Background
Ju-ling Tsao was born on January 1, 1877 in Shanghai, China.
汝霖 曹
Ju-ling Tsao was born on January 1, 1877 in Shanghai, China.
While very young, Ju-ling Tsao passed the Imperial Examinations. He did not approve of the old system of education and therefore entered the Hupeh Railway School, where he studied mathematics and French.
After a time, he concluded that these studies would not be much value to him, so he went to Japan, where he studied politics and law, at the Central University, completing the course after five consecutive years. He graduated from the Tokyo Imperial University in 1904.
Ju-ling Tsao was a Shanghai lawyer working in Beijing when he was appointed by the provisional president, Yuan Shikai, to a vacant seat in the National Assembly's senate in 1913. He represented Outer Mongolia because Mongolia boycotted the elections after declaring independence during the Xinhai Revolution. In 1915, he took Yuan Shikai's orders and signed the infamous "Twenty-One Demands" treaty with Japan. He later became the leader of the New Communications Clique.
Ju-ling Tsao was part of the Chinese envoy attending the Paris Peace Conference. At the conference many former German concessions in China were handed to Japan instead of back to China. This caused a great deal of unrest in China resulting in a student demonstration on May 4, 1919 outside Tiananmen. This was the beginning of the May Fourth Movement. The demonstration shifted and Cao Rulin's house, at 3 Front Zhaojialou Lane in the East City District, was burned down. Ju-ling Tsao was helped to escape by his friend, Nakae Ushikichi, son of Nakae Chōmin.