Echoes of a Revolution: Türkiye's Modernization Experiment in the 1930s Chinese Press

Similar to China – often described in the early twentieth century as the ‘Sick Man of Asia’ under the pressure of Western imperialism and unequal treaties – the late Ottoman Empire was commonly labeled the ‘Sick Man of Europe.’ ¹ In Anatolia, this imperial decline gave rise to a resistance movement led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938), culminating in the Turkish National Struggle (1919–23) and the establishment of the Republic of Türkiye in 1923. The subsequent reforms transformed Türkiye into a centralized, secular nation-state and attracted attention beyond its immediate region, including in China. ²

This article examines how the Turkish National Struggle and the Kemalist reforms were perceived and represented in the Chinese press between 1923 and 1939, with particular emphasis on the 1930s – a decade marked by Japan's escalating aggression against China and an intensified search for viable models of national survival and modernization. During this period, Chinese newspapers and journals increasingly followed developments in Türkiye, often framing its anti-imperialist victory and state-building reforms as a potentially instructive reference for China's own struggle under conditions of war, fragmentation, and foreign occupation. ³

Rather than treating Türkiye as a single or dominant model, this study shows that Chinese engagements with the Turkish experience were diverse and contested. Two overlapping spheres of engagement can be identified. On the one hand, Guomindang (GMD) leaders and military elites frequently invoked Türkiye in a strategic and state-centered manner, emphasizing leadership, discipline, and national mobilization. On the other hand, civilian intellectuals and publicists developed a wider range of interpretations, which this article groups into three analytical approaches: epic or leader-centric narratives, legal-national(ist) perspectives focused on sovereignty and institutional reform, and emphatic yet critical readings that interrogated the social and economic limits of the Kemalist project.

Methodologically, the study employs qualitative content analysis ⁴ of articles published in major Chinese newspapers and journals between 1923 and 1939. The sources analyzed do not originate from a single political or ideological ‘stable’; instead, they span a range of institutional and political orientations, including Nationalist, liberal, and left-leaning outlets. Materials were identified through systematic archival research, primarily conducted at the Nanjing Library, and further refined by prioritizing authors who occupied influential positions in political, legal, military, or intellectual life. ⁵ This approach allows the study to reconstruct how the Turkish case circulated across different segments of China's public and elite discourse, without presuming ideological uniformity or direct policy impact.

By focusing on press representations rather than downstream political outcomes, this article contributes a focused, empirically grounded case study of how a non-Western revolutionary experience was narrated, debated, and reinterpreted in Republican China. In doing so, it establishes an analytical foundation for understanding the role of foreign reference cases in Chinese political and intellectual debates during the crisis-ridden 1930s, while also pointing toward future comparative and quantitatively oriented research.

This article is organized as follows. The first section provides a brief historical background by comparing the anti-imperialist struggles and modernization efforts of early twentieth-century Türkiye and China, which is essential for understanding the broader context of Chinese media coverage of Türkiye and the intellectual debates that followed. The second section analyzes Chinese media coverage of the Turkish War of Independence and Kemalist reforms, focusing on how Japan's aggression prompted Chinese political elites to seek inspiration from Türkiye's experience. The third and final section examines how leading Chinese intellectuals analytically interpreted and debated the significance of the Turkish Revolution during China's national crisis of the 1930s.

To understand why Kemalist Türkiye emerged as a recurrent and meaningful point of reference in Chinese political and intellectual discourse during the 1930s, it is necessary to consider both the shared historical conditions of revolutionary transformation and the intellectual frameworks through which such experiences were rendered comparable. The parallel encounters of Türkiye and China with imperial pressure, state collapse, and projects of national regeneration created a common historical horizon within which comparison became plausible. At the same time, these parallels were not self-evident: they acquired meaning through a longer tradition of Chinese global reasoning that had, since the late Qing period, cultivated a comparative imagination attentive to revolution, reform, and survival in an uneven world order.

After the Treaty of Balta Liman ⁶ (1838) and the First Opium War ⁷ (1839), both Türkiye and China became semi-colonial states, commonly viewed in the West as the ‘sick man of Europe’ ⁸ and ‘sick man of Asia’ ⁹ respectively, as they steadily lost territory under imperialist pressure. ¹⁰ Both countries experienced major turning points in 1919, with China's May Fourth Movement, triggered on 4 May 1919 as a reaction to the transfer of Germany's rights in Shandong to Japan in the Treaty of Versailles, ¹¹ and the onset of Türkiye's War of Independence after Mustafa Kemal's landing in Samsun on 19 May 1919, each date becoming a symbol of modern nationalism and led by youth mobilizations that are now national commemorations of the youth (Youth Days). Ultimately, both the Kemalist Revolution (1923) and the Chinese Revolution (1911) marked profound efforts to modernize and transform their societies. While China's movement led to the rise of the Communist Party and civil conflict, however, Türkiye succeeded in establishing a modern nation-state after defeating foreign occupiers. ¹²

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk established a secular and modern Turkish state through sweeping reforms, including abolishing the Islamic legal system, adopting the Latin alphabet, introducing Western-style dress and a unified educational system, and promoting industrialization to ensure independence. ¹³ Similarly, Sun Yat-sen and the leaders of China's 1911 Revolution sought to abolish the imperial order and build a modern, democratic state based on the Three Principles of the People: nationalism, democracy, and people's livelihood, which is comparable to Atatürk's Six Arrow. ¹⁴

Despite sharing similar goals, the Kemalist Revolution in Türkiye quickly established a secular, centralized state through sweeping reforms, ¹⁵ while overcoming major internal uprisings like the Sheikh Said Rebellion (1925), Ağrı Rebellion (1930–1), and Dersim Rebellion (1937–8). ¹⁶ Atatürk also advanced industrialization through the First Five-Year Industrial Plan (1934–8) and forged close economic and political ties with the Soviet Union, securing financial and technical support for state-led development. ¹⁷ By contrast, the 1911 Revolution in China failed to produce a stable central authority, as the revolution was hijacked by Yuan Shikai's seizure of power ¹⁸ and the onset of an era of political fragmentation led by warlords after his death in 1916. ¹⁹ Additionally, Sun Yat-sen relied on Soviet support to forge a coalition between the GMD and the Communists to eliminate warlordism in 1924. ²⁰ After Sun's death, Chiang Kai-shek's rise triggered a violent split and civil war in 1926, ²¹ which, compounded by Japanese invasion (1931–45), left China deeply fragmented and unable to implement unified reforms or consolidate power as effectively as Türkiye.

It was precisely because these experiences unfolded within a broadly comparable horizon of crisis that Chinese intellectuals and journalists could meaningfully read Türkiye not simply as a foreign case, but as a legible site of reflection on China's own unresolved dilemmas. In this respect, Rebecca E. Karl's analysis of late Qing intellectual life and print culture provides a crucial longue durée backdrop for understanding why Türkiye could later emerge as a meaningful reference point in Chinese political discourse. Writing in the wake of China's 1895 defeat and amid intensifying Euro-American and Japanese imperial pressures, Karl demonstrates that the rapid expansion of journalism and print media did more than disseminate information about foreign affairs; it actively produced a new global political consciousness among educated elites. ²² Figures such as Liang Qichao, often regarded as the first professional Chinese journalist, were deeply aware that texts did not merely reflect external realities but helped constitute new ways of apprehending China's position in an increasingly unequal world order. Early resistance to imperialist classifications – such as the insistence that China could not be equated with ‘India or Türkiye’ – gave way to a more complex comparative logic, as intellectuals began to recognize that imperial domination functioned simultaneously through military force and through discursive regimes that rendered disparate societies legible as objects of intervention. ²³

