Volume 12 , Issue 17

World War I & China Laborers

Here is an interesting part of history most people don't know. This article is China and the First World War, dated April 22, 2010, written for The Economist print edition, in Ypres, Belgium.

It states, "China sent 140,000 labourers to the mud and barbed wire of the Western Front. They dug trenches, toiled in docks and railway yards or worked in arms factories for the allies."

It also goes on to read, "The young Chinese republic - founded three years before the outbreak of war - gained little from its status as an ally. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles handed over control of Germany's colonial possessions in China to Japan. One of China's few tangible rewards was the return of the Qing-dynasty astronomical instruments, which had been taken by German troops from Beijing after the Boxer Uprising of 1900, and installed in a park in Potsdam. China's humbling at Versailles had dramatic effects back home, triggering student protests that morphed into a modernising movement which contributed to the growth of the Communist Party."
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