| As a great agricultural county, China’s modernization should be based on the modernization of its rural areas. But over a century, our pursuit of modernization brought about a byproduct, which is the continuous decay of China’s rural areas. And thus our way towards modernization was slow and full of frustration. Obviously, the modernization of China’s rural areas has become a bottleneck in our country’s transition towards modernization.In this paper, basing my research on the new development and new perspectives of modernization theory in contemporary academic world, and through the study of the case of Weihaiwei’s rural governance under British lease, I touched upon the possibility and path of developing modernity from the tradition of rural China. And thus we may draw some lessons and broaden our horizon on China’s contemporary rural governance. The main idea of the paper is that all successful civilizations have their individualistic characteristics, and under the surface of these individualistic differences, there exist many general characteristics. The developing of modernity is based on not the ruining but on the preservation of these general characteristics. Both the frontier theory of modernization and the historical experiences of many countries’modernization in our world show that the idea of setting tradition against modernity is invalid and out of date. And thus, when a civilization makes some necessary adjustments in order to keep up with the times, she need take the organism of human civilization as a complex system into account, and she should avoid harming herself through a way of going back to scratch and starting again. As a case of developing modernity from tradition, the example of Weihaiwei’s rural governance under British lease is not universal, but it brings us some methodology inspiration, which is that only basing on the preservation and gradual extension of our traditional civilization, we may break the bottleneck of our transition towards modernization that vexed us for over a century.This paper includes an introduction and five chapters. The first chapter mainly touches upon the revaluation of the rural governance pattern of traditional China in order to clarify many misunderstandings on this question and emphasize the successful rural self-governance of traditional China. In this chapter, I firstly analyze and criticize the two viewpoints on the rural governance of traditional China, which are the idea of "strong vertical control on rural areas by government" and the idea of "the absence of self-governance". I hold that although there are some specific historical materials supporting the idea of "strong vertical control on rural areas by government", it is overall a one-sided and invalid idea based on the paradigm of oriental despotism and the unrestrained anti-tradition sentiment since modern times. At the same time, the idea of "the absence of self-governance" is based on the standard form of self-governance in western society, and thus it bears a feature of strong western centrism and totally neglects the rich native characteristics of rural self-governance. Basing on the query of these two viewpoints, we argue that under normal conditions, it was self-governed in traditional rural China. The macro governance structure of rural areas’ self-governance includes the supreme imperial power, the sanctity of Confucianism, the small government, the principle of reduced corvee and taxes and the cultural nexus in rural areas. And then the rural self-governance of traditional China is not the outcome of the government’s inability of control but is the result of the game among the government, the social powers in civil society and the principle of Confucianism. And thus it is advantageous both to the government and the rural areas. In this sense, it is natural to be chosen by the long history of China and it has the general characteristics of all successful civilizations. Lastly, I take the rural governance in northern China of Qing Dynasty in19th century for example, and introduce the operation of the controlling system of the government, the interaction between the government and elites of rural areas and the self-governance of rural areas.In the second chapter, I examine the rapid movements towards modernization in the period of late Qing and the Republic of China and also how these movements led to the damage of the rural self-governance of traditional· China. Through the examination, I intend to point out the way we pursuit modernization characterized by making a prosperous China with a powerful army and by overall institutional reform has done enormous harm to the rural self-governance of traditional China. In this chapter, I firstly studied both the objective and subjective reasons of the rapid movements towards modernization, pointing out that there indeed existed many objective reasons that led to these movements under the historical circumstances of the time and thus we can understand these movements. But on the other hand, there were also subjective factors including our interpretation of modernization and our understanding of the relationship between tradition and modernization that led to the many decisions in our pursuit of modernization. Influenced by the idea of rationalism and Enlightenment from continental Europe, we took tradition as the absolute obstacle of modernization, and thus it is necessary to destroy and get rid of our tradition in order to achieve modernization. It was just this understanding of modernization that results in the many policies in our pursuit of modernization. We abolished the imperial examination system and initiated western new school system, and we launched local self-governance movement according to western standards, but unexpectedly, all these movements led to the destruction of the rural self-governance of traditional China. For example, the abolition of the imperial examination system and the initiation of western new school system resulted in the desertification of rural areas’culture, the continuous massive mobility of the rural elites from their hometown to the city, the beginning of the urban-rural structure and the absence of rural self-governance powers, and thus making China’s rural areas more and more marginalized. And besides, the local self-governance movement destroyed the grass root power structure among the government, the gentry and the common people in traditional rural areas, making the gentry’s power more official and institutionalized. The rural gentry