Chapter XVII: Introduction (6)

The two greatest dangers to the Nationalist policy of military and economic unification were (1) the dismal condition of the Chinese proletariat, as yet small but constantly growing, and (2) the vested interests of the industrial powers. Had China's growth been less rapid, the foreigners might have withdrawn slowly and found compensation in Chinese commerce for their losses in direct ownership in China. There was one power, however, to which Chinese unification was a living and increasing threat. The rising military-economic power of the Chinese was incompatible with the position which Japanese leaders visualized as part of the manifest destiny of their country. The Japanese might have tolerated the _tuchün_ system for decades had the _tuchüns_ been able to establish orderly regional governments; or they might have aided a reactionary Chinese regime which asked for survival only. The appearance of a genuine republic in the Far East was a menace to Japan; if that republic was bound by sheer physical proportions to overshadow Japan, the unification and modernization of China had to be averted at all costs.

Nevertheless, China's development, even apart from the hindrances of war, cannot be regarded as possessing the same potentialities as did American growth during the past century. China, from all indications available to date, is an area much poorer in natural resources than is the United States; she does not offer comparable opportunities for the heavy industries. The steel, coal, oil, and water power necessary for large-scale industrialization are by no means negligible, but not sufficient to make possible the rise of another America. The far future may change man's dependence upon currently utilized resources and facilitate greater strides in China's technological advancement. Meanwhile, she can look forward to decades of measurable development through exploiting raw materials already available, if political conditions permit.

The conflict with Japan has thrown Chinese economic development back to conditions not too far from the pre-Nanking stage. China not only faces the handicaps of social dislocations but also the ruin of her factories and her industrial centers. The Japanese have destroyed much of the Chinese manufacturing equipment and are placing what remains under Japanese control. Significantly, the deadliest enemy of Japanese business--in the unlikely event of a complete Japanese success--will be Japanese-owned factories in China. Chinese labor will deeply affect Japan's domestic production, unless the Japanese succeed in rationalizing their economic system to an extent not yet contemplated. Hence, Japan's losing the war may well be brought about by bankruptcy from sheer military indebtedness; her winning the war, however, may lead to more remote but no less certain ruin--through the competition of Chinese output with Japanese home industries disadvantaged by the cheaper labor markets of China. But Japan's loss is not inevitably China's gain, and the Chinese may find themselves, at some point in the future, controlling an industrial system which has been wrecked, looted, and bankrupted.

Whatever the ultimate outcome, loans will again play a part in Chinese development. The placing of large foreign loans has been a key part of Chinese development, and the task of reconstruction in China--no matter who undertakes to do it--will require large amounts of capital. Consequently, the loan policies of the wealthier nations may return to the importance which they enjoyed in 1913, and the dictates of the Western states may again direct the lines of Chinese economic progress. The effects of the Japanese conquest, if it is partial and then lapses into a stalemate, may well be determined by the extension of loans to the Chinese or to the Japanese in China. The effect of the war has already complicated the picture of China's economic future to the extent of making even cautious prophecy hazardous.[28]

In the military sphere, the Chinese have come of age, although their fighting strength will be determined by the importance of infantry. If later wars continue to depend upon man power, China will become more and more significant in world politics. Internally, the armies provided (1) a transitional administration from the Empire to the Republic; (2) a physical expression of the ideological confusion and the regional disunity of China from 1916 to 1931 (the period of _tuchüns_); (3) the armed edge of the ideological revolution of 1926-1927; (4) decisive instruments in the conflict between the Communists and Nationalists from 1927 to 1937; and (5) one of the most powerful unifying agencies at the command of the National Government at Nanking. The Chinese military system spread the knowledge of Western warfare and, with it, of modern techniques throughout the country; it shaped the ideological and governmental experience of modern China.

NOTES

[1] See below, pp. 154 ff.

[2] Rodney Gilbert in _The China Year Book_, 1921-2, p. 519, Tientsin, 1921.

[3] _Ibid._, 1926, p. 1065.

[4] _Ibid._, p. 1062.

[5] See above, pp. 51 ff.

[6] See above, pp. 58 ff.

[7] Gilbert, _loc. cit._, 1928, pp. 1283-1285.

[8] _Ibid._, 1931, pp. 251 ff.

[9] Source confidential.

[10] John H. Jouett, "War Planes over China," _Asia_, vol. 37, pp. 827-830, 1937.

[11] See below, pp. 167 ff.

[12] _The China Year Book_, 1936, p. 427.

[13] Japanese Chamber of Commerce of New York, _The Sino-Japanese Crisis_, 1937, p. 18, New York, 1937.

[14] Walter H. Mallory, "Japan Attacks, China Resists," _Foreign Affairs_, vol. 16, pp. 135-136, 1937.

[15] Paschal M. d'Elia, S. J., _The Triple Demism of Sun Yat-sen_, pp. 252-273, Wuchang, 1931. This is one of the most useful translations of Sun Yat-sen's lectures on the _San Min Chu I_. Others are Frank Price, _San Min Chu I, The Three Principles of the People_, Shanghai, 1930; and L. S. Hsü, _Sun Yat-sen, His Political and Social Ideals_, Los Angeles, 1933.

[16] See below, pp. 167 ff. It is to be noted that the Nanking government did not secure international recognition until 1928--the year following its establishment.

[17] Among the more recent discussions of economics in Chinese history is Chi Chao-ting, _Key Areas in Chinese Economic History_, New York, 1936.

[18] See Karl August Wittfogel, _Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Chinas_, Leipzig, 1931, and the same author's outline of one of the boldest programs of Chinese studies, "A Large-Scale Investigation of China's Socio-Economic Structure," _Pacific Affairs_, vol. 11, pp. 81-94, 1938.