Within this evolving epistemic landscape, ‘Türkiye’ gradually acquired analytical significance well before the Kemalist period. Karl shows that Ottoman/Turkish trajectories entered Chinese debates as part of a broader effort to theorize wangguo – literally ‘the loss of the state’ – which in late Qing and Republican thought came to denote not cyclical dynastic replacement, but the extinction of national sovereignty through modern imperial domination. Alongside cases such as Poland, Egypt, India, and Korea, Türkiye became embedded in a repertoire of comparative examples through which Chinese intellectuals sought to diagnose the structural causes of national decline and explore pathways to survival. This process was closely linked to the transformation of tongzhong ('same race, or kind’), which shifted from an older civilizational notion of cultural affinity to a modern, spatially and racially inflected category shaped by global power relations. Whereas Japan's tongzhong relationship with China was often imagined through an idealized civilizational continuity, Türkiye's ‘sameness’ was newly constructed through a shared condition of imperial vulnerability – most vividly encapsulated in the notion of both being ‘sick men of the East.’ ²⁴

Karl further demonstrates that these comparative operations were neither abstract nor static. They were continuously reworked through specific historical conjunctures, most notably the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, which resonated strongly within Chinese exile journals and revolutionary circles. ²⁵ Chinese commentators debated the Turkish experience in relation to constitutionalism, militarism, popular mobilization, and the ethnic foundations of the nation, often instrumentalizing the Turkish case to advance already-formed positions in China's own disputes between reformism and revolution, monarchy and republicanism. Even critical or skeptical readings – particularly concerning Türkiye's multiethnic composition or the limits of constitutional compromise – reinforced the broader habit of reasoning through foreign cases as a way of clarifying China's modern predicament. By the early twentieth century, then, Türkiye had already become a familiar, if contested, node within a Chinese comparative imagination that linked revolution, state reform, and national survival within a global field of uneven modernity. ²⁶

In Sun Yat-sen's public statements, Türkiye appears as a consciously mobilized point of reference, invoked as part of a broader effort to identify viable anti-imperialist models for Asia. For example, during his 1925 visit to Japan, where he sought to draw Japan into an anti-imperialist alignment within Asia, Sun explicitly invoked the Turkish example alongside Japan's own trajectory. In this context, he emphasized that Japan was the first Asian country to acquire European military technology through its own efforts, without relying on Western assistance, and thus the only genuinely independent state in East Asia. By contrast, he noted that another Asian country – Türkiye – had entered the First World War on the side of the Allied powers, suffered defeat, and faced partition, only to reverse this outcome by expelling European forces from its territory and reclaiming occupied lands. Through this struggle, Sun argued, Türkiye had achieved full independence. On this basis, he concluded that, at the time, only two truly independent countries existed in Asia: Japan and Türkiye. ²⁷

From the second half of the nineteenth century onward, Chinese intellectuals began to follow global developments with increasing immediacy, a transformation closely linked to the rapid expansion of the press and publishing sector. As access to international news widened, Ottoman – and later Turkish – affairs came under closer and more sustained scrutiny. Major political and military developments affecting Turkish lands – including the First Constitutional Era, the Russo–Ottoman War, the Young Turk Revolution, the War of Independence, the Treaty of Lausanne, the founding of the Republic, and the subsequent revolutionary reforms – attracted notable attention in the Chinese press. Debates over Türkiye's domestic and foreign policies appeared across a wide range of newspapers and journals, such as Shenbao (申报, 1872–1949), Xiangdao (向导, The Guide, 1922–7), North-China Herald (1850–1941), and Dongfang Zazhi (东方杂志, 1904–48). ²⁸

Discussions of reform in the Ottoman Empire, particularly those associated with the Tanzimat period (1839–1876) and its aftermath, entered Chinese debates more decisively only after the Sino–Japanese War of 1894–1895. The profound crisis triggered by China's defeat served as a catalyst for sustained reflection on reform, constitutional monarchy, and revolution, transforming earlier curiosity into systematic comparative inquiry. Within this context, Ottoman reform experiences were increasingly read through the prism of China's own search for political renewal. ²⁹

A particularly influential articulation of this comparative logic appeared in the writings of Kang Youwei (1858–1927), one of the leading figures of the Hundred Days’ Reform of 1898. In his report On the Weakening of the Turks (1898), Kang famously argued that among the nations of the world, only the Turks (突厥) occupied a position genuinely comparable to that of China, and that their historical experiences offered lessons from which China could meaningfully learn. ³⁰ This assessment illustrates how the ‘Turkish case’ entered Chinese political thought not merely as an object of observation, but as a privileged comparator in debates over decline, reform, and national survival.

By the early twentieth century, however, Chinese engagements with the Turkish example had begun to diverge. While some commentators stressed the need to draw cautionary lessons from the Ottoman Empire's failures, others advocated a more contextualized reading that evaluated the Turkish experience in light of China's specific historical and social conditions. As Şaşmaz demonstrates, this divergence reflects the emergence of competing interpretive camps within the Chinese press, underscoring that the ‘Turkish model’ was never received as a fixed or universally applicable template, but rather as a contested reference point within broader debates on modernization and national regeneration. ³¹

Seen in this longer historical perspective, the prominence of Kemalist Türkiye in Chinese press discourse during the 1930s appears less as a sudden or isolated fascination than as the reactivation of an established mode of world-making. The Chinese press had long functioned as a space in which global events were staged, interpreted, and folded into domestic debates about sovereignty, order, and modernization. The Kemalist moment provided new empirical content and institutional clarity to an already existing comparative framework, allowing Chinese observers to revisit older questions – about discipline, revolution, and national regeneration – through a contemporary, non-Western example that seemed to offer both inspiration and caution.

While earlier Chinese engagements with Türkiye operated within a wide and exploratory comparative imagination, the 1930s witnessed a more deliberate and ideologically bounded appropriation of the Turkish case by Guomindang conservatives. In this regard, one should refer to recent scholarship on conservative and authoritarian currents within the Guomindang, which reveals why Kemalist Türkiye might have resonated with certain Chinese political elites. As Maggie Clinton demonstrates, Chiang Kai-shek frequently invoked foreign examples – including Türkiye, Italy, and Germany – not to advocate direct imitation, but to illustrate what he regarded as successful revolutions grounded in moral discipline and social cohesion. ³² Central to this discourse was the Confucian moral vocabulary of li, yi, lian, and chi – commonly glossed as propriety, righteousness, integrity, and moral restraint – which Chiang framed as the ethical foundation necessary for sustaining revolutionary order against the twin threats of imperialism and communism. ³³ Importantly, these values were no longer presented as remnants of a feudal past, as they had often been depicted since the 1910s, but were rearticulated as revolutionary virtues compatible with modern state-building and national renewal. Within this framework, Kemalist Türkiye assumed particular significance as a non-Western example that appeared to have successfully combined anti-imperialist struggle, centralized authority, and moral discipline. The Turkish case thus functioned less as a concrete policy template than as a symbolic confirmation that a revolution rooted in order, hierarchy, and collective self-regulation could produce national regeneration. Read in this way, references to Türkiye in Chinese elite discourse and the press illuminate how Guomindang conservatives deployed foreign models to legitimize a vision of revolutionary modernity anchored in ethical governance rather than liberal pluralism.

