China's Household Registration System And Its Enforcement Since The Late Qing Dynasty,1909-1953

The dissertation focuses on China's household registration system and its enforcement from 1909 to 1953.It is an attempt to study in two ways.One is to outline the modernization of China's traditional household registration system from the perspective of institutional history and present its periodicity,continuity and intricacy.The other is to take Hunan Province as a case study,analyze the implementation of household registration system and its effect to strengthen the academic circles' comprehension about the implementation of the household registration system during the period and give some points about the construction of grassroots regime in China since the late Qing dynasty.The modernization of China's traditional household registration system is a process coexisted with disruption and continuity.The period from the beginning of 20th century to 1950s is the key stage of the transition during which the system was interrupted twice.The first is in 1900s when the Qing government legislated for modern household registration and held the first modern census for the preparation for constitutionalism which started the modernization of China's household registration.The second is in the 1950s when the Communist Party of China seized the power,abolished Nanjing national government's household registration system and built a new one based on the Soviet system.The first disruption is regarded as a choice between traditional system and the modern system,the second is just a choice between two ways in the modern system.China's modern household registration system was started from the reign of Emperor Xuantong of Qing dynasty,succeed and improved by Beiyang government and Nanjing National government,finally perfected in 1940s in spite of some setbacks.The dissertation holds the point that the modernization of China's traditional household registration system experienced four phases including Initiation(1909-1927),Foundation(1928-1934),Deviation(1935-1941)and Consolidation(1942-19149).The continuity which is existed in two aspects needs the same attention as the disruption paid by the scholars exploring the modernization of China's traditional household registration system.The development of the modern household registration system actually followed the evolutional trend of the traditional system in the long run.Moreover,despite the political turmoil and frequent regime changes,the whole modern household registration system did not suffer serious fractures and continuity remained during the period.In the late Qing dynasty and the republic of China era,successive administrations achieved some success in building household registration system,but failed in its enforcement including census,Check on Household Registers in the Bao-jia System and Its Compilation,Household Registration.By contrast,the first national census led by the Communist Party of China in 1953 succeed finally despite intricacy.Superficially,the failure of the enforcement of the registration system in the late Qing dynasty and the republic of China era is attributed to the bad system design and difficulties in its implementation,but it reflects the weakness of the state power in controlling grass-root society and social mobilization.The success of the census of 1953 not only benefited from the reasonable system design and excellent execution,but also actually was closely related to the Communist Party of China's outstanding system and her powerful capabilities in controlling grass-root society and social mobilization on a deep level.