[19] R. H. Tawney, _Land and Labour in China_, p. 77, New York, 1932.

[20] Paul M. W. Linebarger, _Sun Yat Sen and the Chinese Republic_, pp. 67-71, New York, 1924.

[21] See Lyon Sharman, _Sun Yat-sen: His Life and Its Meaning_, New York, 1934; and Paul M. A. Linebarger, _The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen_, pp. 132-156, Baltimore, 1937, for discussion of the development of Sun's economic programs.

[22] Jefferson D. H. Lamb (Lin Tung-hai), _The Development of the Agrarian Movement and Agrarian Legislation in China_, p. 134, Shanghai, 1934.

[23] _Ibid._, p. 221.

[24] _Ibid._, p. 77.

[25] See _Pacific Affairs_ for 1934 and 1935, for articles by George Taylor and others dealing with reconstruction.

[26] Linebarger, _op. cit._ in note 21, chap. VII, "The Programs of Min Shêng," discusses these points at greater length.

[27] See P. H. B. Kent, _The Twentieth Century in the Far East_, p. 364, London, 1937, for an extract from the mandate sent by the Chinese-Manchu Emperor Ch'ien-lung to England's George III.

[28] See G. E. Hubbard, _Eastern Industrialization and Its Effect on the West_, London, 1935, for a very illuminating survey. J. E. Orchard, _Japan's Economic Position_, New York, 1930, is equally informative. Much current information will be found in _Far Eastern Survey_ (semimonthly, New York), and _Amerasia_ (monthly, New York) on economic matters. _Pacific Affairs_ (quarterly, New York) and _International Affairs_ (bimonthly, London) possess book review sections which are useful guides to the literature. The _Bulletin of Far Eastern Bibliography_ (quarterly, Washington, D. C.) is the most complete guide of its kind, but has just completed its initial volumes.

THIRD PART

GOVERNMENTS

_Chapter_ VI

THE EMPIRE

The governing of China is not and has not been confined to governments. In many instances the working of specific institutions called _governments_ has been of less importance than that of other establishments and organizations. The problems of government in Republican China are affected but not determined by the fate of individual governments. Movements and armies have predetermined action; governments have reflected it. Government in China may be divided into three chief periods. The first extends from prehistory to 221 B. C. The second is the imperial period.[1] The third--the Republican epoch--did not begin until 1912, although it was foreshadowed in the nineteenth century.

_Government to the End of the Warring States_

In the semihistoric Shang dynasty, which ruled China during the second millennium B. C., there was a central overlordship which might well have claimed primacy over all offices of the world. In its own territory, Shang rule seems to have been based not upon a feudal system such as developed later in the time of the charioteering lords but upon the reduction of defeated princes to positions of vassaldom. History cannot yet tell of the exact relations between the Shang overlord and his vassal princes, nor of other monarchs who, in the shadowy bypaths of present knowledge, stand forth vaguely from complete obscurity as rivals to the hegemony of Shang. The rulers of twenty-five or twenty-six centuries ago are recognized by modern Chinese as the direct predecessors of the Ch'ing emperor who in turn yielded to the Republic. This is no case of a Mussolini seeking to weave together the long-broken threads between Augustan and modern Rome; in China the succession is as direct as that from St. Pius I to Pius XI. The central monarchy comes over the edge of history as an identifiable institution.

In rudimentary form this monarchy already suggests the features of bureaucracy. Like the Prussian kings thousands of years later, the Shang monarchs seem to have relied upon commoners as their royal officials, and for the same reasons. A commoner strengthened the position of the monarch: "He could not easily usurp the place of his master, even if he had the power. And if he was disobedient he could be executed on the spot, with complete impunity; he had no powerful clan to exact vengeance."[2] Whether or not the system of loose overlordship be termed _feudalism_, social forms not too unlike European feudalism originated under the next dynasty, the Chou (traditionally dated 1122-256 B. C.). Conquering the great city of the Shang, the Chou turned to feudalism for means of internal control and defense. Powerful vassals arose, however, so that after the eighth century B. C. the original Chou dynasty was no longer in actual command. From the eighth to the third century B. C., when China was consolidated under the Ch'in Shih Huang Ti, a rapid spread of feudal organization brought about a state system resembling that of early modern Europe.

Before the Chou rulers lost their power and became the faraway analogues of the late Holy Roman emperors or the Tennos of shogunal Japan, there emerged from their house one of the most remarkable of all Chinese political leaders. The Duke of Chou, who lived in the eleventh century B. C., seems to have done most in founding the system which later ages called _Confucian_--after Confucius had reformed it, clarified it, and given it ethical stature. He is also regarded as the father of the Constitution of Chou, a plan for a bureaucratic monarchy with an emperor, three Great Dukes, and six ministers (in charge of administrative, educational and economic, religious and historiographic, military, judicial, and engineering matters, respectively) ruling over nine large provinces.[3] The Duke of Chou is finally credited with the authorship of several important treatises. He has served as the archetype of intellectual statesmanship in Chinese legend. His work may have contributed in great part to the long life of the Chou dynasty, as a _de jure_ ruling house, since a family which had produced such an eminent member was not to be set aside lightly.

In the earlier part of this period the feudal order seems to have ensured relative stability, but in the later part a system of states arose. The greatest Chinese philosophers, Confucius (Kung Fu-tz[)u]) and Lao Tz[)u], lived in interstate turmoil. They saw all about them the displacement of virtues which had long been recognized, the advance of states which substituted greed for morality, the centralization of power, the destruction of the feudal economy, the transformation of ceremonial warfare into outright slaughter, and the rising disrespect of the advancing kings for the Chou overlord. Lao Tz[)u] preached a philosophy devoid of constructive politics; he had little use for the state and for the organization of society. Not quite an anarchist, his programs are probably closer to those of Herbert Spencer than of any other Western thinker. But the spiritual and psychological background from which he wrote is roughly identical with that of the world's great mystical intuitionists. Confucius (551-479 B. C.) preached a system of ethics and education which was to rationalize and systematize preceding Chinese thought and lead to the system of ideological control known as Confucian.