Similarly, Brian Tsui's analysis of Guomindang conservative nationalism further helps situate why Kemalist Türkiye appeared as a recurrent, yet carefully framed, point of reference in Republican Chinese discourse. Tsui shows that the GMD's ‘conservative revolution’ cannot be reduced to a simple case of imitative fascism or an undifferentiated authoritarian turn; rather, it articulated a distinct nationalist project rooted in Confucian moralism, state sovereignty, and developmental statism. ³⁴ While Chiang Kai-shek and right-wing party intellectuals expressed interest in interwar powers such as Germany, Italy, and Türkiye, Tsui emphasizes that these comparisons were never wholesale endorsements of foreign ideologies. What attracted GMD conservatives was not fascism per se, but the perceived ability of certain states to restore national dignity, discipline, and international standing through centralized authority and moral regeneration. Within this comparative horizon, Türkiye occupied a particularly legible position: unlike Germany or Italy, it represented a non-Western, post-imperial society that had combined anti-imperialist struggle, nationalist mobilization, and rapid state consolidation without abandoning cultural authenticity. As Tsui argues, GMD conservatives consistently rejected transnational revolutionary internationalism in favor of a vision of cooperation among sovereign nation-states, especially those deemed ‘oppressed’ or ‘late-developing’ such as Türkiye, India, and Persia. References to Türkiye thus resonated with a broader GMD effort to imagine an alternative modernity – neither liberal-Western nor socialist-internationalist – in which moral order, national sovereignty, and developmental discipline were mutually reinforcing. ³⁵

The GMD's distinctive conception of nationalism distinguishes its conservative revolution from the governments that preceded and succeeded it. Consequently, it is misleading to assert that the GMD represented merely a transitional phase in China's intensifying authoritarianism and divergence from liberal democratic ideals, devoid of any unique characteristics. Frederic Wakeman characterizes the Nationalist regime as an exemplar of ‘Confucian fascism,’ highlighting Chiang Kai-shek's interest in Germany, Italy, and Türkiye as emerging powers during the interwar period. ³⁶

Taken together, this section demonstrates that Kemalist Türkiye's significance in Chinese political and intellectual discourse during the 1930s cannot be explained solely by episodic admiration or superficial historical resemblance. Rather, it emerged at the intersection of two mutually reinforcing dynamics: a shared historical experience of imperial crisis and revolutionary state-building, and a long-standing Chinese comparative imagination shaped by late Qing and Republican-era engagements with global modernity. The Turkish case became meaningful not because it offered a ready-made model to be copied, but because it was already legible within Chinese discursive frameworks that linked revolution, discipline, sovereignty, and national survival. From late Qing reflections on wangguo and tongzhong, through debates over constitutionalism and militarism, to Guomindang conservative reinterpretations of moral order and centralized authority, Türkiye functioned as a flexible comparative reference through which Chinese actors articulated their own political anxieties and aspirations. In this sense, the Kemalist experience was neither an external curiosity nor a mere rhetorical ornament: it was an analytically productive case that helped structure Chinese debates on revolutionary modernization in a non-Western, post-imperial world. Establishing this historical and intellectual context is essential for understanding how, and why, Chinese press narratives and elite interpretations of Türkiye in the 1930s took the specific forms analyzed in the sections that follow.

Having established the historical parallels and comparative imaginaries that rendered Kemalist Türkiye intelligible within Chinese political thought, this section examines how these frameworks were activated by Chinese political elites under the concrete pressures of war, fragmentation, and national crisis in the 1930s. At the beginning of the 1930s, Japan's expansionist policies toward China marked a decisive turning point amid the political and social turmoil that defined Asia's broader geopolitical landscape. The 1931 Mukden Incident (also known as the September 18 Incident) was the first step in Japan's occupation of Manchuria and further destabilized China's already fragile political structure. ³⁷ At the time, China was deeply fragmented. A civil war raged between the GMD government and the Communist Party, while regional warlords vied for power, and a severe economic crisis undermined the authority of the central government. While the GMD, under Chiang Kai-shek, was striving to unify the country, the Communist Party, with Mao Zedong as one of its leading figures, was gaining ground in rural areas. Meanwhile, warlords operated autonomously in their respective regions, openly defying the central government's authority. Economically, China had also been shaken by the global impact of the Great Depression of 1929. ³⁸ Poverty and famine had become widespread, especially in the countryside. These conditions created a fertile ground for Japan's aggressive expansionism. Following the Mukden Incident, Japan established the puppet state of Manchukuo in Manchuria and, in 1937, launched the Second Sino-Japanese War, expanding its invasion across China. China's weakened state left itself vulnerable to foreign intervention. ³⁹

The Japanese invasion triggered a profound awakening within Chinese society. Politicians, academics, and intellectuals began to search for ways to rescue the nation from its deepening crisis. The turmoil China faced was not merely a military defeat but also a fundamental reckoning with questions of national identity and sovereignty. ⁴⁰ During this period, Chinese intellectuals increasingly turned to the experiences of other countries that had overcome colonial domination and foreign occupation. In this context, Türkiye emerged as a particularly compelling example. Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Türkiye had secured its independence under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and embarked on the construction of a modern nation-state. Much like Jawaharlal Nehru, ⁴¹ the leader of India's independence movement, many Chinese intellectuals began to closely examine Türkiye's experience. What one could call the ‘Turkish model’ was seen as a potentially inspiring framework for China's own struggle for national liberation. ⁴²

Between 1931 and 1936, Chinese media coverage of Mustafa Kemal rose by 250%, reaching a total of 240 articles. ⁴³ This surge seems to be directly linked to key events such as Japan's invasion of Northern China in 1931 (the September 18 Incident, 九一八事变) and the 1933 Rehe Campaign. ⁴⁴ While China was facing these mounting pressures, Türkiye – having won a major victory against invading forces just a decade earlier – had by the 1930s become one of Europe's most respected countries and a stabilizing force in regional politics. As imperialist occupation deepened in China, the search for viable paths to national salvation led many to look more closely at Türkiye, a nation that had only recently fought a war of survival and achieved rapid transformation. In this context, some local military factions in China, including those influenced by Li Jishen, ⁴⁵ invoked Mustafa Kemal's name for propaganda purposes, calling on the Chinese people to resist the Japanese by proclaiming: ‘March north to resist Japan and revive China's own Kemal.’ ⁴⁶

Influenced by Mustafa Kemal's global image as a statesman and the transformative power of the Turkish Revolution, the GMD developed a particular interest in Türkiye. Importantly, GMD leader Chiang Kai-shek regarded Mustafa Kemal as an example of a ‘benevolent dictator,’ drawing inspiration from what he perceived as an authoritarian yet visionary style of leadership. ⁴⁷ Similarly, He Yaozu (贺耀祖), China's ambassador to Türkiye, actively promoted awareness of Türkiye's War of Independence and subsequent reforms within China. ⁴⁸ He Yaozu regularly presented reports on Türkiye at GMD Central Committee meetings, helping to raise interest among nationalist circles. ⁴⁹ For example, an article titled Türkiye ‘s Radical Script Reform (土耳其极端的文字革命), published in the Shenbao newspaper on 28 February 1929, introduced Türkiye's alphabet reform and modernization efforts to the Chinese public. ⁵⁰ In response, Chinese intellectuals began debating their own modernization strategies, especially in areas such as language reform and mass education campaigns. Another article in Shenbao, published on 10 April 1935 and titled Farewell Ceremony for Turkish Ambassador He Yaozu by Two Organizations (两团体昨祖饯贺公使), covered the farewell events held in Shanghai prior to He Yaozu's return to Türkiye.

