The China of Chiang K'ai-Shek: A Political Study
by Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger · English · Gutenberg #50465 · 992,130 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The China of Chiang K'ai-Shek: A Political Study
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The China of Chiang K'ai-Shek: A Political Study
Author: Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger
Release date: December 8, 2015 [eBook #50465]
Most recently updated: October 22, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50465
Credits: E-text prepared by Judith Wirawan, Adam Buchbinder, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHINA OF CHIANG K'AI-SHEK: A POLITICAL STUDY ***
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 50465-h.htm or 50465-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/50465/pg50465-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50465/50465-h.zip)
Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
Small capitals are presented as all capitals in this e-text.
[Illustration: _Generalissimo Chiang K'ai-shek_]
THE CHINA OF CHIANG K'AI-SHEK:
A Political Study
by
PAUL M. A. LINEBARGER
Duke University
Greenwood Press, Publishers
Westport, Connecticut
The Library of Congress has catalogued this publication as follows:
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony, 1913-1966.
The China of Chiang K'ai-shek; a political study.
Reprint of the 1943 ed. published by World Peace Foundation, Boston.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. China--Politics and government--1912-1949.
2. Chiang, Kai-shek, 1886- . I. Title.
DS774.L48 1973 320.9'51'042 73-725
ISBN 0-8371-6779-5
Copyright 1942 by World Peace Foundation
Originally published in 1943 by World Peace Foundation, Boston
Reprinted with the permission of World Peace Foundation
First Greenwood Reprinting 1973
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 73-725
ISBN 0-8371-6779-5
Printed in the United States of America
TO MY MOTHER
_With Love_
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgments, for a work of this type, are always insufficient and
often ungracious. Today, political and military conditions forbid
mention of some of the persons to whom I am most indebted. Furthermore,
it is unfeasible to thank those teachers and friends who have prepared
me in years past for the present work. Nevertheless, courtesy and candor
demand that I indicate the extent of my obligation, and tender these
inadequate thanks.
For interviews, hospitality and other kindnesses shown me in Western
China I wish to thank Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang K'ai-shek; Their
Excellencies, Sun K'ê, Yü Yu-jen, H. H. Kung, Wang Ch'ung-hui, Chang
Chia-ngau, T. F. Tsiang, Yeh Ch'u-tsang, Kan Nai-kuang, Ch'ên Kuo-fu,
Wang Shih-chieh, Ch'u Chia-hua, Hollington Tong, and Ma Chao-chun; Major
Generals J. L. Huang and Ch'u Shih-ming; Bishop Paul Yu-pin; and Messrs.
Foo Ping-shêng, Chên Ming-shu, Lo Chia-lun, Edward Bing-shuey Lee, Han
Lih-wu, P. C. Kuo, Ch'ên Chih-mai, Kinn-wei Shaw, James Y. C. Yen, Wang
Shen-tsu, Shuming T. Liu, Jen Shieh, Li Ch'in-shui, and Ma P'in-ho.
Among the foreign community, I wish to thank the American Ambassador,
Mr. Nelson Johnson, and Mr. E. F. Drumwright for their kind reception;
and to thank Mr. Tillman Durdin, Mr. Theodore White, Mr. George Fitch,
Dr. J. B. Tayler, Professor Frank Price, and Professor and Mrs. J. B.
Slocum.
I feel myself peculiarly fortunate in having three such good, loyal
friends as Drs. Chu Djang, Miao Chung-yi, and Yin Pao-yü, whose
kindnesses to me have continued ever since our student days together at
the Johns Hopkins.
Dean Shen Ch'un-lu, Mr. Tso T'ao-fên and their associates in the
National Salvation movement; Colonel Ch'in Po-k'u of the Communist
Party; Mr. Chang Peh-chuen of the Third Party; Dr. Carson Chang of the
National Socialist Party, and other spokesmen for minority and
unofficial groups were most generous with their time and information.
Messrs. You Shoo-tseng, Yang Chun, Wu Hsüeh-ping, Hawthorne Chen and
others translated Chinese materials for or with me. Save for their help,
so liberally and painstakingly rendered, this book would have been
delayed for months if not years. These gentlemen are not to be held
responsible for the selection of materials, nor for the translations in
their present form, since I have sought to check and revise this work as
far as time and my imperfect command of written Chinese have permitted.
The International Peace Campaign (China Branch), The People's Foreign
Relations Association, The Chinese-American Institute for Cultural
Relations, and other institutions in Free China were generous with their
hospitality and facilities. I owe particular thanks to the Central Bank
of China for the high courtesy shown me through the Chief Secretary and
the following gentlemen: Mr. T. T. Wang, Chief of the Engineering
Division; Mr. Ch'ên Yin-sung, Manager, Kiating Branch; and Mr. Yang
Hsia-tz'ŭ, Manager, Chengtu Branch. The officers of the Bank went to
enormous pains to ensure my timely, safe return to Chungking when I was
ill, hurried, tardy, and in danger of missing my prearranged bookings
back to America. Special acknowledgment must also be offered to Mr. C.
C. Chi, for his unfailing kindness in providing interviews and trips,
and to the China National Aviation Corporation for their unusual
courtesies.
In Hong Kong, I was assisted by Dr. Eugene Chen, Dr. Wên Yüan-ning, Dr.
Ch'en Han-seng, and Mr. Liu Yu-wan.
In Shanghai, Mr. T. Nakada of the Japanese consulate-general was most
helpful.
In Nanking, Messrs. Wên Chung-yao, Kiang Kang-hu, Tsu Min-yi, Lin
Pai-shêng, Li Shêng-wu, Hsü Liang, George Wên, P. C. Huang, T'ang
Leang-li, K. S. James Woo and L. K. Kentwell were most hospitable. Mr.
M. Kimura, of the Japanese Embassy in Nanking, was kind and courteous. I
wish to thank these gentlemen for their friendliness to an alien scholar
who had just come from the other side of the war.
In Tokyo, Messrs. Yokachiro Suma, Yoji Hirota, Kaneo Tsuchida, and Nobuo
Fujimura of the Foreign Office were hospitable and informative.
Mr. Robert Kempton, Mr. George Giffen, and Dr. Louis Wilkinson showed me
great kindness on my journey.
In the United States, I am indebted for introductions and advice to Dr.
Hu Shih, the Chinese Ambassador; Professor George Taylor, of the
University of Washington; and Mr. Frederick V. Field, of the American
Council of the Institute of Pacific Relations.
My colleagues and friends at Duke University have been very helpful.
Professors Homer Dubs and Paul H. Clyde, my colleagues in the Far
Eastern field, read the manuscript and made invaluable suggestions;
Professor Dubs' command of Chinese has saved me from many predicaments.
Professor Robert R. Wilson has been unfailing in his encouragement,
sympathetic interest, and facilitation of my plans.
The Duke University Research Council has assisted me with annual grants
for the collections of documentary materials on Chinese politics. Save
for this, I have received no financial aid or subsidy from any
institution, person, or government whatever.
Mr. J. C. Yang, Mr. and Mrs. R. E. Hosack, Mrs. Freda Townsend, and Mrs.
Margaret Linebarger have assisted me with manuscripts and proof.
I wish to thank the Director, Dr. S. Shepard Jones, and the staff of the
World Peace Foundation for their patience, and helpfulness during the
preparation of this work for the press. Miss Marie J. Carroll has been
especially helpful.
All opinions and statements herein expressed are my own, unless clearly
indicated as quotation. These acknowledgments are a record of thanks. I
assume sole and complete responsibility for the contents of this book.
P. M. A. L.
_Durham, North Carolina
March 31, 1941_
WORLD PEACE FOUNDATION
[Illustration: Logo]
40 Mt. Vernon Street, Boston, Massachusetts
_Founded in 1910_
_Board of Trustees_
GEORGE H. BLAKESLEE, _President_
FRANK AYDELOTTE
JAMES PHINNEY BAXTER, 3d
HARVEY H. BUNDY
LEONARD W. CRONKHITE
STEPHEN DUGGAN
HARRY A. GARFIELD
CHRISTIAN A. HERTER
BRUCE C. HOPPER
MANLEY O. HUDSON
A. LAWRENCE LOWELL
J. GRAFTON ROGERS
CHARLES SEYMOUR
JOHN H. WILLIAMS
HENRY M. WRISTON
_General Staff_
S. SHEPARD JONES, _Director_
DENYS P. MYERS, _Research_
MARIE J. CARROLL, _Reference_
MARY J. MACDONALD, _Treasurer_
The World Peace Foundation is a non-profit organization which was
founded in 1910 by Edwin Ginn, the educational publisher, for the
purpose of promoting peace, justice and good-will among nations. For
many years the Foundation has sought to increase public understanding of
international problems by an objective presentation of the facts of
international relations. This purpose is accomplished principally
through its publications and by the maintenance of a Reference Service
which furnishes on request information on current international
problems. Recently increased attention has been focused on American
foreign relations by study groups organized for the consideration of
actual problems of policy.
CONTENTS
_Frontispiece_--Generalissimo Chiang K'ai-shek
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
The Chinese Political Inheritance: Some Continuing Aspects 1
China at the Outbreak of War 6
The Beginning of Active Hostilities 11
The Hankow Period 15
The Chungking Period 19
I. THE CONSTITUTION 21
The _Yüeh-fa_ of 1931 22
The Draft Permanent or Double Five Constitution 25
The Issue of Constitutional Change 31
II. THE POLITICAL ORGANS OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 41
The Five-Power Constitution 42
The Supreme National Defense Council 46
The President of the National Government 52
The Council of State 53
The Executive _Yüan_ 56
The Military Affairs Commission 60
The Judicial, Legislative, Examination and Control _Yüan_ 65
III. CONSULTATIVE AND ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANS 69
The People's Political Council 69
The Administrative Pattern 79
The Political Ministries 81
Social and Cultural Agencies 83
The Economic Ministries 85
IV. PROVINCIAL, LOCAL, AND SPECIAL-AREA GOVERNMENT 98
Chart on Provincial and Urban Government facing 98
The Provinces 99
Local Government 103
The Communist Zone 111
Guerrilla Governments 116
V. THE KUOMINTANG 124
The Party Constitutional System 125
Party Organization 129
The Kuomintang Bid for Leadership 140
Intra-Kuomintang Politics 142
The New Life Movement and Other Affiliates 149
VI. THE COMMUNIST AND MINOR PARTIES 159
The Chinese Communists: Party and Leaders 160
Communism: Patriotism or Betrayal? 171
The National Salvation Movement 175
The Third Party 178
The Chinese National Socialist Party 179
Social Democrats and _La Jeunesse_ 181
VII. GOVERNING INSTITUTIONS OF THE JAPANESE AND PRO-JAPANESE 183
The Japanese Army as a Chinese Government 185
The Problem of Puppet States 188
The Provisional and Reformed Governments 192
The Reorganized National Government of Wang Ch'ing-wei 197
VIII. EXTRA-POLITICAL FORCES 211
The Foundations of Chinese Government 212
Mass Education 214
Rural Reconstruction 218
The Chinese Industrial Cooperatives 223
Unorganized Pressure 234
IX. SUN YAT-SEN AND CHIANG K'AI-SHEK 239
Sun Yat-sen 240
The _San Min Chu I_ 250
Chiang K'ai-shek 254
Chinese Appraisals of Chiang 266
The Ideology of Chiang 269
CONCLUSION 273
The Chief Alternatives in China 274
The United States in Chinese Politics 277
APPENDICES
PAGE
APPENDIX I: GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS 283
A. The Government Draft of the Proposed Constitution 283
B. The System of Organization of the National Congress 300
C. Act of the Legislative _Yüan_, April 31, XXVI (1937)
Governing the Election of Representatives to the
National Congress 302
D. The Program of Resistance and Reconstruction 309
E. An Outline of War-time Controlment 313
F. A Chart of the Control _Yüan_ from July 1937 to June
1940 318
G. Regulations Concerning the Organization of the Various
Classifications of _Hsien_ 324
H. A Chart of Government Organization facing 330
APPENDIX II: DOCUMENTS ON PARTY POLITICS 331
A. A Chart on Kuomintang Organization facing 331
B. Constitution of the _San Min Chu I_ Youth Corps, Year
XXVII (1938) 331
C. The Duties and General Activities of the _San Min Chu I_
Youth Corps (Ch'ên Ch'êng) 340
D. The _Hsiao-tsu_ (Small Group) Training Program 354
E. Party Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party 359
APPENDIX III: MATERIALS ON POLICY 371
A. Reply to Questions (Chiang K'ai-shek) 371
B. What I Mean by Action, or A Philosophy of Action (Chiang
K'ai-shek) 373
C. Definition of the Problems Concerning the Organization
of the Various Classifications of _Hsien_ (Chiang
K'ai-shek) 388
Chart on _Hsien_ Classifications facing 388
D. A Discussion of Mao Tsê-tung's Comments on the Present
State of International Relations (Ch'ên Kuo-hsin) 403
E. China's Long-range Diplomatic Orientation (Wang
Ch'ung-hui) 418
GLOSSARY 423
INDEX 435
INTRODUCTION
The National Government of the Republic of China, located at the
auxiliary capital of Chungking, is one of the most important governments
in contemporary world affairs. It has provided fairly effective
unification for the largest nation on earth, and has fought a great
power to a standstill.
The present work is an analysis of this government. Not a biography of
Chiang K'ai-shek, it is instead a delineation of the institutions, the
parties and movements, and the armies which today determine the Chinese
destiny. Free China, mutilated as it is, is still far more populous and
complex than the Soviet Union or Germany. Its political institutions
cannot be reduced to the terms of one man's caprice, and the personality
of Chiang--while brilliantly conspicuous--is not the entire picture of
China. Generalissimo Chiang works, perhaps because he wishes to,
certainly because he must, within the framework of a triune
organization: the National Government, the central armies and the
Kuomintang. These institutions have developed to their present efficacy
only by means of thirty years of war, preceded by almost thirty years
more of conspiracy. They have become the norm of contemporary China and,
whatever their particular future, significant determinants of China's
eventual development.
THE CHINESE POLITICAL INHERITANCE: SOME CONTINUING ASPECTS
Because of cultural and historical differences between China and the
West, the application of identical terms to both is probably either
wrong or meaningless. Nevertheless, Westerners can live in China, deal
with the Chinese, scrutinize their affairs, and transpose these to such
Western descriptions as may suit the purpose. In reading of China,
however, one should keep in mind the fact that the words are English,
freighted with special meanings, and are used not by scientific choice
but for lack of others. Part of this difference can be bridged if one
recalls the salient peculiarities of China as against the Western world.
No other society comparable in size, duration and extent has ever
existed; the Chinese Empire, from the beginning of the Ch'in (221 B.C.)
to the end of the Manchus (A.D. 1911), remains the greatest social
edifice mankind has yet brought forth. As such, its modern successor is
everywhere stamped with archaic catholic traits which are today both
obsolescent and futuristic. To these must be added the characteristics
of China as a special area--a cultural zone seeking national form;
fragmented economies working their way out of backwardness in technology
and helplessness in world economics; a people in quest of government
which will give them power without enslaving them. This modern "Chinese
Republic," a Western-form state only by diplomatic courtesy in the years
succeeding 1912, has been the widest zone of anarchy in the modern
world; the Japanese attack on its emergent institutions has helped
immeasurably to re-identify the Chinese-speaking people and the officers
who presume to govern them.
To understand Chinese government in war time, one might first check the
outstanding points of old Chinese development and their modern
derivatives.
Pre-eminently, China has been _pro forma_ Confucian ever since the tenth
century after Christ. This has meant an ordering of classes in society
based on the ideal of scholarship and public administration, rather than
on ideals of valor, piety or acquisitiveness. By setting the
requirements of the examinations, and through concealed but sharp
discouragement of heterodoxy or wilful originality, the governing
mechanism made of itself a vast machine of scholars which--because its
authority rested in tradition, in language, in social usages--was able
to ride out domestic revolution and foreign invasion, and was in a
position to ensure its own perpetuation despite political or military
interruption.
The traditions of scholastic bureaucracy working in a pluralistic
society have left the Chinese people largely independent of the routine
functioning of government. The Western state becomes the articulation of
society. The government of old China was pseudomorphic as a state,
having only some of the functions of the Western state, and its
governing power was the residual capacity of an organization devoted to
the ends of ceremony, exemplarization, education and the cultivation of
personality. Administration was confined chiefly to revenue collection,
flood control and defense. In the West, the most important purposes of
society are framed in law after discussion, and are executed as policy;
in China these purposes, defined by the Confucian ideology, were known
throughout the society, with scholar-officials as their expositors.
Fulfillment was by no means a prerogative of government alone. By
contrast with the Confucian standards, the Western states, whether
democracies or not, are capricious, despotic and nonmoral; by Western
standards, Chinese society was unresponsive, sanctimonious and
amorphous.
This political excellence and stability was accompanied by economic
phenomena which are, by modern standards, less desirable. Overcrowding
and a slow rate of progress have been fairly constant features of
Chinese society since the Han. Owen Lattimore has recently appraised the
economics behind the dynastic cycle in China.[1] Each community in old
China was cell-like, largely autonomous and autarkic. Hence, the
increase of wealth was sought within the cell, and not within a larger
framework of economic advance--such as commerce or invention would
provide--and the economically predominant class (the landowners)
possessed a vested interest in overpopulation (which cheapened
agricultural labor and maintained a high, even urgent, demand for food
products). Equilibrium was reached, and a cycle of diminishing returns
initiated, when population began to outrun the land's subsistence
maximum. This drop in returns, in the face of continued population rise,
led to peasant rebellion, distributism and a reinauguration of the same
type of state--made necessary by the monopoly of managerial expertness
(essential to water conservancy, land wealth and the familiar intensive
cultivation) in the ideographically literate class. Control of the
richest water-conservancy region meant the hegemony of China.
[Footnote 1: Lattimore, Owen, _Inner Asian Frontiers of China_, New
York, 1940, p. 45 and _passim_. The author, a noted geographer,
presents significant new analyses of the interconnections of Chinese
economics and culture.]
The impact of Western imperialism has struck China in the past century,
during the critical or revolutionary phase of this immemorial cycle.
Chinese politics took the color of a back-country struggle. The centers
of modern power were beyond Chinese administrative reach. The emergent
Chinese state, deprived of its foci of power in the metropolises, was
promised control thereof only when it had become an effective and
complete state--a condition largely unobtainable without control of
Shanghai, Tientsin, Hankow, and the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong.
In theory, the Chinese Republic was established January 1, 1912. In
practice, the name _Republic_ has masked a _mêlée_ of governments and
power-organizations, ranging from bandit gangs with pretentious
political color to authentic regional governments administering large
areas. This culminated in the National Government which, beginning as a
conspiracy, becoming the leading regional government, is now in the
position of _de facto_ government for virtually all Free China, the
Chinese dominions, and much of the occupied area. None of these
governments has ever held an election based on wide suffrage; none has
systematically subordinated policy to law; none has possessed a
treasury, fleet or air force worthy of a second-class power, until the
present war. Out of these unpromising materials the counter-attacking
Chinese state has arisen; only by legal formula is it the same Republic
as its predecessors; only by courtesy is this the Year XXX (1941) of the
Republic.[2]
[Footnote 2: Detailed descriptions of the political history of the
period are to be found, _inter alia_, in Holcombe, Arthur N., _The
Chinese Revolution_, Cambridge, 1930; MacNair, Harley F., _China in
Revolution_, Chicago, 1931; and, most popularly, Escarra, Jean, _China
Then and Now_, Peiping, 1940. Descriptions of the government are Wu
Chih-fang, _Chinese Government and Politics_, Shanghai, 1934; Lum
Kalfred Dip, _Chinese Government_, Shanghai, 1934; and Linebarger,
Paul M. A., _Government in Republican China_, New York and London,
1938.]
The governmental developments of the Republican era fall conveniently
into four periods: the period of establishment, 1911-1916; the period of
_tuchünism_, 1917-1926; the rule of the National Government, 1927-1936;
the period of invasion, 1937 to the present. The turning points between
these periods are, respectively, the fall of the Manchu Empire of China
(1911), the death of the dictator-President Yüan Shih-k'ai (1916), the
Great Revolution under Kuomintang-Communist leadership (culminating,
1927), and the Sian affair (December 1936) followed by full-scale
invasion (July 1937).
