Chapter XIX: Introduction (8)

The last test for the sources of Nanking's power may be found in considering the relation between the men in command and the authority which placed them there. The supreme organ of the party was the Party Congress. This body did determine the course of government policy frequently, and on such occasions clarified issues through action. The Congress elected the Central Executive Committee and the Central Supervisory Committee of the Kuomintang. The entire membership of the Congress would vote in the elections, any of the members being eligible. Since the Congress was composed of representatives from the various regional and functional divisions of the party, intraparty democracy was insured in theory and--though to a lesser extent--in practice. The two top committees elected smaller Standing Committees; the Central Executive Committee in addition elected the Central Political Council, which was the highest organ of government in China and the agency through which the party controlled the government. The Central Political Council did not seek to keep track of the detail of government; it outlined governmental policy, appointed major officials, and directed rather than supervised administration. It was a policy-making body in the strictest sense, and its action took effect upon the Council of State, which coordinated the government establishments.[2]

Had there been a schism between the Nanking government and the Kuomintang, it might have been possible to trace a political issue as it was fought out--all the way from the party membership up through the Party Congress and the Central Executive Committee, from party to government by action of the Central Political Council, and down through the Council of State and the subordinated government organs to the administrative network operating upon the broad masses of the populace. In fact, however, no issue saw the light, since the same group that dominated the party controlled the government. The relation between the leaders and the Party Congresses can perhaps best be compared with that between the leading personalities of a Republican or Democratic convention in the United States and the convention delegates. Convention action rarely transfers power or upsets leadership, nor do constructive plans or formulated policies emerge from convention sessions; and yet the conventions cannot be regarded merely as tools in the hands of the party leadership. A similar situation existed in China. Even when Chiang and the other leaders seemed to hold the bag, the meetings of the Party Congress did not lack importance, and the issues before the Congress were not considered predetermined. This was no personal regime in the Napoleonic sense. Party dictatorship expressed itself in defined forms, as a part of Sun Yat-sen's state philosophy. Benevolent oligarchy of patriotic modernists, acting with party sanction obtained through intraparty democratic processes, was not foreign to Sun's mind. The Nanking government further differed from fascist governments, and resembled the Russian, in that it was democratic in intent; its dictatorial character was avowedly temporary. Throughout the period during which the Kuomintang ruled from Nanking, democracy was regarded as a definite goal of governmental policy. The Japanese invasions culminating in open war made impossible the immediate abrogation of Kuomintang party dictatorship. Yet when war broke out in 1937, the National Government was on the verge of reconstituting itself as a democracy; but now the regime itself became itinerant, moving into the hinterland.

The Nanking government was organized under Kuomintang rule in a form unique among modern states. Its three most distinctive features were: (1) the concentration of power in the supreme agencies; (2) a fivefold division of power and function through the _yüans_; and (3) the absence of parliamentary chambers.[3] While the Organic Law was in effect as a constitution (1928-1931), the government was headed by a president wielding considerable power and a Council of State which served as the chief control agency. In 1931 a National People's Convention made up of representatives of the Kuomintang and of occupational groups adopted a Provisional Constitution.[4] Under this constitution the power of the president was sharply reduced, making him practically a titular officer. The Council of State became a more formalized agency, and the greater weight of government routine was placed in the Executive _Yüan_. Under the draft constitution proposed for the period after the end of party dictatorship a presidential system was to have been inaugurated.

The years 1931-1937 were characterized by the use of the Council of State as the supreme agency of formal government. The president of the National Government was little more than the chairman of the Council. The Council received instructions from the Central Political Council, and transmitted them to the five regular departments of government in the form of policies. Great as its powers may seem to be, the Council of State was largely an intermediary agency, although the personal influence of its members was extensive. The Council, with its administrative adjuncts, was of value in that it provided an institutional center for the government and gave governmental form to the commands of the party. There was no judicial check on the executive or the legislative branches.

The fivefold division of powers (adopted as the _yüan_ system) is one of the most original points in Sun Yat-sen's political scheme. _Yüan_ is an almost untranslatable Chinese term signifying a "public body" and used in modern China to designate the five great coordinate departments of government.

PARTY MEMBERSHIP

PARTY CONGRESS

CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE CENTRAL SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE
STANDING COMMITTEE STANDING COMMITTEE

CENTRAL POLITICAL COUNCIL

1. Secretariat for Civil Affairs
2. Secretariat for Military Affairs
3. Commission for the Disciplinary Punishment of Political Officials

PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
COUNCIL OF STATE

1. Commission of Military Affairs
2. Board of General Staff
3. Directorate-General of Military Training
4. Military Advisory Council
5. National Reconstruction Commission
6. Academia Sinica
7. National Economic Council
8. Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum Commission

