Chinese Whites | |
---|---|
Leader | Zhang Jinghui (first) Prince Chang Hsueh-liang (last) |
Founded | 1953 |
Headquarters | |
Ideology | Monarchism Chinese nationalism Enlightenment Progressive-conservatism Self-Strengthening Movement |
Political position | Center-right to far-right |
Party flag | |
The Great Northern Alliance (Chinese: 大北方聯盟, Dà běifāng liánméng; Russian: Великий Северный Альянс, Velikiy Severnyy Al'yans) also known as the Beifang Movement (Chinese: 北方運動, Běifāng yùndòng) and the Chinese Whites (Chinese: 中國白人, Zhōngguó báirén; Russian: Китайские белые, Kitayskiye belyye) was a Chinese political and military organization of monarchists, who opposed the war against Russia.
The formation came amid the Russo-Chinese conflicts, of embittered Chinese officers, and warlords who were simply too beleaguered at the constate state of war, poverty and corruption in China. They considered Yuan Shikai to be the first and real forefathers of Modern China, and regarded all Sun Yat Sen, Chiang Kai-Shek and Wang Jingwei as illegitimiate rulers, though Chiang Kai Shek was later considered part of the Chinese Whites, since he adamantly opposed the war against Russia, and had extensive help and ties to Russian generals.
Originally not affiliated with the Russians, many of its officers soon made contact with Russian Stavka, to which the latter happily obliged, where the term "Chinese White" began to resurface, akin to the Russian Whites or Finnish Whites during the Russian and Finnish Civil Wars respectively. Both the Chinese Whites and their Russian supporters came up with the idea of creating a monarchial northern state in China, which would have been named the White Han Dynasty or the Northern Han Dynasty, however this caused disagreements over who should be the Emperor. While some factions wanted a Han emperor, others wanted a Manchu emperor.
In 1954, seeing how Mongolia became an Autonomous Grand Principality, most of the the Chinese Whites eventually decided to proclaim Vladimir I as their Emperor, and as a result, the Russian Army embarked on a mission to rescue the officers of the Chinese Whites and their families, evacuating them to safe zones in Manchuria, where they were coronated as part of the Russian knyaz (or princely) classes.