The present governments of China are accordingly the successors of a
wide variety of decaying imperial administration, experimental modernism
and outright confusion. Any change in China had to be made at the
expense of the _haves_--the Western powers and Japan. Japan, in seeking
the control of China, is fighting China and the Western powers; China,
in fighting back, must fight Japan, and behind Japan the whole structure
of imperialism. Most Chinese have abandoned hope of surviving as a
people without eventually triumphing as a state. In the past, they
absorbed conquerors whose bases were transferred to China; today, they
cannot accommodate invaders who come as transients from an overseas
base. The Chinese war of resistance is a revolution. It is a
continuation of the Nationalist revolution, begun against the Manchus,
continued against the imperialist powers, and now directed against the
Japanese and their Chinese associates. At the same time, this revolution
struggles to incorporate in its dynamics the drive of an endemic peasant
rebellion, Communist in its extreme phase. Nationalist in supreme
emphasis, the revolution finds its highest expression in the
articulation of an effective state--something not known in China for
twenty-two centuries.
CHINA AT THE OUTBREAK OF WAR
Sun Yat-sen's legacy of doctrine included a program of revolution by
three stages:
(1) the military conquest of power by the Kuomintang;
(2) the tutelary dictatorship of the Kuomintang while democracy was
being instilled and adopted from the bottom up; and
(3) constitutionalism, requiring abdication of the Kuomintang in favor
of a popularly elected government.[3]
[Footnote 3: This is given in the _Chien Kuo Ta Kang_ (Outline of
National Reconstruction), of April 12, XIII (1924), particularly
points 3, 5, 6, 7, and 23. Translations are to be found in Hsü,
Leonard Shihlien, _Sun Yat-sen: His Political and Social Ideals_, Los
Angeles, 1933, and Wu Chih-fang, work cited, p. 430 _ff._]
Upon coming to power in Nanking, the National Government had begun
promising a short period of tutelage and had made various gestures in
favor of experimental popular government. A Provisional Constitution was
adopted by a _Kuo-min Hui-i_ (commonly termed, National People's
Convention) in 1931, operating under complete government supervision; a
transition instrument, self-acknowledged as such, it anticipated a
Permanent Constitution upon the accomplishment of constitutional
government in a majority of provinces (Articles 86, 87).[4] Although the
Kuomintang has ruled parts of China for more than fifteen years, and is
by profession the party of democracy, it has not yet relinquished power.
The period of tutelage is still legally in force.
[Footnote 4: For the text of this constitution, see Wu Chih-fang,
cited, p. 430 _ff._]
In the years immediately preceding the outbreak of war, this monopoly of
governmental power by the Kuomintang was not only an important political
irritant but also an obstacle to effective Chinese unity. Discontent was
aggravated by inelasticity of the Party. Overweighted with petty
bureaucracy, it offered too few up-channel opportunities for potential
leaders. Since Nationalists were the Ins, Kuomintang membership carried
privileges rather than obligations. Many distinguished and active
citizens either refused to join, or let their purely nominal membership
ride along. The Party was saved from complete decline because it
included most of the government personnel, and new recruits to
government service gave it some freshness, vigor and inward criticism.
The leading difficulty of both state-building and democratization had
been overcome by the creation of a government which was well-designed,
functioning _de facto_ and able to meet most of the specialized problems
of modern administration. The regime was far from being a crude
hierarchy of soldiers and taxgatherers, but had accrued about its
policy-making core the essential staff and line services of modern rule.
Inadequacies lay not in absolute lack of species of personnel or
structure, but in the relative weakness of many key functions. During
the third decade of the Republic the then Nanking Government, under
Chiang's leadership, gave China its first modern national government.
Despite this beginning, which--without the invasion--stood a very good
chance of evolving into a paternalistic oligarchy in democratic form,
such as Brazil, there were enormous difficulties still facing genuine
China-wide government. First among these difficulties was the question
of regional autonomy--lingering vestiges of _tuchünism_, reinforced by a
vigorous provincialism. Whole regions of China were under the merely
nominal control of the National Government.
The second difficulty was that of personal politics. Modern China has
had ample politics of principle. It is a rare ideological cult, of any
kind, anywhere, which does not have its Chinese affiliates. No other
nation has known such a wide choice of doctrines, each represented by
armed forces and by definite political leadership. At the same time,
this ideological struggle was and is paralleled by the politics of
individuals and cliques. This made the National Government function as
an oligarchy based on three patterns of control:
(1) ideological eminence, orthodoxy, appeal and timeliness;
(2) military or economic control of power in the form of soldiers or
cash, the two being for the most part interchangeable; and
(3) governmental incumbency.
A man like Hu Han-min could owe his importance almost altogether to his
past associations with the Party and with Dr. Sun, to his authority as
an exponent of the _San Min Chu I_, and to his appeal to the sense of
prestige, dignity and stability on the part of other people who did not
possess such power, which was exercised in the name of the Kuomintang
and its ideology. T. V. Soong, in money matters, or Chang Hsüeh-liang,
in military matters, were important because they had under their
immediate influence so much cash or so many troops, the availability and
mobility of which from day to day determined their actual share of
power. Lastly, these same men possessed political authority by narrowly
lawful means, i.e., by the governmental offices which they held.
Thirdly, the government was deeply out of harmony with an overwhelming
majority of college students, much of the professional and intellectual
classes, and a broad section of the articulate farmer and labor groups.
In the pre-war years of strain, unofficial persons could follow world
fashions in ideas associated with Leftism. Although the full Western
pattern of Right, Center, and Left was not imposed upon Chinese
politics, many of the most active publicists wrote in these terms. There
was, accordingly, a traditional China and a Leftist China; the latter
faithfully imported European concepts and did much to change the
language of Chinese political struggle. The government--itself Left from
the point of view of the pre-existent order, yet committed to modes of
thought and policy formally little more radical than the American New
Deal--was constantly recalled to the most cold-blooded of
_realpolitische_ considerations.
Fourthly, the student movement--in some phases a part of the general
Leftist drive--proved a constant source of difficulty and trouble.
Chinese students (both collegiate and secondary) are self-conscious,
frequently arrogant inheritors of the Chinese tradition of rule by
_literati_. Their influence over the masses is impressive; their
patriotism, however unreflective, is ardent; and their interest in
international affairs is violent.[5]
[Footnote 5: In particular, see Freyn, Hubert, _Prelude to War: The
Chinese Student Rebellion of 1935-1936_, Shanghai, 1939. Reference to
contemporary Left-liberal and Left publications in Europe and America
will disclose numerous sympathetic eyewitness accounts of the troubles
and the fortitude of the students. Some of these accounts now possess
a wry, inadvertent humor in their characterization of Chiang as a
willing accomplice of Japan.]
Fifthly, Chinese society, accustomed to acting independently of
government, urged varied foreign policies and sought wars. Almost every
kind of organization, from archaic guilds and secret societies to
business groups, sought to wage its own attack on Japan. Uncanalized,
counter-attacked, dammed up, these efforts might have undone the
government. Toward the end, the government raced frenziedly with time,
losing power through unpopularity, and increasing power through
rearmament and technical preparation. The vigorous extra-governmental
pressure of a populace accustomed to spontaneous mass action is a factor
which qualifies and will probably continue to qualify Chinese foreign
policy. It is often left out of account in Western comment on China.
Sixthly, in the winter and spring of 1936-37, the National Government
was under pressure from its own subjects to begin the negotiation of
national unity, starting with a Communist armistice and continuing with
the incorporation of as many regions as possible into the sphere of the
government; but despite such increasing pressure, the government took no
effective step in this direction until after the kidnapping of Chiang at
Sian.[6] As a result of this melodramatic affair, however, the National
Government revised policies which had become traditions ten years old
and agreed to an armistice with the Communists. The Kuomintang--bearing
full responsibility for an actual emergent state--found intra-Chinese
diplomacy as perplexing as foreign.
[Footnote 6: For the Generalissimo's own diary of the kidnapping,
together with a narrative by his wife, see Chiang, Mme. Mayling Soong,
_Sian: A Coup d'Etat_, bound with Chiang K'ai-shek, _A Fortnight in
Sian: Extracts from a Diary_, Shanghai, 1938. The Chinese edition of
this appeared as Chiang Wei-yüan-chang [Chairman Chiang], _Hsi-an Pan
Yüeh-chi_ [A Fortnight's Diary from Sian], Shanghai, XXVI (1937). A
first-hand Western account is Bertram, James M., _First Act in China_,
New York, 1938. Edgar Snow, in _Red Star over China_, New York, 1938,
p. 395 _ff._, gives an account sympathetic to the Left; Harold Isaacs,
in _The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution_, London, 1938, p. 445
_ff._, presents a penetrating Trotskyist critique. An excellent
factual summary of this crucial year, written by a well-known writer
who visited the scene at first hand, is to be found in Bisson, T. A.,
_Japan in China_, New York, 1938.]
Thus, at the outbreak of war, the National Government had reached a
higher level of actual political and administrative power than its
predecessors, but was faced with grave problems. In any other country
the government would presumably have been on the verge of ruin.
Controlling only major sections of its internationally recognized
territory; faced by autonomous provinces, half-legal military satrapies
and outright warlord despotism, all backed by vehement provincialism,
great distances, linguistic difficulties and mutual geographical
isolation; unpopular with its own student, intellectual and professional
elites; ridden by personal politics; just emerging from a ten years'
civil war--with these handicaps, a second-rate power undertook to
challenge the greatest power of Asia to an irreversibly fateful war. The
Chinese went further: they sought in the war not only victory, but
unity, democracy and prosperity as well! This background of purpose
makes China's internal politics richly meaningful in relation to the
world scene.
THE BEGINNING OF ACTIVE HOSTILITIES
After nearly six years of military and political conflict, a full
quasi-war[7] broke out with the episode at Loukouchiao on the night of
July 7-8, 1937. It was the evident intention of the Japanese to end an
unsatisfactory state of affairs (i.e., Chinese control) in that area
once and for all, although they were perfectly willing to express
temporary amity and _ad interim_ non-aggression toward what was left of
China. The National Government, after a few days of uncertainty, began
real preparations for war. Since the government's appeasement policy had
accustomed many to think of resistance in terms of the Left, there was
an enormous inflation of Leftist sentiment, not deflated for about
eighteen months.
[Footnote 7: "War" used to mean the reciprocal application of violence
by public, armed bodies; private and informal homicide was termed
"murder" or was otherwise clearly designated. Today these distinctions
are less clear. The author must enter a _caveat lector_: no term is
employed in other than a general (i.e., literary) meaning, except upon
special notice. The Sino-Japanese hostilities differ greatly from war
in several interesting but technical respects; they are a very special
Japanese invention. Yet it would be cumbersome to refer to Chinese
changes in Conflict-time, or to speak meticulously of armies engaged
in an Incident.]
While new mass organizations were formed, the Chinese military command
framed a plan for a three-stage war:
(1) a period of resistance by heavy regular forces fighting
positionally;
(2) a period of stalemate wherein enemy forces, immobilized by opposing
regular armies, found lines of communication, supplies and business
harassed by guerrillas and saboteurs;
(3) a period of counter-attack in which the Chinese, having prepared
themselves technologically during the stalemate and having weakened the
enemy by a test of endurance, should drive the Japanese back into the
sea.
The strategy of this type of war was based upon the plan of retreating
in space in order to advance in time--that is, to yield area slowly and
purposefully, without too great cost to oneself, in order to outlast the
enemy and reach victory. In thus purchasing time by the mile, the
Chinese could not afford to yield intact cities, factories,
communications, mines, docks, warehouses and the other goods of
business; such cessions would only profit Japan: hence _the scorched
earth_ policy. The strategy was obviously suited to a country rich in
territory and population, but poor in _matériel_. It not only made both
regulars and guerrillas effective against Japan but made each truly
reliant upon the other. Without the Nationalist regular armies, who in
attempting to suppress the Communists had done almost everything which
the Japanese now had to do--guarding railroads, pacifying disaffected
and hostile rural areas, promoting industries and watching
agitation--the Japanese forces might disperse enough to enable Japan to
patrol and pacify enough of China to pay for the occupation. Chiang had
to hold the Japanese together, immobilize large bodies of their troops,
keep their war expenses up, and wait for the time to counter-attack.
Meanwhile the guerrillas, together with the Communist veterans, were to
prevent the Japanese from settling down, to worry them with agitation,
to sabotage their economic efforts and to wear them out for Chiang's
_révanche_.
One of the first governmental changes in wartime was the re-institution
of an effective propaganda service under the Political Department of the
Military Affairs Commission. In this Department, many of China's most
active controversialists, censored or exiled for years, found officially
sanctioned scope for their energies. Formal unity came slowly. Although
Shanghai was attacked on August 13, 1937, it was not until September 10
following that a fairly definitive arrangement was reached in regard to
the Communist-occupied zone in the Northwest.
The settlement transformed a pre-existing armistice into an
intranational alliance; technically it amounted to submission by the
Communists and their incorporation into the national government and
armies. The area of the Chinese Soviet Republic assumed the name Special
Regional Government of the Chinese Republic (_Chunghua Min-kuo T'ê-ch'ü
Chêng-fu_), which it had been using informally for months; the Chinese
Red Army became the Eighth Route Army (_Pa-lu-chün_); and the Chinese
Communist Party accepted the _San Min Chu I_ as the constitutional state
ideology of China, abandoning immediate measures of class war and
expropriation. The settlement was in the form of a Communist reply to
Kuomintang terms offered in February 1937 and the reply of the
Generalissimo as Chief of the Kuomintang to the Communist
declaration.[8]
[Footnote 8: See Council of International Affairs, _The Chinese Year
Book, 1938-39_ [Hong Kong], 1939; article by Chu Chia-hua,
"Consolidation of Democracy in China," Chapter IV; "Reconciliation
with the Communists," p. 339-40. This Council is an informal and
extra-legal offshoot of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
accordingly the annual, rich in official materials, provides
insufficient data on Communist, guerrilla, and unofficial activities.
See also, Epstein, I., _The People's War_ [Shanghai], 1939, p. 88
_ff._, for an excellent, clear account of this period.]
For the first few months the war kept its quasi-European pattern. The
greater part of the fighting was done in the Shanghai area, while
Japanese forces proceeded down from North China. The Japanese still had
some expectation of localizing the North China and the Shanghai
conflicts. At most, they expected the war to be a short one, not
extending beyond the capture of Nanking. Occupation of the capital was
counted on for the ruin of the central government, the end of Chiang and
the reversion of China to a condition of malleable anarchy.
December 1937 was the blackest month of the war for the Chinese. The
Japanese advanced toward Nanking, with Chinese resistance crumbling;
part of the armies withdrew in good order, but on occasion there were
hopeless, panicky routs. To this month the Japanese looked for victory,
and were so confident that they formed the pro-Japanese Provisional
Government of the Republic of China, in Peking on December 11.[9] Four
days later the Japanese forces entered Nanking, and the ensuing
fortnight set the record for atrocity in the modern world. The Japanese
forces were preoccupied with their own disorder. The National
Government escaped up-river to Hankow, where it promptly began to
function under the three-headquarters plan: some offices at Hankow, some
at Changsha and some at Chungking. The presence of the foreign affairs,
propaganda, and military agencies at Hankow made this the practical
capital of China, although Nanking was and is the constitutional
capital.
[Footnote 9: See below, p. 193. See also Taylor, George E., _The
Struggle for North China_, New York, 1940, in the Inquiry Series of
the Institute of Pacific Relations.]
THE HANKOW PERIOD
The greatest part of the year XXVII (1938) was spent in continuation of
slow retreat and heavy frontal resistance. Until October communications
with the outside world were wide open through the railroad to Canton.
Heavy supplies could arrive by the shipload. Hundreds of Japanese air
attacks on the railroad disrupted schedules but never led to serious
suspension of service. Leftist influence became overwhelming in
Hankow. That city had been the capital of the ill-fated Wu-han
Kuomintang-Communist government, which fell with the secession of Chiang
to Nanking eleven years before; its connotations still lingered. Even
conservative Kuomintang leaders, who had gone to lengths of appeasement
at which Neville Chamberlain would have blanched, tried to talk like
Negrin or Alvarez del Vayo.
In January 1938, two organizations were formed which, along with the
Communist zone in the Northwest, were to be among the most active
agencies of guerrilla leadership. The first of these was the New Fourth
Army (_Hsin-ssŭ-chün_), which emerged in the area just south of the
Japanese forces at the Yangtze mouth. It was composed of peasant and
student militia, of regular army fragments, and of some Kuomintang
volunteers, under the leadership of Communist remnants which had hidden
away, banditti-fashion, when the Red Army trekked Northwest. Its
emergence was recognized by legal order of the National Military
Affairs Commission.[10] The other organization was the Provisional
Executive Committee of the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei Border Region
(_Chin-ch'a-chi Pien-ch'ü Lin-shih Hsing-chêng Wei-yüan-hui_),
established by a conference at Fup'ing, January 8-15, and authorized by
central government mandate. This agency also sprang from Leftist
organizations--in this case, a bold, determined, student-peasant
guerrilla army--which had first developed despite government opposition.
It was designed to provide an emergency guerrilla government for those
portions of the three provinces which were under occupation by the
Japanese. Unoccupied portions of the provinces retained their existing
administrations.
[Footnote 10: See Epstein, I., work cited, p. 235 _ff._ and _The
Chinese Year Book 1938-39_, cited, article by the late P. C. Nyi,
"Plans for Political and Economic Hegemony in China"; this includes
a full administrative description of the Border Region, p. 254 _ff._
The North China zone is arbitrarily translated "Border Region," to
distinguish it from the quondam Chinese Soviet Republic in the
Northwest, translated as "Frontier Area."]
In the next month, February 1938, there was established an agency of
supreme importance, the Supreme National Defense Council.[11] This
replaced the Central Political Council,[12] which had exercised routine
functions of the Party's sovereign control over the government; like its
predecessor, the Supreme National Defense Council tended to act as the
supreme governmental organ, although it was technically a Party organ.
The Council provided and provides a unified civilian-military control
for the duration of the war; but the Kuomintang shares its power with
other groups only in the consultative organs of state, not in the
executive.
[Footnote 11: See below, p. 46.]
[Footnote 12: See chart on p. 47. Descriptions of the pre-war Central
Political Council are to be found in the texts cited on p. 5, n. 2,
and in the first two issues of _The Chinese Year Book, 1935-36_ and
_1936-37_, Shanghai, _passim_.]
March 1938 followed with another political step forward--the Emergency
Session of the Kuomintang Party Congress. The Party Congress had the
functions of a special constituent assembly in part, and in part those
of a restricted parliament; in this session two further actions were
taken. The first was the adoption of the momentous Program of National
Resistance and Reconstruction (_K'ang-chan Chien-kuo Kang-ling_),[13]
which provides a plan for the war and commits the Kuomintang and the
National Government to a policy of victory, of industrialization, and of
economic reform as a means to war.
[Footnote 13: See Appendix, p. 309.]
The second step taken by this important Congress was the provision for a
People's Political Council (_Kuo-min Ts'an-chêng Hui_, also translatable
as People's Advisory Political Council). This was the first breach in
the Kuomintang monopoly of government since the establishment of the
Party dictatorship.[14] The government, through the constitutional
fiction of appointing members as representative individuals, provided a
rough, approximate, but fair representation of the active political
forces in China.
[Footnote 14: See below, p. 69. This is to be distinguished from the
various constitutional conventions, the proposed national congress
(_kuo-min ta-hui_) which exists only in contemplation of the
constitutional drafters, and the Kuomintang Party Congress.]
While the Emergency Session of the Party Congress took these steps for
further national defense, the Japanese were collecting a coterie of
ex-politicians, friends of Japan, and old men to serve as the Reformed
Government of the Republic of China at Nanking. They disregarded the
anomaly of having two "Chinese" national governments--the Provisional
Government in Peiping being undisturbed by these measures--and continued
to seek the division of China, even on the level of the pro-Japanese
States. The Reformed Government was established on March 27, 1938.