Lin Kanghou (林康侯), president of the Northwest Studies Society, emphasized the parallels between Türkiye's national revival and China's current challenges. He expressed expectations that He Yaozu would report on Türkiye's achievements in foreign policy, governance, economy, and education. In a similar vein, Chen Zhiting (陈芷汀), president of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce, praised Türkiye's resistance to foreign domination under Mustafa Kemal's leadership and noted the admiration it inspired across the East. He also recalled the historical ties between Türkiye and China dating back to the Tang Dynasty, while acknowledging that modern diplomatic relations were still in their infancy. Chen further suggested that Türkiye's Soviet-inspired economic structure could provide opportunities for developing Sino-Turkish trade relations. ⁵¹

A later report published in Shenbao on 26 August 1936, titled Ambassador He Yaozu Returns from Türkiye and Shares Observations on Sino-Turkish Relations (驻土公使 贺耀组归国抵沪 谈中土邦交情形), recounted He Yaozu's reflections following his return to China. He emphasized that Atatürk and the Turkish government expressed strong sympathy for China's difficult situation, noting that Türkiye had emerged from similarly dire conditions before World War I to become an independent nation through national mobilization. He also observed that Turkish intellectuals had revived their ancient cultural heritage by drawing on Chinese sources, while consciously reducing Arab and Persian influences. Furthermore, he highlighted Türkiye's friendly relations with both the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, which enabled strategic gains in the Bosphorus issue, and praised Türkiye's ‘balanced trade’ system as a means of preserving economic independence. ⁵²

The GMD's interest in Türkiye was not limited to figures like Chiang Kai-shek and He Yaozu; it was also shared by other prominent military and political leaders. Among them was General He Yingqin (何应钦, 1889–1987), one of the most influential military figures in modern Chinese history. He regarded Türkiye's War of Independence and its subsequent reforms as a model for China's own national salvation. ⁵³

He Yingqin received military training in Japan in 1909, served in the Shanghai Military Government during the 1911 Revolution, and played a key role in the founding of the Whampoa Military Academy in 1924 at the recommendation of Chiang Kai-shek. He participated in the April 12 Purge of 1927 against Communist forces, led the defense of the Great Wall following the 1931 Mukden Incident, and negotiated the He-Umezu Agreement in 1935. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, he served as Chief of the General Staff and Commander of the Ground Forces in the China Theater, overseeing major battles such as Tai’erzhuang, Xuzhou, and Wuhan. In 1945, he formally accepted Japan's surrender in Nanjing on behalf of the Chinese government. Following the Nationalist defeat in 1949, He Yingqin retreated to Taiwan, where he continued to serve as Chairman of the Strategic Advisory Committee until his death in 1987. ⁵⁴

The significance of Türkiye in He Yingqin's strategic thinking becomes clearer when one examines his January 1929 speech on ‘National Defense Capacity,’ published in Shenbao. ⁵⁵ Far from a passing reference, He explicitly framed Türkiye as a paradigmatic case of national survival under conditions even more severe than those facing China. Reflecting on the post–First World War settlement, he argued that Türkiye had been bound by unequal treaties, deprived of sovereign rights, and effectively occupied by Allied forces, placing it ‘in a position even more dangerous than China's at present.’ Yet, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, the Turkish nation ‘awakened, united, and defeated Greece, expelling the occupying powers from its territory,’ thereby forcing European states to recognize Türkiye's independence and restore its national rights. He emphasized that Türkiye's subsequent reforms and continued commitment to national consolidation had made it ‘one of the most promising countries in the world.’ ⁵⁶

Crucially, He Yingqin did not treat the Turkish case as an isolated military episode, but integrated it into a broader theory of national power centered on military strength, unity, and scientific advancement. Declaring that ‘in the modern world, national power is nothing other than military power,’ he presented Türkiye – alongside Meiji Japan – as evidence that only through disciplined armed forces, national solidarity, and sustained preparation could a semi-colonial nation abolish unequal treaties and secure international recognition. Read in this context, He's invocation of Türkiye was not merely illustrative rhetoric but part of a coherent strategic worldview linking military reform, national consciousness, and sovereignty. ⁵⁷

He Yingqin's 1929 reflections on Türkiye thus, should not be read as an isolated moment of rhetorical comparison, but as an early articulation of a strategic orientation that later translated into concrete forms of engagement. The durability of this orientation becomes visible in He Yingqin's involvement in direct Sino–Turkish military and diplomatic exchanges during the Second World War. In mid-1942, as a Chinese military delegation toured the United States and Britain, Chiang Kai-shek requested – through the Turkish ambassador in Chongqing, Menan (Mennan) Tebelen – that the delegation also be permitted to visit Türkiye. Following Ankara's approval, the delegation conducted contacts in the Turkish capital, underscoring the GMD leadership's desire to move beyond symbolic admiration toward concrete institutional learning. Upon the delegation's return to Chongqing, Minister of War He Yingqin and Chief of the General Staff Bai Chongxi ⁵⁸ jointly hosted Tebelen in honor of the visit. In subsequent discussions, Bai Chongxi openly expressed admiration for the Turkish armed forces and proposed systematic educational cooperation, including the training of Chinese officers at the Turkish Military Academy and the enrollment of Chinese students in Turkish universities. These exchanges indicate that Türkiye was not merely cited as an abstract example in elite discourse, but was actively engaged as a source of military and institutional knowledge. When read alongside He Yingqin's 1929 speech, the Tebelen episode confirms that Türkiye occupied a durable and operational place within the strategic imagination of GMD military leadership, linking comparative reflection to concrete practices of learning and exchange. ⁵⁹

This strategic engagement with the Turkish model reached a symbolic peak during the critical phase of the war in late 1937. With the Japanese encirclement of Nanjing, the motif of capital relocation from the Turkish Revolution emerged as a powerful emblem for China's wartime exodus to Chongqing. In a radio address broadcast on the evening of December 12, 1937 – just hours before the fall of the capital – GMD Propaganda Minister Shao Lizi (邵力子, 1882–1967) invoked the Turkish experience to bolster national morale. Published in Dagong Bao the following days, Shao compared China's transfer of government to Chongqing with Türkiye's relocation from occupied Istanbul to inland Ankara under Mustafa Kemal's leadership. He emphasized that losing a capital did not signify national defeat: ‘The Ottoman Empire… lay trampled under enemy boots, with half the country occupied. Yet its leaders placed faith in Mustafa Kemal Pasha, moving the capital to Ankara, swiftly routing the Greeks and compelling foreign withdrawal. Thus arose the sovereign Republic of Türkiye. Today, even if Nanjing falls, resurrection akin to Türkiye's remains possible through unyielding determination.’ ⁶⁰ Shao, a veteran journalist and diplomat respected across party lines, used this analogy to affirm that China's resistance would endure beyond territorial losses, framing the Turkish Revolution as an emblem of resilience against imperialism. ⁶¹

Building on the previous section's analysis of the perception of Chinese political elites about Türkiye, this section turns to deeper intellectual engagement, focusing on the analytical debates that emerged around the Turkish experience. In the 1930s, as Japanese aggression intensified pressure on China, Chinese intellectuals were actively seeking examples of anti-imperialist resistance and successful modernization. In this context, Türkiye's War of Independence and the sweeping reforms led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk became a significant point of reference for Chinese scholars as well. One such figure was Zhou Ziya (周子亚, 1911–1995), who held a master's degree in international law from the University of Berlin, taught law at Xiamen and Zhejiang Universities, and later served as Director of the Office of International Law at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in 1959. In a 1934 article published in Central Practical Weekly titled ‘Grey Wolf Kemal – A Review of Contemporary International Figures, Part 6’ (灰色狼凯末尔 – 今日国际人物检讨之六), Zhou offered an in-depth analysis of the Turkish Revolution and Mustafa Kemal's leadership. ⁶²