I. EXECUTIVE YÜAN
President
Vice-president
Secretariat
1. Ministry of the Interior
2. Ministry of Foreign Affairs
3. Ministry of Military Affairs
4. Ministry of the Navy
5. Ministry of Finance
6. Ministry of Industries
7. Ministry of Education
8. Ministry of Communications
9. Ministry of Railways
10. Commission on Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs
11. Commission on Overseas Chinese Affairs
12. National Health Service
13. Hopei-Chahar Political Council
14. Mongolian Local Autonomy Council
15. Weihaiwei Administration
16. Preparatory Commission for the Sikang Provincial Government
17. Boards of Trustees for Boxer Refunds
18. Committee on Efficiency

II. LEGISLATIVE YÜAN
President
Vice-president
Legislative Members
Legislative Research Bureau
Bureau of Statistics

III. JUDICIAL YÜAN
President
Vice-president
Commission for the Disciplinary Punishment of Public Functionaries
Administrative Court
Supreme Court
Ministry of Justice

IV. EXAMINATION YÜAN
President
Vice-president
Examination Commission
Ministry of Personnel

V. CONTROL YÜAN
President
Vice-president
Ministry of Audit

PROVINCIAL COMMISSIONS
_Hsien_ Municipalities
Villages

The Executive _Yüan_ was headed, as were all the others, by a _yüan_ president (_yüan-chang_), assisted by a vice-president, a secretary-general, and a director of political affairs. The yüan included all the major executive ministries, and the formal meeting of the Executive _Yüan_ was a meeting of the _Yüan_ officers, the heads of the ministries, and other directing officials. Such meetings took place once a week and corresponded to cabinet meetings in Western countries. The executive work of the entire government was performed by the Executive _Yüan_ and--through characteristic Chinese devices--the _Yüan_ Secretariat, divided into bureaus and committees, came to occupy a position of high strategic importance in Chinese government. All executive measures were funneled through the Secretariat, which cast them into proper form and determined whether or not they should be put on the _yüan_ agenda. It thus occupied a position not unlike that of the Grand Chancery and Grand Secretariat of the T'ang dynasty or of the Office of Transmissions under the Manchus. The Executive _Yüan_ combined within itself nine ministries: Interior (having charge of provincial and local government), Foreign Affairs, Military Affairs, Navy, Finance, Industries, Education, Communications, and Railways. Included were also a number of special commissions and agencies.

The Legislative _Yüan_ consisted of a president, a vice-president, and eighty-six members, with an extensive administrative staff attached to it. The _yüan_ was divided, as are parliaments, into committees, but it was not a representative body, nor able to enact laws independently of the other divisions of government. Its president's powers were so wide as to make the cameral organization of the _yüan_ more apparent than real and to reduce the _yüan_ to a legislative drafting and research agency. The Judicial _Yüan_ was made up of four establishments: Supreme Court, Administrative Court, Commission for the Disciplinary Punishment of Public Functionaries (dealing with the government personnel below political rank), and the Ministry of Justice. The Examination _Yüan_, composed of two divisions (Examination Commission and Ministry of Personnel) gave expression to the Chinese tradition of separate examining agencies. Its function was to provide a merit system applicable to the whole government staff, except those relatively few positions which were political in nature. Because of the difficulty of developing elaborate machinery under unusual circumstances, the Examination _Yüan_ did not establish for itself a high standard of accomplishment. Finally, the Control _Yüan_ served as a chamber of censors entitled to bring suit against dishonest or treacherous officials, and maintained a central Ministry of Audit. In the last few years of the Nanking regime it brought over two hundred and fifty cases to bar each year.

An informative picture of the practical workings of one of the key parts of the National Government, the Secretariat of the Executive _Yüan_, is given by Tsiang Ting-fu, the Chinese ambassador to the Soviet Union and formerly one of the ranking officials of that _Yüan_:

The Bureau of General Affairs keeps the internal machinery of the
Secretariat going. It receives the dispatches and distributes them
among the sections. It manages the funds and looks after supplies.

The Bureau of Confidential Affairs handles confidential telegrams and
keeps the secret codes.

The Secretaries in the Drafting Bureau draft documents that require
high literary finish, usually formal documents.

The Reception Bureau takes care of callers and visitors and sees to it
that dignitaries who come to the Executive Yüan for business or
courtesy calls are accorded a due reception.

The Meetings Bureau arranges for all meetings held in, or under the
auspices of, the Executive Yüan.

The Compilation and Translation Bureau watches over the periodical
press, both Chinese and foreign.

The real political work is done in the Sections. Let us take up first
political correspondence. A minister, governor, or mayor sends a
dispatch to the Executive Yüan, asking for instructions in regard to,
let us say, a problem in raising funds. It goes to Section 5. The head
clerk and his assistants look up regulations, precedents, and other
relevant facts and write a memorandum. The dispatch with the
memorandum goes to the secretary or councillor in charge of the
Section, who writes a minute suggesting a solution or approving a
solution suggested by the head clerk. Then the dispatch, memorandum,
and minute go to the Director of Political Affairs, who, taking into
consideration political factors, renders a tentative decision for
final approval by the Secretary-General. The clerical staff sticks to
law, tradition, and precedent. Adjustments are usually made only by
the ranks above. As the majority of problems are so-called routine
problems, in connection with which the opinion of the clerical staff
is usually sound, the ranks above usually accept the proposed
solution. What is important and bothersome is the minority of unusual
problems, for the treatment of which procedures are varied.