The autumn of 1938 brought another phase of discouragement. Relying on
the prestige of British power and the nearness of Hong Kong, the
Chinese were not watchful in the Canton area. The Japanese landed almost
unopposed. Chinese negligence, corruption, and a little treachery worked
in their favor. The landing forces performed almost superhuman feats of
endurance in forced marches overland; on several occasions Japanese
advance troops ran so far ahead of schedule that Japanese warplanes,
thinking them disguised Chinese, strafed them![15] Canton fell without a
major battle. Hankow, the great radical capital, scene of the 1926-27
Leftist upsurge and of the anti-Fascist enthusiasm of 1938, was entered
by the Imperial Japanese army, and the entire Wu-han area was lost to
China.
[Footnote 15: An engrossing first-hand account of this is to be found
in Hino, Ashihei, _Sea and Soldiers_, Tokyo, 1940. This, with its
three companion volumes, _Mud and Soldiers_, _Flower and Soldiers_,
and _Barley and Soldiers_, Tokyo, 1939 and 1940, forms an eloquent,
humane, sensitive narrative of a young Japanese writer serving with
the Imperial forces in China. The series ranks with the great
narratives of the European war of 1914-18, and expresses the
Japanolatrist devoutness, the naïveté, and bewildering courage of much
of the Japanese infantry, but does so through the medium of a literary
craftsmanship rare in any army.]
Not only was the Hankow period ended. By breaking the last rail
connection of the Chinese government and the outside world, and by
driving the Chinese leadership into the remote interior, Japan shut off
the ready play of international influence on domestic Chinese politics.
Foreign visitors became more rare. The government, moving to the
mountain fastnesses of Szechuan, found a home on the great
Gibraltar-like promontory of Chungking city, tiered along cliffs above
the Yangtze and Kialing rivers. The last withdrawal was a final test of
strength. Hankow, six hundred miles up-river, was commercially,
architecturally, and politically a coastal city. It was still an outpost
of world imperialism and of modern technology. With the next remove the
Chinese government found itself beyond tangible Western influence; for
the first time since 1860 the capital was out of the military reach of
Western powers, and in a city which had only slight traces of Western
influence.
THE CHUNGKING PERIOD
The Chungking period began with the transfer of further government
offices to the West, to join President Lin Shên, and marks a distinct
phase in the process of government-building in China. As the Chungking
regime, the National Government took new forms of temper and character.
Government, Kuomintang, Communists--all were in the position of an
inner-Asiatic state, without convenient access to the sea, seeking to
fight an oceanic nation whose trade reached every port in the world.
Foreign imperialism could no longer be blamed for the demoralizations of
the hour; foreign aid was too tenuous and remote to qualify the inner
play of Chinese political growth. Politically, the Chinese had to stand
on their own feet.
The second phase of the war had begun. Chinese armies stood
front-to-front against the Japanese, and kept hundreds of thousands of
invading troops immobilized. The guerrillas got to work. Most of all,
the machinery of modernization began functioning; all the programs had
been completed, and the task was clear. The international developments
of the time--the first American loan, $25,000,000 in 1938; the brief
Manchoukuo-Outer Mongol war of 1939, wherein Japan and Russia fought
each other through their respective dependencies; even the outbreak of
the European war--were remote from this far inland scene. Military
events had some effect, but nothing comparable to the Japanese victories
at Shanghai, Nanking, Canton, and Hankow recurred. The Japanese invaded
Kwangsi in the fall of 1939; they left a year later, when their drive
into French Indo-China made it unnecessary to cut those colonies off
from China. In South Hunan the Japanese suffered catastrophically when
they advanced boldly and contemptuously into non-modern areas and were
encircled by the Chinese. Even the flight and treason of Wang Ch'ing-wei
at the year's end of 1938, and his open cooperation with Japan in March
1940, did not change the general picture. The emphasis was no longer on
sudden changes, on personality, on dramatic shifts of power. It was on
construction--on the development of a modern, democratic, technically
equipped Chinese state out of the vast resources of China's hinterland.
The China which was to win had to be created before it could
counter-attack.[16]
[Footnote 16: The literature of the war and of the struggles of Free
China has already reached an enormous extent. The present work makes
no attempt to present a step-by-step account of the interplay of
personal politics, the progress of the armies, or to provide a
first-hand personal account. Observers other than the author have
presented these topics exceedingly well. A few of the outstanding
works may be mentioned, however; a Shanghai press line usually
signifies that the book was reprinted there from a British or North
American edition. Epstein, I., _The People's War_, London, 1939, is a
spirited, detailed account of development down to the spring of 1939,
particularly useful for the New Fourth Army and the Border Region.
Among accounts of the war are Bertram, J. M., _Unconquered_, New York,
1939; Oliver, Frank, _Special Undeclared War_, London, 1939,
containing interesting accounts, in particular, of Japanese military
and political behavior in China. Andersson, J. G., _China Fights for
the World_ [Shanghai], 1939; Utley, Freda, _China at War_ [Shanghai],
1939, a significant personal account with special interest for the
Hankow period; Mowrer, Edgar, _Mowrer in China_, Harmondsworth
(England), 1938, published in America as _The Dragon Wakes_, New York,
1939; Booker, Edna Lee, _News Is My Job_ [Shanghai], 1940, a
reminiscent anecdotage; Lady Hosie, _Brave New China_, [Shanghai],
n.d., a far more informed work than most of the autobiographical
accounts, by the daughter and widow of two British Orientalists,
herself a distinguished literary writer on China. On the North China
situation, four popular works stand out: Snow, Edgar, _Red Star Over
China_, New York, 1938, the great "scoop" on the Communists; and three
other books based on first-hand reconnaissance: Bisson, T. A., work
cited above; Hanson, Haldore, "_Humane Endeavour_" [Shanghai], n.d.;
and Carlson, Evans Fordyce, _Twin Stars of China_, New York, 1940, the
work of the U. S. Marine Corps Observer in the guerrilla area, unique
in its value as professional military interpretation. Gunther, John,
_Inside Asia_, New York, 1939, contains much of great interest. Very
special viewpoints are represented in the account of a
National-Socialist German observer, Urach, Fürst A., _Ostasien, Kampf
um das Kommende Grossreich_, Berlin, 1940; the commentary of two
British poets, Auden, W. H., and Isherwood, Christopher, _Journey to a
War_, New York, 1939; and the reportage of a distinguished Soviet
fellow-traveller, Strong, Anna Louise, _One-Fifth of Mankind_, New
York, 1938.]
CHAPTER I
THE CONSTITUTION
The constitutional system, basic in most Western states, plays a
peculiar, subordinate role in China. Consideration of the issue of
constitutionalism high-lights the most practical aspects of the issues
of full democracy. Although the purely legal aspects of constitutional
development are still unimportant in the internal power politics of
China, further constitutional development involves a very real shift in
the domestic balance of power. The fullness of national unity, and
therefore the effectiveness of resistance against Japan, depend in part
on the successful solution or compromise of the problems of
constitutionalism.
Ever since the beginnings of political modernization in China, demands
for constitutional government have included a written constitution as an
imperative prerequisite. The formidable Empress Dowager was troubled in
her last days by the Imperial constitution, a rather unimaginative
plagiarism of the Japanese Constitution of 1889. Since the Republic
began in 1912, China has continued constitutional drafting, amendment,
replacement, and suppression; many of these constitutions have gone into
legal effect. Law being what it was, practical politics flowed on
untroubled.[1] Only with the establishment of the National Government
at Nanking did constitutional structure and actual government develop
similarities.
[Footnote 1: On the Manchu constitutional programs, see _Columbia
University Studies in Political Science_, Vol. XL, No. 1: Yen,
Hawkling L., "A Survey of Constitutional Development in China";
Vinacke, Harold Monk, _Modern Constitutional Development in China_,
Princeton, 1920; Cameron, Meribeth, _The Reform Movement in China,
1898-1912_, Stanford University, 1931; and Hsieh, Pao Chao, _The
Government of China (1644-1911)_, Baltimore, 1925. The earlier
constitutional developments under the Republic are summarized in
Escarra, Jean, _Le Droit Chinois_, Paris and Peiping, 1936, which
includes excellent bibliographies; Tsêng Yu-hao, _Modern Chinese Legal
and Political Philosophy_, Shanghai, 1934, Ch. VI, "The Law of Modern
Chinese Constitutions"; a characteristic proposal for a pre-Kuomintang
constitution is Bau, Mingchien Joshua, _Modern Democracy in China_,
Shanghai, 1927; and the works of Lum, Wu, and Linebarger, cited above.]
THE _Yüeh Fa_ OF 1931
In 1931, after three years' operation under an Organic Law, the National
Government adopted the _Yüeh Fa_ (Provisional Constitution),[2] designed
to cover the period between the first stage of the revolution, _military
conquest_, and the final one of _constitutional government_. This
intermediate period was formally labelled the stage of _political
tutelage_, although in fact the military unification of the country
continued. The Provisional Constitution, designed for five years' use,
has continued in force to the present (March 1941). It possesses the
merit of attempting to make actual practice and constitutional form
correspond. Grandiloquent, unenforceable provisions concerning elections
are omitted, and full exercise of the powers of sovereignty are frankly
entrusted to the tutelary Party, the Kuomintang. Such a constitution,
formally making the Kuomintang different from and higher than any other
party in China--and, for all that, in the world, since the Fascist,
National Socialist, and Communist parties are not formally the
constitutional superiors of their respective governments--and giving the
Party unrestricted authority, has provided China with government
realistic if not libertarian.
[Footnote 2: The text of the _Yüeh Fa_ is to be found in _The China
Year Book, 1932_, Shanghai, 1932, and in Lum, work cited, p. 161
_ff._, and Wu Chih-fang, work cited, p. 410 _ff._ The Chinese texts
of all outstanding Chinese constitutions, from the Imperial programs
down to the Double Five Draft of the _Hsien Fa_ are to be found in
Wang Shih-chieh, _Pi-chiao Hsien-fa_, Shanghai, 1937, p. 699-796.]
The constitutional basis of the present Party-dictatorship in China is
well summarized by the distinguished constitutional commentator, Dr.
Wang Shih-chieh:
According to Sun Chung-shan's[3] _Chien-kuo Ta-kang_
[Outlines of National Reconstruction], China should pass
through a period of political tutelage under the Chinese
Kuomintang,[4] before the stage of constitutional government
be reached. The National Government is merely an
organization through which a true republic may be formed.
Hence, in order to demonstrate the structure of the National
Government clearly, we must first understand the meaning of
_tang chih_ [party government].
"Party government," so-called, signifies that the whole
system of government is under the control or dictatorship of
one political party only. The only difference between party
government and dictatorship is that the former is under the
dictatorship of an entire political party, while the latter
is under that of a single person. Party government is of
course different from democracy, inasmuch as with democracy,
all policies are to be decided by the entire body of
citizens, while with party government, policies are to be
decided by all the members of the particular party only. In
other words, the entire party as one man can exercise
political dictatorship, without taking into consideration
the opinions of those who are not the members of the party.
Any resolution passed by that party is considered a law not
only in fact, but sometimes even in name; moreover, the
party may cancel or change a law by a resolution passed in a
meeting.
The above-mentioned points are phenomena common to countries
under party governments.
After the Chinese Kuomintang has come into power, the system
of party government is not only a fact, but even prescribed
in laws. The _Laws Governing the System of Organization of
the National Government of the Republic of China_
promulgated for the first time on July 1, Year XIV (1925)
were originally formulated by the Political Council of the
Chinese Kuomintang. Article I in this code of laws provided:
"The National Government discharges all the political
affairs of the entire country, under the direction and
superintendency of the Chinese Kuomintang." The said code
has been constantly amended since its first promulgation,
but this article has always remained unchanged. By the
summer of Year XVII (1928), when the successful Northern
Expedition undertaken by the National Revolutionary Army
unified China under one government, the period of political
tutelage of the Chinese Kuomintang began with the
formulation and promulgation of the _Outlines of Political
Tutelage_ on October 3, Year XVII (1928). Article I of the
said "Outlines" provided: "During the period of political
tutelage of the Republic of China, the National Party
Congress of the Chinese Kuomintang will take the place of
the National Convention to lead the people and enforce all
policies." By the beginning of June, in Year XX (1931), when
the _Provisional Constitution_ for the period of political
tutelage was promulgated, the _Outlines of Political
Tutelage_ were again formed into a part of the _Provisional
Constitution_, thereby giving party government a
constitutional recognition. Besides the _Outlines of
Political Tutelage_, Article 72 ("The National Government
[Council of State] has a President and a certain number of
state councillors, appointed by the Central Executive
Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang."), and Article 58 ("The
Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang is
vested with the power of interpreting this Provisional
Constitution.") of the _Provisional Constitution_, and
Article 10 ("The National Government has a President,
twenty-four to thirty-six state councillors, a President and
a Vice-President of every _Yüan_, appointed by the Central
Executive Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang."), and
Article 15 ("Before the promulgation of the Constitution,
the Executive, Legislative, Judicial, Examination and
Control _Yüan_ will each be responsible to the Central
Executive Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang.") of the
_Laws Governing the System of Organization of the National
Government_ (December 30, Year XX [1931]) now being
enforced, form the legal basis for party government.[5]
[Footnote 3: I.e., Sun Yat-sen; Chung-shan was a revolutionary alias,
which became a ceremonial posthumous name.]
[Footnote 4: The term "Chinese Kuomintang" is not a redundancy; the
original is _Chung-kuo Kuo-min-tang_, "Central-Realm
Realm-people-association," and could be translated as the Chinese
Nationalist Populist Party, National Democratic Party, the Nation's
People's Party, etc. Several Japanese organizations have had
exceedingly similar names; hence the formal style for the Kuomintang
is always prefaced by _China_.]
[Footnote 5: Wang Shih-chieh, work cited, p. 649-50.]
Under Kuomintang trusteeship, demands have been heard within and without
the Party, for the promised abdication of the Party and for the
initiation of popular government. Since the Kuomintang, unlike European
one-party groups, established itself only for the formal purpose of
democratic training, and was pledged to tolerate multi-party government
as soon as possible, the continued monopoly of power was a frustration
of the Party ideology and programs. The frustration was serious;
involving much loss of popular sympathy for the government, this and
appeasement rather demoralized the Party in the years preceding the
invasion.
THE DRAFT PERMANENT OR DOUBLE FIVE CONSTITUTION
The Legislative _Yüan_ brought forth on May 5, 1936 (in Chinese
chronology, 5/5/XXV, or double-five twenty-five), the celebrated
_Hsien-fa Ts'ao-an_ (Draft Permanent Constitution), which was promptly
dubbed the Double Five Constitution. Ever since its first promulgation,
this document has formed the center of all Chinese constitutional
debate, and--with very minor modifications--still stands as the official
proposal for a permanent constitution, awaiting ratification by the
_Kuo-min Ta-hui_ (National [Constituent] Congress), when and if that
long-postponed body ever convenes.[6] The Draft Constitution is the
joint work of many outstanding legal scholars. A product of collective
research and study, it thereby resembles collective private
codification of municipal and international law in the West more than it
does the creation of a deliberative assembly. The celebrated Chinese
jurist, Dr. John C. H. Wu, prepared the first informal draft,[7] and the
5/5/XXV version represents the fourth draft of the Legislative _Yüan_.
The preparation of the various drafts has not, from the scholastic point
of view, been secretive or private; but broad popular participation has
neither been offered nor solicited.
[Footnote 6: The Double Five Draft Constitution is to be found in
Chinese in Wang Shih-chieh, work cited, and in English in Council of
International Affairs, _Information Bulletin_, Vol. III, No. 10 (April
11, 1937), Nanking; Hsia, C. L., "Background and Features of the Draft
Constitution of China"; in Legislative _Yüan_, "Draft of the
Constitution of the Republic of China," Nanking, 1937; in _The China
Year Book_, Shanghai, and _The Chinese Year Book_, Shanghai and Hong
Kong, _v.i._ and _v.d._ The latest version of the Draft Constitution
is reprinted below. Appendix I (A), p. 283; the latest Chinese
annotated version of this is the Legislative _Yüan_, _Chung-hua
Min-kuo Hsien-fa Ts'ao-an Shuo-ming-shu_ (An Elucidation of the Draft
Permanent Constitution of the Chinese Republic), [Chungking], XXIX
(1940).]
[Footnote 7: For a critique and appreciation of the final Draft
Constitution, see Wu, John C. H., "Notes on the Final Draft
Constitution" in _Tien Hsia Monthly_, Vol. X, No. 5 (May 1940), p.
409-26. (Dr. Wu is one of the most extraordinary personages of the
modern world; he has taken all knowledge--East Asiatic and
Western--for his province. He writes a spirited, graceful English and
is capable of discussing anything from modern politics or abstruse
points of Anglo-American law to ancient Chinese hedonism or the
philosophical implications of the _Autobiography_ of St. Thérèse of
Lisieux. Dr. Wu, in a bomb-shelter, possesses much of the moral poise
and profound personal assurance for which such Westerners as T. S.
Eliot seek in vain.) See also Hsia, C. L., "A Comparative Study of
China's Draft Constitution with That of Other Modern States," in _The
China Quarterly_, Vol. 2, 1936-7, No. 1 (Summer), p. 89-101 and Hoh
Chih-hsiang, "A History of Constitution Making in China," the same,
Vol. 1, 1935-6, No. 4 (Summer), p. 105-117.]
The Constitution consists of eight Chapters, comprising one hundred and
forty-seven articles. Chapter I defines the Chinese state as "a San Min
Chu I Republic" (_Art._ 1), declares sovereignty to be "vested in the
whole body of its citizens" (_Art._ 2), defines the territories of the
republic, specifies racial equality for the "races of the Republic of
China," designates the national flag, and declares Nanking to be the
capital. Chapter II covers, in nineteen very specific articles, the
entire field of private rights and of the civic privileges of
individuals. Most specifications carry the qualification, "in accordance
with law" or "except in accordance with law." Since law is defined
further in the Constitution as "that which has been passed by the
Legislative _Yüan_ and promulgated by the President," the qualification
impresses many persons as sinister rather than encouraging. Except for
this point, the specific constitutional guarantees exceed in number and
specificity those of almost any other modern constitution.
The _Kuo-min Ta-hui_ (either "National Congress" or "People's Congress")
is the subject of Chapter III. This body has a function unlike that of
any Western agency; the nearest equivalent is the National Assembly of
the Third French Republic. This Congress is an electoral and constituent
body with fundamental legislative powers. It is not intended to usurp
the functions of the Legislative _Yüan_ by fulfilling the role of a
United States Congress, French Deputies and Senate, or a British
Parliament. Meeting once every three years for a one-month session, it
will be manifestly unable to act as a routine Western-type legislature.
The Central Government is the topic of the fourth Chapter. The first
section of the Chapter describes the Presidency; the remaining five, the
five _Yüan_. This applies the five-fold separation of powers. Sun
Yat-sen held that a three-fold separation of powers, as known in the
West and applied to American government, was efficacious; he also
considered that the Imperial Chinese separation of powers (an implicit
one only) was also desirable. The West had executive, legislative,
judicial; old China combined these three into the governing power, and
joined thereto the examinative power and the _chien-ch'a_[8] power. (The
_chien-ch'a_ power involved the functions of the traditional Chinese
censorate; overt and active expressions are found in auditing and in the
lodgment of impeachment charges. The term is fundamentally
untranslatable, but if the tribunician connotations of _Censor_ or the
emergency meaning of _Control_ be recalled, either of these terms will
serve.) Sun Yat-sen combined the Western and the old-Chinese
separations, developing a theory of the five powers. The Draft
Constitution, like its two working predecessors, is a five-power
constitution, with five great _Yüan_ (Boards, Presidencies, or Courts),
each headed by a _Yüan-chang_ (_Yüan_ President). The fourth Chapter, by
including the President and all five _Yüan_, almost covers the full
reach of Chinese government.
[Footnote 8: For a more extended discussion of this point, see the
author's _The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen: An Exposition of the
San Min Chu I_, Baltimore, 1937, p. 218 _ff._, and also p. 96 _ff._]
This Chapter contemplates the creation of a strong President. In the
Organic Law of 1928, the five Presidents of the _Yüan_ were relatively
less strong, and the Chairman of the _Kuo-min Chêng-fu Wei-yüan-hui_
(National Government Council; or, Council of State) was the key figure
in the government. Most of this time, Chiang himself was Chairman. In
the 1931 Provisional Constitution, now in force, the Chairman of the
National Government--termed President by courtesy--is an officer
comparable to the President of the Third French Republic; the President
of the Executive _Yüan_ is a more active officer: Chiang K'ai-shek is
President of the Executive _Yüan_. The new President, under the Draft
Constitution, is one of the world's most powerful officers. Holding
office for six years, eligible for re-election, commander of all armed
forces, declarer of war, negotiator of peace, treaty-maker, chief
appointing and removing officer of the state, holder of an emergency
power greater than that conveyed by Article 48 of the German Weimar
Constitution, and superior to the executive, legislative, judicial,
examinative and control branches of the government--such a President is
fully responsible to the triennial People's Congress, and to that only!