In his article, Zhou Ziya describes the collapse of the Ottoman Empire as a process in which ‘the vast empire founded through the blood and sacrifice of the House of Osman was gradually lost by its successors’. According to Zhou, the Christian world, which had once paid tribute to the Ottomans, seized upon the empire's weakening to pursue policies of division and dismemberment. He cites the Russian annexation of Crimea and the Caucasus, France's control over Syria, Britain's occupation of Egypt and Cyprus, and the independence of Greece and Serbia as key examples of this fragmentation. According to Zhou, Constantinople (as he refers to Istanbul in the article) was temporarily protected during World War I, but the defeat of Germany rendered the Ottoman Empire's collapse inevitable. This historical backdrop allows Zhou to frame the Turkish Revolution as a narrative of resistance and national rebirth in the face of imperialist pressure. ⁶³

At the heart of the article lies the figure of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as a leader. Zhou portrays Kemal as ‘a young man who remembered the Ottoman Empire's days of glory, carried the blood of his brave ancestors, and rose up against the corrupt regime responsible for the empire's collapse’. Describing Kemal as a ‘reborn Gray Wolf’ reflects Zhou's view of his leadership as both a mythic and historical symbol of revival. This metaphor appears to be inspired by H.C. Armstrong's 1932 book Gray Wolf: The Life of Kemal, as Zhou's depiction of Kemal ‘howling like a gray wolf under the full moon in 1920 Ankara’ closely mirrors Armstrong's dramatic style. ⁶⁴ In fact, selected chapters of Armstrong's book were translated into Chinese by Zhou Ziya and published in Zhongyang Ribao in 18 serialized installments. ⁶⁵ Yet, Zhou's narrative reinterprets this Western source for a Chinese readership, repositioning Kemal as a symbol of the Islamic world and anti-colonial movements. The article notes that Kemal's victory against the British-backed Greek invasion prompted congratulatory messages from Muslim communities in Russia, India, Afghanistan, and even the United States ⁶⁶ – highlighting the global resonance of the Turkish Revolution. ⁶⁷

Zhou also emphasizes Kemal's personal story, noting that he came from a poor family, endured a difficult childhood, and achieved success through his own efforts. His early involvement in revolutionary activities, his arrest while attending military preparatory school, and his dissatisfaction with the existing order are presented as key elements that shaped Kemal's determined and revolutionary character. However, Zhou's claim that Kemal served as director of the Military Preparatory School in Salonica in 1910 is historically inaccurate – an error that may reflect the limitations of Zhou's sources or reliance on inaccuracies in Armstrong's biography. Nevertheless, Zhou's observation that Kemal rose to national prominence at the Gallipoli front and was subsequently assigned to remote posts due to Enver Pasha's jealousy, aligns with certain narratives found in Turkish historiography. While Zhou criticizes Enver Pasha as a ‘self-important dictator who acted unilaterally’, he praises Kemal's vision of separating the military from political affairs. ⁶⁸

Zhou's article presents the Turkish Revolution not only as a struggle for independence but also as a comprehensive modernization project. He portrays Kemal's decision to launch a resistance movement in Anatolia – motivated by the sight of Istanbul under occupation after the Mudros Armistice – along with his organization of the public through secret meetings and the eventual founding of the Republic, as the product of a visionary leader's resolve. In Zhou's narrative, Kemal's modernization reforms are referred to as ‘Kemalism,’ or in Chinese, ‘Kemal Blue’ (凯末尔蓝) – a term that reflects the revolution's distinct place in global discourses on modernization. Zhou uses poetic expressions to describe Kemal's populist rhetoric, likening it to ‘a cry in the desert’ or ‘an echo in the heart of the universe's builder,’ suggesting that he viewed the Turkish Revolution as both a rational and deeply emotional narrative of liberation. ⁶⁹ Such poetic metaphors were common in the press of the time. For instance, in a May 1933 article titled The Nation's Cry published in Shenbao, writer Yang Shi (扬时) criticizes the Chinese people's complacency and their habit of crying out ‘Where is our Mustafa Kemal Pasha?’ in times of crisis – thus expressing frustration at the passive longing for a savior rather than proactive change. ⁷⁰

Overall, Zhou Ziya's article highlights several key aspects of how the Turkish Revolution may have been perceived within Chinese academic circles. First, in framing the revolution as an anti-imperialist victory, the article draws a parallel between Türkiye's struggle for independence and China's own resistance to Japanese occupation. Second, Zhou presents Mustafa Kemal's image as both a story of individual heroism and a universal symbol of modernization. Third, his analysis of Ottoman history and the Turkish Revolution reflects a broader effort by Chinese intellectuals to adapt Western sources – such as Armstrong's biography of Kemal – to local contexts. Nevertheless, certain historical inaccuracies in the article, such as the claim that Kemal served as director of the Military Preparatory School in Salonica, reveal Zhou's limited access to primary sources or his reliance on Western biographical accounts. Despite these flaws, Zhou's background in international law enables him to interpret the Turkish Revolution not merely as a national liberation movement, but as a project of modern state-building. This suggests that Chinese scholars viewed the Turkish model as a potential framework for China's own modernization and sovereignty struggle. ⁷¹

While Zhou offers a rather epic and leader-centric portrayal despite its background in international law, the legal dimensions of the Turkish Revolution are conveyed even more strongly by other figures in the Chinese media. A case in point is the legal-national approach of Ruan Yicheng, ⁷² who earned a master's degree in law from the University of Paris, returned to China in 1931 and went on to serve as a professor at the National Central University, head of the Law Department at the Central School of Politics, and editor-in-chief of Times Review (Shidai Gonglun, 时代公论). ⁷³ In his 1933 article published in that journal, titled ‘How Türkiye Treats Foreigners’ (Kan Tuerqi Zenyang Duiyu Waiguoren, 看土耳其怎样待遇外国人), Ruan emphasized the legal transformation and assertion of national sovereignty brought about by the Turkish Revolution. ⁷⁴ After relocating to Taiwan in 1949, Ruan Yicheng held several influential positions, including president of Central Daily News, editor-in-chief of Oriental Magazine, and executive director of the Sun Yat-sen Academic and Cultural Foundation. Ruan also served for 35 years as a delegate in the constitutional drafting assembly and authored the Diary of the Constitution-Making Process. ⁷⁵

Ruan Yicheng begins his article with a personal anecdote from a summer holiday he spent in Türkiye. After expressing dissatisfaction with a meal at a restaurant, he recalls being sharply rebuked by the owner, who said, ‘Foreigners should eat what Turks eat without question and learn to adapt.’ Ruan interprets this moment as a reflection of Türkiye's strong sense of national pride and independence. Upon returning to Beijing, he learned that the Chinese central government had issued an order prohibiting the inspection of foreign mail – a move he viewed as a humiliating concession, describing it as an example of how Chinese officials ‘could hardly be more degraded.’ This comparison underscores Ruan's view of China and Türkiye as having once shared the label of the ‘Sick Man,’ yet he argues that Türkiye, through the advances of the past decade, had managed to shed that stigma. Asking, ‘Why has Türkiye made such remarkable progress in just 10 years, and why does no one dare insult it anymore?’ Ruan raises the question of whether the Turkish Revolution could serve as a viable model for China's own path to renewal. ⁷⁶

A similar focus on national sovereignty and independence is evident in an article by Wu Jingxin. In his 1936 article titled ‘Historical Lessons from the National Liberation Movement’ (Minzu Jiefang Yundong zhi Shi de Jiaoxun, 民族解放运动之史的教训), published in the Dagongbao (Shanghai Edition), Wu Jingxin presented the Turkish Revolution as a source of inspiration for China's struggle against Japanese imperialism. ⁷⁷ The article frames Türkiye's anti-imperialist victory between 1918 and 1923 as a historical lesson that could be applied to China's own national liberation efforts, with particular emphasis on international diplomacy and national unity. While little is known about Wu's personal background, the publication of his article in Dagongbao – a prominent and liberal-leaning newspaper – suggests that his ideas reached a broad and influential readership within China.