The sender of a dispatch dealing with an unusual problem may call, or
send a representative to call, on the Secretary-General or the
Director of Political Affairs before or simultaneously with the
sending of the dispatch, giving a personal detailed explanation of the
matter and sounding the opinion of the Executive Yüan as represented
by the Secretary-General and the Director of Political Affairs. An
agreed solution may be arrived at during the interview. In that case
the correspondence will be only formal. But the parties involved may
disagree, in which case the Secretary-General will courteously say
that the matter must be referred to the President or to the Yüan
meeting, and the Director has an additional solution of the problem by
resorting to consultation with the Secretary-General. In some cases
the Secretary-General and the Director will decide the matter during
the interview whether the caller likes it or not.

Some unusual matters touch several jurisdictions, _i.e._, two or three
ministries; or a number of provinces or cities; or both. The Executive
Yüan then calls a meeting of representatives of the jurisdictions
affected and the matter is threshed out there. The conclusions of such
meetings may be referred to the President or to the Yüan meetings.

In dealing with unusual problems of primary importance the
Secretary-General usually consults the President, and the Director of
Political Affairs consults the Secretary-General in most cases and the
President in some cases where the work is specifically assigned to the
Director by the President.

The average of dispatches (including telegrams) received and sent out
daily by the Executive Yüan is about three hundred, of which number
only two or three need to be referred to the President or the Yüan
meeting, the rest being handled by the Secretariat without such
reference.

The Secretariat on its part, by the order of the President as Chairman
of the Yüan meeting, or on the initiative of the Secretary-General or
at the suggestion of the Director of Political Affairs, sends
dispatches to the ministries, commissions, provinces and
municipalities, in the form of decrees, ordinances, instructions,
inquiries and requests.

The energies of the clerical staff are devoted entirely to the
incoming and outgoing correspondence. About half of the time of the
secretaries and councillors is devoted to correspondence and half to
conferences. The sub-committees created by the Yüan meeting are
numerous and are almost always convoked by the Secretariat. In a few
cases the Secretary-General and the Director of Political Affairs,
usually accompanied by a secretary or councillor, attend; in most
cases, however a secretary or a councillor is designated as the Yüan's
representative. The conclusions of such sub-committees are always
reported back to the Yüan meeting.[5]

Strange as the _yüan_ system may appear, it seems to have been the most effectual form of government that the Chinese have devised in the Republican era. In times of military or revolutionary crisis, however, this elaborate scheme of bureaucratic departmentalization would prove too cumbersome for rapid readjustment and action; during the Japanese invasions, great reliance was placed on the creation of emergency commissions. In addition to the _yüans_ there were a number of agencies which did not fit into the five-power scheme. Great independent establishments were attached directly to the Council of State. An Academia Sinica took the place of the Han Lin of imperial times as a national center for scholarship. A National Economic Council and a National Reconstruction Commission performed specialized functions effectively, with assistance from experts provided by the League of Nations. In fact, there was a scattering of foreign advisers throughout the government. Of these the highest in rank were placed at the disposal of the Council of State, some rendering actual technical service, others active in unofficial representation abroad, propaganda, lobbying in foreign capitals, or similar tasks. Other advisers were attached to the _yüans_ and to the ministries.

Provincial government under the Nanking regime was subordinated to the Executive _Yüan_ through the Ministry of the Interior. The provinces each possessed a commission form of government, with the commission chairman serving as titular head of the province. The actual operation of the provincial governments exhibited a great deal of variation, depending on the character of the area, the extent of its political development, and the tangible influence enjoyed by the National Government. The provincial commission combined the policy-making, policy-executing, and quasi-judicial functions, operating largely on the basis of instructions from Nanking and transmitting reports through the Secretariat of the Executive _Yüan_ at the other end. Attached to each commission were a secretariat and four or more departments--mainly civil affairs, finance, reconstruction, and education. The department heads were members of the commission--a type of government not unlike that of American cities under the Galveston plan. The theory of Sun Yat-sen provided, however, that the province should decrease in importance with the growth of modern government in China, so that the dangerous regionalism in the country would eventually be denied overt political expression. He saw the future significance of the provincial governments only in their role as intermediaries for _hsien_-national relationships. Under the National Government while at Nanking, the tendency was to centralize control and to emphasize national guidance in those provinces squarely under Nationalist rule. In other provinces the provincial governments tended to follow local conditions and mirror the national standards as a matter of decorum only. The provincial governments were far less important in the life of the provinces than was the National Government for the nation. They had the national civilian and military authorities to cope with, in addition to the impositions of their own local military. Their sources of revenue were not ample, and their authority not well established. In some provinces the commission form was adopted only as a matter of legal compliance, leaving to local leaders the actual conduct of affairs. In fact, reform centered on the _hsien_ rather than the province, partly because the province was a potential rival to the nation, and partly because the _hsien_ was a more organic unit in Chinese society.