Since the proposed President may be recalled at any time by the People's
Congress, he is in that respect similar to parliamentary chiefs of
state.[9]
[Footnote 9: See Sun Fo [President of the Legislative _Yüan_, and son
of Sun Yat-sen], "The Spirit of the Draft Permanent Constitution," in
_The China Quarterly_, Vol. V, No. 3 (April 1940), Shanghai, p.
377-84.]
The President of the Executive _Yüan_, together with his subordinates,
is to be appointed and removed by the President of the Republic. The
_Yüan_ includes Cabinet Ministers--appointed to their posts from among a
special group of Executive Members of the _Yüan_, thereby providing a
simple, rational equivalent of Cabinet and Privy Council, as in Japan or
(less similarly) in Great Britain.
The Legislative _Yüan_ is an interesting semi-cameral legislative body,
which seeks to embody the better features of legislative research organs
and of representative bodies. The Judicial _Yüan_ rationalizes the
structure and administration of courts and of judicial process.
The Control [or Censor] _Yüan_ is, like the Legislative _Yüan_, a
quasi-cameral body, with indirect election of members by the People's
Congress from territorial electorates. Its functions are audit, inquiry,
and impeachment, with such ancillary powers as practice to date has
already indicated.[10]
[Footnote 10: See Appendix I (F), p. 318-24, below.]
Chapter V of the Draft Permanent Constitution deals with local
government. The institutions of provincial government are wittingly
minimized, because of recent trouble with provincial satrapies and the
dangerously centrifugal effect of provincial autonomism. In contrast to
this, government at the district (_hsien_) level is designed in strict
accordance with the realities of twenty-odd centuries' experience. It is
probable that no other constitution in the world provides for such
careful guarantee of district, county, canton, or _Kreis_ autonomy. The
old Imperial Chinese system was a loose pseudo-centralized federation of
two thousand near-autarkic and near-autonomous commonwealths; the Draft
Constitution attempts to reinstitute (at the political level) this
vigorous cooperative independence of the _hsien_. The _hsien_ meeting,
extrapolitical, unsystematic, and occasional in the past, is made the
foundation for the new legal structure. (These proposed reforms are now
being anticipated under the Provisional Constitution and current
statutory changes.[11])
[Footnote 11: See below, p. 106 _ff._, and Appendix I (G), p. 324.]
Chapter VI provides that the economic system shall rest on Sun Yat-sen's
principle of _min shêng_ (_q.v._, below). Willing to apply whatever
worked best, Sun himself had no theoretical objections to capitalism,
communism, state socialism, or any other economic doctrine. Hence,
proletarian ownership of the means of production is not guaranteed; yet
state ownership is not restricted, and is specifically required in the
case of "all public utilities and enterprises of a monopolistic nature"
(_Art._ 123). Henry George's influence on Sun is shown by mandatory
taxation of unearned increment (_Art._ 119). Room for free future
adaptation from corporative economic techniques successful in the
outside world is assured (_Art._ 125): "Labor and capital shall, in
accordance with the principles of mutual help and cooperation, develop
together productive enterprises." It is likely that any imaginable
economic system would be constitutional on this basis, provided that it
was initiated by due legal procedure and without hardships irresponsibly
imposed.
Chapter VII, on Education, opens: "The educational aim of the Republic
of China shall be to develop a national spirit, to cultivate a national
morality, to train the people for self-government and to increase their
ability to earn a livelihood, and thereby to build up a sound and
healthy body of citizens" (_Art._ 131), and continues, "Every citizen of
the Republic of China shall have an equal opportunity to receive
education" (_Art._ 132). State, secular control of educational policy is
assured. Articles 134 and 135 provide for tuition-free elementary
education for children and free elementary education for previously
non-privileged adults. (The constitutional guarantee concerning tuition
is indicative of the scholastic traditions of the Chinese, of the
modern educational revolution, and is reminiscent of _Art._ 12 of the
1931 Constitution of the Chinese Soviet Republic: "The Soviet Government
in China shall guarantee to all workers, peasants, and the toiling
masses the right to education. The Soviet Government will, as far as
possible, begin at once to introduce free universal education.")[12]
[Footnote 12: This constitution is available in Yakhontoff, Victor A.,
_The Chinese Soviets_, New York, 1934, p. 217-21, and in Kun, Bela
[prefator], _Fundamental Laws of the Chinese Soviet Republic_, New
York, 1934, p. 17-24. The writer has been unable to secure the Chinese
text of this document.]
Chapter VIII deals with the interpretation and enforcement of the
Constitution. It was a labor of love by shrewd legal theorists, and
defines terms with great clarity. Interpretive power is vested in the
Judicial _Yüan_.
THE ISSUE OF CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE
Nowhere in China is there outright denial of a need for constitutional
change. The need exists; the Double Five Draft is the government's
answer. Yet there are few patent demerits in the existing constitutional
system; the present political structure is more realistic, more broadly
national, more expressive of effective opinion than any other in modern
China. The question arises from commitments (dating back to the Empire)
promising to create actual constitutional government. The National
Government was established on the basis of this pledge. The democratic
ideology, whatever sects it may include, has a clean sweep of the field
of doctrine in China. No one seriously advocates monarchy, separatism,
or permanent dictatorship. The only question is: how and when?
At the close of the third session of the advisory People's Political
Council, Chiang K'ai-shek replied to demands for immediate broadening of
popular control over the government by reaffirmation of his adherence
to the democratic dogma of Sun Yat-sen, together with the following
warnings:
The democracy which _Tsung-Li_ [The Leader, i.e., Sun
Yat-sen] wished to establish was of the purest kind without
the slightest vestige of make-believe or artificiality.
Unfortunately, the Chinese people, having inherited all the
evil practices handed down throughout the numerous dynasties
of autocratic rule, were then at a low ebb both in
intelligence and in vitality. The people were used to
disorganization and selfishness....
We have to wait until our lost territories have been
recovered and domestic disorders liquidated before we can
have political tutelage and prepare ourselves for
constitutionalism....
People at that time [the inauguration of the Republic in
1912] made the mistake of neglecting the necessary
procedures and instead they rivalled each other in talking
about democracy.... As a result, democracy has remained an
ideal....
We must make it clear to our people that democracy is not a
synonym for lack of law and order, or for anarchy.
The public opinion on which democracy is based must be
sound, collective, and representative of the majority of the
people's wills. The freedom which democracy endows on people
should not conflict with public welfare, nor should it go
beyond the sphere as marked by laws of the State. With our
nation facing the worst invasion in history, we must teach
the people to respect the absolute authority of laws of the
State.[13]
[Footnote 13: China Information Committee, Chungking, _News Release_,
No. 351 (February 25, 1939), p. 2269-71.]
The clamor for a constitution continued. The difficulties of introducing
mass suffrage to Western China were apparent to everyone, but many
leaders felt that the advantages of constitutionalism would outweigh the
inescapable loss of efficiency, and would mobilize public opinion behind
the war and further democratic progress. The Generalissimo found this
view hard to reconcile with his military, direct notions of doing first
things first, as he saw them, but he yielded in the fourth session of
the People's Political Council and accepted the demand. He stated:
In China ... [democratization] is a tremendously heavy task
which cannot be completed within a few days. I think that
the Constitution and laws may as well be promulgated at an
earlier date. But, gentlemen, please do not forget the
_Tsung-li's_ painful consideration ... [of the necessity of
an intermediate stage of real democratic training].
Political tutelage does not end with the training of the
citizens by the government. It requires training of the
citizens by themselves.
Today we should understand our object: to start the building
of a constitutional government. This means laying a
permanently sound basis for the nation. We are not concerned
with the time of starting constitutional government. Whether
to start it early or later does not matter much. What we are
really concerned with is, do we have a real intention of
forming a constitutional government? If we are truly so
minded, we might as well promulgate the Constitution before
the labor of political tutelage is completed.[14]
[Footnote 14: [Chiang K'ai-shek], _Tsung-ts'ai Chien-kuo Yen-lun
Hsüan-chi_ (The Party Chief's Utterances on Reconstruction),
Chungking, 1940, p. 237-43. The Generalissimo concluded his speech
with a homiletic touch which is so characteristic that it may be
included here; it also explains his relative lack of interest in the
Constitution: "Lastly, I have another point to tell you gentlemen. I
have already repeated this, again and again, many times. Desiring to
complete our revolutionary work and national reconstruction, and to
have a constitutional government as seen in many modern states as soon
as possible, I often study the causes of the weakness and disorder
which exist in our country.... [He cites the traditional political
vigor and excellence of the centuries before the time of Christ, with
the "degeneration" and "departure from order" of the following
centuries.] The departure is not simply due to the failures in
politics and education and to the deprivation of the popular rights by
a few tyrannical kings and lords since the Ch'in and Han periods. It
is due to the fact that before the Chou, we had government by law
[_fa chih_] as a mere supplement to government by social standards
[_li chih_, also translatable as ideological control, or control
through moral indoctrination]. We had social organization as the
foundation of political organization. Everything was then
well-organized and well-trained. Everywhere, in schools, in armies, in
families, in society, order and the forms of propriety [i.e., social
standards] were regarded as most important. No citizen could evade his
duty and obligation."]
Chiang thus reconciled the beginning of constitutionalism and the
continuance of political tutelage, although implying acquiescence, not
recommendation. A theorist holding all men to be driven by "a perpetuall
and restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in
Death,"[15] might consistently suppose that Chiang merely dissimulated
an inward lust for authority; more plausible is the postulation that a
man who has for years lived with and for a doctrine, giving his life and
future reputation to the fulfilment of a program, would incline to
prudence and realism in climaxing that doctrine and program. In Chiang's
case this is Sun Yat-sen's _San Min Chu I_. Chiang's reluctance to apply
democracy then and there is understandable whatever the inmost motive;
so, too, is his yielding to a widespread demand.
[Footnote 15: Thomas Hobbes, _Leviathan_, New York and London, 1934
(Everyman's Edition), p. 49.]
The convening of a special _Kuo-min Ta-hui_ as a national constituent
assembly was set for November 12, 1940; this day was chosen because it
was traditionally the seventy-fourth birthday of Sun Yat-sen.
Administrative machinery for preparation of a hall, secretariat,
publications, and other necessities was established and set in motion.
Following the severe fires of August 19-20, and the subsequent
large-scale demolition of above-ground downtown Chungking by raids,
indefinite postponement of the Congress was announced on September
25--on the grounds that military hazard prevented adequate assembly of
delegates, and no reasonably safe place for such a meeting could be
found.
Meanwhile, recent years have seen an uproar of constitutional debate.
This may be summarized briefly, with the case against the Constitution
stated first:
Constitutionalization would lead to the legalization of other parties,
instead of a mere condition of non-prosecution; this would disrupt the
orderliness required of a people at war. Why add discord in war time?
_Reply_: legitimization of other parties is not a struggle for power but
an act of union. It would widen the periphery of cooperation.[16]
[Footnote 16: The writer is indebted for much of the material in this
chapter to Dr. Djang Chu, of the New Life Movement Headquarters,
Chungking, who supplied it to him in the form of a lecture and other
memoranda. Dr. Djang is, of course, not responsible for any
reinterpretations here made.]
Sun Yat-sen required three stages of the revolution: conquest, tutelage,
constitution. China is not ready for mass suffrage. The majority of the
people are not yet literate. Public opinion is just developing. The
nation is, in fact, still in the period of military recapture of
national territories. _Reply_: Sun Yat-sen must not be interpreted
mechanically. If this is done, tutelage will never end, and Sun's
cherished democracy will remain forever in the future. Furthermore, the
guerrillas, the Border Region, and other instances have shown that the
Chinese masses can and will practice democracy right now. Again, the
issue has already been decided; the government has been committed to the
immediate inauguration of the Constitution. First it was to be 1939; the
elections were held in part, until the war finally stopped them on
August 13, 1937. It is too late to raise the issue: is China ready?
Everyone--government, Kuomintang, independent groups--has decided that
China is.
Why change constitutions? The present one is satisfactory. If a war-time
amplification of the _Yüeh Fa_ is needed, it can be found in the
_Program of Resistance and Reconstruction_.[17] If a convocation of the
talents is needed, the People's Political Council is already there. What
is the use of a constitutional change in war time? _Reply_: the
constitutionalist movement is no new development. The _Program_ was a
democratic advance. "Besides, formation of the People's Political
Council was a step toward democracy. The constitutional movement was
not forced on the government, but was an outgrowth of the war; it has
not appeared overnight, but has a clear historical background. As soon
as the Sino-Japanese hostilities broke out, it was evident that more
democratic rule was necessary. As the war became prolonged, the
preliminary steps proved inadequate. A more perfect constitution,
whereby the whole people can be mobilized, is imminent. This fact was
duly recognized by the people and is the motive power of the present
constitutional movement." (This is the comment of an independent
writer.)[18]
[Footnote 17: See Appendix I (D), p. 309.]
[Footnote 18: Liu Shih, "Chung-kuo Hsien-chêng Yün-tung-ti Chi-ko
Chieh-tuan" (Stages of the Chinese Constitutional Movement) in _Li-lun
yü Hsien-shih_ (Theory and Reality), Vol. 1, No. 3, November 15, 1939,
p. 13 _ff._]
A pointed question is raised and answered by Tso Tao-fen, one of the
Seven Gentlemen (_Ch'i Chüntzu_) who led the National Salvationists:
Some say that as a matter of fact, the people themselves do
not want a constitution. And--to put it more bluntly--that
the people do not know what a constitution is. Therefore,
the constitutional movement represents the desires of only a
minority of the people, not the majority. You have a certain
element of truth if you say that most of the people do not
know what a constitution is, but it is not true that they do
not want a constitution. In the present war period, the
burden on the people is enormous. They should not be denied
any privileges to which they are entitled. All the proposed
constitutional stipulations concerning the duties, rights,
economic status, and education of the people have an
immediate effect on and relation to the people. Why do they
not want a constitution? If you proceed to ask one of the
common people, say a peasant, and you talk with him,
professorially as though you were in a classroom, about the
constitutional movement, he may be at a loss. But if you
bother to ask him about his daily life--the work he is
doing, his hopes, his bitterness, the cruelties inflicted on
him by unscrupulous officials and landlords and gentry--and
if he enjoys the freedom of speech, he will give you a good
talk!... If you say that the people do not know what a
constitution is, you should enlighten them about the close
relationship between themselves and the constitution, not
discontinue the constitutional movement.[19]
[Footnote 19: From Tso Tao-fen, "A Few Questions Regarding the
Constitution" in Ch'üan-min K'ang-chan Shê [The United Front Club],
_Hsien-chêng Yün-tung Lun-wên Hsüan-chi_ (A Symposium on the
Constitutional Movement), Chungking, 1940, p. 1 _ff._]
Other questions relate to specific points in the Draft Constitution. In
the opinion of some, the phrase "according to law" which follows every
guarantee of popular rights is a dangerous phrase, particularly in view
of the neat but arbitrary definition of "law" (_Art._ 139). Others,
remembering the Weimar Article 48, mistrust the emergency power of the
President. The President's sharing of the budgetary, pardoning, and war
powers with the Legislative _Yüan_ seems illogical to some critics, who
feel that these powers should be within reach of a more popular body,
not a technically legislative organ.
Further discussion deals with the competence of the _Kuo-min Ta-hui_.
Many of the critics, particularly those of the Communist and independent
Left group, believe the long-heralded epoch of democracy would open
badly if it began with mechanical ratification of a dictated
constitution. A Communist leader said, "We want a Constitution, a
democratic Constitution--a _real_ democratic Constitution!" and pointed
out that the first Congress was too large, not truly representative of
the common people, and not given enough time to work out a constitution
by its own action; its task, as he supposed the government intended,
would be to rubber-stamp the Double Five Draft. In his opinion, this
Draft had many defects--chief of which was unresponsiveness of the
central government to popular control. The proposed Congress could not
do much with a mere triennial check; the five-power system as projected
was unsatisfactory. Democratic rights were insufficiently assured. He
added that the Communist Party of China was for a democracy, but that
the Double Five Draft was not "the constitution of a democracy."[20]
[Footnote 20: Statement of Col. Ch'in Po-k'u at the Chungking office
of the 18th [Communist] Army Corps Headquarters, on July 29, 1940, to
the author.]
Furthermore, the representativeness of the proposed
constitution-adopting _Kuo-min Ta-hui_ is called into question. The
present plan calls for 665 delegates from geographical constituencies,
380 from occupational, 155 "by special methods," 240 by government
appointment, and a large number of Kuomintang Party-officers _ex
officio_ (241 by a recent count).[21] The present administration would
obviously have a whip hand over all proceedings. The division into
groups has been criticized. A demand, for example, for 120 women members
has been made. Under the circumstances, with 1681 members already
scheduled, mere additional size could be no handicap.
[Footnote 21: _China at War_, Vol. IV, No. 5 (June 1940), p. 79 _ff._]
The question of qualifications has also been raised. About 900 of the
representatives had been elected when war broke out. These include men
who have since died, or have changed their opinions, or are reported
missing, and even a few traitors. Are all the available elected
representatives to be gathered together, years later? or is a new
election to be held? Whatever occurs, the supreme agency on
qualifications is the Election Committee for Representatives to the
People's [Constituent] Congress, attached directly to the Council of
State.
The constitutional issue in China is no simple problem of reaction
versus progressivism. The vast majority of the population is not
literate, and is unprepared to deal with a complicated machinery of
opinion and election. Wire-pulling, corruption, adherence to form
instead of deed--these are all widespread in China. Democracy abruptly
established might frustrate further improvement, since sham-democracy
would have established itself. The opponents of sudden action also
press the telling point that the common people do not know they want
immediate democracy, although believing in the term as a symbol and
approving its trial application. The Generalissimo remains clearly
mistrustful about creating new organs of opinion, or using new political
processes; he would prefer to wait until the nation is unified, better
administered, and more literate. Hence his and the Kuomintang's
insistence on indirect elections, remoteness of policy-making
authorities from the electorate, and self-sufficient government.
China did have, it is argued, an excellent democratic constitution in
1912, many more in the warlord years. All had admirable balances of
power, guarantees to the individual, libertarian and progressive
provisions. Like Chinese social legislation, they lifted China to the
level of the rest of the modern world--_de jure_, and that only! These
elevated documents remained elevated; life went on beneath them, and the
tragic gap between law and life was so enormous that no one thought of
bridging it. The nation would have been humiliated by legislation which
limited the working day to fourteen hours, prohibited the mutilation or
slavery of children, or required that torture be administered in the
presence of a physician. Hence it had eight, ten, or twelve-hour laws,
good child legislation, and absolute prohibition of torture for any
purpose; these were unenforceable.
To counsels of caution, advocates of immediately responsive institutions
reply that the Chinese common people are better democrats than their
rulers, citing concrete cases in proof. They mention the general
strikes, strong peasant cooperation, the startling phenomena of
coordinate mass action--tens and hundreds of thousands strong--in
political protest, boycotts, or civic immobility. (In past years many a
warlord has been stopped by empty streets and closed houses: no
business, no traffic, no talking, no meetings--only the silence,
and somewhere, conspicuously inconspicuous, a committee of
plenipotentiaries!) They refer to the Frontier Area, the Border Region,
the New Fourth Zone, the guerrillas, the industrial cooperatives, and
the wealth of leadership called up from the millions by the war. They
quote to the Kuomintang its own professions of democracy, and the words
of its late Leader. Told that the masses do not understand modern
administration, modern economics, modern war, and that the peasantry and
workers would proceed to arbitrary class legislation, economic
levelling, and social revolution, they reply, "What do you
want--democracy?" It is most unlikely that the Communists would sweep
the country under free elections, but they and other dissidents, as the
political Outs, would be free to criticize the incumbents in a way sure
to bring support and involve new alignments of power. Some Kuomintang
leaders wish to shut out any group with foreign connections; the Chinese
face--despite their definite movement toward constitutionalism--the
question of the limits of democratic toleration.