Chinese historians themselves term the closing period of the Chou the Age of Warring States. Diplomacy lubricated the machinery of conflict, smoothing struggle without eliminating it. The regional governments fought each other for centuries, though at times venturing into collective security pacts entrusting authority to a preeminent king for defense against the outer barbarians. The last years of interstate wars, however, were marked by an ever increasing awareness of the meaningless character of a struggle which had enveloped the Chinese world. Legalism and militarism, twin media of centralized monarchy, blossomed forth. While the Western political system, molded by geography and conditioned by language, has frozen into a pattern of theoretically sovereign and theoretically eternal states--the "mortal Gods" of Hobbes's imagination--without promise of workable universal government, China's states were swept aside by the conqueror Ch'in Shih Huang Ti, who established imperial unity for Chinese government. With the rise to domination of the state of Ch'in, its king took the title of _Shih_ (First) _Huang Ti_ (Emperor), and the Chinese Empire was established.

_The Chinese Imperial Government_

The Shih Huang Ti was not revered by succeeding ages for the great mission which he performed. His methods were those not of a cautious reformer but of a bullying conqueror. With the aid and advice of a legalist philosopher, he organized all of China (covering the area of much of modern China) into a strongly centralized and despotic military monarchy. He destroyed all books not of obvious practical use, completely eradicating the histories of rival states and the works of philosophers whose opinions might undermine his regime. His tyranny brought his house to a rapid end; his heirs held the throne only a short while. But the work he had done was done. He had persecuted the worship of the past. He had extirpated a large part of the literature which might have survived as a source of dissent. He had cleared China of all military power but his own. He had brought operative law into being and had spread the institution of private ownership of land. Feudalism might remain as a form, but its economic and political realities were lost.

In 206 B. C. there began the reign of the Han dynasty. They effected a compromise between the past and the governmental, military, and political system created by the Shih Huang Ti. They retained legalism in practice but turned more and more to Confucianism. Under them the cult of Confucius grew into the major influence on the state.[4] The Han allowed the imperial system to grow, whereas the Shih Huang Ti had sought to build it. In consequence, Han rule--although interrupted in the time of Christ by a Utopian usurper--lasted from the third century B. C. to the third century A. D. There followed the turbulent Chinese middle ages, extending until the reinstitution of organized government with the Chin and the Sui.[5]

Out of the earliest tradition attributed to the Duke of Chou and put in definite shape by Confucius, out of the arbitrary military despotism of the conqueror of the Chinese world, Shih Huang Ti, and out of the actual practices of the Han, there evolved a governmental system which, though altered dynasty by dynasty and epoch by epoch, nevertheless retained its general form down into the days of men now living. It never became, however, the prime agency of government, even of the men governing. Ritual and scholarship were more significant functions of the dominant hierarchy than was administration itself. The emperor was the head of the country's family structure, the focal point in the social sphere, the outstanding member of the community at large, the chief examiner and model of the scholars, the pontiff of the quasi-religious hierarchy, the moral scapegoat and intermediary between destiny and mankind, and the autocrat of a despotism constitutionalized, as it were, by the power of traditional practices.

The imperial system of China was thus a monarchy in the proper sense of the word, with none of the parvenu features suggested by the etymology of the word _imperial_. As the preeminent leader in an organic society, the emperor held a position comparable with that of other family heads. His authority could rival that of a father but not excel it; among all the families of the Chinese Empire the imperial stood forth as a family. Second, the emperor was the chief dignitary in the social life of the Chinese world. He was not unlike the British monarchs, providing a model of formal propriety and elegance in setting the fashions of the decade. The physical isolation of most of the emperors prevented them from playing this role with widespread effectiveness, but it was a part of their function. Third, the emperor bore the relation to the Empire which the outstanding villager bore to the village. It was he of whom men talked; his behavior commanded greatest interest; his future conduct was a constant source of speculation. Apart from his role as a formal dignitary, he occupied the more immediate position of most conspicuous person, of the first member of society. He had the human accountability of a leader and was to be praised or blamed for his actions in the histories and by his subjects. In the normal routine, the emperor himself was not to govern; but he selected and supervised his ministers, who did and who consequently bore the odium for evil deeds.

Fourth, the emperor himself was the ultimate examiner of scholars. He thus had contact with the most successful of the civil service candidates and completed their examination. These examinations served the emperor as a means of selecting advisers who upon further testing became ministers. The Forest of Pencils (_Han Lin_, the Imperial Academy) was within his jurisdiction, and the emperor was supposed to be enough of a scholar to check the most important of the documents of state. The myth of intellectual supremacy is suggested by the fact that the chief implement of the imperial office was a red pencil. The imperial symbolism did not stop here. Fifth, the quasi-religious hierarchy of the Chinese, competing with Buddhism and the superstitions of popular Taoism for the support of the people, centered on the performance of certain rites in the propitiation of fortune and the honoring of the dead. To this were added the cult rituals of Confucianism. The Confucian temples, with tablets bearing the names of worthies, served as the visible demonstration of the ideological power wielded by the scholars over the populace, and of the emperor over the scholars.

