Introduction China's last dynasty,the Ch'ing,showed signs of a declining vigor as early as the end of the eighteenth century.For the next one hundred ten years, the court and its political system were subjected to a qualitatively unprece- dented combination of internal and external assaults.In the face of rebel- lion and encroachment by Western imperialism,the dynasty's capacity to survive was remarkable.One price was major concessions to the desires of Western nations during the latter half of the nineteenth century.Another price was conceding greater scope to the local power of the social elite out- side the government.Meanwhile,a variety of efforts were made to reverse the unfavorable trend,notably during the 1860s and the first decade of the twentieth century.But apparent achievement bred further difficulties. The Ch'ing dynasty,the result of a seventeenth-century conquest by Manchus,who nonetheless had ruled in established Chinese patterns and with Chinese assistance,was overthrown by a republican revolution that broke out in 1911.A newly formulated nationalism was a conspicuous in- gredient in the agitation surrounding the revolution. This book is about Chinese politics in the aftermath of the 1911Revo- lution.In particular,it concerns the problems prominent in the period de- fined by the presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai,which emerged in the wake of the revolution and lasted four and one-half years.It describes and evalu- ates the strategies devised by political leaders to deal with these problems, with special attention to the policies of Yuan Shih-k'ai and their fate. By the early twentieth century,the overriding issue in Chinese politics was how to stop and turn back foreign encroachments on China's political and economic autonomy>The issue was not new but had been developing since the Opium War(1839-42).The changing strategy of China's leader- ship can be analyzed in terms of both its external and internal aspect.That