Between the provincial authorities and those of the _hsien_ there stood Special Commissioners of Administrative Inspection, whose function was to relate the two administrative units and to work for the modernization of _hsien_ organization. The _hsien_ served, and still serves, not only a rural area but also the central municipality in which the _hsien_ magistrate has his headquarters. The _yamên_ (official building) occupies the center of the town, mostly a one-story edifice built around a courtyard; some _yamêns_ still display the two flagpoles and the two stone lions that were required by the custom of the Empire. Usually the _yamên_ contains:

"(_a_) the rooms occupied by the tax collectors and the administrative and judicial police; (_b_) the court and the assembly room; (_c_) the offices of the various bureaus; (_d_) the residence for magistrates and the dormitory for officers."[6] The conduct of _hsien_ government is influenced by three main groups--the illiterate masses, the conservative gentry, and the younger progressives. In those _hsien_ units where no reformist or revolutionary pressure is felt, the magistrate and the tax collector do little more than collect funds, and the administration is marked by the laxity which characterized old Chinese government in its inadequate form. The gentry, the scholar-administrators, and the tax collectors represent a single social group and manage to rule in their own economic interest. In other _hsien_ units the influence of modern government is noticeable; the magistrate is in most cases a man determined to put into effect the standards of twentieth-century administration. The prestige and power of young men with modern educations have so increased that they are able to obtain a considerable number of magistracies, and if they are willing they may introduce a respectable measure of good government and reform.

The magistrate selects his secretary and four bureau heads, subject to the approval of the provincial authorities. The secretary performs the work usually expected of permanent officials, carrying on much of the routine so as to leave the magistrate free for political and quasi-judicial functions. The secretary is virtually a vice-magistrate and, if successful, keeps the governmental machinery of the _hsien_ in smooth operation. When the magistrate is absent, he acts as the substitute. The four bureaus of the _hsien_ correspond to the four chief administrative divisions of the province--civil affairs, finance, reconstruction, and education. An opium suppression bureau is often added, carrying on the anti-narcotic campaign. The civil affairs bureau has charge of the census, and supervises local areas within the district. Such matters as police, militia, sanitary administration, public buildings, classical shrines, and parks are frequently under its jurisdiction. The subordinate units of administration are provisional, but the _pao-chia_ system has been restored at the lowest level. This is a device for the mutual guarantee, protection, and responsibility of citizens, in which ten families make a _pao_ and ten _pao_ make a _chia_. The tax bureau is one of the weakest links in Chinese local government, as in this office corruption is rife, and severe oppression of the farmers most frequent. In unreformed _hsien_ units, the tax bureau is likely to be the political plum of members of the local gentry, who use it to extend their tenant farms, promote usury, and defraud the government. The provincial governments have begun to send out accountants and to install regular bookkeeping systems--an undertaking which if completed would be one of the major reforms of local administration.

In the smaller _hsien_ units the magistrate is assisted for judicial purposes by a judge; in the larger, separate courts are provided. Up to the outbreak of hostilities in 1937 the national and provincial governments were making great strides in reorganizing judicial administration and in the professionalization of police work. The judges are appointees of the provincial courts, a factor which may make for greater professional capacity and independence. The general importance of the _hsien_ is illustrated by the fact that in Manchoukuo the Japanese have been forced to revive this system. They have, however, implemented it with a Japanese officer known as the _Kanjikan_, who is supposed to advise his Chinese colleague. The experiment is of great interest, as it provides the acid test for the Japanese attempt actually to administer a Chinese area. Without firm _hsien_ governments beneath them, the Japanese puppet regimes are foredoomed to failure.[7]

Until the beginning of the undeclared war, the departmentalization and modernization of the _hsien_ had proceeded most extensively in certain model districts selected for the purpose of political and administrative experimentation. Some of these had reached a level of efficiency which augured well for the future of Chinese government. With the coming of war, however, administrative interests had to yield in many cases to political or military ones, but in one significant respect _hsien_ government was constructively affected. The evocation of popular interest in and cooperation with the government caused a great acceleration of progress toward local democracy, and focused attention on reaction and corruption in the inland regions. War propaganda among the masses of the people amounted to a call for public-spirited action; such action is bound to take the form of direct military enlistment or of collaboration in local patriotic and defense schemes.

