Politics
Duan rose to power as a close ally of Yuan Shikai, but later opposed Yuan's attempt to declare himself Emperor. Duan was expecting to eventually succeed Yuan in the presidency, but his imperial gambit was seen by Duan as a betrayal. After several provinces declared independence from Yuan's government, Duan tried to play the intermediary between the rebels and Yuan, just as Yuan had done during the Xinhai Revolution. Their friendship never recovered, even after Duan was given the premiership, partially because Yuan had shrewdly stripped that office of its powers. Duan served as premier intermittently from 1913-1918, under several governments, as part of a series of shaky coalitions (which often collapsed). Yuan's attempt to establish his own dynasty had destroyed the unity of China, and many provinces had achieved de facto independence from Beijing as early as 1915.
Read more about this topic: Duan Qirui
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Of course politics is an interesting and engrossing thing. It offers no immutable laws, nearly always prevaricates, but as far as blather and sharpening the mind go, it provides inexhaustible material.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“The will to change begins in the body not in the mind
My politics is in my body, accruing and expanding with every act of resistance and each of my failures.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)