Sixth, the emperor had the more definitely religious status referred to in his title _Son of Heaven_. He was the intermediate figure between the will of Heaven and mankind. In him were summarized and epitomized the virtues or the evils of the generation; he had to represent mankind in its best light to all supernatural forces or agencies. Upon his conduct of worship depended the good or ill will of the deities and hence weather, crops, life and death. Conversely, he was responsible to mankind for the misbehavior of nature, and an earthquake, a two-headed calf, or any other monstrous occurrence was blamed on his disturbance of the routine of things. The order which enveloped the Confucian society was conceived not merely as a set of traditional and moral man-made customs but as a type of behavior which fitted in with the life of the natural world. In the eyes of the Chinese, perturbations in the world of men soon produced consequent natural calamities. Lastly, the Chinese emperor was the autocrat of the administration. His action, however, was limited by various customary devices; for example, while the countersignature of a minister was not needed on an edict, the emperor was supposed not to take the initiative but to secure the wisest suggestions and adopt them. Practical considerations rendered a stable bureaucracy impervious to constant intermeddling of the emperor, although the effect of imperial action was not negligible.

The administrative outline of Chinese government from the establishment of the Empire by the Ch'in Shih Huang Ti in 221 B. C. to its overthrow by Sun Yat-sen and his followers in 1911 varied from dynasty to dynasty and ruler to ruler. Nevertheless, certain general characteristics were common to the whole period. The government operated as the chief implementation of the emperor's power over the people. The people maintained its social organizations, but none of these developed office hierarchies comparable to that of the government. The government alone served as the connecting link between the ideologically unified Chinese world as a whole and its many separate parts. The T'ang dynasty (A. D. 620-906) provided an exceptionally clear articulation of the Empire, which not only compelled the admiration and imitation of later ages but even served as a model for state governments on the periphery of the Chinese world. In the great Taikwa Reforms of 645, the Japanese made a heroic attempt to adapt the T'ang form of government to dissimilar conditions; the scheme worked on paper but failed to recast the fundamental mold of Japanese society, which remained feudal.

The three most striking features of the Chinese bureaucracy were: (1) the central administrative organization; (2) the operation of civil service examinations and the use of administrative supervision; (3) the integration of government operation on the imperial, regional, and local levels. The metropolitan administrative organization under the T'ang dynasty was headed by the emperor. But the intricate regularity of the hierarchy beneath him was such as to preclude imperial autocratic caprice. The outline of the hierarchical organization was as follows:[6]

THE THRONE

THE GRAND COUNCIL

The Departments:

_a._ Department of Ministerial Coordination
1. Ministry of Administrators
2. Ministry of Finance
3. Ministry of Rites
4. Ministry of War
5. Ministry of Justice
6. Ministry of Public Works
_b._ The Imperial Chancery
_c._ The Grand Secretariat

The Tribunal of Censors

Imperial Commissioners

Provinces (10) and _Governments-General_ (at the frontiers)
Prefectures
Subprefectures
Townships
Villages

The general structure of Chinese administration differed little from that of preceding ages, and has not changed markedly during the following centuries. Later developments strengthened the provinces, at the expense of both the central government and the local areas; earlier conditions had tolerated a much greater extent of feudal establishments. Nevertheless, the six ministries may have been established as early as about 1000 B. C., and remained a feature of Chinese government until 1906.

The Grand Council met daily. It was composed of grand ministers, who--in the phrase of Baron des Rotours--"under the T'ang held in their hands the government of the Empire."[7] The emperor's chief power lay in appointing the council members, to whom fell the greater share of governing in fact. Directly under the Grand Council there were the three departments. The Department of Ministerial Coordination served as an administrative center and clearinghouse for the work of the separate ministries under it. The names of the ministries are self-explanatory. The Ministry of Administrators was in charge of the examination system and the arrangement of the offices in the bureaucracy. The Ministry of Rites, by an extension of its protocol features, was in charge of the reception of foreign ("barbarian") princes and ambassadors, and emissaries. The other two departments provided one of the most ingenious systems of checks and balances to be found in any constitutional scheme. The Imperial Chancery received all communications from the various parts of the Empire. Since most of the governing was carried out by means of written orders, instructions, and requests for reports, the Chancery occupied an important place. But the function of drafting replies to such communications, preparing manifestoes, or issuing ordinances was in the hands of the Grand Secretariat. Thus the Chancery was prevented from exerting an outside influence, while it was impossible for the Secretariat to receive any communication directly. As a final check, all outgoing documents of state had to pass through the Chancery to receive the official seal, without which they were invalid. Thus any item of government business was routed first through the Chancery for registration and classification, then to the Secretariat for reply, and back to the Chancery for what amounted to countersignature (by seal).[8] Yet the Secretariat was no mere drafting agency for the Chancery.

The Tribunal of Censors occupied a position not unlike that of the great independent establishments of the United States government. It was directed by a president and two vice-presidents, and concerned itself with ferreting out and exposing irregularities and abuses in the administration. The morale of the censorate varied from time to time, but at its optimum efficiency it was a formidable and significant institution. Han Confucianism provided the general background from which the organization rose to effectiveness.

