Diplomats in Blue: U.S. Naval Officers in China, 1922–1933

4 The Navy and the May 30th Incident of 1925 and After

4 The Navy and the May 30th Incident of 1925 and After When Minister Schurman and his military and naval advisers reported in the spring of 1925 that the Navy was best suited to afford protection of American lives and property in China, they clearly had in mind protection against sporadic local anti-foreign outbursts arising from strictly local conditions, against the ravages of undisciplined warlord armies, or perhaps against a new uprising of Boxer fanatics. The 1920s, however, spawned new forces that, when sparked by a catalyst, would generate a powerful national movement for the revision or abolition of the so-called unequal treaties, including the total withdrawal of foreign naval forces from Chinese waters . With the failure of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference to satisfy China’s demands for equality and the awarding to Japan of former German rights and interests in Shantung, Chinese students and intellectuals in Peking, Shanghai, and elsewhere were galvanized in the May 4th Movement demanding equality and justice for China. In the urban centers, especially in Shanghai where increasing industrialization was marked by the proliferation of cotton textile mills, there emerged labor unions and considerable labor unrest, especially in the mills owned by the Japanese and the British. Encouraging students and workers was the small new Chinese Communist Party and the increasingly vocal Soviet Union, which proclaimed their sympathy for the Chinese struggle against the so-called imperialist powers. Many of the Americans in China, especially the missionaries, were also sympathetic toward these rising Chinese aspirations . American merchants and businessmen in the cities, on the other hand, tended to identify the security of their property and other interests with preservation of the existing order. Probably neither missionaries nor businessmen sensed a serious personal threat from the students and laborers, whose agitation was early directed chiefly against the British and the Japanese. Nevertheless, the Americans were whites and foreigners. They would not be able to escape from the outrage vented by Chinese on all foreigners enjoying protection of the unequal treaties. In this sensitive situation, it was the delicate responsibility of the U.S. Navy to afford protection to Americans and their property without unnecessarily offending the Chinese. During this period of turmoil, American naval officers would find it necessary to decide when to act alone and when to make common cause with the other foreign naval services. Labor unrest in the Japanese textile mills at Shanghai became critical in mid-May 1925 when Japanese soldiers fired on the workers at the Nagai Wata Kaisha Textile Mill, No. 8. One of those shot, Ku Cheng-hung, died of wounds on 17 May. In protest, on 30 May, Chinese students joined by workers converged on the highly congested, department store segment of Nanking Road, the main thoroughfare of Shanghai’s International Settlement. When the demonstrators, resisting attempts by settlement police to arrest their leaders, moved on the local Louza Police Station, the police opened fire, killing nine young Chinese. These killings at the hands of foreign police immediately sparked outrage throughout Chinese society. As the protest 40 / Part I. The U.S. Navy and Contending Warlords assumed the aspects of a general strike, the foreigners of the Municipal Council of the International Settlement on 1 June declared a state of emergency, the equivalent of martial law.1 Whereupon, acting on the request of the Municipal Council, the foreign consuls asked their respective navies to prepare to land 2,000 men to supplement the International Settlement’s 3,000-man police force and the Shanghai Volunteer Corps of 1,750 men largely drawn from the foreign business community.2 Although the British were the most prominent group among the foreigners in the International Settlement, the Americans shared in the settlement’s governance. The chairman of the Municipal Council, Stirling Fessenden, was an American, and American ratepayers elected two of the council’s nine members. Americans also contributed 154 men to the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, as compared with 689 British and a company of 115 Japanese troops. Clearly, the request from the Municipal Council required a significant American naval response. On 1 June there were in the Whangpoo three American destroyers and a gunboat, three Japanese gunboats, a British gunboat, a French cruiser, and an Italian cruiser. The following day, the Americans and the Italians each landed 200 men, principally to protect the city’s power plant and waterworks located in the Yangtzepoo district along the Whangpoo River. By 6 June there were twenty-two foreign warships...