Municipal government in old China was carried on largely by the officials of the imperial or provincial bureaucracy. Cities and towns were graded and even named according to the rank of the office for which they served as headquarters. The imperial administration thus extended to municipal affairs; each municipal government included a designated rural area surrounding the city. With the growth of modern government in China, plans were considered for a definite and systematic development of municipal administration. The foreign-controlled cities of the coast provided models of Western administration, and the Chinese were not slow to copy. A few years ago the cities of China were divided for administrative purposes into three categories: those administered directly by the national government; those placed directly under the provincial governments; and those for which no special category was provided, leaving them under the established bureaucratic hierarchy. In 1936 there were five cities of the first class (Nanking, Peiping, Shanghai, Tientsin, and Tsingtao) and eighteen of the second class, including the very important cities of Hankow and Canton. The municipal administration is headed by the mayor and the council. The mayor is appointed by the authority under whose jurisdiction the city is placed. The council is composed of two appointed councillors and the chiefs of the municipal bureaus--four or more. The four required bureaus are civil affairs, finance, public works, and education. Intracity organization was accomplished through the use of _ch'u_, or wards, subdivided into family groups of defined size. With the development of democracy it was intended for each of these to take part in the promotion of self-government; at each level representatives should be chosen by free suffrage. The family foundation has remained a significant feature even of municipal administration.

The chief political question before the National Government at the outbreak of hostilities in the summer of 1937 was the adoption of a permanent democratic constitution. This was to be accomplished in much the same way that the Provisional Constitution had been adopted in 1931--by means of a specially elected People's Congress. In the meantime, a draft constitution had reached a nearly final form. The outstanding features of the draft included the strengthening of the presidency, the abolition of the Kuomintang party dictatorship, the extension of a widely defined suffrage to operate on an unprecedented scale, and provision for periodically assembling People's Congresses to take, by and large, the position of the Kuomintang by exercising the four powers of the people: initiative, referendum, election, and recall. The elective offices would be reduced to a few. The installation and removal of the major government officers was a function to be divided between the People's Congress and the president, who was himself to be elected and recalled by the Congress.

The Japanese invasion led to the scattering and the partial suspension of government. Military needs began to rule the hour. The Kuomintang Party Congress held in the spring of 1938 elevated Chiang K'ai-shek to the newly-created position of _Tsung-tsai_--a term meaning Party Leader, which had been the office held by Sun Yat-sen under the more august synonym _Tsung-li_. Not only was this a partial recognition of the leadership principle[8] in a democracy at war and a testimonial to Chiang as the supreme military leader of the Republic, but it was also a substantial grant of power. Four new powers were given Chiang as Party Leader: (1) the position of Chairman of the National Kuomintang Congress; (2) the chairmanship of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang; (3) the power to ask (impliedly, to demand) that the National Kuomintang Congress reconsider its resolutions, which amounted to the grant of a courteous but effective conditional veto; and (4) final authority on Central Executive Committee resolutions, by means of a parallel veto.[9] This apparent trend toward emergency one-man control was, however, offset by the convening on July 6, 1938, of the People's Political Council, an advisory all-Party representative body, designed to substitute temporarily for the again-postponed National Congress. Its appearance was the widest break in the formal front of one-party Kuomintang rule to occur in a decade, and was heralded as a signal for the practical democratization of the government.

_The Chinese Soviet Republic_

After the suppression of the Marxists by Chiang K'ai-shek and the liquidation of the Nationalist government at Wu-han, the Chinese Communist movement took to underground agitation. It demonstrated its power, however, by proclaiming the Canton Commune on December 11, 1927. The Commune ended in bloody suppression. At the same time, in the far interior, the first Chinese Soviet had been established; from it, in Tsalin on the Hunan-Kiangsi border, was to develop the Chinese Soviet Republic.

On the fourth anniversary of the Canton Commune the Chinese Soviet Republic came into official being. A constitution was adopted, and soon in the Communist districts soviets began to spread during a period of relative peace. Nevertheless, the Soviet organization was always under considerable pressure because of the war waged upon it by Chiang. Although labor and agrarian legislation was adopted, the regime had to operate under conditions of extreme military activity, counterrevolution, and terror. Despite all these handicaps, the Communists kept their government intact; they were able to move it thousands of miles across China in the historic Long March from South Central to Northwest China, which began October 16, 1934, and ended October 20, 1935.

Under its constitution, the Chinese Soviet Republic is declared to be "the democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants."[10] The suffrage was set at the age of sixteen. The government was formed in a manner similar to that employed in the U. S. S. R. before the adoption of the new Soviet Constitution: local soviets elect district or city soviets, which in turn elect provincial soviets, which elect a National Congress of Soviets. In practice, the pattern could not be followed closely, since elections were difficult to hold and territorial division not always certain. The Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets was the chief political authority of the Communist regime; it had the familiar executive organization of the Soviet system: a Presidium of the Central Executive Committee and under it the People's Council, the equivalent of a cabinet. The strength of the Chinese Communists lay in their Party and adjunct organizations, in their land policy, and in their Red Army.

