietnam War.

Meanwhile, on Taiwan, throughout the 1950s and 1960s, intermittent skirmishes occurred throughout mainland's coastal and peripheral regions, though American reluctance to be drawn into a larger conflict left Chiang Kai-shek too weak to "retake the mainland" as he constantly vowed. ROC fighter aircraft bombed mainland targets and commandos, sometimes numbering up to 80 and sent by the U.S. military, landed repeatedly on the mainland to kill PLA soldiers, kidnap CPC cadres, destroy infrastructure, and seize documents. The ROC lost about 150 men in one raid in 1964.

The ROC navy conducted low intensity naval raids, and lost some ships in several small battles with the PLA. In June 1949, the ROC declared a "closure" of all mainland ports and its navy attempted to intercept all foreign ships, mainly of British and Soviet-bloc origin. Since the mainland's railroad network was underdeveloped, north-south trade heavily depended on sea lanes. ROC naval activity also caused severe hardship for mainland fishermen.

After losing the mainland, a group of approximately 1,200 KMT soldiers escaped to Burma and continued launching guerrilla attacks into south China. Their leader, General Li Mi, was paid a salary by the ROC government and given the nominal title of Governor of Yunnan. Initially, the U.S. supported these remnants and the CIA provided them with aid. After the Burmese government appealed to the United Nations in 1953, the U.S. began pressuring the ROC to withdraw its loyalists. By the end of 1954, nearly 6,000 soldiers had left Burma and Li Mi declared his army disbanded. However, thousands remained, and the ROC continued to supply and command them, even secretly supplying reinforcements at times. Raids into mainland China gradually ended by the late 1960s as PLA infrastructure improved. Remnants of these KMT loyalists remain in the area and are active in the opium trade.

Though viewed as a military liability by the United States, the ROC viewed its remaining islands in Fujian as vital for any future campaign to retake the mainland. On September 3, 1954, the First Taiwan Strait crisis began when the PLA started shelling Quemoy and threatened to take the Dachen Islands. On January 20, 1955, the PLA took nearby Yi Kiang Shan, with the entire ROC garrison of 720 troops killed defending the island. On January 24 of the same year, the U.S. Congress passed the Formosa Resolution authorizing the President to defend the ROC's offshore islands. Instead of committing to defend the ROC's offshore islands, President Eisenhower pressured Chiang Kai-shek to evacuate his 11,000 troops and 20,000 civilians from the Dachen Islands, leaving them for PLA takeover. Nanchi Island was abandoned as well, leaving Quemoy and Matsu the only major islands remaining. The First Taiwan Straits crisis ended in March 1955 when the PLA ceased its bombardment, amid U.S. threats of escalation and use of nuclear weapons.

The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis began on August 23, 1958 with another intense artillery bombardment of Quemoy and ended on November of the same year. PLA patrol boats blockaded the islands from ROC supply ships. Though the U.S. rejected Chiang Kai-shek's proposal to bomb mainland artillery batteries, it quickly moved to supply fighter jets and anti-aircraft missiles to the ROC. It also provided amphibious assault ships to land supply, as a sunken ROC naval vessel was blocking the harbor. On September 7, the U.S. escorted a convoy of ROC supply ships and the PRC refrained from firing. On October 25, the PRC announced an "even-day ceasefire" — the PLA would only shell Quemoy on even-numbered days. By the end of the crisis, Quemoy had been struck with 500,000 artillery rounds and 3000 civilians and 1000 soldiers had been killed or wounded. Quemoy and Matsu were major campaign issues in the 1960 United States Presidential elections. Gradually through the 1960s live artillery was replaced by leaflets.

In January 1979, the PRC announced it would stop shelling Quemoy and Matsu. Though the PRC conducted missile tests in 1995-96 and escalated tensions, armed clashes between the two sides have ceased. Since the late 1980s, there has been growing economic exchanges on both sides while the Taiwan straits remain a dangerous flashpoint. The political dynamics across the Taiwan straits have changed with Taiwan's democratization and an more vocal Taiwan independence movement throughout the 1990s. Ironically, in Taiwan itself, the Kuomintang has become one of the more active supporters of a conciliatory policy toward the PRC and the Communist Party.

[editar] Related articles

• History of China
• History of the Republic of China
• Political status of Taiwan

[editar] Crítica radical

Higher criticism is a branch of literary analysis that attempts to investigate the origins of a text, especially the text of the Bible. Higher criticism in particular focuses on the sources of a document and tries to determine the authorship, date, and place of composition of the text. This term is used in contrast with lower criticism or textual criticism, which is the endeavour to establish the original version of a text.

[editar] Higher criticism and radical criticism

Higher criticism originally referred to the work of a group of German Biblical scholars centered in Tübingen, including Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874), and Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872), who began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to analyze the historical records of the Middle East from Christian and Old Testament times, in search of independent confirmation of events related in the Bible. They are the intellectual descendants of John Locke, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Gotthold Lessing, Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Hegel, and the French rationalists.

These ideas were taken to England by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and, in particular, by George Eliot's translations of Strauss's Life of Jesus (1846) and Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity (1854). La Vie de Jésus (1863), by a Frenchman, Ernest Renan (1823–1892), continued the same tradition. But three years earlier before the appearance of La Vie de Jésus, liberal Anglican theologians had begun the process of incorporating this historical criticism into Christian doctrine in Essays and Reviews (1860). In Catholicism, L'Evangile et l'Eglise (1902), by Alfred Loisy, against the Essence of Christianity of Adolph von Harnack and less inspired than Renan, gave birth to the modernist crisis (1902–1961). Some scholars, such as Rudolf Bultmann, have used higher criticism of the Bible to demythologize it. This endeavour is seen as heretical by Orthodox Jews and many traditional Christians. Those scholars, as well as religiously liberal Christians and Jews, typically respond by pointing out that belief in God has nothing to do with belief in whether a certain text, such as the Bible, has more than one author. Furthermore, they point out that it is circular reasoning to use claims within the Bible to "prove" the authenticity of the Bible.

Higher biblical criticism suggests that the current text of the Torah was redacted from a small number of earlier sources; see Documentary hypothesis.

The excesses of radical higher critics in the 19th century caused some moderates to label their endeavor the science of introduction.

[editar] Higher criticism of other religious texts

Both higher and lower forms of criticism are carried out today with the religious writings of many religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.

[editar] Islam

Modern higher criticism is just beginning to be carried out on the Qur'an. This scholarship questions some traditional claims about its composition and content, contending that the Qur'an incorporates material from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, and that the text of the Qur'an developed both during and after Muhammad's lifetime. For example, Islamic history records that Uthman collected all variants of the Qur'an and destroyed those that he did not approve of. Parts of certain Hadith collections refer to chapters (suras) that are no longer extant in the Qur'an. [1]

[editar] External links

• Journal of Higher Criticism
• From the Divine Oracle to Higher Criticism
• Catholic Encyclopedia article "Biblical Criticism (Higher)"
  • Dictionary of the history of Ideas: Modernism and the Church
• a Christian moderate's view on biblical criticism
• La Vie de Jésus, by Ernest Renan.
• What is the Koran? article from The Atlantic Monthly.