CHAPTER II
THE POLITICAL ORGANS OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
By constitutional stipulation, and by dogma legally established, the
National Government of the Chinese Republic is a Kuomintang
Party-dictatorship over the Chinese nation. This rule is formally
dictatorship by a minority democracy over the absolutely governed
majority, since the Party constitution requires intra-Party democracy.
No pretense is made of further formal democracy. Actual experience of
the past ten years has shown the government to be a broad, loosely
organized oligarchy in which the Party, the Government, the Army and
regional military, and independent leaders (such as bankers, college
professors and presidents, secret society chiefs, community spokesmen)
have shared power. The center of gravity has stayed somewhere near
Chiang K'ai-shek, who as co-leader and then formal Chief (_Tsung-ts'ai_,
"general ruler") of the Party and creator of the central army has
combined two of the chief sources of influence. Variety in the sources,
nature, and incidence of political power in recent Chinese affairs has,
however, not destroyed the constitutional theory: Party-dictatorship
pledged to national democracy.
The state machinery--as it has been since promulgation of the
Provisional Constitution, 1931--is among the most elaborate in the
modern world, but is nevertheless effective. One may justly regard the
present government as the most efficacious, generally powerful, and
growing Chinese government since the mid-eighteenth century. This
government is pre-eminently the creation of the Kuomintang, and of
Kuomintang leaders. A war which threatens China's national existence
accordingly threatens the leaders as government officers, as Party
members, as patriotic citizens, and as members of the Chinese race. At
the time that they fight an alien enemy, they must simultaneously
increase state power and diffuse it so that a democracy may emerge and
survive.
China's leadership is therefore posed a two-fold problem: to perpetuate
a regime, successful in one period of relative peace, through years of
invasion to a period of even deeper peace; and to permit popular access
to policy-forming agencies, allowing freer operation of pressures,
without endangering resistance and reconstruction thereby. To the
Western political scientist, it is amazing that they have carried into
the years of catastrophic war a unique, complex constitutional system,
treasuring it like an ark of the covenant. This is the five-power
system.
THE FIVE-POWER CONSTITUTION
The five-power constitution (_wu-ch'üan hsien-fa_) is a legacy of Sun
Yat-sen, and is one of the cardinal dogmas of the _San Min Chu I_.
Distinctively, two new powers are added to the familiar three: namely,
the examinative and the control powers. Westerners might question the
importance of segregating the impeaching, auditing and critical powers,
unifying them into a new agency of government, along with a glorified,
independent civil service system. Yet the five-fold division is to China
a key point of governmental development.
The five-power system is based on the notions Sun Yat-sen had of
democracy. He anticipated by a generation the need of strengthening
democratic machinery to compete with Caesarian techniques. Merely to
have qualified the suffrage, or to have narrowed the limits of
popular action, would not have sufficed, for it was authentic
democracy--government both representative and popular--which he desired,
not an empty shell of nominal republicanism. In an effort to solve this
dilemma, he employed the concepts _ch'üan_ and _nêng_,[1] which may be
translated "power" and "capacity," although the rendering would
necessarily vary in accordance with the connotations to be
encompassed.[2] He felt that it was a major discovery to apply in modern
politics a distinction between the power which the people should have
over government and the capability they had of operating the machine of
state. Abandoning the state to the vagaries of public opinion, allowing
the citizens free access to the powerful, complex controls of modern
governance, or assuming that anyone and everyone had an expert's
qualifications on all political subjects--this would, in Sun Yat-sen's
opinion, wreck the government. Nevertheless, the people had to reserve a
final power over policies and personnel of government, although they are
themselves unqualified to operate the state mechanism. Hence the people
were to exercise _the four powers_ over the government: initiative,
referendum, election, and recall. Compensatingly, the government was to
possess the _five rights_ over the people, based on the new separation
of powers. To Sun, as a Chinese, the state was not the hand of the
people; it was a separate institution above other institutions,
democratic only in allowing access to itself and in justifying its
authority by the ultimate sanction of popular vote. The new government
could not be kept clean, prompt, and high-minded by the freak, casual
operation of popular censure, nor staffed by whomever a mass fancy threw
into office. It was, instead, to be a traditionally Chinese
self-perpetuating bureaucracy, differing from the past only in being
controlled and revised by popular instead of imperial will.
[Footnote 1: See Sun Yat-sen, _San Min Chu I_, Shanghai, 1927,
henceforth cited as "Price translation," p. 296 _ff._; or d'Elia,
Paschal M., S. J., _The Triple Demism of Sun Yat-sen_, Wuchang, 1931,
p. 348 _ff._]
[Footnote 2: An attempt to correlate Sun's democratic theory with
Western concepts is made in the present author's _Political Doctrines
of Sun Yat-sen_, cited, p. 107-9. The notion is clearly put in
_L'Esprit des Lois_, Book 11, ch. 2.]
Accordingly, the ideal toward which the Chungking government strives may
be epitomized as _perfect bureaucracy subject to complete popular
control_. The two powers new to the West--examination and control--are
to replace public opinion at levels of obscurity, technicality, and
persistence where outside criticism could not reach; the plan of Sun
Yat-sen provides for as much use of power through voting as is found in
any Western state. This attempted solution strikes near the core
problems of any modern government, wherever it may operate and whatever
its conditions.
The five-power constitution posits a government of educated, expert men,
in which qualifying examinations will precede election for
administrative posts, and in which the examination and control _yüan_
will--professionally, officially--replace the haphazard play of
sentiment, anger, fancy, envy upon which Western peoples count to keep
their democracy healthy and intact. The United States Government is the
most complex and important institution in the United States, possessing
inquisitorial powers wider and deeper than those of any private person
or institution. Yet the Americans have no unceasing, professional,
expert investigation of their government by their government, nor does a
merit system extend to offices where it might have the drastic effect of
thwarting operation of public opinion locally or temporarily debased.
This function, specializing power to strengthen it, explains the
war-time survival of the five-power system as a fundamental theory of
state. The Chinese have suffered from weak government for decades.
Absence of dictatorship was largely owing to an inability to designate a
dictator. The five-power system was preceded by a Nationalist
government which employed the soviet form of organization--the one
instance outside the Soviet Union of such application.[3] This had been
set up for rapid, decisive action; thirteen years' preliminary
application of the five-power system has shown this to be no less swift
and effectual. Even the Communist leaders in China today are reconciled
to the retention of the five-power system, although they would certainly
like to modify its present organization.[4]
[Footnote 3: See Holcombe, Arthur N., _The Chinese Revolution_,
Cambridge (Massachusetts), 1930, passim, for the outstanding
elaboration of this curious experiment, and for a lucid delineation of
the genesis of the National Government.]
[Footnote 4: Statement to the author by Col. Ch'in Po-k'u, interview
cited, p. 38, n. 20, above.]
Reference to the general chart of government organization (see p. 330)
shows the intricate pre-democratic system of government now applied.
Consideration of the sources of policy in such a structure have,
therefore, to appraise not merely two agencies--executive and
legislative, with only a glance at the judiciary--as in America, but to
examine a whole hierarchy of Party, general governmental,
military-governmental, and autonomous policy-making agencies. Were it
not for the thousands of miles, the unrelatedness in cultures, the
complexities of language, and the inescapable awareness of race,
Americans might long since have looked to China as the decisive, fresh
political experiment of our times.
One further trait of the Chinese, which in Japan has been carried to the
point of a national mania, is the respect for the constitutional (or
Imperial) system as a symbol of purity and order. Western governments
are like machines in common use; they operate for the general
convenience and subject to the criticism of their members. Even
dictatorships try to seem practical. The Confucian traditions of
government by indoctrination, and particularly that of government
indoctrinating through conspicuous example, motivated heavy
ceremonialization of state functions. This often led a Chinese Emperor
to become more and more majestic and aloof, to strive for archetypal
perfection, until he became so much a model that he disappeared from
public sight altogether, swilling and carousing himself to death in the
gardens of the Forbidden City; his successors, if they came from the
people, would seem practical and workable for a few generations, until
they too succumbed to their own majesty. Some atrophy through majesty
occurs even in the relatively new Chinese National Government, arrested
but not eradicated by war-time vigor.
THE SUPREME NATIONAL DEFENSE COUNCIL
The highest political agency in China is the Supreme National Defense
Council (_Kuo-fang Tsui-kao Wei-yüan-hui_).[5] This is not a part of the
government, _de jure_, since it is the war-time replacement of the
Kuomintang Central Political Council (_Chung-yang Chêng-chih
Wei-yüan-hui_), the high Party organ charged with exercise of the
Party's sovereign powers in government. The liberalization of the
policy-framing agencies in war-time cannot be better illustrated than by
the fact that this new Supreme National Defense Council reportedly
includes non-Party members, and acts in fact as a central board or
council of government, superseding not only the Kuomintang Central
Political Council but its governmental counterpart, the Council of State
(_Kuo-min Chêng-fu Wei-yüan-hui_) as well. Reference to the chart below
will clarify the relationship of these agencies:
The KUOMINTANG, as a Party,
exercises sovereign powers through
[The CENTRAL POLITICAL COUNCIL, superseded in
war-time by]
The SUPREME NATIONAL DEFENSE COUNCIL,
which transmits commands
to
The COUNCIL OF STATE, highest governmental agency,
which transforms these commands into government
orders applicable
to
NATIONAL, PROVINCIAL, or LOCAL
GOVERNMENT AGENCIES,
in the form of
ORDERS, ORDINANCES, and LAWS
[Footnote 5: The names of agencies and offices in the discussion of
government and Kuomintang organization are taken from K'ao-shih _Yüan_
[Examination _Yüan_], _Tang Chêng Chien Chih T'u-piao_ [Charts of
Government and Party Development and Organization], Chungking, XXIX
(1940), _passim_. This work has not yet been published, since it is a
draft printing, to be revised and re-edited before formal publication.
The author was allowed to consult a copy through the courtesy of the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Wang Ch'ung-hui, and the kind
assistance of Mr. C. C. Chi of the Party-Ministry of Publicity. These
charts, provisional as they are, are by far the most systematic
presentation of modern Chinese government structure which the author
has ever seen. For a brief commentary on the Council, see the
one-paragraph section, _The Supreme National Defense Council_ in
Tsiang Ting-fu, "Reorganization of the National Government," _Chinese
Year Book 1938-39_, cited, p. 356. Dr. Tsiang, whose other writings on
Chinese government have been models of clarity, candor, and
concreteness, is obliged to state: "As its major functions are
involved in the prosecution of the war, military necessity compels
the writer to withhold the details of its organization and work for a
later issue."]
The power of the Kuomintang is exercised by its Chief [_Tsung-ts'ai_]
and its Central Executive Committee, Central Committee, and their
respective Standing Committees (discussed below, p. 125 _ff._).
Secretiveness in a nation's highest policy-making organ is somewhat
unusual in the modern world. In most states the invisible government of
practical acquaintance and association between leaders provides a
meeting ground, and traditions require a formal, open exercise of public
authority. As a matter of fact, a few generally accepted data concerning
the Supreme National Defense Council are readily apparent to the
observer in Chungking. In the first place, it is what its title
implies--the highest agency of political control. Its meetings are the
constant source of new policy and tangible control. Secondly, one finds
a universal belief that the Generalissimo, who attends these meetings in
the multiple capacity of Chairman of the Council, Party Chief of the
Kuomintang, President of the Executive _Yüan_, Chairman of the People's
Political Council, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Navy, and Air Forces,
etc., faithfully employs Council meetings for very real debate and
discussion of government and Party policy, and for the conduct of the
war. He is not believed to take any important step arbitrarily, without
consulting the Council. (In the past, he has been known to act with
dramatic and concealed swiftness, opening his mind to no one before the
crucial consummation of his plans, but at the present time this has
apparently disappeared.[6])
[Footnote 6: For a biased but bitterly graphic portrayal of Chiang's
tiger leaps in politics, see Isaacs, Harold, work cited, _passim_. Mr.
Isaacs' portrayal of Chiang shows him as ambitious, able, and
villainous in his need for power and his hostility to the proletariat.
The Trotskyite viewpoint is a usefully different one from that
obviously adopted by the present author.]
Third, the Council, while extending beyond the men who are primarily
Party leaders and including military and political figures who
(irrespective of nominal Party membership) are independent, has
transformed the arcanum of Party power into a body more representative
of the entire nation. Fourth, significant in connection with the
Japanese charge of Chungking Bolshevization, the Communists and other
Leftists, while fairly represented in advisory and even in military
bodies, are presumed to have no representation whatever on the Supreme
National Defense Council, nor is such representation regarded as
probable in the near future. Chiang K'ai-shek has at hand a counselling
and co-governing body whose fundamental purposes are completely one with
his own.
A nice consistency would demand that the Supreme National Defense
Council (as a Party agency) should transmit its commands to the Council
of State (its government counterpart) for transformation into law. This
is actually done, whenever possible, but the frequency of crises and of
needs for immediate action have--in the period of hostilities--led to
the occasional issuance of commands direct to the Ministry or other
governmental organ concerned.[7] To the degree that the Supreme National
Defense Council does so, it becomes a directly governing authority, and
instead of perpetuating Party authority _over_ government, it is itself
government.
[Footnote 7: Statement to the author, August 1, 1940, in Chungking, by
Dr. Wang Shih-chieh, Secretary-General of the People's Political
Council and Party-Minister of Publicity.]
Since a cloud of military secrecy covers the functions of the Council,
some notion of its operation and working authority may be found by
analogy with the role of the Central Political Council, which it has
displaced. According to the leading Chinese constitutional writer on the
subject, the Central Political Council (also called [Central] Political
Committee)--for which read Supreme National Defense Council today--acted
as follows:
According to Article IV of the _Principles Governing the
Organization of the C. E. C._ [of the Kuomintang] passed ...
December 6, XXIV (1935), "the Central Executive Committee
organizes a Political Committee, composed of a Chairman, a
Vice-Chairman, and nineteen to twenty-five members,
appointed by the Central Executive Committee, from among the
members of the Central Executive Committee and the Control
Committee." ... "During a session of the Political
Committee, the Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of the Central
Standing Committees, the President of the National
Government, the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Five
_Yüan_, and the President and Vice-President of the Military
Affairs Commission should be present, while the leading
members of the special technical committees under the
[control] Political Committee, and other higher officials of
the National Government may be notified if necessary to
attend the sessions." [The author explains that, on the
basis of actual experience, "may be notified" signifies
"shall attend if matters relevant to their functions
arise."] ...
It was originally fixed that the Political Committee should
meet once every week, but since December XXIV (1935), it
holds meetings either weekly or fortnightly. The number of
members required to constitute a forum is not fixed, and
resolutions have never been put in the form of motions
requiring formal vote. Regarding the proposition of a
motion, and the discussion of motions proposed _ex-tempore_,
the Political Committee has never fixed any rigid
regulations; moreover, even if a rule had been established
at one time, it has not been followed closely later. Before
being put to a decision, a motion is either studied and
examined beforehand, or it is not. There is no definite rule
as to whether every motion should be so studied or not, but
the Committee possesses the power to decide this point _ad
hoc_. The entire wording of a motion passed in a meeting is
rarely fully read, and is then read in the following session
as the minutes of the previous session. _Hence the Chairman
and the Secretary-General have a certain liberty in the
framing of the wording of resolutions. Judging from above
circumstances, important resolutions passed in the Political
Committee must actually represent the opinions of the
Chairman and a small number of influential members...._
[Italics added in translation.][8]
[Footnote 8: Wang Shih-chieh, _Pi-chiao Hsien-fa_, cited above, p. 658
_ff._]
Many of these features may reasonably be conjectured to have continued
in the Supreme National Defense Council, although the regular
meetings--whatever others there may be--seem to be considerably less
frequent, occurring presumably about once in five weeks.[9] In the
matter of authority, again, some continuity may be supposed between the
earlier agency and the later. Wang Shih-chieh continues:
The authority of the Political Committee (or the Political
Council) has undergone very few changes since its
establishment. To speak concisely, the Political Committee
is the highest directing organ of all governmental policies.
Putting it in more detail, we may say that this Committee
has the power to decide the basic principles of legislation,
of governmental policies and their execution, and has also
the power to appoint and dismiss governmental officials....
[A footnote adds the following detail.] According to the
outlines of organization now being enforced, there are still
five kinds of affairs that should be discussed and decided
by the Political Committee: (1) the basic principles of
legislation, (2) the general plans of executing government
policies, (3) important plans concerning military affairs,
(4) financial plans, (5) the appointment of officials of the
Especially Appointed category and of other governmental
officials, and (6) [_sic_] cases submitted for discussion by
the Central Executive Committee. The first four may be
collectively classified under the two names of execution and
legislation.[10]
[Footnote 9: For example, the date of the law given in Appendix I (G),
p. 324, below, is given as August 31, 1939, and it is stated to have
passed the Council on that date at the _14th_ Regular Session; since
the Council had been established seventeen months previously, some
notion of the frequency or length of sessions may thus be derived.]
[Footnote 10: Wang Shih-chieh, _Pi-chiao Hsien-fa_, cited, p. 662. The
author adds that though the Central Political Council possesses ample
authority to interfere in the specific work of the Judicial,
Examination, and Control _Yüan_, such authority was rarely exercised,
the Executive and Legislative _Yüan_ constituting the prime objects of
its attention.]
Only from such description by analogy may the foreigner penetrate to the
inmost source of Chinese policy. This ambiguous and all-powerful agency,
a Party organ which controls government, a committee constellated about
its charismatic Chairman, is the heir both of the Grand Council of the
Manchu Empire and of the soviets established by Nationalists during the
entente with Soviet Russia. Should the fortune of war remove the
Generalissimo from the scene, this Council would become the storm center
of power; under his guidance and leadership, this agency above all
others distinguishes China from an outright dictatorship. Chiang, unlike
many other national leaders, has consistently shrunk from the regalia of
arbitrary power. In the highest matters, and at the ultimate control,
his action is veiled in the Supreme National Defense Council. The
actual play of personalities and power is hidden from us, his
contemporaries. Only the future may discover the exact degrees and
_modus operandi_ of his authority.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
The term National Government (_Kuo-min Chêng-fu_) is employed in two
senses. In the broad sense, it refers to the entire central government
of China. In the narrow sense, it is a synonym for National Government
Committee (_Kuo-min Chêng-fu Wei-yüan-hui_), commonly translated as
Council of State. The highest governmental officer of China is the
_Kuo-min Chêng-fu Chu-hsi_--literally, the Chairman of the National
Government. Since this officer is the formal head of the National
Government in both senses of the term, his office may with equal
appropriateness be described as Chairmanship of the Council of State and
as Presidency of the National Government. The latter has been most
commonly accepted, although it obscured the clarity of the Chinese
governmental pattern. It is essential to note, however, that in the
National Government period there has been no _President of the Chinese
Republic_; the highest officer has been the _President of the National
Government of the Chinese Republic_, and as such the titular head of the
Chinese state for international purposes. This officer possesses
prestige rather than power, and is roughly analogous to the President of
the Third French Republic.
In his official capacity, the President acts as chairman of the meetings
of the Council of State, performs the ceremonial functions entailed by
his office, and serves as the custodian of the symbols of continuity and
legitimacy. Wang Shih-chieh writes: "... the Chairman more or less
occupies a nominal position. At most, he can give occasional advice,
only within certain limits, to the Executive or other _Yüan_, with no
power at all to decide or to reject the policies adopted by the _Yüan_.
As a matter of fact, from the end of the Year XXI (1932) down to the
present, since the man filling the office of Chairman [President] of the
National Government is very calm and law-abiding, he has never
interfered in the activities or policies of the various _Yüan_."[11]
This officer has been the veteran Kuomintang leader, Lin Shên, long a
resident of the United States, a key man in overseas affairs of the
Party, and a person of much dignity, charm, poise and prestige. With a
long beard and a humane, scholarly demeanor, President Lin has fulfilled
most admirably the requirements of his office.
[Footnote 11: The same, p. 666.]
