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5 Shameen and South China
- University Press of Florida
- Chapter
- Additional Information
5 Shameen and South China The material for the most explosive Chinese response to the May 30th Incident was surely to be found in South China at Canton. There the heirs of Sun Yat-sen were struggling to control his Nationalist (Kuomintang) Party and to establish a firm power base in Kwantung province. The American consul general at Canton, Douglas Jenkins, watched with anxiety the evident spread of Communist and Soviet influence in the Kuomintang and among the cadets of the Whampoa Military Academy. Heading the academy was the young and as yet politically untested general, Chiang Kai-shek. Before they could act effectively , the Nationalists in South China had to bring some sort of order in their ranks and gain control of Canton. Mercenaries from Yunnan and Kwangsi provinces occupied the city in early June; the Kuomintang government had taken refuge in a cement factory on Honam Island in the Pearl River beyond Shameen and Canton; and the Kuomintang’s elite cadets were somewhat downriver at their Whampoa Academy.1 Watching from his temporary flagship, the old gunboat Pampanga, was the Commander South China Patrol, Captain Edward T. Constein. He found American missionaries sanguine about conditions, American business seriously curtailed by the growing lawlessness, and all foreigners as well as “better class Chinese” hoping the Kuomin tang government would be overthrown and order restored. By early June a battle between the Chinese for Canton was imminent as the Kuomintang gathered their forces for an attack on the city. Aside from their land forces moving in from west and east, the Kuomintang possessed some thirty gunboats and armed launches that controlled the water approaches to the beleaguered city. Constein’s four-ship South China Patrol had been reduced by half as the gunboat Sacramento had been called to Shanghai and his flagship, Helena, was undergoing boiler repairs at Hong Kong. Nevertheless, the captain believed that he had sufficient force to protect Americans should fighting break out between the Chinese in their struggle for Canton. The landing force from Helena was prepared to move to Canton should it become necessary to evacuate the approximately five hundred Americans from the city. Constein was in Pampanga anchored close to the Canton Christian College at Honam Island and not far from missionaries downriver from Canton at Tungshan. Constein held the gunboat Asheville off Shameen “in readiness for any emergency that may develop.” Before 9 June he had detected “no indication of any anti-foreign demonstration or feeling” among the Chinese as both sides embarked “in a final struggle for supremacy in Canton and Kwantung Province.” Also present at Canton were three British, two French, two Japanese, and one Portuguese gunboat.2 The struggle for the city began on 6 June as Cantonese water forces moved to bombard the city along the waterfront. The turning point came six days later, 12 June, when the Kuomintang water forces joined with the Whampoa Cadets and other Cantonese units to storm the city. The Yunnanese occupying forces formally surrendered at 3:00 p.m., leav- 50 / Part I. The U.S. Navy and Contending Warlords ing the Kuomintang practically unchallenged in control of Canton and Kwantung.3 A minor incident involving the Americans came on 9 June when Kwangsi forces from Canton opened fire on Pampanga as she moved toward Whampoa to meet a launch from the Canton Christian College. Pampanga responded with fire and was able the following day to escort the small boat back to the college without incident. The commander of the Yunnanese-Kwangsi forces immediately apologized and insisted that his men had mistaken Pampanga for a Cantonese gunboat.4 While the Chinese of both sides assured Captain Constein and Consul General Jenkins that they would not molest American persons or property, the Chinese resentment at Canton against the May 30th Incident was building. Thus, even as Pampanga sought to provide cover for the Canton Christian College, the students and faculty, including American faculty, joined in condemning the May 30th Incident as an outrage perpetrated by foreign imperialists, blaming the foreign powers for the Chinese bloodshed, and calling for an end to the so-called unequal treaties. That American faculty members should join their students in endorsing this anti-foreign resolution was, of course, an embarrassment to the American naval and diplomatic officers who were striving to preserve calm. Consul General Jenkins and the State Department cautioned the college officials that they should refrain from participating in any more inflammatory resolutions. According to Jenkins, the...