War Period Under The National System Of Government And Political Participation

Political participation, as an important term, was first put forward in modern politics.Ever since the establishment of modern democratic institutions, citizens' participationin political affairs had become the basis as well as an important constituent of it. TheRevolution of1911overthrew the rule of over2000years of feudal autocracy andsubsequently established the Republic of China, which marked the beginning of a newera of political development in China. Citizens' participation in political affairs hadever gained a solid legitimate basis. The War of Resistance against JapaneseAggression was a national liberation movement with the greatest momentum inmodern Chinese history. In order to secure the final victory of the anti-aggression war,the Chinese people had been persistent in building modern democracy via variousmeans. Meanwhile, in order to unite the possible anti-Japanese forces and exploit thetalent of the whole nation fighting against the aggressors, the Kuomintanggovernment also made some adjustments and became more tolerant towards politicalparticipation. Under the circumstances, political participation in the anti-aggressionwar period presented an unprecedented development momentum. Differentparticipants, via different means, participated in political affairs at different levels,assembling a mighty torrent of democracy and constituting an important stage inmodern political development history. With the anti-aggression war period of greatchange as background, this dissertation mainly studies the domestic political situationat that time, political appeals from opposition parties and main social strata, startingand practices of wartime political participation, political participation at provincialand local levels in regions ruled by the Kuomintang government, as well as theclimax—two constitutional movements and the establishment of coalitiongovernment. The aim of the study is to discover the universal development law ofpolitical participation in the era of great change, which can serve as experiences andlessons to the political participation development in current China.