Generalissimo Chiang regularly reports on government activities to Lin
_Chu-hsi_, addressing him attentively and respectfully. This is no
perfunctory sham, but appears to be a very real search for advice and
guidance. The two men are close associates and have been such for many
years; the Generalissimo gives every indication of regarding his
venerable colleague with affectionate esteem. During the Chungking
bombings, the President has commonly resided in a secure place outside
the city. He is not needed for the daily prosecution of the war, but
both the office and its incumbent are strongly stabilizing factors in
the National Government. (The Japanophile Wang Ch'ing-wei, establishing
his duplicate regime in Nanking, left the Presidency open for many
months, pirating Lin Shên's name. Finally Wang gave himself the title,
although he patently would have preferred Lin.)
THE COUNCIL OF STATE
The Council of State (_Kuo-min Chêng-fu Wei-yüan-hui_, National
Government Committee) is the formal governmental core of the Chinese
Republic. Even in peacetime, however, its importance was seriously
undermined by the vigorous activity of the Central Political Council.
The members of the State Council are commonly persons who do not hold
other important office; hence the Council does not include the most
effective leaders. Although its sphere of activity is wide, its role as
ratifier of the decisions of the Supreme National Defense Council
reduces its plenary powers to a shadow. Amnesties, general appropriation
bills, appointments and removals, solemnification of legislation adopted
by the Legislative _Yüan_, and inter-_Yüan_ problems are all within the
scope of the State Council's authority, but except for the power of
organizing and supervising the central independent agencies, subordinate
only to itself, there has been little practical power for it to
exercise.[12]
[Footnote 12: The same, p. 667-68. The following materials on the
independent agencies are also adapted in general from Wang
Shih-chieh's work, although interviews, other materials, and the
practical experience of the author have been taken into account. From
1930 to 1937 the author's father, Judge Paul Linebarger, was Legal
Advisor (_Kuo-min Chêng-fu Fa-lü Ku-wên_), directly subordinate to the
Council of State, and throughout this period the author served as
Private Secretary to the Legal Advisor, being authorized by the
Council of State to take charge of the American office of the Advisor
during the latter's absences from the United States.]
The independent agencies under the Council of State, together with the
latter's relation to the _Yüan_ and the Military Affairs Commission, are
best shown on the chart on p. 55.[13]
[Footnote 13: Adapted from the Examination _Yüan_, _Tang Chêng Chien
Chih T'u-piao_, cited; various issues of _The Chinese Year Book_,
Shanghai and Hong Kong; and [The China Information Committee] _An
Outline of the Organization of the Kuomintang and the Chinese
Government_, Chungking, 1940.]
Minor agencies are thus attached directly to the Council of State, which
also serves as a link and common formal superior to the five _Yüan_ and
the Military Affairs Commission. Authority of the Council is directed
primarily upon these agencies which, while minor, serve useful needs.
The Offices of Military (_Tsan-chün Ch'u_) and of Civil Affairs
(_Wên-kuan Ch'u_) are transmission and ceremonial agencies, charged with
the formal correctness of state documents and ceremonies; the military
office was originally designed to carry on more important functions,
including an independent inspectorate of troops, but now seems to be
restricted to matters of protocol. Chinese government has for centuries
operated on the basis of a two-way current of written materials:
memorials, petitions, and other communications come from the provinces
and dominions to the metropolis; orders, laws and other commands flow
outward in response.[14]
[Footnote 14: For a description of this function in the T'ang dynasty,
see des Rotours, Baron Robert, _La Traite des Examens_, Paris, 1932,
_passim_; and see Fairbank, J. K., and Têng, S. Y., "Of the Types and
Uses of Ch'ing Documents," _Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies_, Vol.
5, No. 1 (January 1940), particularly p. 5 _ff._, for the Manchu
empire.]
THE SUPREME NATIONAL DEFENSE COUNCIL
|
|
President of the National Government
THE COUNCIL OF STATE
| | |
Election Committee on } | | | { Office of the
Representation in the } | | | { Comptroller-General
People's Congress } | | | {
} | | |--{ Office of Civil Affairs
Academia Sinica } | | { (Transmission)
} | | {
Commission for the }--| | { Office of Military
Disciplinary } | { Affairs (Transmission)
Punishment of Public } |
Officials } |
} |
Planning Committee for } | { THE MILITARY AFFAIRS
the Western Capital } | { COMMISSION
|--{ The Chairman
THE PEOPLES POLITICAL | { The Military Departments
COUNCIL |
| { THE EXECUTIVE _YÜAN_
|--{ The Executive Ministries
| { ("the cabinet")
|
|--{ THE LEGISLATIVE _YÜAN_
|
|--{ THE JUDICIAL _YÜAN_
| { The court system
|
|--{ THE EXAMINATION _YÜAN_
|
|--{ THE CONTROL _YÜAN_
The other four agencies directly dependent on the Council of State are
all of important character, but likely to be impaired by a period of
crisis. The Academia Sinica (_Kuo-li Chung-yang Yen-chiu Yüan_) serves
scientific and educational work through its own research bureaus,
through systems of extended aid, and through a program of publications;
despite war, it has continued, making heroic efforts to preserve the
national cultural vitality and continuity. The three remaining agencies
are of less importance, although the Planning Committee for the Western
Capital (_Hsi-ching Ch'ou-pei Wei-yüan-hui_) found its work considerably
extended when, on October 1, 1940, Chungking was formally denominated an
auxiliary capital of the Chinese Republic, and a long-standing
anomaly--that of the city's uncertain status--was removed.
The Council of State could be regarded, therefore, as a mere excrescence
upon the design of government were it not that ceremonial and formal
functions, indispensable to any government but particularly salient in
China, can be delegated to it, and the actual policy-making agencies
thereby stripped down to maximal utility and efficacy.
THE EXECUTIVE _Yüan_
The Executive _Yüan_ is the political organ which includes the
ministries, and is therefore roughly analogous to a cabinet, just as the
Council of State is in loose parallel to a Privy Council. Together with
the Supreme National Defense Council and the Military Affairs
Commission, it exercises actual control over the National Government in
war time. Its growth involves executive giantism, and atrophy for the
remaining _Yüan_. The President (_Yüan-chang_) of the Executive _Yüan_
(_Hsing-chêng Yüan_) is the highest executive officer of the government.
This post has not always been held by Chiang K'ai-shek. At various times
Wang Ch'ing-wei (now in Nanking) and H. H. K'ung (now Minister of
Finance and Vice-President [_Fu-yüan-chang_] of the _Yüan_) have held
this office.
The Executive _Yüan_ may be compared to a parliamentary cabinet in
respect to its relations to the President of the National Government,
but it possesses no authority whatever over the Supreme National Defense
Council, nor over the Kuomintang C. E. C. and the Kuomintang Congress.
It cannot ask for its own dissolution, nor demand the dissolution of the
higher policy-making agency whose will it executes.[15] It resembles a
cabinet, therefore, in its service as a consultative and unifying agency
for the entire executive, but differs in its lack of controlling
interdependence with a broad parliament. Again, the _Yüan_ is unique
among national executive agencies in the modern world with respect to
its division of the task of policy-making and policy-supervising. Most
cabinets consist of meetings of the heads of executive ministries or
departments, with the chief executive officer presiding, but have no
elaborate secretarial or administrative machinery interposed between the
cabinet and its direct subordinates (departments or ministries). The
Executive _Yüan_ is peculiar in possessing two elaborate staff agencies
which handle as much routine work as possible, act as a clearing house
for policy and general administration, and pre-digest a maximum of
problems. The outline on p. 58 illustrates the difference.
[Footnote 15: Wang Shih-chieh, _Pi-chiao Hsien-fa_, cited, p. 671.]
All matters short of the most critical moment are referred to one or the
other of the two staff organs (_Mi-shu Ch'u_ or Secretariat, under a
Secretary-General; and _Chêng-wu Ch'u_, or Office of Political
Affairs,[16] under a Director of Political Affairs), which are nominally
separate but actually almost fused, with the Director serving as a sort
of assistant Secretary-General. All official business (other than
crucial matters raised by the members of the Meeting) comes to these
agencies, where it is studied, assorted, and usually settled
provisionally, pending only formal ratification by the Meeting of the
Executive _Yüan_.
[Footnote 16: Not to be confused with the Office of Civil Affairs
(_Wên-kuan Ch'u_), adjunct to the Council of State, described above.]
THE PRESIDENT OR PREMIER
|
THE CABINET
_______________________________
| | | |
Ministry Ministry Ministry etc.
(secretarial and administrative staff
usually concentrated at this level)
THE EXECUTIVE _YÜAN_ PRESIDENT
|
THE _YÜAN_ MEETING
_______________________________________________________
| (composed of officers of ministerial rank |
| and presided over by the President) |
| |
Office of Political Affairs: Sections Secretariat: Sections
| | | | : :
| | | | : :
..|.............|............|...|..................... :
: | : | : | |________________:__________ :
: | : | : | | : |:
Ministry Ministry Ministry Ministry etc.
The Executive _Yüan_ Meeting occurs once weekly, most commonly on
Tuesday.[17] Each Meeting is presented with a formidable agenda,
prepared by the Secretary-General, and divided into three categories:
reports, matters for discussion, and appointments. The membership of the
Meeting consists of the _Yüan_ President and Vice-President, the
Ministers heading the executive Ministries, and the Chairmen of
Commissions having the rank of Ministry.[18] The work of the Meeting is
carried on in a business-like fashion. The Generalissimo, as incumbent
_Yüan_ President, takes great interest in the work of the _Yüan_, and
makes faithfulness and punctuality in attendance a matter of high
importance. Because of the Japanese air raids over the capital, the
exact place and hour of the weekly meeting are not announced, nor are
the proceedings public.
[Footnote 17: A brilliant and informative discussion of the practical
work of the Executive _Yüan_ is to be found in Tsiang Ting-fu,
"Executive _Yüan_," The Chinese Year Book 1936-37, cited, p. 241-6.]
[Footnote 18: For these Ministries and Commissions, see the following
chapter. These are not to be lumped with the Party-Ministries and
Commissions which, if anything, are even more complex in structure,
but whose titles follow the same scheme of terminology as that of the
government.]
In giving effect to the decisions reached by the _Yüan_ Meeting, the
_Yüan_ itself issues orders in its own name for matters which are of
general interest, or which cannot be handled by any single Ministry or
Commission. If the problem is within the province of a particular
agency, the _Yüan_--through its Secretariat--addresses the appropriate
form of intragovernmental communication, and the decision is then set
forth as the order or act of the agency involved. The following subjects
are within the jurisdiction of the Executive _Yüan_:
(1) laws or legal problems submitted for promulgation by the Legislative
_Yüan_;
(2) the budget, also passed _pro forma_ by the Council of State and put
into legal form by the Legislative _Yüan_;
(3) declarations of war and peace, on the motion of the Legislative
_Yüan_;
(4) appointment and discharge of the higher ranks of officials;
(5) matters which cannot be settled by a single Ministry or Commission;
(6) other matters which the _Yüan_ President sees fit to introduce for
discussion or decision.
The Executive _Yüan_ has far outstripped all other _Yüan_ in war-time
growth. Its central position, the urgency of most government business,
and the need for speed have led to this. Executive exercise of the
ordinance-making power has led to the gradual desuetude of the
Legislative _Yüan_, which has found ample work in the preparation of the
Draft Permanent Constitution and the attempt to systematize legislation
in view of rapid territorial and administrative change. The Executive
_Yüan_, by controlling personnel, usually short-circuits the functions
of the Examination and Control _Yüan_; and the Judicial _Yüan_ has never
had practical political parity. Hence, the five-power system must be
regarded as a system with strong executive, weaker legislative,
examinative, and censoral, and dependent judicial divisions. Above the
five powers, the Supreme National Defense Council exercises its august
authority; within them, the Executive stands forth; and to them, in the
course of the war, a new agency, almost comparable to a sixth _yüan_,
has sprung forth with an elaborate bureaucracy of its own: the Military
Affairs Commission.
THE MILITARY AFFAIRS COMMISSION
Some sense of the perpetual urgencies underlying Chinese government in
the past decade may be obtained by consideration of the Military Affairs
Commission.[19] A similar agency was one of the political wheels on
which the Nationalist-Communist machine rolled victoriously North in the
Great Revolution of 1925-27. After the organization of a relatively
stable government at Nanking, the separate military commission was due
for absorption into the coordinate pattern of government; instead, it
has lingered under one form or another for almost twenty years, growing
great in recurrent crises, while the Ministry of War (which was to have
absorbed it) has become its adjunct. War led to sudden distension of
the Commission, and the creation of an agency comparable to a sixth
_yüan_, if not to a duplicate, shogunal government in the Japanese
sense. The Commission had its own head, its own _Pu_ (Ministries or
Departments), its own staff and field services. Duplicating the regular
government on the one side, and the party administration on the
other, it flowered into bureaucracy so lavishly that a fourth
agency--co-ordinator for the first three--began to be needed.
[Footnote 19: _Chün-shih Wei-yüan-hui_. _The Chinese Year Book_,
_v.d._, cited, and most of the official publicity from Chungking
translates this term as "National Military Council," which is far from
the original, literally "military-affairs-committee." "National
Military Council" is also easily confused with the Supreme National
Defense Council. Hence the present translation is employed, following
Tsang, O. B., _A Supplement to a Complete Chinese-English Dictionary_,
Shanghai, 1937, and the original.]
Simplicity of government structure has not been a part of the Chinese
tradition; the quasi-state of the Empire had been as elaborate as its
more potent European counterparts; and the foliation of government at
war cannot be taken as _prima facie_ proof of inefficiency. Personnel is
provided by giving each officer two, five, even ten jobs; the work is
done--delegation and counter-delegation frequently cancel out--and the
creation of new agencies does not inescapably involve confusion.
The Military Affairs Commission consists of a Chairman--the
Generalissimo (_Tsung-ssŭ-ling_), who is Chiang K'ai-shek--and seven
to nine other members, all appointed by the Council of State upon
designation by the Supreme National Defense Council.[20] The key
officers of the armed forces are _ex officio_ members, and the
Commission is charged with the military side of the prosecution of the
war. Its power has been liberally interpreted. New agencies have been
attached to it as they arose; now it deals with social work, relief,
education, agitation, propaganda, espionage, government-sponsored
"social revolution," and many economic matters in addition to its
narrowly military affairs.
[Footnote 20: See Ho Yao-tsu, "The National Military Council," in _The
Chinese Year Book, 1938-39_, cited, p. 361-3; Carlson, Evans Fordyce,
_The Chinese Army: Its Organization and Military Efficiency_, New
York, 1940, p. 26 _ff._; and frequent references in _China At War_ and
the _News Release_ of the China Information Committee, both
semiofficial, particularly the issue of the latter for July 15, 1939.
A list of the highest military personnel and brief outline of the
General Staff may be found in Woodhead, H. G. W., editor, _The China
Year Book 1939_, Shanghai, n. d., p. 216-17, and p. 225.]
The work of the Commission falls into two parts. On the one hand, it is
the supreme directing agency for all the armies; on the other, the
managing agency for a variegated war effort away from the combat lines.
The Commission's work in theory covers all armies, but in practice
confines its supervisory powers to the forces in Free China and--less
clearly--to the major guerrilla units in the occupied areas.
The Commission's governmental structure coordinates military and
political functions. The Chief of the General Staff serves as assistant
to the Chairman of the Commission. The Main Office serves to smooth
interdepartmental affairs and to act as a central clearing point for
orders and other transmissions. Beneath the Commission and the main
office, there are twelve divisions with the rank of _Pu_. The Department
of Military Operations (_Chün-ling-pu_) serves as a military planning
and strategic agency. The Department of Military Training
(_Chün-hsün-pu_) supervises training facilities, military schools, and
in-service training.[21] The Directorate-General of Courts-Martial
(_Chün-fa Chih-hsing Tsung-chien-pu_) and Pensions Commission (_Fu-hsüeh
Wei-yüan-hui_) are explained by their titles; the pension program is
probably behind that of every Western power, and the personal grants
made by the Generalissimo under his own extra-governmental arrangements
are more effective than governmental pensions. The Military Advisory
Council (_Chün-shih Ts'an-i-yüan_) acts as a research and consultative
body, in no sense cameral. An Administration of Personnel (_Ch'uan-hsü
T'ing_) applies some principles of the merit system. A Service
Department (_Hou-fang Ch'in-wu-pu_) is in charge of transportation,
supplies, and sanitation. The National Aviation Commission (_Hang-k'ung
Wei-yüan-hui_) has won world-wide fame for its spectacular work in
procuring a Chinese air arm, and in keeping Chinese air power alive
against tremendous odds of finance, transportation, equipment, and
personnel; Mme. Chiang's association with and interest in its success
has been of material aid. Finally, on the strictly military side, there
is the Office of the Naval Commander-in-Chief (_Hai-chün
Tsung-ssŭ-ling-pu_), formerly the Naval Ministry, controlling the
up-river remnants of the navy. The War Ministry (_Chün-chêng-pu_)
occupies an anomalous position in this scheme. Subordinate to the
Executive _Yüan_, it is also subordinate to the Commission, so that in
effect it is a Ministry twice over, and is even shown as two ministries
on occasion.[22] General Ho Ying-chin, as Minister of War, is
subordinate to the Generalissimo as _Wei-yüan-chang_ (Chairman) of the
Commission.
[Footnote 21: Descriptions of the subordinate organs of all these
agencies but the Pensions Commission and the War-Area Commission will
be found in Ho Yao-tsu, cited immediately above. The translations of
the titles here given, however, are those of the author.]
[Footnote 22: As an instance, see _Outline of the Organization of the
Kuomintang_ ..., cited above, p. 54, n.^{13}.]
The two remaining agencies of the Commission are of considerable
interest. A system of having political commissars in the army, a Soviet
device, was adopted by the Kuomintang forces when first organized under
Chiang K'ai-shek, and political training accounted for much
of that success of the Northward drive (1926-27). After the
Nationalist-Communist split, political training as such fell into
considerable disuse, and was replaced by ethical training provided by
the Officers' Moral Endeavor Corps.[23] With the renewed entente, and
war of national union for defense, a Political Department
(_Chêng-chih-pu_) was established. A graceful tribute to Communist skill
in combining war and agitation was paid when Chou En-lai, the celebrated
Red general, was designated Vice-Minister of this Department. One of the
Generalissimo's most orthodox and able subordinates was made Minister.
The Political Department extends its function in an enormous sweep
across China, and renders aid in military education within the armies,
in civilian organization, and in war propaganda. Active and omnipresent,
it is an excellent instance of functioning national unity.
[Footnote 23: This is a semi-official agency sponsored by the
Generalissimo. See below, p. 149. The new war-time change is well
illustrated by the following statement: "Special commissioners were
assigned to every group army, and political departments in the
divisions were augmented. Enough political directors were assigned to
every company of troops withdrawn from the front for reorganization,
and to Chinese forces behind the enemy lines. In addition, political
corps were formed to organize and train civilians. Because of the lack
of personnel, so far there have been no political officers in units
engaged in military operations.
"Conscious and hard-working, the political officers have done much to
remove irritations which used to occur between the commanding officers
and the political men....
"Political work in the army formerly consisted in a weekly or
fortnightly talk by the officers, whereas now well-planned lessons on
political subjects, reading classes, discussion groups, individual
conversations and twilight meetings are conducted with clockwise
regularity. Singing, theatricals, cartooning, sports, are promoted
among the soldiers so long as they do not jeopardize their discipline.
Among the civilians, the political officers have also been active. The
organization of people's service corps, self-defense units in areas
close to the war areas and money contributions to the war chest from
people in the rear are a few of their accomplishments." China
Information Committee, _News Release_, October 2, 1939.
The comment of Generalissimo Chiang in the interview on p. 371 is,
despite its laconicism, relevant to this topic. A further discussion
is available in Chên Chêng, "Three Years of Political Training Work,"
_The China Quarterly_, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Autumn 1940), p. 581-5.]
The Party and Government War Area Commission (_Chan-ti Tang-chêng
Wei-yüan-hui_) is a coordinate agency for propaganda, relief, and
social, economic and military counter-attack within the war area (the
occupied zone), rather unusual in being a formal amalgamation of
Kuomintang and government administration. Through this agency most of
the guerrilla aid is extended, and the Nationalists seek to rival the
Communists and independents in the number of Japanese they can destroy,
or the amount of damage they can do. The more active branches of this
Commission are a part of the Party structure, but the dual function of
the Commission enables it to coordinate Party and Army work. The very
role of the Commission is indicative of the fact that the Kuomintang is
trying to meet rivalry by patriotic competition and not by suppression.
