Deciphering Towards the Republic – We Begin at the End

When did the long history of empire in China finally end? Usually, people name the year 1912 when Puyi first abdicated to the Republic of China. Some people may bring up Yuan Shikai‘s short-lived and not-at-all legitimate Empire of China (1915-1916). Others may bring up the Manchukuo puppet state propped up by Japan prior to and during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The most cynical may say it has not yet ended.

Scarcely anyone, I think, would care to mention Zhang Xun‘s attempted reinstatement of Puyi in 1917, which lasted barely a week and went unrecognized by anyone outside the Forbidden City.

All things in history happen twice, first as tragedy, and then as farce. This quote, attributed to G.W.F. Hegel, is best known in both China and the West due to Karl Marx‘s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Personally I don’t put much stock in Marx’s historiography. Indeed I find even his original application of the quote to Napoleon III a tad unfair. But on endeavors to restore the Chinese empire, this aphorism is singularly apt, with each next attempt more farcical than the last.

So why does Towards the Republic decide to close on this moment of the 1917 Manchu Restoration, an event of little ultimate significance? Why not conclude at a more pivotal moment, such as Yuan Shikai’s death, or give us some more concrete details about the Warlord Era to follow? Ending it this early is actually quite awkward, since we don’t see any true resurgence of Sun Yat-sen. As one of the show’s central characters and a household name, one should expect Sun’s arc to take us at least to the point where the KMT was re-established in October 1919. As it is, the plot has him accomplishing very little since failing in the Second Revolution.

Obviously no definitive answers can be found except from the showmakers’ mouths, but my own belief is that they simply pushed it as far as they could possibly get away this.

You see, what is being omitted by the show is the global perspective. The show ends in the year 1917 when Europe is embroiled in World War I. Part of the disagreement between Li Yuanhong and Duan Qirui was actually about whether to join the war on the side of the Triple Entente. After dismantling Zhang Xun’s efforts to restore the Qing Empire, Duan Qirui took power and then got his way and China committed 140,000 laborers to the Western Front. This earned China a seat at the Treaty of Versailles, which in turn led to the May Fourth Movement, a large scale student and worker protest against the unfair treatment of China by the Allies, who transferred interests of Shandong from Germany to Japan despite China also helping to win the war.

The May Fourth Movement is a much, much bigger deal than the Manchu Restoration, and would be impossible for the show to omit if it were to make it to 1919. So is it okay to portray the movement? Well, on the one hand, it is certainly deemed part of the good and proper narrative of the people’s struggle for self-determination, and is still taught in the regular curriculum as an example of popular movements against the Beiyang government. On the other hand, as a student demonstration for democratic principles (among other things), it is a potentially sensitive topic, which if told badly could easily draw uncomfortable comparisons to protests in which the targeted regime was the People’s Republic, in particular the June Fourth Incident. For that reason, I can certainly understand why the show, which already danced on the edge of what was acceptable, chose to end it there rather than play with fire even further.

This leads to a common question posed about Towards the Republic: was this show ever banned by the CCP? Despite what is common asserted on the internet, the truth leans mostly to a soft no. The show originally saw broadcast on CCTV Channel 1, literally the most prestigious place it could have aired. There were small cuts to many sections of the show, most notably in the last episode where large chunks of Sun Yat-sen’s final speech were cut out, and then this text crawl was added:

March 12, 1925
Mr Sun Zhongshan passed away
His last words were:
“The revolution has not yet succeeded. My comrades must persevere”

Responsibility for forging the republic
Historically and inevitably fell upon
The shoulders of the Chinese Communist Party

The great and adamant Chinese Communists
In order to fulfill our ethnic dream
Conducted the Land Reform Movement
Surviving the Second Sino-Japanese War
And the War of Liberation
They finally led the Chinese people to create
A truly democratic People’s Republic

Despite the censored segments, the show was deemed very contentious for its portrayal of some historical figures. This was then the pretext given for the show never being re-aired in Mainland China, which is quite unusual for a show of its caliber, popularity, and budget (over 40 million RMB).

However, the show was never prevented from being distributed by VCD, DVD, or streaming services. It is still easily accessible in China for those seeking it out, though the domestic versions keep the same censorship ommitted from the international versions. This makes sense since as a large-scale domestic production with politically sensitive content, the show is considered heavily vetted, with every line in the script having been approved by party officials. To ban it outright would be to slap one’s own face.

What I do personally believe is that what was considered merely toeing the line twenty years ago is now strictly in the territory of crossing it. By observing the degree of censorship that takes place today, I can say with some confidence that this show could be produced in 2003 but not in 2023, and they would probably happily go back and ban it if not for the aforementioned reason, and the new attention it would immediately draw.

Indeed, there are just too many quotes in the the show that could come off as subtle pokes of the current regime, especially in the later half during the republican era. This in spite of the fact that the storytelling is already being hamstrung for that period, with a lot more ommissions and unapproachable subjects than the preceding Qing dynasty. Some of these lines would feel particularly stinging today.

It takes some nerve to call yourself emperor in a republic

Thus, I do not begrudge the show for stopping rather abruptly where it does. Rather, I consider it another signal, perhaps even a silent protest, from the showmakers for voicing their true message. Some of the boldest statements made by the show can only be found in what’s left unsaid.