This sophisticated and rationally designed central bureaucracy was supplemented by regional administrations. Under the T'ang the regional establishments were a source of trouble to the government. The Empire was divided into provinces, but the provincial administrations were superseded by Imperial Commissioners whenever an emergency arose. Later dynasties placed the provincial system on a more stable basis, which resulted in genuine and geographically sound regionalism. The provincial governments were replicas in miniature of the central; their heads might be regarded as appointive and removable satraps whose authority was a smaller reproduction of the power of the emperor. It was not until the Ming dynasty (A. D. 1368-1643) that the provinces took on their modern form. The provincial governments were a source of great strength to China in that they made possible a quasi-federal government. In the Ch'ing period no officer was eligible to a post in his native province;[9] this custom had considerable centripetal effect and offset the danger that populace and officials, united by common sympathies, might revolt or secede.[10]

Another feature to be noted about the Chinese government under the Empire was the examination and civil service system. The T'ang dynasty provided for three major types of examination: (1) The _chü_ corresponded most closely to a modern academic degree, and allowed the candidate to qualify in any one of a number of subjects, including the classics, law, and mathematics. (2) The _hsüan_ was the special examination necessary for appointment to a post in the bureaucracy; it was both written and oral and included the personal history of the candidate. (3) The _k'ao_, an in-service examination, consisted of annual reports on the performance of all officers in the Empire. They were transmitted to the Bureau for Examination of Merits in the Ministry of Administrators on a schedule varying with the distance of the office from the capital. There were five points on which to report: virtue and justice; integrity and circumspection; equity and impartiality; diligence and activity; and one of twenty-seven special talents suitable to the particular office in question. The grades received on these reports determined the advancement or demotion of the officer, in accordance with an elaborate and exact schedule.[11] All three examinations provided the administrative form for the close relation between the government and the scholastic elite. The _chü_, with its emphasis on the classics, framed the content of all curriculums. The _hsüan_, with its oral examination and personal record, made the prospective candidate careful in observing the customs. The _k'ao_ kept up the morale and efficiency of the bureaucracy, while the ominous Tribunal of Censors was present to guard against abuse of the system. Every detail was precise, well ordered, explicit, to a degree that would delight present-day industrial personnel managers. Formulation was refined and impressive. In fact the T'ang laws, although their part in Chinese life was less than a Westerner might expect, were a code of such force and appeal that the Japanese and the Annamese used them as a model for their juridical systems.[12]

The decline of particular dynasties in China--caused by poor economic policy, demoralization of the court, corruption of the bureaucracy, laxity in the examinations, oppression of the farmers--did not effect great alterations in the structure of government. With the centuries the Chinese government settled into more and more definitive form. Unfortunately, the Manchu government (1644-1911)[13] had sunk into administrative demoralization when the full force of the Western impact was felt. In the early nineteenth century a British observer wrote of an imperial official:

The late _tungling_ [gendarmerie commander] Wanking, degraded last
year for connecting himself with a magician whose confessions went to
implicate a large number of nobles and public servants, was a Reader
at the Classical Feasts, Manchu President of the Board of Civil
Office, Revisor-General of the Veritable Records of the Reign, a
Superior of the Academy, Supervisor of the Household, t'utung of a
Banner [military division], superintendent of the Gymnasium in the
Ning-shan Palace, and of the Treasuries of the Board of Revenue, and
Visitor of the 17 Granaries in the City, and at Tungchau.[14]

When such conditions of indifference toward sharply defined hierarchic ethics began to be common among the bureaucracy, the end of the dynasty was near. The Chinese Empire had remained intact even when it had fallen into the hands of Tartars, Mongols, and Manchus. It had returned to the bases of its former greatness, and the administrative machinery created since the day of the Shih Huang Ti continued for twenty centuries. With the decrepitude of the Manchu dynasty, and the simultaneous collision with the Western world, the old political system broke and had to be reshaped into new forms. Nevertheless, even in the Republican era techniques of the T'ang have reappeared in the administration of government services.

Underneath all shifts there remained a series of social groupings which were affected far less than were the broad and conspicuous central regimes. They have existed since the times before organized government, and may well be sufficiently strong to set the conditions under which any government or any race of rulers will succeed or fail in China.

_Family, Village, and Hui_

The ideological control in old China operated through those groups most closely attached to the individual. The government was not one of them. The fundamental strength of Chinese society rests upon the cohesion and power of three outstanding quasi-political agencies: the family system, the village and district, and the _hui_ (associations, leagues, societies or guilds.)[15] The family was an intricate structure, "composed of a plurality of kin alignments into four families: the natural family, the economic family, the religious family, and the sib."[16] The natural family corresponded to the family of the West. The economic family commonly extended through several degrees of kinship, and may have included from thirty to one hundred individuals, who formed a single economic unit, living collectively. The religious family was an aggregate of economic families; it would be difficult to give any specified number of constituent families as an average. This unit provided the organization for the proper commemoration and reverence of ancestors and maintained an ancestral shrine where the genealogical records were kept; the cult feature has largely disappeared in modern times. The sib resembled the clan as found in the West; its role was determined by the immediate environment. In some cases, especially in the South, the sib was powerful enough to engage in feuds; at times one or more sibs dominated whole communities. In the greater part of China it was a loose organization, holding meetings from time to time to unite the various local religious families which constituted it.

Family consciousness played its part in sustaining certain elements of the Confucian ideology. It stressed the idea of the carnal immortality of the human race. It oriented the individual not only philosophically but socially as well. The size of each family determined his position spatially, and family continuity fixed a definite location in time for him. With its many-handed grasp upon the individual, the family system held him securely in place and prevented his aspiring to the arrogant heights of nobility or falling into the degradation of a slavery in which he might become a mere commodity. A Chinese surrounded by his kinsmen was shielded against humiliations inflicted upon him by outsiders and against the menace of his own potential follies. It was largely through the family system, with its religious as well as economic and social foundation, that the Chinese counteracted undesirable mobility of individuals in a society stable as a whole. Stability thus obtained a clear and undeniable purpose--the continued generation of the human race through the continuity of innumerable families, each determined upon survival. A materialistic interpretation would point out the need for cheap and plentiful human labor in maintaining the agrarian economy of China, and reduce the rationale of the system to a mere web of justifications.