Its integration with the military makes it a perfect example of the
triune force which Nationalist China is bringing to bear on the
enemy--army, government, and Party all seek to reach into the occupied
zone, to articulate spontaneous mass resistance, to maintain the
authority of the central government pending the _révanche_, and to
uphold the existing political system, canalizing social change into
evolutionary rather than class-war lines.[24]
[Footnote 24: The official view of this work, silent on the
competition of the Communists and independents, is found in Li
Chai-sum, "Chinese Government Organization behind the Enemy Lines,"
last citation above, p. 595-600.]
THE JUDICIAL, LEGISLATIVE, EXAMINATION AND CONTROL _Yüan_
The appearance of an actual three-power administration--army,
government, Party--has led to the sharp relative decrease in importance
of the four further _Yüan_. The Judicial _Yüan_ (_Ssŭ-fa Yüan_) was
even in peace time the least important of the five divisions of the
government, failing to display--as an American might expect--a tendency
toward effective judicial independence to counterweight the executive
and legislative. The Legislative _Yüan_ (_Li-fa Yüan_), while
exceedingly active in the years between the Mukden and Loukouchiao
incidents, has been reduced in importance by the coming of hostilities.
Its work has been confined largely to drafting the Permanent
Constitution, and continued codification of administrative
law--particularly for coordination of central government and war area
(occupied China) affairs.[25] The Examination _Yüan_ (_K'ao-shih Yüan_)
has attempted to continue in the field of civil service reform, and the
Control _Yüan_ (_Chien-ch'a Yüan_) has maintained war-time efforts.
[Footnote 25: Statement to the author by Sun K'ê (Sun Fo), President
of the Legislative _Yüan_, Chungking, July 17, 1940. A summary of the
work of the _Yüan_ will be found in various issues of _The Chinese
Year Book_; in Escarra, Jean, _Le Droit Chinois_, cited above,
containing bibliographies; and in Tyau, M. T. Z., "The Work and
Organization of the Legislative _Yüan_," _The China Quarterly_, Vol.
2, No. 1 (Christmas Number, 1936), p. 73-88.]
The Legislative _Yüan_, under the _Yüeh Fa_ of 1931, consists of a
_Yüan-chang_, a _Fu-yüan-chang_, and forty-nine to ninety-nine members
(_Li-fa Wei-yüan_), appointed by the Supreme National Defense Council
for a two-year term upon nomination by the _Yüan_ President. The term's
shortness increases the dependence of members upon the President, and
transforms the _Yüan_ to a legislative study institute. Furthermore, the
newly-developed People's Political Council has assumed the function of
representation. The President of the _Yüan_ retains sole and arbitrary
power over the agenda, the final decision, and the allocation of
personnel, although the incumbent, Dr. Sun K'ê, is one of China's
leading moderates and an exponent of constitutional process, not likely
to exercise arbitrary power.
Apart from its significant constitutional powers, which remain
unimpaired, the _Yüan_ finds much of its work performed at present
through ordinances of the Supreme National Defense Council,
administrative action of the Executive _Yüan_, or commands by the
Military Affairs Commission. The jurisdiction retained includes:
(1) general legislation;
(2) the budget;
(3) general amnesty;
(4) declaration of war (never exercised);
(5) declaration of peace;
(6) "other important matters" (which, in practice, has
referred to the more open and solemn aspects of
treaty-making, and whatever topic may be assigned the _Yüan_
by the highest Party agency).[26]
[Footnote 26: Wang Shih-chieh, _Pi-chiao Hsien-fa_, cited, p. 676
_ff._]
The Judicial _Yüan_ serves as an administrative and budgetary agency for
four agencies. The Ministry of Justice (_Ssŭ-fa Hsing-chêng-pu_) is,
obviously, the prosecuting agency, attached to the executive in the
United States, but made a part of the general judicial system in China.
The Administrative Court (_Hsing-chêng Fa-yüan_) is an agency only
potentially important; so is the Commission for the Disciplinary
Punishment of Public Officers (_Kung-wu-yüan Ch'êng-chieh
Wei-yüan-hui_). The _Yüan_ President is _ex officio_ chief magistrate of
the Supreme Court (_Tsui-kao Fa-yüan_). Wang Shih-chieh says of this
_Yüan_:
Because of the fact that the Judicial _Yüan_ is itself not
an organ of adjudication, and since all affairs concerning
prosecution at law are handled by the Ministry of Justice,
the actual work to be performed by the Judicial _Yüan_ is
very simple and light. In addition to framing the budget for
the _Yüan_ itself and approving the general estimates of the
organs under it, the Judicial _Yüan_ has only three further
duties to perform: (1) to bring before the Legislative
_Yüan_ legislative measures connected with the Judicial
_Yüan_ and its sub-organs; (2) to petition the President of
the National Government with respect to such cases as
special pardon, commutation of sentence, and the restoration
of civil rights; and (3) to unify the interpretation of laws
and orders, and changes in judicial procedure.[27]
[Footnote 27: The same, p. 691.]
With peace, reconstruction and prosperity, the Judicial _Yüan_ might
acquire importance through its control of the administrative and
technical aspects of the court system. Meanwhile, courts are more
closely associated with their respective levels or areas of government
than with one another in a unified judicial system.
The Examination _Yüan_, with a President and Vice-President, is composed
of a central _Yüan_ office, which supervises two organs: the Ministry of
Personnel (_Ch'uan-hsü Pu_), operating a selective promotion system, and
the Examinations Commission (_K'ao-hsüan Wei-yüan-hui_). In absolute
numbers, few examinations have been held. In practice, standard
recruitment technique continues to involve introduction, influence, or
family connections. The familiarity of such devices in China at least
gives them a high polish, and precludes utter inefficiency. Under the
circumstances, the Examination _Yüan_ finds scope for valuable, creative
work in the preparation of administrative studies and analyses of very
considerable importance.
The Control _Yüan_ is of interest to Westerners, because of the novelty
of its functions. Through the courtesy of the _Yüan_ President, a full
official memorandum on the structure and procedure was prepared,
surveying the work of the _Yüan_ during the course of the war. This is
reproduced as Appendices I (E) and I (F) below.[28] Some of the
unofficial observers, both Western and Chinese, felt that the _Yüan_
possessed further enormous possibilities of activity, and that the need
for controlment was very great indeed. In general, the _Yüan_ resembles
its legislative, judicial and examination coordinates, in that the
war-time executive growth has relegated it to a secondary position.
[Footnote 28: See p. 313 and p. 318.]
Decrease in the importance of the _yüan_ system during hostilities
cannot be taken, by a too simple cause-and-effect argument, as proof of
the unwieldy or impractical character of this five-power system.
Measured on a scale of other world governments, success is slow; but it
is enormous in contrast to other Chinese central political institutions.
At present, it is most improbable that the form of government will be
changed, save in the event of catastrophe beyond all reckoning.
CHAPTER III
CONSULTATIVE AND ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANS
The outbreak and continuance of war has left the fulcrum of power
relatively untouched. The highest organs of state are primarily in
Kuomintang hands; the Party Chief of the Kuomintang is, even at law,
governmentally more important today than in 1937; and the constitutional
monopoly of power remains under the Kuomintang. Even changes in the
highest organs--such as establishment of the Supreme National Defense
Council and the Military Affairs Commission--have left very little
impress on the sources of power. Reforms have altered only the mode of
power, not its tenure.
Modifications have, however, been introduced at the level of government
just below the apex. These are important in two remarkable ways. The
People's Political Council (_Kuo-min Ts'an-chêng Hui_) admixed an
ingredient of representation which (save for the Party) had been lacking
since the dubious, betrayed, inaugural years of the Republic.
Furthermore, sweeping administrative reorganization and reinvigoration
made possible the vitalization of the central government in the course
of the war, so that despite Japanese pressure and rising Leftist
rivalry, the National Government is, on any absolute scale, becoming
more powerful year by year.
THE PEOPLE'S POLITICAL COUNCIL
The People's Political Council was established by order of the Emergency
Session of the Kuomintang Party Congress held in Hankow, March 1938. Its
creation was a compromise measure between the proposal for a
European-type United Front government, based on popular elections to a
National Convention, and a continuation of the Kuomintang monopoly of
government hitherto prevalent. Like many similar compromises in other
countries, the institution has proved its viable and useful character.
Without exaggeration, it may be stated to be the closest approximation
of representative government which China has ever known. Simple,
improvised, legally an instrument promising little independence or
_élan_ in its work, the Council demonstrates the effectiveness of the
Chinese when purpose accompanies design. Formally the least
representative of the Chinese constitutional parliaments, congresses, or
conventions, the Council is the first to get down to business
and--almost unexpectedly--to represent!
Membership, originally set at 150, was raised before the First Session
to 200, and again in the autumn of 1940 to 240.[1] The number, unlike
the 1681 tentatively projected for the People's Congress, is small
enough to allow genuine discussion and to avoid unwieldiness.
Attendance, considering war-time hazards, has been very good, with
between two-thirds and four-fifths of the members usually present.
[Footnote 1: China Information Committee, _News Release_, Chungking,
September 30, 1940; and the same, December 30, 1940.]
Although the Council was designed to meet quarterly by its fundamental
Statute,[2] it soon changed to semi-annual sessions and has actually met
at intervals running from six to eight months. Each session lasted for
ten days (legislative, not calendar).[3] As the Council sessions
recurred, the Council became more and more free and representative.
Despite the narrowness of its legal foundations, the Council has
provided invaluable exercise in the arts of democratic discussion.
[Footnote 2: Wang Shih-chieh, "The People's Political Council," _The
Chinese Year Book 1938-39_, cited, p. 346-55; the same, _The People's
Political Council_, [Chungking], [1939?], pamphlet, reprinted from
_The China Quarterly_, Vol. 4, No. I (Winter 1938-39). Dr. Wang's
contributions, brief as they are, worthily supplement his pre-war
constitutional studies, and provide the most carefully annotated data
on the Council which the present author has found. The list of members
given in the first article, above, is one of the most interesting
documents of our time, giving, as it does, the residence, profession,
and age of each Councillor. Beside "Former Prime Minister" one finds
"Living Buddha attached to the Panchen Lama," "Reserve Member,
Executive Committee, the Third International," "Professor, National
Peking University" and "Head of the Mêng Clan, Descendants of
Mencius."]
[Footnote 3: Woodhead, H. G. W., editor, _The China Year Book, 1939_,
Shanghai, n. d., Ch. IX, "The Kuomintang and the Government," contains
a detailed summary of the first two sessions of the People's Political
Council (p. 231-7). Quigley, Harold S., "Free China," _International
Conciliation_, No. 359 (April 1940), includes a judicious appraisal of
the work and meaning of the Council in its first two and one-half
years (p. 137-8).]
As a technique of representation, the Council's recruitment system is
novel. The membership was, while the Council's total was at 200, divided
into the following four categories:
_Group A_: representatives of the Provinces and Special
Municipalities--88;
_Group B_: four representatives for or from Mongolia and two for or
from Tibet--6;
_Group C_: representatives for or from the overseas Chinese--6;
_Group D_: representatives of cultural, professional, and economic
bodies, or persons who have been active in political
leadership--100.
There were no elections. In the case of Group A candidates, nominations
were made by municipal or provincial governing bodies in joint session
with the Kuomintang Party organ of corresponding location and level.
Group B candidates were nominated by the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs
Commission. Group C candidates were nominated by the Overseas Chinese
Affairs Commission in the Executive _Yüan_. Group D candidates, which
included the representatives of the Communists and independent Left,
were nominated by the Supreme National Defense Council. Two candidates
could be presented for each seat on the Council. Subject to a minor
detour or two on qualifications or for other reasons,[4] the final
selection or election was made by the Central Executive Committee of the
Kuomintang.
[Footnote 4: Wang Shih-chieh, "The People's Political Council," cited,
p. 346 _ff._ The new system, inaugurated early in 1941, provided for
90 members to be directly elected by Provincial and Municipal People's
Political Councils.]
Thus, an independent or Leftist, whose life had been more or less in
danger for years, because of his hostility to the Kuomintang and its
policies, might find himself nominated for the Council by the
Kuomintang's highest government-supervising agency, and elected by the
Kuomintang's highest Party agency. Leaders of the hitherto suppressed,
still technically illegal parties and factions--which meant all save the
Kuomintang--were designated representatives through the fiction of
selection for individual merits. They might take an active share in
hammering out policy, and--on the same day--find themselves legally
debarred from overt public expression of their own party work. By this
device, the Kuomintang provided a safety-valve for opposition without
touching the apparatus of its own power.
Had the Kuomintang leaders been obtuse and made the Council something
less than a genuine sounding board for public opinion, or had they
picked unrepresentative members of the other groups, the whole
experiment would have failed. In practice, the compromise worked and
gave China a focus for the national concentration of will.
The Council did not elect its own Speaker (_I-chang_) and Deputy-Speaker
(_Fu I-chang_); these were elected for it by the Central Executive
Committee of the Kuomintang. Down to 1940, the Council elected a
Resident Committee of fifteen to twenty-five members from its own
membership; under a recent reorganization, this and the Speaker and
Vice-Speaker are to be replaced by a Presidium, to be elected by but not
necessarily from among the Council, to consist of five members and to
hold the authority of designating presiding officers. This would amount
to a further step in the independence of the Council. In both cases, the
Secretariat (_Mi-shu-ch'u_) of the Council is to be under a
Secretary-General (_Mi-shu-chang_) and Deputy Secretary-General (_Fu
Mi-shu-chang_) and to include services of correspondence, general
affairs, Council affairs, and police.[5]
[Footnote 5: _Tang Chêng Chien Chih T'u-piao_, cited, chart of the
_Kuo-min Ts'an-chêng Hui_.]
With respect to competence, the Council is possessed of three powers:
(1) the right to deliberate on all important measures, whether of
domestic or foreign policy, before these are enacted into law by the
Central Government (but not, however, the right of making such law);
(2) the right to submit proposals to the government (but since the
Supreme National Defense Council is the highest government-directing
agency in China, its concurrence is patently necessary);
(3) the right to demand and hear reports from the _Yüan_ and the
Ministries, and to interpellate the officers of state.
The distinguished Chinese constitutional scholar, Wang Shih-chieh,
Secretary-General of the People's Political Council (Generalissimo
Chiang himself being the Speaker) writes of its functions:
From the foregoing description, the peculiarities of the
People's Political Council may be clearly seen. It is not an
advisory body of the Government in the ordinary conception
of the term, because the Government is bound, except in
emergency cases, to submit to it for consideration all
important measures before they are carried out. The Council
possesses not only the power to advise, but also the right
to be consulted. Nor is it a legislative organ, as all its
resolutions merely embody broad principles of legislation or
administration, i.e., lines of policy which, even after
being assented to by the Supreme National Defense Council,
will still have to go through the ordinary legislative or
ordinance-making process in order to become laws or
administrative ordinances.
As regards the representative character of the Council, it
rests not so much with the method by which the Councillors
are chosen, as with the fact that, being composed of men and
women most of whom enjoy wide popularity or respect in one
way or another, the Council can really speak for almost all
the articulate group-interests of the nation. In the less
than 30 years of China's experience in republican
government, numerous experiments had been attempted at
representative government before the convention of the
People's Political Council. Few of these were deficient in
theoretic grandiloquence, but none of them was found to be
serviceable in practical applicability.
Theoretically, the Council is not a popular assembly; but,
as I remarked elsewhere,[*] "it is open to question whether
any form of election by popular suffrage can result in so
truly representative a body." Even with reference to the
limited scope of the Council's powers, I submit that the
provision represents a progressive step in that any
alternative that is less realistic would impede rather than
facilitate the contributive work of the Council.[6]
[Footnote *: _Chinese Year Book, 1938_, Chap. 17. [Wang Shih-chieh's
note.]]
[Footnote 6: Wang Shih-chieh, _The People's Political Council_, cited,
p. 5. Obvious misprints have been corrected.]
The author adds that the resolutions have tended to be of an
extraordinarily practical character, and that bombast has remained
conspicuously absent.
The procedure of the Council has been kept very simple. A quorum
requires only a simple majority (101 members), and a simple majority of
a quorum (51) is all that is needed to pass a resolution. To ensure the
proper spacing of the calendar, all resolutions initiating new business
must come within the first four days of the ten-day session.
Introduction may not be completed by the action of a single member; a
petition of 20 members, one proposing and 19 endorsing, is necessary for
introduction. Reference may then be either to the plenary session or to
the committees. (There are five standing committees--military, foreign,
civil, financial and economic, educational and cultural affairs--which
provide further facilities through subdivision into subcommittees, or
through the addition of special committees.) Reports by the government
are introduced during the first three days of each session.[7]
[Footnote 7: The author is indebted for some of these facts to an
interview with Dr. Wang Shih-chieh in Chungking on August 1, 1940.]
Members cannot waste time over the pork-barrel, log-rolling, riders, or
minor fiscal questions. Since they all have the same constituency at
law, and that constituency--the C. E. C. of the Kuomintang--asks nothing
of them except representation of their moral constituencies--the groups
and areas from which they derive, Councillors are untroubled by
constituents or appropriations. The budget is submitted by the
government to the Council for approval, not enactment. Salaries of the
Councillors are nil. Each is given Ch. $350.00 (about U. S. $20.00) per
mouth for expenses, without regard to mileage, and even overseas Chinese
representatives receive no further emoluments. Since government
officials are excluded from membership, use of a Council seat for
purposes of preferment is precluded.
A liberalization of representation and of procedure occurred early in
1941. A new Council--involving the first turnover in membership since
1938--was elected. Educational and other unofficial representatives
obtained an additional twenty seats on the Council. The changes were
scarcely sufficient to compensate for the further postponement of the
promised Constitution, but they indicated a willingness of the
government to meet demands for democratization. Procedural changes
increased the effectiveness of individual members. A minor but
characteristic feature was the increase in number and importance of
women members.
Partisan organization in the Council, although elementary, has begun to
function. Each clique has informal caucuses; careful scrutiny discloses
the presence of whips from these caucuses on the floor. The groupings in
the Council are so fluid that they can be variously classified by
persons with different viewpoints. (Formally, of course, everyone is
either Kuomintang or non-Party, even though _The Chinese Year Book_,
under informal Chungking government sponsorship, proudly lists the high
rank of the Communist members of the Council--"Chen Shao-yu (Wang Ming),
[age] 33, [province] Anhwei, [remarks] Member, Presidium, Central
Executive Committee, the Third International.")[8] The popular
classification of the Council cliques, commonly seen in the press, is
based on the Four Parties (_Ssŭ Tang_) and the Four Cliques (_Ssŭ
P'ai_). The four parties are the Kuomintang, National Socialist,
Communist, and _La Jeunesse_.[9] The Four Cliques, which according to
popular credence, formed soon after the first meetings of the Council,
are based on intellectual sympathy and the interplay of temperaments,
and not on dogma.
[Footnote 8: _1938-39_ issue, p. 351.]
[Footnote 9: Described below, p. 159 _ff._]
The most Leftist clique is believed to be the _Hua-chung P'ai_ (Central
China Clique), with the National Salvationists' Seven Gentlemen at their
core. Deeply sympathetic with the masses, and violently patriotic, this
group helped to bring about the war by opposing appeasement.
Like-thinking Council members, however affiliated, are believed to fall
under the legislative leadership of the Central China Clique. Near to
this, still far to the Left of the government, is the _Tungpei P'ai_
(Northeast Clique). The Northeastern Manchurian Chinese officers,
exiled in the Northwest, were the first bridge between the Communists
and the rest of the country. Since their native provinces and kinsfolk
have had almost ten years' Japanese domination, the Northeast group is
emphatic in demands for national unity. Communists circulate from one
group to the other, always cooperative in offering their leadership on
the basis of a United Front, which the Comintern still decrees for the
Far East after jettisoning the Popular Fronts of Europe.
