Federalism In China: From 'Inter Provincial Autonomy' To 'One Country, Two Systems'

In the middle nineteenth century, China had suffered the most severe crisis of survival. However, the progressive Chinese opened the door to study the civilization of Western political system, and tried very hard the reform of their own political system. In practice, the provincial constitutionalism movements is the first attempt of reform in the history of China, although, due to certain reasons this demonstration failed eventually. Nevertheless, we could find some clue of the federal spirit, which would be'independent governance'and'power division', in the process of independent province governance. In the period of Kuomingtang in control, the Chinese government had totally given up the thoughts of federal spirit under the dictatorship of Jiang Jieshi. The understanding of federal system of the Communist Party is from the mode of Leninism, which is the transitional model of the unification of different working races. After the new China is founded, Chairman Mao Zedong adopted the independent governance of different racial areas, and turned those races into political entities that supporting the Communist Party. However, in this way the Communists had lost the federal spirit at last. After the economical reform led by Deng Xiaoping, the application of division of power had reunited the concepts of'special economical district'and'two systems under one country'as a way of federation. This is the application of a successful tactic, although this use is under a single political system and is originally aimed at a tool utility, we could see anyway some unique hints of federal spirit inside.According to the successful experiences of the special economical district and the mature development of the theory of'two systems under one country', the author believes that a federal changing opportunity is contained in Hong Kong and Macau. China had already lost the transitional opportunity during the system reform in last century, we got no reason to miss it nowadays. The reality in China has always asked for reform, and asked for the arrival of federation.