Emerging from the detritus of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), the new government of the Republic of China was internally divided as it began preparations to represent itself at the Panama Pacific International Exhibition (PPIE). At the time of the Chinese pavilion groundbreaking in October, the country was led by Provisional President Yuan Shikai, who briefly restored the monarchy by the end of the 1915, installing himself as Emperor, serving for only a few short months until his death the following year. As preparations were underway to present in San Francisco, China was already plunging in disarray following the assassination of the youthful Kuomintang President and Prime Ministerial hopeful Song Jiaoren on 22 March 1913, most likely at the behest of Yuan himself. Given the internal chaos increasingly overtaking China which would worsen after 1915, it is perhaps not surprising that Chinese self-representation was largely wrapped in the mantle of its long history of civilization while sidestepping unhappy recent memories of the inward-looking, decidedly anti-modern, Manchu rule. The longevity of China's traditions and the exquisiteness of its craftsmanship in porcelain and woodworking were on display in its national pavilions and the Palace of Fine Arts, while Chinese products were exhibited in the exposition’s themed ‘palaces,’ aimed at increasing American demand for imported Chinese goods. The other complicating factor was the Chinese community in the San Francisco Bay area, and particularly in the city's well-established Chinatown, which had much to gain or lose from the ways in which China was represented at the fair, largely because their position in America, like that of their mother country within an Asia increasingly dominated by Japan, was so precarious.