The two relatively Rightist cliques are the _Ch'ê-yeh Chiao-yü P'ai_
(Vocational Educationists' Clique) and the _Chiao-shou P'ai_
(Professors' Clique). Composed of men still so far from attaining office
that they possess perfect freedom of criticism, they therefore stand
Left of the government in daily comment, although they may be Right of
it in theory. The former group stresses simple, direct problems: it
seeks to attack the opium problem, disease, illiteracy, and so forth,
without necessarily fighting the social revolution against the
landlords. It derives its name from two distinguished leaders of the
vocational education movement who have abstained from active political
work until finding a forum in the Council. The Professors' Clique is
reputedly led by the group of young professors who were eminent in their
fields before the outbreak of war, opposed to the government's
appeasement policy, but tactful enough not to rebel. They are considered
to stand as far Right as anyone on the Council--that is, to discuss
politics in terms of soundness of public policy, budgetary
reasonableness, immediate practicality, and other common-sense
standards, which appear conservative beside the fervid idealism of their
colleagues.
The description of the _Ssŭ P'ai_ just given is one which exists in
the popular credence. A more authoritative source placed the groups in
the Council under the following four headings:
(1) the Kuomintang and non-Party majority;
(2) the _La Jeunesse_ Party and the National Socialists;
(3) the Communists;
(4) the "Popular Front" group, including the intellectuals and the
National Salvationists.
On this basis, the Kuomintang would retain its working control of the
Council, which appears to be the case, in terms of work performed. The
unaffiliated majority, selected by their local governments and
Kuomintang offices and elected by the Kuomintang C. E. C., would in
doubtful cases be inclined to turn to Kuomintang leadership. The _La
Jeunesse_ Party, despite the fact that it is a Western-returned student
organization, is strong in Szechuan; its influence could be expected to
run with that of the National Socialists. Both parties, while minute,
are decidedly averse to Communist fellow-travelling and not at all
disposed to alter the _status quo_, except to carve modest niches for
themselves and to advance their programs in an agreeable way. The
Communists stand alone, although they offer their cooperation to the
independents.
The Popular Front group is a category widely recognized in China--the
Left Kuomintang, the discontented idealists, the irrepressible patriots,
the minor parties, the indefatigable conspirators of Chinese hopefulness
who are always on the scene. For years they have been unforgotten
witnesses to the ferocious integrity of ideals which (in individuals
scattered at random at all levels of society) call Chinese out of the
lethargy of being very practical.
The Popular Front leaders, more than any other in China, have withstood
perennial temptation for years and have kept their activities, under
whatever name undertaken, intact. They can be distinguished from other
Party leaders, both Nationalist and Communist, by the facts that they
have never set up a government, with jobs in it for themselves; have
never controlled a government, save through lacunae in power politics;
and have never preserved a government which they did control.
Warm-hearted, philanthropic, patriotic, their shrill zeal has been
audible in China for many years. Without formal organization, they have
stood behind others who sought real power, and today--between the cold,
realistic leaders of the two opposing Parties--are assembled,
ever-hopeful, and advocating a Popular Front.
The Secretary-General stated to the author that he regarded three of the
Council's contributions as of history-making importance. First, the
Council openly expressed a Chinese national unity unprecedented in
modern history. Forms apart, never before had a crisis found all Chinese
so united; the Council gave a symbol to that unity. Second, the Council
raised the probability of successful democratic processes in China.
Failures under the Peking parliaments had reduced democratic discussion
to a sham. The Council erased this discredit, making many people believe
that democracy promises a real value to the country--not merely as an
ideal, but as a practicable means of government. This contribution was
reinforced by a third: the Council actually served to make definite,
serious, concrete improvements in government and Kuomintang structure,
through criticism and through the issues aired.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE PATTERN
Central policy-making is complicated by a trifurcation of organs--Party
Headquarters, Military Affairs Commission, and Executive _Yüan_. For
example, the nation's publicity and broadcasting services, as well as
direction of the official news agencies, are under the (Kuomintang)
Party-Ministry of Publicity, while the Foreign Office possesses its own
publicity organs for the international relations field, and the
Political Department of the Military Affairs Commission handles much
domestic propaganda and agitation. The strictly governmental, permanent
administrative agencies are simplified from their pre-war complexity, as
the following list will show:
EXECUTIVE _Yüan_
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ministry of the Interior
Ministry of Finance
Ministry of Economic Affairs (to be reorganized)
Ministry of Social Affairs (pending)
Ministry of Education
Ministry of Communications
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
Commission on Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs
Commission on Overseas Chinese Affairs
National Relief Commission
Ministry of War (also under the Military Affairs Commission)
Material and Resources Control and Supervision Ministry
(pending; status uncertain)
JUDICIAL _Yüan_
Ministry of Justice
CONTROL _Yüan_
Ministry of Audit
EXAMINATION _Yüan_
Ministry of Personnel
Examination Commission
The Ministries outside the Executive are well adapted to their
respective _Yüan_, although Americans may think the Ministry of Justice
misplaced. The Executive Ministries form the heart of the administrative
system, immediately below the cabinet (Executive _Yüan_ Meeting). The
Party scaffolding is to be torn down with constitutionalization; the
military scaffolding, with peace. The administrative organs at the
center will then bear the real burden of nourishing and protecting the
nation which now they help to create.
Despite strong Chinese imprints, the central administrative agencies are
organizationally more Westernized than the policy-making agencies. For
this reason, and because administrative emphasis is on matters economic
(outside the scope of the present work), the reader is referred to other
sources for a detailed appraisal of the work of the ministries.
Particularly fortunate is it that _China Shall Rise Again_, partly
written and partly edited by Madame Chiang K'ai-shek,[10] has been
published, including authoritative statements by the leading ministers
on the work of their respective ministries.
[Footnote 10: May-ling Soong Chiang (Madame Chiang K'ai-shek), _China
Shall Rise Again_, New York, 1941. Chinese economic developments are
the subject of careful study by the Institute of Pacific Relations,
whose _Far Eastern Survey_ follows contemporary developments closely
and whose _Inquiry Series_ offers a monumental collection of linked
works on Pacific affairs, with particular stress on the economic
background to politics. The volume in this series on Chinese political
development, by Lawrence K. Rosinger, may be expected to fill an
important gap in the literature on China today.]
The Ministries (_pu_) may be classified into three groups, according to
the major tenor of their work: political, social and cultural, and
economic. Military defense through economic development and social
reconstruction remains their common goal, however divergent the
approaches.
THE POLITICAL MINISTRIES
Senior and most famous of all Chinese ministries is that of Foreign
Affairs (_Wai-chiao Pu_). It inherits the splendid traditions of Chinese
diplomacy, dating back to the redoubtable Pan Ch'ao, who almost
single-handed conquered Central Asia in the first century A.D. by
unsleeping guile and consistent boldness. Modern Chinese diplomacy has
made the best of a hundred years of defeat, successfully exploiting the
mutual suspicions of the imperialist powers. The morale and
professional cohesion are high. Despite incessant political changes,
the foreign office and diplomatic service have preserved their
continuity from the Empire to the present. The Chungking government
probably possesses a foreign office superior to the Gaimusho of
Tokyo.[11]
[Footnote 11: For the latest description of the organization of the
_Wai-chiao Pu_, see Wang Ch'ung-hui, "China's Foreign Relations during
the Sino-Japanese Hostilities 1937-1940," Chapter XIII of Chiang,
May-ling Soong, _China Shall Rise Again_, cited, p. 139-40.]
The effectiveness of Chinese international statesmanship has aroused an
almost superstitious dread among the Japanese, publicists, officials,
and others. Japan consistently complains that China is superior at
propaganda, and sees, behind the world-wide mistrust of Japan, occult
forces from the Comintern or vile Chinese guile. After they perpetrated
the Nanking horrors, insulted neutral men and women in Tientsin,
machine-gunned a British ambassador, sank an American gunboat, and
violated all available international law, the Japanese believed that
British and American lack of sympathy was mostly due to the machinations
of Chinese diplomacy. The recent Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Wang
Ch'ung-hui, a former Judge of the Permanent Court of International
Justice (World Court), is one of the modern world's greatest legal
scholars. Eminent in political leadership ever since the first
foundation of the Republic, he has always urged moderation, legality,
and intelligence in government.
The Ministry of the Interior (_Nei-chêng Pu_) forms the apex to China's
constitutional system of provincial and local governments. In accordance
with Sun Yat-sen's teaching, the National Government has consistently
sought to reduce the importance of the provinces and to foster direct
local-central intergovernmental relationships. The importance of this
ministry is reduced somewhat by the fact that other agencies possess
their own field services, and are therefore not obliged to route policy
through it, but it remains significant because of its control and
supervision of China-wide administrative development. The National
Health Administration (_Wei-shêng Shu_), formerly separate, is now a
department of this Ministry.
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL AGENCIES
The Ministry of Education (_Chiao-yü Pu_) has continued active despite
the war. The heroic marches of the Chinese universities to their new
homes in the West have become a world-famous epic. Students, faculty,
and staffs moved out of the sinister zones of enemy occupation, usually
travelling on foot, until they found new homes hundreds or even
thousands of miles from their original locations. Some colleges have
found homes in old temples or in caves where, with a minimum of
equipment and library material, they continue their work. Others, more
fortunate, have become guests of West China institutions. West China
Union University in Chengtu has four other universities on its campus,
all using the same facilities for the duration of the war. Still other
institutions have been consolidated.
The Ministry of Education has subsidized education as generously as
possible, and fosters progress despite the war and because of it. In
spite of all handicaps, institutions of higher learning have risen in
number from 91 in 1937-38 to 102 in 1939-40, with a corresponding rise
in enrollment of 31,188 to 41,494.[12] The entering class for 1940-41
was about 12,000, indicating a continued rise.[13]
[Footnote 12: _China at War_, Vol. V, No. 2 (October 1940), p. 37.]
[Footnote 13: The same, Vol. V, No. 4 (November 1940), p. 78. See also
Wu Yi-fang and Price, Frank W., _China Rediscovers Her West_, New
York, 1940; Chapter VII, "Holding the Educational Front" (p. 69-76) is
by Y. G. Chen, President of the University of Nanking. The entire work
edited by Messrs. Wu and Price is of value; written from the
missionary point of view, it presents first-hand statements of affairs
on Western China, and continues with liberal and socially conscious
appraisals of the needs of Christian work.]
In addition to the accredited institutions, there are innumerable
volunteer agencies, some of which are patriotic but educationally
elementary schools for saboteurs, agitators, and guerrillas. Education
is propaganda, but such is its immediate appeal that Left schools obtain
capacity attendance. A few students are disappointed. One wrote, "The
most unpleasant thing to me was that, as soon as I entered the
Resist-Japan University, I was deprived of my liberty. I was not free in
speech; I was not allowed to say anything outside of Marxism-Leninism
..." and went home.[14] The total attendance remains high; if added to
that of the accredited institutions operating according to government
standards, it would swell the sum enormously.
[Footnote 14: Wang Wên-hsiang, "K'ang-jih Ta-hsüeh yü Ch'ing-nien
Fan-mên" ("The Sorrows of Youth and the Resist-Japan University") in
the symposium entitled So-wei "_Pien-ch'ü_" (The So-called "Frontier
Area"), Chungking, XXVIII (1939), p. 30 _ff._]
In addition to formal aid to institutions of higher learning, and
administration of the National Government colleges, the Ministry
sponsors the mass literacy movement. In this it has had the benefit of
the work of Dr. James Y. C. Yen and his associates.[15] The war, moving
vast masses of people and shifting the modernized city-dwellers from the
coast to the interior, has proved a stimulus to the rise of literacy and
the demand for popular literature.
[Footnote 15: See the discussion of the mass education problem, below,
p. 218.]
The Ministry is headed by Ch'ên Li-fu, whose brother, Ch'ên Kuo-fu, is
head of the (Kuomintang) Central Political Institute. Together they
stand at the Right center of the Kuomintang, exerting enormous influence
on the Party and on the country. Both have been very close to the
Generalissimo, and took a large share in revitalization of the
Kuomintang before and during the war.
The two Commissions serve important needs. The Commission on Overseas
Chinese Affairs (_Ch'iao-wu Wei-yüan-hui_) is the informal Chinese
equivalent of a colonial office. The Commission looks after the welfare
of the overseas settlements of the Chinese, fostering language schools,
hospitals and the like. It acts through Chinese community associations,
rarely through official channels. Practices of hyphenated citizenship,
so offensive to one Western nationality when undertaken by another, are
unobtrusive and necessary in the case of the Chinese. With the outside
states putting Chinese in a special economic, legal, and political
category--through immigration laws, administrative practice, and
extra-governmental pressure including lynching--the individual Chinese
who deracinates himself is indeed a lost soul. Few Chinese worry about
overseas Chinese _irredentas_. The Commission fosters no _putsches_ and
mobilizes no fifth columns, but does help to keep Chinese, whatever
their nationalities, still Chinese.
The Commission on Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs (_Mêng Tsang
Wei-yüan-hui_) is the supreme agency for the dependencies. It has a
record of considerable success in fostering a good-neighbor policy
toward the half-autonomous dominions of Chinese Turkestan (Sinkiang,
also called Chinese Central Asia),[16] Tibet, and Inner Mongolia. Outer
Mongolia is under indirect Soviet control, and Eastern Inner Mongolia
under the Japanese. The Chinese have utilized every device of courtesy
and diplomacy in retaining their precarious grip on these areas. The
Commission includes dominion members.
[Footnote 16: Among the recent books on Sinkiang, one, unusual because
it is by a Chinese author, stands out: Wu, Aitchen K., _Turkistan
Tumult_, London, 1940. The travel books of Sven Hedin, Ella Maillart,
Peter Fleming, and Sir Eric Teichman also contain material of
political interest.]
THE ECONOMIC MINISTRIES
The Ministries dealing in economic matters bear the ultimate burden of
resistance. Upon their success depend China's tools of war. If
artillery, aircraft, machine-guns, munitions, food, clothing and other
necessities are not available to the central armies, the opportunity for
counter-attack may come and go, and China be lost--not through the power
of her enemy, but through her own weakness. Unless economic mobilization
succeeds, the guerrilla warfare in the occupied area will be frustrated,
since its purpose is merely to prepare for a _révanche_ from Free China;
history affords few examples of guerrillas defeating mass armies,
fighting positionally, without the intervention of other mass armies.
The Ministry of Finance (_Ts'ai-chêng Pu_) is the leader of the Economic
Ministries. Headed by H. H. K'ung, successor to the celebrated T. V.
Soong, it has performed fiscal miracles in maintaining the credit of the
National Government. Chief among its accomplishments has been the
institution, within the past decade, of a managed currency on the
gold-exchange standard. Specie had been the immemorial medium of
exchange, and Chinese experience with paper money--from the earliest
times to the present--had been unfortunate. Starting with the 1860's,
China had undergone one paper-money inflation after another.
Governmental currency was frequently a receipt for silver on deposit, in
which case it amounted to no more than a commodity warehouse
certificate, thereby subject to discount for transportation charges, and
fluctuating meanwhile with the world price of silver; otherwise it was
fiat money, guaranteed by stranglers' cords and long knives. Fractional
coins passed by metallic weight; the shifts in the price of copper in
New York and London determined the number of pennies which farmers
received for their silver dollars, even on the threshold of Tibet.
By putting private bank notes, both Chinese and foreign, out of
circulation, systematizing note issuance to four government banks and a
limited number of carefully supervised provincial agencies, the
National Government made the change with far less difficulty than
anyone, even optimists, dared to hope. Until the outbreak of war
subsidiary coinage was copper and aluminum; this has been replaced by
fractional paper, circulating decimally without discount for exchange
into larger bills. Simple peasants, who used to hide a slug of silver in
their fields, now conceal a Bank of China, Bank of Communications,
Central Bank of China, or Farmers' Bank of China _fa pi_ (legal tender)
note in roofs or walls.
Other noteworthy reforms include the standardization of levies in the
provinces, now proceeding to some degree, and the imposition of direct
taxes, a revolutionary step for China. Income and inheritance taxes,
previously thought to be uncollectible in a pre-modern area such as
China's hinterland, are yielding substantial sums. War borrowing is done
almost entirely through domestic loans. These are issued in the form of
patriotic contribution bonds, and are available in denominations as low
as Ch. Nat. $5.00 (about 28 U. S. cents). Further support has come in
the form of American, British, and Soviet fiscal aid, and--until the
outbreak of the European war--additional credits, both private and
intergovernmental, from continental Europe. The Ministry has moved with
a financial prudence which promises to maintain China's domestic and
foreign credit for further years of war.
The Ministry has engaged in direct conflict with the enemy through
bank-note rivalry. Throughout the occupied area, National Government
currency is in conflict with the issuances of the Japanese army and the
pro-Japanese governments. The Chungking policy has been to hold back the
invasion currencies, on the assumption that continued circulation of the
national currency maintains a continued popular stake in the government.
Many guerrilla leaders believe that the occupied areas should use
nothing of value to the Japanese, and therefore encourage the issuance
of local emergency currency.
Under the Ministry of Finance, numerous efforts have been made to keep
foreign trade alive. With war-time pressure on transportation
facilities, foreign trade has become a virtual monopoly of the
government; few major transactions are made by wholly private interests,
since in addition to monopolizing the highways, government-owned
corporations also have access to differentials in foreign exchange
(which often mark the difference between great profits and none). In the
matter of the governmentalized Sino-American trade, correlated with the
American credits, the Foo Shing Corporation (export) and the Universal
Trading Corporation (import) control the current both ways. The
Ministries of Communications and of Economic Affairs also have a share
in this state-capitalist business.[17]
[Footnote 17: _The Far Eastern Survey_ keeps effectively up to date
with all new developments in this field. An authoritative but
understandable explanation of the work of the Ministry is found in H.
H. K'ung, "Holding China's Financial Front," Ch. XI, work by Mme.
Chiang K'ai-shek, cited above.]
Subdivisions in the Ministry of Finance include sections for customs,
salt gabelle, internal revenue, general taxation, public loans,
currency, national treasury, accounting, and general affairs. Efforts
are now in progress to consolidate all intragovernmental fiscal
services, so that the budget shall cover the entire government, and
separate agencies will no longer be able to make half-controlled
collections and disbursements.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs (_Ching-chi Pu_) is in general
responsible for the industrialization of an area half the size of Europe
with well over two hundred million inhabitants. No non-industrial state
can defeat an industrial state unless it has access to the industrial
resources of third parties. The Chinese, realizing this, have launched a
modernization process unparalleled in modern history. The two greatest
migrations of the twentieth century have occurred, most probably, in
China: the first the settlement of Manchuria, and the second the flight
to the West. In each case more than twenty million persons have been
involved. The Ministry of Economic Affairs has transformed this rout
into a pioneering advance. Refugees have been taught to bring their
tools with them; when they had no tools their skills have been sought
out and utilized. As the national armies and government retreated up the
Yangtze and inward, they brought along the personnel of a modern
economic system, and set an industrial society down in a world
technologically backward.
West-China modernization will probably be the most durable economic
consequence of the war. Cities near the edge of Tibet have underground
electric power and automatic telephone systems. Primitive salt-drying
areas have been modernized; in one instance, steel pipe being lacking,
bamboo pipelines, plastered and cemented for reinforcement, run
cross-country. Filthy, tax-ridden, vicious little cities which had been
the haunts of opium-sotted militarists are now given the double blessing
of fair government and a business boom. (The author felt, when he
returned to America in September 1940, that he was going from a new
country to an old, leaving the hope, zest and high spirits of the
Chinese frontier for the comfortable melancholy of American
half-prosperity.)
On the government side, the stimulation to technological advance has
consisted of broad, experimental use of government personnel, subsidies,
and part-ownership, together with some outright state socialism. Four
types of encouragement appear with particular frequency: the
government-controlled movement of private industries from the endangered
areas to the West, government sponsorship of brand new industrial
enterprises, official encouragement of cooperatives, and state
ownership-management of enterprises.
Many industries were saved for China through compulsory movement.
Thousands of tons of industrial equipment were moved up to the West,
floated on barges and river-boats, or dragged by hand over macadam
highways, dirt roads, and mud footpaths. One single enterprise, the
Chung Fu Joint Mining Administration of Honan, successfully transferred
one hundred and twenty thousand tons of equipment, now applied to coal
mining in the Southwest.[18]
[Footnote 18: Wong Wen-hao, Minister of Economic Affairs,
"Industrialization of Western China," Ch. XIV, work by Mme. Chiang
K'ai-shek, cited above, p. 142.]
Government sponsorship of new enterprise
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/50465