North China Herald’s View of the May Fourth Incident

Abstract

ABSTRACT The student protest in Peking (Beijing) on May 4, 1919, was one of the most influential events in modern Chinese political and cultural history. This study examines how the North China Herald covered the event in the immediate two months after it occurred. It examines the history of this famous English press in treaty-port Shanghai and highlights its semi-colonial nature. The North China Herald treated the Chinese students with a mixture of sympathy and suspicion, and counted on US and UK alliances to rescue China from its own weakness and from Japanese imperialism. The Herald’s coverage was influenced by its awareness of the rise of Chinese nationalism that would inevitably challenge the colonial and semi-colonial presence of the West in China, including the paper itself.