The Dying Of Social Public Sphere: Hanzheng Street, 1949-1956

Beginning from the late 1970s, reform and social transitions in China have enabled the rising and thriving of civil society and public sphere. How to obtain a good relationship between state and society comes to be a very important problem in the present theory and practice. The essential point of public sphere study is to seek the basic frame of Chinese civilization development, further to remove modern discourse of binary antinomy between tradition and modern, for the purpose of gaining a sight over the intrinsic many-faceted social transition.From the view of social public sphere of Chinese historical model and its dying process from the year of 1949 to 1956, and from the angle of displaying the dying system of social public sphere, the study is meant to find its basic developing features in the process and its relation forms to country-state growth and transition ever since the 19lh century, hence to offer a historical latitude to the present public sphere discourse. The year from 1949 to 1956 is an unprecedented dramatic changing period in the development of China' s urban society. The urban social structure and its operating pattern developed in those years form the basis of new urban social transition, and also a possible starting pointing in our present discussion over the transition of urban society and state administration.On the basis of the basic theory of William T. Rowe' s study on Hankow,the study enriches his Chinese public sphere argumentation after taking historical model and feature of Chinese urban social, public sphere into account, on the other hand, rethinks about the relationship between public sphere and country-state growth and transition through the consideration into the relationship between Hanzheng Street's social public sphere, mainly business organizations and wharf gangs, and state building.Considering the dying of social public sphere, the study reviews the dying process of modern Chinese public sphere, especially in the year 1949 to 1956. Under this background, the study on Chinese public sphere is not in the problem of existence, but goes into the detailed review over the positive study that what public sphere, as a structure, loses, how it loses, and under what circumstances it loses in such a dramatic changing society.