did not play the role of the intermediary between the officials and people any longer, but at the same time, there were no new social powers in rural areas to take place of the role of the traditional gentry, and thus it is natural for the government to control the rural areas by strong and vertical administrative-means. Lastly, the many new deals including the local self-governance movement and the more and more officalized of the so-called self-governance agencies not only increased people’s taxes, but also encroached on and finally ruined the rural self-governance of traditional China.In the third chapter, I mainly summarize and analyze the meaning, the characteristics and the effects of Weihaiwei’s rural governance under British lease, showing how the British achieved successful rule on the basis of accepting and converting the rural tradition of Weihaiwei society. From1898to1930, during32years of the colonization of Weihaiwei, the British government in Weihaiwei established a rural self-governance pattern which characterized by accepting and utilizing the rural tradition of Weihaiwei society, the adjustment and reform when encountering the clashes between the culture of China and England and the dominance of rural elites under a limited government. When governing the rural society, many measures were taken by the British government in Weihaiwei and they mainly included five aspects. Firstly, on the basis of the established village board system, the government created the general board of directors system, and thus making the rural power structure more reasonable and its operation more institutionalized. Secondly, as to the dispute-solving regime in rural areas, on the basis of the role of cultivation by Confucianism and the biding powers of the established village regulations, the government created local courts to help solving disputes, and the government also made some disputable established village regulations more clear and standardized by lawmaking and notice-issuing. Thirdly, in the peace-keeping area, the British government’mainly relied on the traditional Chinese means and mobilized the rural civil society to self-organize and self-guard, and at the same time, it also created the police forces according to the British standard to help keeping peace. Fourthly, in the area of health and epidemic prevention area, the government improved people’s public health consciousness by propaganda, and besides, the government strengthened management of the private practice and put emphasis on epidemic prevention. Finally, in the area of economic development and other aspects of rural society, the government pursued a policy of noninterference. It did not change the status quo of small-scale peasant economy arbitrarily, and it did not interfere in the private school education system in Weihaiwei’s rural areas and did not practice the western education method. The government respected the folk custom and protected the people’s belief of Weihaiwei rural society, and at the same time, it objected to both the western missionary behavior of making Weihaiwei people to believe in God and the anti-tradition behavior of the Weihaiwei people such as initiating schools by ruining temples. In line with the above-mentioned ideas and measures, the British government was accepted by Weihaiwei people and made rural Weihaiwei peaceful; it also improved the horizontal development of the civil society and the accumulation of social capital, and thus promoting the growth of modernity of rural Weihaiwei.In the fourth chapter, I discuss the constructive factors of Weihaiwei’s successful rural governance in order to show that the success is the outcome of the converging and interaction of many subjective and objective factors. Among them, the native-cultural recourse of our traditional rural society was the foundation, and the ideas, the experiences and the dedication of the British also played an irreplaceable role. Specifically, the governance was featured by the acceptance and continuation of the successful practice of the rural governance in traditional China which includes emphasizing on the cultivation of people’s belief and enlightenment on the basis of the belief, respecting the custom and common law through long-term evolution in the rural society, attaching importance to the role of rural elites in the building of rural community and the building of cultural nexus in rural areas. At the same time, the part played by the British was important and indispensable. Among them, they valued tradition and experience, and they have mature concept on how to rule and they practiced smart colonial policy. Last but not the least, the two main commissioners, Lockhart and Johnson played an important part in Weihaiwei’s effective and low-cost rural self-governance and its modernization. Both were scholar officials who had read Confucian classics, history, philosophy and literature and thus were familiar with the culture of traditional China and even were assimilated by our culture. They respected and approved the culture of traditional China and made the utmost use and extension of our native culture.In the fifth chapter, I throw light on the methodology significance of the case of Weihaiwei’s rural self-governance under British lease, and I want to point out that as an example developing modernity from tradition, it is possible and feasible for us to study and it is also supported by the frontier theory of modernization and the historical experiences of many countries’ modernization in the world. Furthermore I’d like to summarize the ideas, the art and the emphasis embodied by the case. In this chapter, I firstly explain the possibility of our dialogue with the case of Weihaiwei’s rural self-governance under British lease, and then I introduce the subversion breakthrough on the ontology on England’s modernity in contemporary international academic world in order to illuminate that the development of England’s modernity was not the outcome of breaking away from its tradition but the extension of its tradition. And both the theory and experience of modernization tells us that if we deviate from our tradition, we will lose the possibility of developing any modernity and also will bring the overall backwards of a civilization. Lastly, I summarize the experience of Weihaiwei’s rural self-governance under British lease from the theoretical perspective, showing its methodology inspiration for our contemporary rural governance. |
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