Wu Jingxin begins his article by stating that China has suffered under imperialist pressures since the Opium War (1840–1842), and that the national crisis had entered ‘a new and serious phase’ following the 1931 Mukden Incident. In this context, he argues that the Chinese people must unite under the banner of national liberation to resist Japanese imperialism. Wu defines the national liberation movement as a ‘mass movement of the oppressed majority against a ruling minority’ and as the ‘revolutionary war of colonized or semi-colonized peoples against imperialism.’ According to him, victory in such a struggle depends on both national strength and the strategic use of international contradictions. He highlights Italy's nineteenth-century unification and Türkiye's ‘resurgence’ after World War I as two of the most valuable historical lessons. For Wu, the Turkish Revolution offers a relevant and applicable model for China's resistance against Japanese aggression, as both countries shared similar historical conditions and bore the label of the ‘Sick Man.’ ⁷⁸

The article analyzes the Turkish Revolution by focusing on the critical period between 1918 and 1923. Wu notes that in 1918, with the signing of the Armistice of Mudros, Türkiye had lost nearly everything: the straits and fortresses were handed over to the Allied Powers, and its warships, ports, railways, and oil-rich regions were placed under foreign control. The Treaty of Sèvres is described as the ‘death warrant of the Turkish Empire.’ However, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, this collapse was decisively reversed. Wu praises Kemal's ‘agile and flexible diplomatic skill,’ highlighting how, in 1922, he secured material support through an agreement with Soviet Russia, negotiated the withdrawal of French and Italian forces, and strategically isolated both British imperialism and Greece. This diplomatic maneuvering culminated in the defeat of the Greek army and Türkiye's assertion of equal status at the 1922 Lausanne Conference. Wu underscores Britain's attempt to sabotage the talks by sending its Mediterranean fleet to Istanbul and emphasizes how Kemal leveraged Anglo-French tensions to insist on the full implementation of the National Pact (Misak-ı Millî) without concessions. The renegotiation of the Lausanne Treaty in 1923, which saw the majority of Türkiye's demands accepted, marked the completion of what Wu calls Türkiye's ‘national resurgence.’ He further cites Türkiye's 1936 decision to abolish the demilitarization of the straits as proof of the ‘rock-solid foundations’ of the new republic. ⁷⁹

Wu's article conveys the Turkish experiment as a direct call to action for China's struggle against Japanese occupation. Declaring that ‘with the enemy's gun barrels aimed at our chests,’ he urges the Chinese people to unite their national strength, exploit international contradictions, and forge alliances with friendly powers. According to Wu, the success of the Turkish Revolution rested not only on national resistance but also on diplomacy and strategic international partnerships. This message resonates as a call for a united front in China, especially given the fragmented political landscape of the 1930s – marked by conflict among the GMD, the Communist Party, and regional warlords. Wu's comparison between Türkiye in 1918 and China in 1936 suggests that China was in a more favorable position: whereas Türkiye had suffered total subjugation under the Armistice of Mudros and the Treaty of Sèvres, China had not yet experienced such catastrophic capitulations. This contrast reinforces Wu's argument that China still had the opportunity to reclaim its sovereignty – if it could learn from the Turkish example. ⁸⁰

Certainly, national sovereignty and independence stand as a strongly recurrent theme among Chinese intellectuals. Another case in point is an article titled ‘Chairman Lin on the True Meaning of Nationalism’ (林主席讲民族主义的眞义), published in Shenbao on January 5, 1937, reports on a speech delivered by President Lin Sen (林森) of the Republic of China during a memorial week event organized by the Nationalist Government in Nanjing. By way of context, Lin Sen (林森, 1868–1943) was a Chinese statesman and a leader within the GMD. He served as the symbolic President of the Republic of China from 1932 to 1943. A close associate of Sun Yat-sen, Lin contributed to the Chinese Revolution and played a role in efforts to establish constitutional government. However, under the dominant leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, his position remained largely ceremonial. He passed away in Chongqing in 1943. ⁸¹

In his address, Lin stated that the essence of nationalism lies in the pursuit of freedom and equality for the nation, but emphasized that this struggle must be grounded in peaceful means. Referring to Sun Yat-sen's testament to ‘save China through the struggle for peace,’ Lin clarified that this was not a call for passive pacifism, but rather for an active spirit of resistance. Drawing on examples from various national liberation movements around the world, he argued that nationalism was an inevitable path toward achieving national freedom and equality. At the conclusion of his speech, Lin quoted Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: ‘Every Turk must cling to the duty of national independence with unwavering determination, no matter the cost. No matter how dire our circumstances may be, we will fight to the last drop of our blood for this cause. We may sign a peace treaty; but if it does not rest on the full independence of the Turkish nation, then we have not truly claimed our right to self-determination – and we will never achieve genuine peace.’ Lin remarked that these words captured the striking similarity between Türkiye's situation at the time and China's current predicament. He urged the Chinese people to treat Atatürk's words as both a warning and a guiding principle to be remembered and acted upon. ⁸²

Our content analysis reveals that analytical engagements with the Turkish Revolution in China's Republican era are predominantly shaped by what we term epic accounts – characterized by leader-centric portrayals – and by legal-national perspectives centered on national sovereignty and international law. Yet, it is also possible to discern a third approach, one that develops an emphatic perspective while maintaining a distinctly critical tone. An emblematic figure in this regard is Hu Yuzhi (胡愈之, 1896–1986; pen name: Chen Zhongyi, 陈仲逸), one of the leading figures in China's publishing world. ⁸³ His 1935 article ‘Türkiye in the Course of History’ (Lishi Jincheng zhong de Tuerqi, 历史进程中的土耳其), published in World Affairs (Shijie Zhishi, 《世界知识》) is particularly important in this regard. ⁸⁴

Despite having only completed the equivalent of junior high school, Hu began working at the Commercial Press in Shanghai in 1914 and taught himself Japanese, English, and Esperanto, gaining a reputation for his sharp insights into international affairs. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1933, led anti-Japanese propaganda efforts under Zhou Enlai in 1938, ⁸⁵ and oversaw the Chinese translation of Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China. ⁸⁶ Hu later became the founding editor-in-chief of Guangming Daily in 1948 and the founder of Xinhua Bookstore. In 1949, he was appointed the first director of the General Administration of Press and Publication of the newly established People's Republic of China, where he played a key role in launching influential publications such as Guangming Daily and Xinhua Monthly. Earlier, in 1925, he had founded Justice Daily, China's first newspaper dedicated to social justice, and as the founder of World Affairs, he helped create a platform for international discourse. ⁸⁷ His article on Türkiye is significant in that it not only presents the Turkish Revolution as a potential model for China's own path to modernization and liberation, but also critically interrogates its limitations from a nuanced perspective transcending Zhou's epic portrayal of the Kemalist Revolution.

Hu Yuzhi opens his article by introducing the six slogans that had become emblematic of the Turkish Revolution: ‘We are republican! We are nationalist! We are populist! We are statists! We are secular! We are reformist!’ These very slogans had echoed throughout the public sphere of the ‘New Türkiye’ – in newspaper headlines, mass rallies, and official discourse – forming the ideological foundation of the revolution. However, Hu stresses that these slogans must not remain mere rhetoric. He centers his analysis around three critical questions: Are these slogans being implemented sincerely? What are the outcomes of their implementation? And are these efforts effective? ⁸⁸ These inquiries reveal that Hu did not simply accept the Turkish Revolution as an idealistic success story; rather, he probed its practical results and long-term viability. His approach reflects a deeper effort to develop a critical framework through which to assess China's own modernization process.