The family was equaled if not excelled in importance by the village.[17] Had the family been the only vital social grouping, it might have been impossible for democratic processes to develop in China. The family pattern provided, indeed, the model for the government, but the influence of villages in Chinese life mitigated the familistic tendencies of government. It would have been heresy to revolt against an unrighteous father; but there was nothing to prevent the deposition of an evil village elder. In times of contentment, the emperor was the father of the society; at other times he might be looked upon as a fellow villager subject to the criticism of the people. The village was the largest working unit of local self-government; it, and the groups within it, such as the sib, was almost completely autonomous and subject to outside interference only in very rare cases. At the same time, the village was the smallest unit of district organization. The District Magistrate, as the government officer in charge of a district containing from one to twenty villages, relied on the village leaders in performing the duties imposed upon him. Village government was at times very democratic.[18]

Next in importance was the _hui_. It was in all probability the last to appear. Neither ordained, as the family seemed to be, by the eternal physical and biological order of things, nor made to seem natural, as was the village, by the geographic and economic environment, this association emerged from the Chinese propensity toward cooperation. Paralleling and supplementing family and village, the _hui_ won for itself an unchallenged place in the Chinese social structure. The _hui_ may be classified into six categories[19]: (1) fraternal societies; (2) insurance groups; (3) economic guilds; (4) religious societies; (5) political societies; and (6) militia and vigilante organizations. The _hui_ made up the greater part of the economic organization of old China, and offered vocational education to men not destined for literature and administration. Under such names as the Triad and the Lotus the _hui_ provided the party organizations of old China and challenged the dynasties whenever resentment was ripe.

The old Chinese society, made up of innumerable families, villages, and _hui_, comprised the whole "known world." Its strength was inexhaustible. Having no one nerve center, the world society could not be destroyed by the inroads of barbarians or the ravages of famine, pestilence, and insurrection. The Confucian ideology continued. At no one time were conditions so bad as to break the many threads of Chinese culture and to release a new generation from tradition. Throughout the centuries education and government continued side by side, even though dynasties fell and the country was overrun by conquerors. The absence of any rigid organization of legal authority facilitated survival, while a certain minimum of order could be maintained even in the absence of an emperor or, as more commonly occurred, in the presence of several.

The governmental superstructure kept the Chinese world together in a formal manner; it did not give it vitality. The family, the village, and the _hui_ were fit subjects for imperial attention, but the emperor could not remove his sanction from their existence and thereby annihilate them. No precarious legal personality was attributed to the family, the village, and the _hui_, which could be extirpated by a mere edict. It was possible for the English kings to destroy the Highland clan of the MacGregor--"the proscribed name"--without liquidating the members of the clan _in toto_. In China the emperor could wipe out a family by massacre, but it was practically impossible for him to destroy an organization without destroying all its members. On the whole, however, the government of China pursued its three main ends--the maintenance of the ideology (education), the defense of the realm against barbarians (military affairs) and against adverse forces of nature (public works), and the collection of funds for the fulfilment of these functions (revenue).

_Governmental Changes Foreshadowing the Republic_

The pressure of the West compelled the Chinese government to define more clearly than ever before its own boundaries, its relations with the vassal states, and its lines of contact with the Chinese people. By the Treaty of Nerchinsk, negotiated in 1689 with Russia, the Chinese tried to demarcate their land frontier. The vassal nations presented a crucial problem. The Chinese failed to make explicit their quasi suzerainty in terms comprehensible to Western jurisprudence. At the same time they followed a policy of brisk exaggeration of territorial rights alternating with outright disclaimer of responsibility. The scope of government itself was affected by new functions which arose with the coming of the Westerners. The tax system was expanded. The development of an imperial customs service with Western personnel and Western methods of accounting provided the government with a source of large revenue. The demands that Western states be given adequate consideration in the transaction of business led to the establishment in 1860 of the Foreign Office (_Tsung-li Yamên_), a new institution which modified the traditional administrative pattern.

In addition, the Western states introduced their own type of government into China through the demand that their citizens be subject only to the law with which they were familiar at home. In dealing with Westerners the Chinese had at first employed a code far more Draconic than the provisions of Chinese penal practice. After many years of irritation the Western powers, under the leadership of Great Britain, secured extraterritorial privileges for their citizens. Extraterritoriality placed Westerners in China solely under the jurisdiction of their respective national representatives. If an American today were to shoot down the Dalai Lama in Tibet, he could be tried legally only in the United States Court in Shanghai--although it is improbable that the Tibetans would insist upon juridical niceties. Apart from the guarantee of personal immunity from Chinese law for their citizens, wherever they might be in China, the Western powers, through a long series of special arrangements and actual usage, obtained certain footholds on Chinese soil where even Chinese were under Western rule. These areas were known as _concessions_ and _settlements_, and the cities of their location as the _treaty ports_. Both the presence of Westerners subject only to Western law throughout the Empire, and of areas where Western governance was paramount, taught the Chinese the lesson of strong government.

Nor was this all. The British-Chinese treaty of Nanking (1842) and that with the United States (1844) both contained provisions relating to the protection of the life and property of foreigners. The imperial government found itself pledged to the fulfillment of a policy which collided directly with the xenophobia engendered by ideological control. The enforcement of these provisions, half-hearted as it was, involved constantly increasing imperial intervention in regional affairs, although the issues arising between the central government and the provincial authorities were settled through negotiation rather than enforceable commands.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century the gradual transformation in China gave rise to a reform movement carried forward by a group of constitutional monarchists. One of their leaders, K'ang Yu-wei, became in 1898 the tutor of the young Emperor Kuang Hsü. The summer of that year witnessed a steady stream of edicts which ultimately might have made China under the leadership of the throne as progressive as Japan. The reforms aimed primarily at efficiency and modernization, and partially at the parliamentarization of the regime. The young Emperor, however, was soon checked by Yüan Shih-k'ai, his leading military adviser, and outmaneuvered by the reactionary Empress Dowager. He spent the rest of his life in actual imprisonment, and the Six Geniuses--as the reformers behind his policy were called--were exiled or executed. One of those who were put to death was the poet Tan Shih-tung, a man of great skill in the classical literature and of ambitious visions for the future, who might, had the Hundred Days succeeded, have lived to be a guardian of the throne in a modern Chinese Empire. Just before his execution he wrote the following poem, calling forth the memory of Chiang-ch'ing and Tou-keng, upright men of the past, and comparing his faith with the mountain range of Kuang-lêng:

