A Study Of Provincal Politics In Modern China

From Yuan dynasty,provincal system,which was inherited by Ming and Qing dynasty,had been more than seven hundred years.After several reforms,the province was localized gradually from central resident agency to local administration.In this process of evolution,provincial theory and practice had shown a lot of disputes.Especially since late Qing dynasty,there was a constant discord between the central and the provinces that became a major crux of politics.Since the New Policies Reforms in the late Qing dynasty,successive central governments was constandly trying to straighten out the relationship between the central and local.Under the influence of Western political doctrine,political philosophy about provincal system had changed with the update of national consciousness.In the discussion of the relevant provincial system,the Chinese and Western political discourse mixed together.Many political theories,suach as "authority distribution between central and local goverment","feudalism","shire-county theory","centralization","local decentralization",“theory of equal rights","federalism",were applied to construct provincal system.A variety of reform program emerged in an endless stream.However,some critical issues always were highly controversial.For example,what the character of the province was,how to allocate the power between the central and provinces,how to divide provinces or dismantle provinces.Neverthless this topic was nationally focused,practicing such programs was facing various obstacles.Qing Government,Northern Government or Nanjing National Government had tried to reshape the relationship between the central and the province.However,the central government had never enough authority to effectively promote provincial reform.At that time,the complex political situation,which china faced internal disorder and the pressure of western powers,made reform lacking a unified and stable political environment.Not only the proper relationship between the central and the province could not be remodeled,but also the provincal issue became one political leverage of each groups to fight for power.This article takes Zhejiang province as a case to explore the development of modern provincial politics.Modern Zhejiang has never breed a strong separatist of the province's political and military groups.Its meaning is that the case could avoid all kinds of alienation caused by political anomie,and reveal the appearance of "provincial power" and its development path under normal situation.This article would discuss three aspects of modern Zhejiang provincial politics:finance,military and offcial system.In the finance,the establishment of likin and various types of financial institutions during the late Qing to promote the formation of provincial finance.Meanwhile,This change strengthened the financial power of the provincial governor.Still,the financial autonomy of the provinces is still limited.Not only traditional revenue,but new tax such as likin were mainly controlled by the central government.In the period of Northern Government,central government had attempted to construct suitable financial relations between the central and provinces by setting up financial institutions,financial division,regulating financial behavior and so on.The system design,however,was seriously flawed.Provincial tax was so little that provinces wantonly levied all kinds of additional taxes,or corroded central taxes,or concealed the real revenue.Simultaneously,the central government was short of appropriate means of supervision.Even Zhejiang province,which was not strong independence,frequently withheld or stopped turning in central taxes.Furthermore,the provincial authorities spontaneous issued of government bonds to make up for the deficit.During Nanjing National Government,the central government divided the finances again.Although there were policies in favor of provincial finance,such as land tax assigned to the provinces,subsidies for local construction and so on,the overall autonomy of finance in Zhejiang Province was limited.For Nanjing National Government,the direction of fiscal reform wsa still to further limit the provincial finance.Since the late Qing dynasty,Zhejiang financial experienced of the formation,strengthening and even independent,and later limited.In the military,the localization of the army was a noteworthy phenomenon.The Qing dynasty took actions,such as separation of command rights and collection of military expenditures,controlling the appointment and removal of the upper-level officers,surveillance of the Eight Banners in garrison,to avoid leadership rendered ineffectual by recalcitrant subordinates.After Xianfeng and Tongzhi Era,the emergence of Yong camp broke the traditional regulation,provincial governors gradually mastered military power,while central govement still controlled the appointment and removal of the upper-level officers.The reason why New Army in late Qing appeared incontrollable was the depth of the localization of the army.This phenomenon extended to the Northern Government period,and also became the major cause of powerless central government and emergence of many warlords.At the beginning of Republc of China,armyman started to head the administration in Zhejiang.Politics became the vassal of the army.To some extent,chinese military was "provincial amry" rather than "national army" at that time.When Kuomintang was in power,central government began to unify military power gradually.Their first action was control collection of military expenditures.Then,some policies,such as division of civil and military,nationalization of army,were implemented one after another.The process of localization of the Zhejiang army was finally terminated.The military of Zhejiang provincial government were just some local security forces such as Provincial Force and Security Group,which had no serious threat to the central government.Of course,the Kuomintang's military centralization policy did not have the desired effect in some provinces.But,Zhejiang's case at least showed that these policies were feasible.In the offcial system,provincial governors'rights of personnel administration continually expanded since late Qing dynasty.The central government had designed several rigorous systems to restrict the personnel rights of provinces.But,it's very little effect on account of the political reality of local separatism.The director-general of provincial government were recommended by the local chief executive,needless to say appointment of the county chief.The central government could only make a number of restrictions on the qualifications of the candidates.When Kuomintang was in power,the local chief executive still had rights to recommended candidates.In terms of Zhejiang,central government did not deprive the provincial government of the appointment of the county chief.However,the personnel distribution in some important departments,such as Finance Department and Security Department,was managed by the central government.On the other hand,the trend of bureaucratic localization was becoming more and more obvious.Since the Republic of China,the native parrying system in Qing dynasty was broken.Although the Northern government had tried to partially restore the system,it was short of sufficient political authority to implement.During the Nanjing National Government,native parrying system even no longer became one measure to prevent local separatism.Usually,the expansion of provincial power was summarized as "governors authoriarian",which was regarded as the origin of the warlords'separatism.When the province was so powerful that the local government was out of the central control,it certainly was reviewed as " governors authoritarian" or "separatist".However,it should not be forgotten that functions of the province were also increasing,meanwhile provincial power expanded gradually.The key reason why provincial reform had repeatedly failed to achieve the desired results was that the power and function of provinces were seriously out of line.Aditionally,the provincial reform lacked a stable political environment.If functions of the province could not be defined appropriately,whether the reform program was based on "centralized" or "decentralized",the final result only was "abusive power".Moreover,in the absence of an effective alternative,it would lead to local government overtly agreed but covertly opposed that central government bindly limited provincial power,when the province had real power in the field of politics,economic and so on.