While praising the achievements of the Turkish Revolution, Hu Yuzhi finds the progress made in the 12 years following the Republic's establishment in 1923 particularly striking. National liberation, the separation of religion and state, a cultural renaissance, and an industrial revolution had, in his view, propelled Türkiye from a state ‘no different from fourteenth-century Europe’ to one approaching the level of Europe's advanced capitalist nations. Hu characterizes this transformation with an exaggerated yet telling phrase: ‘What took Europe 600 years, Türkiye accomplished in 12.’ This hyperbole underscores his view of the Turkish Revolution as an ‘organized and purposeful’ model – especially when compared to other underdeveloped capitalist countries whose modernization paths were often haphazard and directionless. ⁸⁹ In the article, Atatürk's leadership is celebrated as that of a visionary who used authoritarian methods to achieve democratic and revolutionary goals. Hu frames Atatürk's surname reform – adopting the name Atatürk, meaning ‘Father of the Turks’ – and the establishment of a one-party system as necessary, though controversial, steps toward modernization. The brief experiment with the Free Republican Party in 1930 and its subsequent suppression, according to Hu, revealed the persistent resistance of feudal and religious forces to modernizing change. ⁹⁰

Importantly, Hu offers a detailed analysis of the Turkish Revolution's anti-imperialist and anti-feudal achievements. Atatürk's defeat of the British-backed Greek army, the abolition of the Ottoman sultanate, and the annulment of unequal treaties are, in Hu's view, clear demonstrations of the revolution's anti-imperialist character. In foreign policy, Türkiye's alliance with the Soviet Union and its efforts to avoid entanglement in imperialist debt obligations reflect a strong commitment to safeguarding national sovereignty. Among the anti-feudal reforms, Hu highlights the curbing of clerical power, the advancement of gender equality, and the expansion of public education. He particularly praises the Five-Year Industrialization Plan launched in 1933 as a significant step toward economic modernization inspired by the Soviet model. ⁹¹ With its focus on developing the textile, mining, weaving, ceramics, and chemical industries, the plan symbolized Türkiye's pursuit of self-sufficiency. Hu also cites the increase in cultivated land – from 5 to 7 million hectares – and the rise in primary school enrollment – from 300,000 to 560,000 students – as tangible achievements of the revolution. ⁹²

Nevertheless, Hu's article stands out as one of the rare pieces by a Chinese intellectual to examine the Turkish Revolution through a critical lens. From a socioeconomic perspective, he openly highlights the revolution's limitations. As a predominantly agricultural country with 80% of its population living in rural areas, Hu argues that the living conditions of Turkish peasants actually worsened after the revolution. Most of the land remained concentrated in the hands of a small number of landowners, while the average annual income of a peasant was only 120 Turkish lira – a third of which went to taxes. Rural usury pushed peasants deeper into debt, and industrialization policies further accelerated the disintegration of the countryside. Urban workers, too, lived in misery, facing 14–15 h workdays, meager wages, and no right to strike or form unions. Hu contends that under such conditions, the true beneficiaries of the revolution were not peasants or workers, but the propertied classes. His critique of Atatürk's economic nationalism – which he sees as ultimately serving the interests of private capital – reveals Hu's belief that the revolution's principle of ‘populism’ remained incomplete without economic equality. ⁹³

While acknowledging the achievements of the Turkish Revolution, Hu characterizes its success as ‘partial’ and ‘superficial,’ identifying three major obstacles. First, he argues that cultural progress cannot be sustained without improvements in material living conditions. ⁹⁴ Second, the lack of capital imposes significant constraints on industrialization. Third, the unresolved land question exacerbates tensions between urban and rural populations. These critiques suggest that Hu did not idealize the Turkish Revolution, but instead questioned its adaptability to China's own modernization process. At the end of the article, Hu poses the question: ‘Is Türkiye advancing rapidly in the historical process?’ – a reflection that, while recognizing the revolution's accomplishments, casts doubt on its long-term sustainability due to underlying structural problems. This question underscores Hu's effort to learn from the Turkish model in the context of China's struggle against Japanese occupation, while also remaining critically attentive to its limitations. ⁹⁵

Similarly, a leading economist and a member of the Chinese Communist Party since 1935, Qian Junrui (钱俊瑞, 1908–1985) examined the Turkish Revolution from a Marxist perspective in his 1936 article titled ‘An Analysis of Türkiye’ (Tuerqi Lun, 《土耳其论》), published in World Affairs (Shijie Zhishi, 《世界知识》). ⁹⁶ That same year, he had authored the influential book Methods for Studying the Chinese Economy. ⁹⁷ Over the course of his career, Qian held several prominent positions, including Director of the Propaganda and Education Department of the New Fourth Army, Chief and Editor of the Xinhua News Agency's Beiping Branch, and Dean of Academic Affairs at North China University. After the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, he served as Party Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Vice Minister of Education, and in 1955 was elected as the first member of the Philosophy and Social Sciences Division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. ⁹⁸ Parallel with Hu's observations, Qian's article is significant for its dual contribution: it evaluates the Turkish Revolution as a model for China's struggle against Japanese imperialism, while also offering a critical analysis of the revolution's socioeconomic limitations.

Qian Junrui opens his article by quoting the fifth clause of the ‘National Oath’ adopted at the 1920 Istanbul Congress, which laid the ideological foundation of the Turkish Revolution: ‘The essential condition for achieving political and economic development and establishing a system of governance in line with the modern spirit is full freedom and independence.’ ⁹⁹ According to Qian, this principle reflects the anti-imperialist and bourgeois-patriotic character of the Turkish Revolution, encapsulating the essence of a movement that overthrew imperialist domination through the mobilization of mass resistance. He draws a comparison between China's situation in the 1930s and the period when British imperialism had rendered Türkiye the ‘Sick Man of the Near East’. Emphasizing that Japan's aggression toward China was even more severe than Türkiye's earlier crisis, Qian argues for the urgency of studying the Turkish Revolution as a potential model for China's own path to national liberation. This comparison reveals Qian's view of the Turkish experience as a historically grounded example capable of inspiring China's anti-imperialist struggle. ¹⁰⁰

The article situates the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire within a broad historical framework. Qian notes that Osman Gazi founded the Turkish state by unifying Anatolia between 1288 and 1326, and that the empire reached its golden age with Mehmed the Conqueror's capture of Constantinople in 1453. However, during this period, the concentration of land in the hands of Muslim clerics and large landowners deepened the misery of the peasantry. From the sixteenth century onward, a series of military defeats against Italy, Spain, Poland, Russia, and Germany gradually eroded the empire's power and prestige. By the time of World War I, Türkiye had become the ‘prey’ of the great powers, and earlier attempts at national liberation had ended in failure. Qian emphasizes that the war, by cutting off Türkiye's ability to import goods, created an opening for the development of national industry. ¹⁰¹ He identifies the founding of the People's Party under Mustafa Kemal in 1919 as the beginning of a bourgeois-democratic revolution. The ‘National Oath’ (Misak-ı Millî), published in 1920, symbolized, in Qian's view, Türkiye's firm commitment to preserving its territorial integrity and independence. The Misak-ı Millî was a pivotal declaration by the Ottoman Parliament, later adopted by the Turkish National Movement, outlining the non-negotiable boundaries of the Turkish homeland and asserting sovereignty over territories deemed essential for national survival. ¹⁰²