LAST SONG FROM PRISON

_Prison door facing me--thoughts of Chiang-ch'ing--
I could die easily, if like Tou-keng ...
Laughing and alone, I lift the knife to heaven:
I die but leave behind hopes higher than Kuang-lêng!_[20]

Reform, indeed, could not be downed. The Manchu dynasty itself began to tread cautiously in the footsteps of Japan. In 1905 an agency was set up for the purpose of studying various foreign forms of government and of making recommendations for the modernization of the imperial government. In 1908 a draft constitution, very similar to the constitution of the Japanese Empire, was approved. A nine-year program, from 1908 to 1916 inclusive, was to lead to constitutional, parliamentary monarchy--if parliamentary monarchy be regarded merely as a monarchy with a parliament appended. The principle of cabinet responsibility to parliament was not established, and from the very beginning the Manchus, less wise than the ruling house in Japan, not only failed to grant sufficient powers on paper but began packing the quasi-parliamentary institutions before they were set up. Hand-picked, the preliminary National Assembly which met in 1909 began wrangling with the Throne.[21] The old Empress Dowager had died in the preceding year; so had the imprisoned Emperor Kuang Hsü. The new Emperor was an infant, and the court was little more than a gathering of bewildered Manchu princes listening to the advice of the eunuchs and palace officials.[22] Reform from above, had there been a single man of will and courage to take charge of it, might have had considerable chances of success. But while the Manchus tinkered with the superstructure of government, the foundations of society were washing away beneath their feet. More was involved than the improvement of administrative technique and the illusion of popular representation. A political and social revolution was in the making. Sun Yat-sen was the man who, more than any other single person, shaped its course.

In 1893 Sun had gone north to advocate reform and present a petition to Li Hung-chang, an eminent imperial statesman.[23] The mission failed. In 1897 Sun was willing to speak openly of revolution. He refrained, however, from advocating a republic before Western audiences, even though his party was committed to it. He wrote in his book _Kidnapped in London_:

The prime essence of the movement was the establishment of a form of
constitutional government to supplement the old-fashioned, corrupt,
and worn-out system under which China is groaning.

It is unnecessary to enter into details as to what form of rule
obtains in China at present. It may be summed up, however, in a few
words. The people have no say whatever in the management of Imperial,
National, or even Municipal affairs. The mandarins, or local
magistrates, have full power of adjudication, from which there is no
appeal. Their word is law, and they have full scope to practice their
machinations with irresponsibility, and every officer may fatten
himself with impunity. Extortion by officials is an institution; it is
the condition on which they take office; and it is only when the
bleeder is a bungler that the government steps in with pretended
benevolence to ameliorate but more often to complete the depletion....

This official thief, with his mind warped by his mode of life, is the
ultimate authority in all matters of social, political, and criminal
life....[24]

In 1905 Sun Yat-sen lashed out at the monarchical reformers, subjecting their motives to vigorous criticism:

Since the Boxer war many have been led to believe that the Tartar
[Manchu or Ch'ing government] is beginning to see the sign of time and
to reform itself for the betterment of the country, just from the
occasional ... edicts ... not knowing that they are mere dead letters
made for the express purpose of pacifying popular agitations. It is
absolutely impossible for the Manchus to reform the country because
reformation means detriment to them. By reformation they would be
absorbed by the Chinese people and would lose the special rights and
privileges which they are enjoying. The still darker side of the
government can be seen when the ignorance and corruptness of the
official class are brought to light. These fossilized, rotten,
good-for-nothing officials know only how to flatter and bribe the
Manchus, whereby their position may be strengthened to carry on the
trade of squeezing [graft].[25]

He also insisted that China's difficulties could be solved only by the establishment of a republic, which he envisaged with great optimism:

A new, enlightened and progressive government must be substituted in
place of the old one; in such a case China would not only be able to
support herself but would also relieve the other countries of the
trouble of maintaining her independence and integrity. There are many
highly educated and able men among the people who would be competent
to take up the task of forming a new government, and carefully
thought-out plans have long been drawn up for the transformation of
this ... Tartar monarchy into a Republic of China. The ... masses of
the people are also ready to accept the new order of things and are
longing for a change for better to uplift them from their ...
deplorable condition of life. China is now on the eve of a great
national movement, for just a spark of light would set the whole
political forest on fire to drive out the Tartar from our land. Our
task is indeed great but it will not be an impossible one....[26]

Sun's diagnosis of the situation was remarkably correct; he clearly sensed the coming Republic whose first president he was to become seven years later. The ideological revolution was already under way, and the Empire about to dissolve into the past. What neither Sun nor anyone else realized was that ahead of China there lay government problems more serious than misrule. The ideological shift had terminated the reality of the old regime, and the military conditions were favorable; but would men be ready to invest their faith durably in a new order?

NOTES

[1] See above, pp. 17 ff., 83 ff.

[2] Herrlee G. Creel, _The Birth of China_, p. 138, London, 1936.