The central government of the Chinese Soviet Republic was no mere torso. It included the following agencies immediately subordinate to the People's Council: the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Inspection, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Land, the Ministry of Labor, the Revolutionary Military Commissariat, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Political Safety Bureau, the Ministry of Communications, the People's Economic Commissariat, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Food, the Ministry of Education, and--strangely--the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

As a result of the kidnaping at Sian at the end of 1936, the Nationalists and the Communists drifted toward a _rapprochement_. The next February the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang accepted the Communist offer of United Front collaboration, although disguising the acceptance by formal conditions for a Communist surrender. In September the Chinese Soviet Republic was ready to assume the name of _Special Administrative District of the Chinese Republic_. This left their governmental and administrative organization unaffected; nor did it mean the dissolution of the Red Army, now also under a new name, that of the Eighth Route Army. With the commencement of the Japanese advance, Communist leaders began taking part in the work of the National Government, first at Nanking and then inland.

_Other Governments in China_

As the National Government at Nanking rose to a dominant position in Chinese affairs, regional regimes outside its fold found it less easy to fit themselves into the framework of the new Chinese state. The Disbandment War of 1930-1931 had witnessed the defeat of the two most redoubtable _tuchüns_ remaining in the North. On the other hand, it became increasingly evident that acceptance of the Nanking hegemony in name led to the infiltration of Nanking rule in fact.

Nothing but a register of encyclopedic proportions could list and describe the various political institutions which arose calling themselves _governments_ in the troubled quarter-century of the Chinese Republican era. Some have bordered on the pathological: Islamistan, for instance, which was the work of an Englishman who proclaimed himself emperor of a new Moslem Empire in Central Asia. The provincial authorities of Chinese Turkestan (Sinkiang) drove him out by using airplanes borrowed from the Soviet Union. In Foochow, in 1932-1933, there arose a movement headed by exiled Left Kuomintang leaders and other ultra-patriots eager for immediate war with Japan. This government was the first in years which did not pay lip service to the _San Min Chu I_, nor claimed legitimate descent from the movement of Sun Yat-sen and his revolutionaries--a surprising circumstance. Its very flexible constitution would have permitted collaboration with the Chinese Soviets--had the Red leaders not decided against it. The other main point in which it varied from the pattern set by the Nanking government was its profession of federalism. Known as the Federal Revolutionary Government of China, it lasted a few months only to be destroyed by Chiang, who had no scruples against using the weight of his modern armies, including planes and motorized troops. These vegetations of government can only interest the political botanist. Far more troublesome have been the opposition governments mentored or sponsored by outside forces. Tibet and Sinkiang (Chinese Turkestan) provided a fertile field of anti-Nanking agitation. Two "states" in China proper-- Manchoukuo and an equally Japanese-controlled Peking Republic (1937)--find their counterparts in three others located in Chinese dependencies: the Communist republics of Outer Mongolia and Tannu-Tuva, and the ambiguous "state" in Eastern Inner Mongolia (sometimes called _Mêngkokuo_).

These Communist republics are under stable government, and, judged from reports which reach the outside, seem efficiently administered. They lie in the former Imperial Russian sphere of influence, south of the Sino-Russian border; except for the complications which would have arisen internationally, they might just as well have been in the Soviet Union as outside. Both governments maintain legations in Moscow. It might be mentioned that when the Russian Red Army invaded Manchuria in 1929 during the conflict over the Chinese Eastern Railway, a Barga Mongol Soviet was temporarily established. The Communist "states" cannot be compared with the Chinese Soviet Republic, which depended on no outside military support and resulted from a great ideological drive. They serve as advance posts of the Soviet Union--precedent for the creation of puppet states within China. Years later the Japanese manufactured a "state" in Eastern Inner Mongolia, with the cooperation of anti-Chinese Mongol princes, which Japan has publicized very little. Known in the world press as _Mêngkokuo_, it provides a Japanese buffer state to meet the Russian buffer of Outer Mongolia. On October 29, 1937, it reached its latest phase with the proclamation of the Autonomous Government of Inner Mongolia.

The Great Empire of Manchou, to use its present official name, arose as Manchoukuo. The word itself was a concession to world opinion, as Manchuria is known to the Chinese simply as the Three Eastern Provinces (Tung San Shêng); its population is overwhelmingly Chinese. With the development of Chinese national unity, the Japanese position in this area was threatened. They invaded Manchuria in September, 1931; the following year they proclaimed the independence of Manchoukuo, inviting the young man who as a child had been the last Manchu emperor of China to serve as the head of the state. In 1934 he was installed as Emperor Kang Têh of the Great Empire of Manchou. The Japanese have done a great deal toward bettering their own economic position in Manchuria, but the effect of their policies on the Chinese population is of doubtful merit. Equal motives underlay the rebirth of Peking, where on December 14, 1937, the Provisional Government of the Republic of China was proclaimed.[11] The old Peking-Republican flag was flown. The heads of the new regime were aged men who already twenty years ago had cooperated with the Japanese. Others served under duress and performed their mock routine in the cold agony of treason. The new administration is honeycombed with Japanese "advisers" and under the domination of the Japanese army.

