g82 CHINA 



tion, Yuan Shih-kai was elected by the Nanking Council Provisional President of the 

 Republic of China. General Li Yuan-hung became Vice, -President, and 

 a provisional constitution was adopted by the Council on March 10, the 

 day on which Yuan Shih-kai took the oath of office in Peking. The duties 

 of forming a Ministry devolved upon Tang Shao-yi, a former protege of Yuan Shih-kai'a 

 and his delegate at the Shanghai negotiations. Dr. Sun Yat-sen remained in Nanking 

 to assist the Government until April i, when he resigned his official connection with 

 state affairs and started on a tour of the provinces. The following day the National 

 Council decided to transfer the Government to Peking. A new Council (consisting of 

 five members from each province, elected by the Provincial Assembly, and five memuers 

 each from Inner and Outer Mongolia and Tibet and one member from Kokonor) was 

 formally opened on April 29, and continued to define the Republican policy. 



In June Tang Shao-yi, who had not been fortunate in his loan negotiations, resigned 

 the Premiership and was succeeded by Lu Cheng-hsiang, the Foreign Minister. A 

 Cabinet crisis was shortly afterwards brought about by the attitude of the Tungmenghui 

 party, which mainly represents Cantonese opinion. Its members contended that the 

 Cabinet should be formed from one of the three parties or from none, and they insisted 

 that the Ministers belonging to the Tungmenghui should resign their portfolios in the 

 existing Coalition Cabinet. The President won the day, and the Tungmenghui sought 

 to retrieve its position by amalgamating with another party. In September Lu Cheng- 

 hsiang was forced by ill-health to resign the premiership and was succeeded by Chao 

 Ping-chen. He became, however, Minister for Foreign Affairs in November, on the 

 resignation of Liang Ju-hao. 



For several months the peace of the country was disturbed by numerous mutinies 

 and outbreaks, while a serious plot against the Republican Government was discovered 

 at Wuchang early in August. In connection with the latter two prominent revolutiona- 

 ries, Chang Chen-wu and Feng Wei, were arrested one evening in Peking, summarily 

 tried during the night and shot at daybreak. The Government's action was severely 

 criticised by the National Assembly, but the President was able to convince a majority 

 of the members, without making public his information, that he had acted in the in- 

 terests of the Republic. Subsequently the visits to Peking of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, General 

 Huang Hsing, the most prominent revolutionary leader after Li Yuan-hung, and Chen 

 Chi-mei, at one time Military Governor of Shanghai, served to strengthen the adminis- 

 tration by removing the feeling of mutual distrust with which the North and the South 

 were inclined to regard one another. 



Tibet. The return on December 25, 1909 of the Dalai Lama to Lhasa, which he had 

 left on the approach of the Younghusband expedition of 1904, coincided with a determined 

 attempt on the part of China to strengthen her position in Tibet. A Chinese force was on 

 its way to Lhasa and entered the town on February 12, 1910. The Dalai Lama fled to India 

 and was deposed by the Chinese Government, but Lamaism has never recognised the step. 

 Chinese sovereign rights were from that time exercised with considerable rigour in Tibet. 

 When the revolution broke out in 1911, the small Chinese garrison in Lhasa mutinied ip 

 sympathy, but its excesses stirred the Tibetans to action and the troops found themselves 

 besieged. A state of war was maintained until August, when, after the return of the Dalai 

 Lama to Lhasa, peace was concluded on condition that the Chinese troops left Tibet vi& 

 India, a smalj number only remaining as the Chinese Amban's bodyguard. In the mean- 

 time the semi-independent chiefs had put an end to Chinese authority in Eastern Tibet. 

 In July 1912 the Peking Government despatched an expedition from Chengtu, the capital 

 of Szechuan, to reconquer Tibet. On August 17, however, after the force had regained pos- 

 session of Batang, the British Government presented a Memorandum to China defining the 

 attitude of Great Britain towards the Tibetan question. This communication required 

 China to refrain from despatching a military expedition into Tibet, as the re-establishment 

 of Chinese authority would constitute a violation of the Anglo-Chinese Treaty of 1906. 

 Chinese suzerainty in regard to Tibet was recognised, but Great Britain could not consent 

 to the assertion of Chinese sovereignty over a State enjoying independent treaty relations 

 with her. Although no definite reply was given to the Memorandum, it was understood 

 that the Chinese Government intended to fall in with British wishes, and towards the end of 

 September the expedition to Tibet was ordered to retire. 



Mongolia. In pursuance of a forward policy in Mongolia the Manchu Government 

 during the latter days of its existence had strengthened its administrative hold on the country, 



