The Preliminary Investigation Between The New Policy In Late Qing Dynasty And The Civil Society In Modern China

After the Boxer movement, the government of the Qing dynasty implemented the new policies in economic, cultural and political aspects in order to continue its precarious rule and deal with the national crisis.In the field of economics, the Qing government gradually established the concept that commerce business can strengthen the country; established the Business Department; issued a series of policies about business and persuaded establish the Chamber of Commerce. In the cultural field, the Qing government established mature educational administrative system, abolished the imperial examination system, founded the westernized schools, and promoted studying abroad. In politics, the Qing government executed the Preparative constitution, actively advocated local autonomy movement. In addition, the Qing government had also actively promoted the development of modern journalism. The series of sweeping reforms of Qing dynasty greatly made the obvious effect, for example, the reforms promoted the development of capitalist industry and commerce; widely disseminated the western democracy and freedom; expanded local autonomy rights and fostered the people's political participation through the local autonomy campaign; fostered the awareness of people's rights by lifting the ban on political parties. Besides, the New policy completely broke the traditional classes institutions, and fostered a number of modern civic groups, civil classes gradually expanded and they positively interacted with the government, they also launched social activities which aimed at safeguarding the interests of the class, and the civil society developed. That is, the Qing government implemented the New Policy from top to bottom and eventually gave birth to the Civil Society in modern China.Before the New policy, there also existed civil society in the foreign settlements in modern China. The western colonists in the foreign settlements forcibly transplanted their own economic system, political system and cultural system into settlements, which prompted the development of industrial and commercial economy, citizen culture and political system. These all prompted the development of the civil society. So before the New policy, there existed the civil society in foreign settlements and most other areas still were conservative depressing situation.After the Boxer movement, the Qing government implemented the New policy, which fostered the civil society comprehensively in modern China. After the generation, the Civil Society demonstrated tremendous energy, which in turn promoted the further implementation of the New Policy in late Qing dynasty and the development of capitalism and so on. However, the academia hasn't researched the root cause of the civil society, and also failed to interpret the connection between the civil society and New Policy. Therefore, the article will analysis the causes and development of the civil society in modern China from the view of the New Policy in late Qing dynasty.This paper can be divided into three parts including seven chapters: the first part (chapter 1) expounds the Marx's civil society and bourgeois, this is the theory basis of the paper. The second part (chapter2 - chapter 3) expounds the conservative depressing society and the civil society in foreign settlements before the New policy, which can compare with the civil society during the period of the New policy. The third part (chapter4 - chapter 7) affirms the existence of the civil society in modern china through the elaboration of implementation of the New policy and the movements of the bourgeois.Through these three parts, this paper is sure that the New Policy directly contributes to the civil society in modern China. The Qing government implemented the New policy, which caused the change in relationship between the state and the society, the state control was gradually blurred, the society and the state gradually separated, and civil society gradually formed. The civil society in turn pushed the development of the New policy. This paper affirms that there did exist the western civil society but with Chinese characteristics, which extends the new study about the New policy in the Qing dynasty from a new perspective, at the same time, the analysis of the"soil"of the civil society will offers instructive significance for building the citizen society nowadays.