To round out their collection of puppet governments, the Japanese established in the spring of 1938 a Reformed Government of the Republic of China in Nanking, and even went so far as to adopt--provisionally, at least--the constitutional form of the National Government, which had moved upriver. This regime was admittedly even more ephemeral than the others, and the Japanese announced their intention of consolidating it with the set-up they had organized in Peiping. For the time, it was to be subordinate for purposes of theory to the Northern regime, but the future of the whole Japanese adventure was in doubt, and that of their half-conceived instrumentalities even more dubious.

_The Growth of Government in China_

In the decade following 1927, Chinese government became more significant than it had been since the days of the founding emperors of the Ch'in and the Han. Power was based on a correlation of government with ideological and military forces. The Nationalist Party was the first to effectuate this correlation, in part as a result of lessons learned from the Soviet advisers in the period of collaboration.[12] The Nationalists utilized the doctrinal bases of the _San Min Chu I_, tested in the social revolution which arose from the Nationalist-Communist propaganda. The great personal prestige of Sun Yat-sen was one of the most important contributing factors to the growth of Nationalist administration in Canton.

The military ability and political leadership of Chiang K'ai-shek largely determined the success of the subsequent National Government. Chiang created a military machine superior to any other in China and coordinated army and government in such a way as to add strength to both.[13] But Chiang stood not alone. His wife became his _alter ego_ for press relations, and important in her own right. His brother-in-law T. V. Soong, resourceful financier, and his sisters-in-law, Mme Sun Yat-sen (Sun's second wife) and Mme H. H. K'ung (wife of a later minister of finance), were strong influences at Nanking. Yet these members of the "Soong dynasty" did not shape the course of Nanking policies as a closed concern. They were part of a larger group sharing responsibility equally.

Once the National Government was established its success was largely the result of success. Improvements in the international status of China accrued to the prestige of the regime, and a new surge toward reconstruction, delayed intolerably long by the anarchy of _tuchüns_, occurred as the result of the Nanking hegemony. In the later years of the National Government, before the Japanese onslaught transformed it into a quasi-military regime fighting for its existence, the increased extent of the national police power was brought into sharp relief. With the extension of a unified gendarmery service over great parts of the nation, and the development of a court system which worked well except when under political pressure, the individual came to face government as a reality--more than ever before, under any dynasty. The government defied custom and tradition in promoting public health, in attacking epidemics, in sponsoring modern burial practices, and in deriding unhygienic superstitions. In the broad field of mores which adjoins public health, the influence of the government made itself felt--in reducing the cost of marriage, in promoting municipal cleanliness and tidiness in public places, in furthering temperance. The New Life movement combined the prestige of the government with the elasticity of voluntary association. In its closing days Nanking whipped up an unprecedented wave of public spirit among the masses.

As to government control of the economy, the Nanking government aimed at system, in place of the inchoate conditions which existed before its ascendancy. Chinese banks began to be as reliable as those of the West. The currency was standardized on a national basis. A national fiscal policy was adopted. A great achievement was the introduction of a managed paper currency in a country where specie alone had been respected for ages. Agriculture, however, was lagging behind.

Government disavowed its previous identification with a scholastic officialdom. It dispensed with a state religion, although the commemoration of Sun Yat-sen compensated in part for the change. Government disclaimed any vague totalitarianism and instead clarified its zone of functioning through the use of law. By narrowing the field of its authority, it increased its effectiveness. Nationalization, centralization, bureaucratization, the development of lawful process, the emergence of a half-Western state working for Chinese needs--thus may the growth of government be characterized in the period after 1928. Obstacles remained, enough to dismay any ruler; but they had become obstacles and were not impassable barriers of cynicism, incomprehension, and futility.

The Japanese invasion of 1937 had two immediate effects on the government. It shattered overnight the structure erected by the Nanking regime. The work of a decade was undone. On the other hand, the Japanese threat helped to drive the Communists and Nationalists together and forced into the national nexus those regional leaders who were maintaining the last vestiges of separatism. Most consequential of all: Japan's push--the greatest invasion the Chinese had known since the 1600's--thrust government and people toward each other. Foreign troops taught inland China what nationalism really meant.

They taught nationalism not merely with the fury of their guns, or with the cruelties of their hysterical troops in Nanking. The Japanese fostered nationalism most strikingly when they drove inland the protagonists of nationalism. Students, merchants, engineers, soldiers, administrators, physicians, and scientists of the coast were forced into the far interior. Villagers to whom the sight of these modern Chinese was as rare as the sight of a lama in Arkansas now had such refugees dwelling among them. The effect of forced cultural cross-fertilization is yet to be seen, but it may prove to be of extraordinary significance. Chinese able to hold their own with any representative of the Western world can now be found in the remote valleys and plateaus of the hinterland--twentieth-century China and timeless China, united in their hatred of the invaders, and deeply aware of their new national unity, their desperate need for power.

NOTES

[1] See above, pp. 41 ff.

[2] See Wu Chih-fang, _Chinese Government and Politics_, pp. 147 ff., Shanghai, 1934.

