May Fourth Movement - Shandong Problem

Shandong Problem

China had entered World War I on the side of the Allied Triple Entente in 1917 with the condition that all German spheres of influence, such as Shandong, would be returned to China; although in that year, 140,000 Chinese labourers (as a part of the British army, the Chinese Labour Corps) were sent to France. The Versailles Treaty of April 1919 awarded German rights in Shandong Province to Japan. The representatives of the Chinese government put forth the following requests:

1. the abolition of all privileges of foreign powers in China, such as extraterritoriality
2. the cancelling of the "Twenty-One Demands" with the Japanese
3. the return to China of the territory and rights of Shandong, which Japan had taken from Germany during World War I.

The Western Allies dominated the meeting and paid little heed to the Chinese representatives' demands. Britain and France were primarily interested in punishing Germany. Although the United States promoted Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the ideals of self-determination at the conference, Wilson was unable to advance these ideals in the face of stubborn resistance by David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau and the U.S. Congress. American advocacy of self-determination at the League of Nations was attractive to Chinese intellectuals, but the failure of the United States to follow through was seen as a betrayal. Chinese diplomatic failure at the Paris Peace Conference became the incident that touched off the outbreak of the May Fourth Movement, and became known as the "Shandong Problem".