Qian offers a detailed and emphatic appraisal of the Turkish Revolution's anti-imperialist and anti-feudal achievements. ¹⁰³ He stresses that the People's Party under Atatürk's leadership was not a party that surrendered the country or facilitated its humiliation. ¹⁰⁴ Mustafa Kemal's unification of the Anatolian peasantry to defeat the British-backed Greek army, abolish the Ottoman sultanate, and annul unequal treaties, all serve as clear evidence of the revolution's anti-imperialist character. ¹⁰⁵ Qian emphasizes that Atatürk's People's Party, as a movement ‘filled with demands for national independence and modernization,’ represented a national bourgeois class distinct from the comprador bourgeoisie found in China. He characterizes Atatürk's leadership as a ‘dictatorship of the national bourgeoisie,’ and notes that despite the formal democratic appearance of the Grand National Assembly, the regime was essentially based on the one-party dominance of the People's Party. Nevertheless, Qian argues that this authoritarian structure was effective in carrying out anti-imperialist and anti-feudal tasks. He underscores that the regime neither engaged in treacherous acts nor made any concessions to foreign occupying powers. ¹⁰⁶ Under Kemal's leadership, the revolutionary movement spread rapidly across the country. The Turkish people, united like a single iron front, fought against imperialism, feudal forces, and traitorous collaborators. ¹⁰⁷ In particular, Türkiye's refusal to assume imperialist debts and its strategic alliance with the Soviet Union reinforced its efforts to safeguard national independence. ¹⁰⁸

Qian also analyzes the economic and cultural achievements of the Turkish Revolution. The Five-Year Industrialization Plan launched in 1933, inspired by the Soviet model, aimed to develop key sectors such as textiles, mining, weaving, ceramics, and chemicals. With a budget of 450 million Turkish lira and a notable increase in agricultural output – including a 35,000-hectare expansion of cotton fields – the plan reflected Türkiye's pursuit of self-sufficiency. Statist policies, including the nationalization of major industries and the construction of railways, accelerated the development of domestic capital. In the cultural sphere, Qian highlights significant progress in education (with primary school enrollment rising from 300,000 to 560,000 students), the adoption of the Latin alphabet, and the emancipation of women as key markers of the revolution's modernization success. Türkiye's emerging role as a force for peace in the Near East and its recognition by the Soviet Union as a ‘model for diplomatic relations’ ¹⁰⁹ further underscore its rising international prestige. ¹¹⁰

Nevertheless, Qian critiques the socioeconomic limitations of the Turkish Revolution from a Marxist perspective. He notes that although peasants – who made up 80% of the population – bore the brunt of the revolution, most of the land remained in the hands of large landowners and wealthy farmers. With an annual income of just 120 Turkish lira, peasants were further impoverished by heavy taxation and rural usury. Workers, too, were exploited under harsh conditions, enduring 14- to 15-h workdays, low wages, and lacking the right to strike or form unions. Qian argues that the ‘fruits’ of the revolution did not benefit the peasants or workers, but rather a small capitalist class. This critique suggests that Qian viewed the Turkish Revolution's turn toward capitalism as potentially incompatible with China's socialist struggle. The article also highlights shortcomings stemming from the revolution's failure to comprehensively address democratic tasks and unresolved land reform. Still, Qian acknowledges the ‘progressive significance’ of the revolution, stating that it ‘advanced Türkiye's historical development by one stage’ and laid the groundwork for eventual full liberation. ¹¹¹

Ultimately, Qian Junrui's article contributes to the Chinese perception of the Turkish Revolution in two major ways. First, similar to Hu Yuzhi, he frames the revolution as an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal victory, draws a direct parallel with China's own struggle against Japanese occupation, and highlights Atatürk's so-called authoritarian yet visionary leadership model that represented the interests of the national bourgeoisie. Second, by critically examining the revolution's socioeconomic limitations, Qian demonstrates that Chinese communist intellectuals approached the Turkish model with a discerning, class-based perspective. His membership in the Communist Party and grounding in Marxist economics seems to have shaped the article's effort to interpret the Turkish Revolution through a socialist lens. Compared to Hu Yuzhi's more balanced critique and Zhou Ziya's epic, leader-centric portrayal, Qian's analysis stands out for the sharper class-conscious critique it offers.

Taken together, the writings examined in this section reveal a vibrant and multifaceted Chinese intellectual engagement with the Turkish Revolution during the 1930s. As Japanese imperialism intensified pressure on China, Türkiye's War of Independence and Atatürk's sweeping reforms became a key reference point across ideological lines. Chinese thinkers interpreted the Turkish experience not only as an anti-imperialist success but also as a case study in sovereign modern state-building. Zhou Ziya cast the revolution in mythic terms, blending legal analysis with symbolic leadership imagery. Hu Yuzhi offered a nuanced critique – acknowledging Türkiye's transformative achievements while questioning its socioeconomic shortcomings and the exclusion of the peasantry and working class. Qian Junrui, writing from a Marxist perspective, praised Türkiye's anti-feudal and anti-imperialist stance but viewed its capitalist orientation as incompatible with socialist goals. Meanwhile, legal scholar Ruan Yicheng emphasized the assertion of sovereignty and dignity through institutional reform, and Wu Jingxin underscored Türkiye's strategic diplomacy and military mobilization as a model for China's own national revival. Even state leaders like Lin Sen appropriated Atatürk's words to rally Chinese audiences in the face of foreign aggression. Despite differences in ideological orientation and analytical emphasis, these responses collectively demonstrate how the Turkish Revolution was not simply admired, but actively interpreted, debated, and contextualized within China's own struggle for national liberation and modernity. This layered reception reveals not only the reach of Kemalist symbolism but also the critical agency of Chinese intellectuals in shaping transnational understandings of revolution, sovereignty, and developmental pathways.

This study has examined how the Turkish War of Independence and the subsequent Kemalist reforms were perceived, narrated, and debated in the Chinese press during the Republican era, with particular attention to the 1930s. Drawing on a wide range of Chinese-language newspapers and journals, it has shown that Türkiye emerged as a visible and meaningful reference point in Chinese media discourse at a moment of acute national crisis, even as its significance remained contingent, contested, and unevenly interpreted.

Rather than treating the Turkish case as a singular or dominant model, the analysis has demonstrated that Chinese engagements with Kemalist Türkiye clustered around two overlapping spheres. Among GMD leaders and military elites, Türkiye was often invoked in a strategic and state-centered manner, emphasizing leadership, discipline, and national mobilization. Among civilian intellectuals, the Turkish experience generated a wider range of interpretations, which this article groups into three analytical approaches: epic, leader-centric narratives; legal-national(ist) readings focused on sovereignty and institutional reform; and an ‘empathetic yet critical’ strand, often articulated through class-inflected or Marxist critiques. This typology highlights the fact that Türkiye functioned less as a blueprint to be copied than as a discursive resource through which Chinese actors articulated their own political anxieties, aspirations, and ideological commitments.

Methodologically, the article contributes a focused case study that treats the press as an active site of intellectual production rather than as a passive reflection of events. By reconstructing how a non-Western revolutionary experience was framed within Chinese-language media, the study adds empirical depth to our understanding of transnational reference-making in Republican China, while also underscoring the limits of what press-based sources can reveal about downstream political impact.

In this sense, the value of the article lies not in making broad claims about policy transfer or model adoption, but in establishing a solid empirical foundation for the Turkish case as it appeared in Chinese discourse. Future research – drawing on additional archival genres and employing comparative or quantitative designs – may build on this foundation to assess relative weight, reception, and influence across multiple reference cases. As a standalone contribution, however, this study demonstrates how Kemalist Türkiye was rendered intelligible, persuasive, or problematic within a specific historical and media context, thereby offering a focused but analytically meaningful window into the ways Chinese observers engaged with foreign models during the turbulent 1930s.