[3] The outline given and the description offered are brief and generalized because the Japanese invasion will probably lead to recurrent reorganization of the government. Shih Chao-ying and Chang Chi-hsien (editors), _The Chinese Year Book_, 1936-1937, have an excellent series of short descriptions by acknowledged authorities of the organs of government. Some of these are: Tsui Wei-wu, "Kuomintang," pp. 223-229; Ray Chang, "Central and Local Administrative Systems," pp. 230-240; Tsiang Ting-fu, "Executive Yüan," pp. 241-246; Hsieh Pao-chao, "Legislative Yüan," pp. 247-292; Hsieh Kuan-sheng, "Judicial Yüan," pp. 293-336; Chien Chih-shiu, "Control Yüan," pp. 337-347; Chen Ta-chi, "Examination Yüan," pp. 348-362; and Chu Shih-ming, "Army," pp. 946-955. This annual, which is written by Chinese in English and edited by Chinese, is not to be confused with the British _China Year Book_, 1912-; the latter gives a broad outline of Chinese government.

[4] Kalfred Dip Lum, _Chinese Government_, Shanghai, 1934. The author was himself a member of this convention; his work, therefore, possesses unusual interest.

[5] Tsiang Ting-fu, _loc. cit._ in note 3, pp. 244-245.

[6] A number of French doctoral dissertations by Chinese students deal with Chinese local government. Although they are of uneven quality, some give considerable material not otherwise available in a Western language. Among these are Chang-Yu-Sing, _L'Autonomie locale en Chine_, Nancy, 1933; Hsu Han-hao, _L'Administration provinciale en Chine_, Nancy, 1931; Ku-Yen-Ju, _Le Regime actuel le l'indépendance decentralisée en Chine_, Nancy, 1931; and Loo Kon-tung, _La Vie municipale et l'urbanisme en Chine_, Lyon, 1934. Among the most valuable and informing pictures of hsien government is "Hsien Government and Functions" by W. H. Ma, _The Chinese Recorder_ (Shanghai), vol. 68, pp. 506-512, 1937. The quotation is from p. 506. The _Information Bulletins_ published by the Council of International Affairs, Nanking, 1936-1937, include much material on Chinese politics and government. Especially interesting are E. C. Tang, _Five Years of the Control Yüan_, Nanking, 1936, and C. L. Hsia, _Background and Features of the Draft Constitution of China_, Nanking, 1937.

[7] See "An Account of the Hsien and Banner Council System of Manchoukuo," _Contemporary Manchuria_ (Dairen), vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 92 ff., 1938.

[8] Compare the position of Chiang as Party Leader in China with that of the _Führer_ in Germany, as described in Fritz Morstein Marx, _Government in the Third Reich_, 2d ed., pp. 62 ff., New York and London, 1937.

[9] See the news reports in _The China Weekly Review_ (Shanghai), vol. 84, pp. 150 ff., 1938.

[10] See _Fundamental Laws of the Chinese Soviet Republic_, p. 18, New York, 1934. Edgar Snow's _Red Star Over China_, New York, 1938, is the best book on the Chinese Communists. P. Miff, _Heroic China_, New York, 1937, is a useful condensed history of Communism in China based on the material currently available in the Soviet press. Mao Tse-tung, Wang Ming and others, _China: The March Toward Unity_, New York, 1937, contains some of Snow's material and also translations of important speeches and manifestoes regarding the inauguration of a United Front policy. A considerable amount of Chinese Communist material is to be found in the magazines _The Voice of China_ (now suspended), Shanghai, and _China Today_, New York.

[11] For a description of the nature and organization of the pro-Japanese Peking regime of 1937-1938 see Andrew W. Canniff, "Japan's Puppets in China," _Asia_, vol. 38, pp. 151-153, 1938. The new Nanking regime is described in the _China Weekly Review_ (Shanghai), Apr. 2, 1938.

[12] Tsui Shu-chin, "The Influence of the Canton-Moscow Entente upon Sun Yat-sen's Revolutionary Tactics," _The Chinese Social and Political Science Review_ (Peiping), vol. 20, pp. 101 ff., 1936.

[13] For biographies of Chiang K'ai-shek see Chen Tsung-hsi, Wang An-tsiang, and Wang I-ting, _General Chiang Kai-shek, the Builder of New China_, Shanghai, 1929; Gustav Amann, _Chiang Kaishek und die Regierung der Kuomintang in China_, Berlin and Heidelberg, 1936, which is only incidentally a biography of Chiang, since its scope is that of providing nation-wide reportage; Hollington K. Tong, _Chiang Kai-shek_, 2 vols., Shanghai, 1937; and Robert Berkov, _Strong Man of China_, Boston, 1938. The Japanese retired Admiral Ishimaru Tota published a sensational life of Chiang (which appeared in Chinese as _Chiang Chieh-shih Wei-ta_, Shanghai, 1937); since Mr. Ishimaru's other works have been translated into English, this one may soon be available for Western readers.