December 9th Movement

The December 9th Movement (simplified Chinese: 一二•九运动; traditional Chinese: 一二•九運動) was a mass protest led by students in Beiping (present-day Beijing) on December 9, 1935 to demand that the Chinese government actively resist Japanese aggression.

After the Japanese Imperial Force occupied Manchuria following the Mukden Incident in 1931, it attempted to follow up with an invasion into northern China. Between June and July 1935, the Chin-Doihara Agreement was negotiated between Japan and the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) government as a way for the former to gain control of Chahar Province. A puppet state known as "Eastern Hebei Anti-Communist Autonomous Government" was then set up by a Yin Rugeng with Japanese help. In response to the demands by Japan to create a separate regime in Northern China, the KMT government was forced to establish the "Hebei-Chahar Political Council". The Chinese Communists, on the other hand, called for a voluntary mobilization of all Chinese people to resist Japanese aggression in a proclamation published on August 1, 1935.

On November 18, student representatives from several major universities in Beiping gathered in a meeting and secretly formed the Beiping Students Union. An election was held and Guo Mingqiu became the executive president while the communists selected Huang Jing and Yao Yilin to participate in leading the Students Union. On December 3, the Beiping Students Union decided to correspond with as many universities as possible to organize a mass petition. Three days later, 15 schools published a declaration opposing the formation of the Anti-Communist Autonomous Government of Northern China. It demanded the KMT government to arrest Yin Rugeng and also called for a national armed resistance against Japan. A 9-point political agenda was passed the same day, among which called for the KMT to immediately stop its armed campaign against the communists in the Chinese Civil War. Since December 9 was rumored to be the day that the Hebei-Chahar Political Committee was to be established, the Students Union chose that day for the petition.

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