Editing May Fourth Movement (section)

=== Expansion ===
On May 5, students in Beijing as a whole went on strike and in the larger cities across China, students, patriotic merchants, and workers joined protests. The demonstrators skillfully appealed to the newspapers and sent representatives to carry the word across the country.  On the morning of May 6, students from Shanghai gathered at [[Fudan University]] in response to the events in Beijing. By the evening, meetings and special committees were held at various campuses in Shanghai, and telegrams were sent to the Beijing government in the name of the 33 representatives of different campuses in Shanghai to express their protest. Over the next few days, the movement grew in size. Students in Shanghai began striking at the end of May. During this time, disagreements arose within the protesters about the intensity of the protests, but the protests as a whole were seen to be intensifying.

On June 3, police in Beijing arrested a large number of students. To express their disapproval to it, businessmen and workers in Shanghai joined the strike. The center of the movement shifted from Beijing to Shanghai. Chancellors from thirteen universities arranged for the release of student prisoners, and Cai Yuanpei, the principal of Peking University resigned in protest. Although at this point the event was defined as a multi-class protest action, overall it was still a student-led movement.

Newspapers, magazines, citizen societies, and chambers of commerce offered support for the students. Merchants threatened to withhold tax payments if China's government remained obstinate.{{sfnp|Hao|1997}} In Shanghai, a general strike of merchants and workers nearly devastated the entire Chinese economy.{{sfnp|Wasserstrom|2005}} On June 12, the general strike ended because under intense public pressure, the Beijing government dismissed [[Cao Rulin]], [[Zhang Zongxiang]] and [[Lu Zongyu]] that had been accused of being collaborators with the Japanese. Nevertheless, students continued to express their protest against the content of the Versailles Peace Treaty by organizing rallies and other events at that time, and organized the National Student Union. Finally, Chinese representatives in Paris refused to sign the Versailles Treaty: the May Fourth Movement won an initial victory which was primarily symbolic, since Japan for the moment retained control of the Shandong Peninsula and the islands in the Pacific. Even the partial success of the movement exhibited the ability of China's social classes across the country to successfully collaborate given proper motivation and leadership.{{sfnp|Wasserstrom|2005}}