[3] Leon Wieger, S. J., _La Chine à travers les âges: hommes et choses_, pp. 22-25, Hsien-hsien, 1920. This is among the most useful handbooks of Chinese history and bibliography. It is written on a popular level and designed for the rapid and easy information of Catholic missionaries in China. H. F. MacNair, _Modern Chinese History, Selected Readings_, Shanghai, 1923, will be found entertaining as well as highly informative.

[4] See John K. Shryock, _The Origin and Development of the State Cult of Confucius_, New York, 1932, for a description of the rise of Confucianism.

[5] For a list of the Chinese dynasties see below, p. 197.

[6] T'ang government is outlined on the basis of Baron Robert des Rotours, _Le Traité des examens_, Paris, 1932, a lucid and detailed translation of a section of the T'ang dynastic history dealing with the civil service. The book includes a valuable account of the organization of T'ang government and may well be cited as a model of Sinological achievement. The rendering _Department of Ministerial Coordination_ was suggested by the usage of Professor C. S. Gardner, Harvard-Yenching Institute.

[7] Rotours, _op. cit._, p. 10. See also _ibid._, p. 3.

[8] Cf. Hans Wist, _Das Chinesische Zensorat_, Hamburg, 1932.

[9] For a Western parallel see Fritz Morstein Marx, _Civil Service in Germany_, in: _Civil Service Abroad_, p. 181 _n._ 31, New York and London, 1935.

[10] For further detail on local home rule see below, pp. 177 ff.

[11] Rotours, _op. cit._, pp. 26-55, "Les examens sous la dynastie des T'ang."

[12] Jean Escarra, _Le droit chinois_, p. 97, Peiping and Paris, 1936. This is the outstanding work on Chinese law, by a French scholar long in the service of Chinese governments. The exhaustive bibliography of Escarra may be supplemented by Cyrus H. Peake, "Recent Studies in Chinese Law," _Political Science Quarterly_, vol. 52, pp. 117-138, 1937.

[13] P. C. Hsieh, _The Chinese Government_, 1644-1911, Baltimore, 1925; William F. Mayers, _The Chinese Government_, Shanghai, 1897.

[14] T. F. Wade, "The Army of the Chinese Empire," _The Chinese Repository_ (Canton), vol. 20, p. 300 n., 1851.

[15] The following discussion has been taken from the author's _The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen_, pp. 38-43, Baltimore, 1937.

[16] D. H. Kulp, _Family Life in South China_, p. xxiv, New York, 1925.

[17] See H. G. Creel, _Sinism_, Chicago, 1929.

[18] See Arthur H. Smith, _Village Life in China_, p. 228, New York, 1899.

[19] See J. S. Burgess, _The Guilds of Peking_, New York, 1928. The present classification is a modification of that of Burgess.

[20] Translation by the present author.

[21] See Hsieh, _op. cit_., in note 13; Meribeth E. Cameron, _The Reform Movement in China_, 1898-1912, Stanford, 1931; Harold M. Vinacke, _Modern Constitutional Development in China_, Princeton, 1920.

[22] Reginald Johnston, _Twilight in the Forbidden City_, London, 1934, presents an interesting narrative of court life before and after the revolution of 1911-1912.

[23] Lyon Sharman, _Sun Yat-sen: His Life and Its Meaning_, pp. 30-32, New York, 1934.

[24] Sun Yat-sen, _Kidnapped in London_, pp. 13-15, Bristol and London, 1897. This is a most engrossing work, whether considered as a political revelation, a personal narrative, or a story of adventure.

[25] Sun Yat-sen (Hu Han-min, editor), _Tsung-li Ch'üan-chi (The Complete Works of the Leader)_, vol. IV, p. 357, Shanghai, 1930; from "The True Solution to the Chinese Question," pp. 347-368, an article written by Sun himself in English.

[26] _Ibid._, p. 366.

_Chapter_ VII

THE REVOLUTION

On October 9, 1911, a follower of Sun Yat-sen, one of the heroic and desperate "Dare-to-dies" who had harassed the imperial government for years, was working over a bomb in the Russian concession in the upriver port of Hankow. The bomb exploded accidentally; the secret storage of munitions was discovered; the next day, in the ensuing turmoil, the Republic of China was born. Double Ten Day (October 10, 1911) has since been celebrated as the Chinese Fourth of July. When the imperial officials sought to suppress the insurrection, they uncovered a conspiracy in the ranks of their own troops; in self-protection the troops revolted. In the next two months the Manchu Empire crumbled away. Sun Yat-sen, who was in Chicago at the time of the outbreak,[1] could trust his organization. Sure that destiny was working with him, he took his leisure in returning to China and stopped in London to forestall financial aid to the collapsing Empire.

_The Presidency of Sun Yat-sen and the Republican Revolution_

The fall of the Empire was not the result of a great mass movement agitating the whole population; it developed from the revolutionary nucleus which Sun and his followers had built up to secure power. They had hammered away at the imperial regime by instigating mutiny and terror for many years, since they realized that the incompetence of the government was matched only by its impotence. The revolution itself was a chain of rebellions, occurring province by province under the leadership of revolutionaries or officials joining the revolution. Except for the massacre of Manchus in some of the cities, it was a nearly bloodless revolution. However, the various groups pushed in different directions, and different men tried to seize power. The constitutional monarchists compelled the throne to issue a very liberal constitution, which might be accepted by the populace in place of the Republican programs. Military men began to come to the fore, as the army units alone were in a position of unchallengeable power. Men who had no thought of revolution might join it in time to become leaders of the revolutionary-military juntas. Li Yüan-hung, an officer of the Empire, hid under his bed when revolutionary soldiers sought him out; given the choice between death and adherence to the revolutionaries, he sided with the new powers, and in a short while became the commanding officer of the revolutionary forces in the Wu-han cities. Similar instances were not uncommon.