A Comparative Study Of The Influence Of European Medieval And Modern Chinese Businessmen On Urban Autonomy

In the transition period in modern China, the development of the merchantgroup and the construction of local autonomy is particularly conspicuous.Just a few decades, the merchant groups had a rapid growth in the numberand the scope, they had became an important management of urban socialgrassroots organizations. By the introduction of western modern localautonomy system, in the implementation of the government and merchantgroups under the support of the initiative, become a main mark of thedemocratic constitutional state, occupies an important position in thepolitical reform. In medieval Europe it had a similar situation, medievalcommercial revival has facilitated the formation of a large number ofmerchant groups, and the merchant groups became a direct power forpromoting the city autonomy. Modern China merchant groups’ enthusiasmfor local autonomy is similar to the medieval European merchant groups,they are comparable in many ways.Taking merchant groups as a clue, this paper tries to compare the medievalEuropean and modern China merchants groups’ impact on the constructionof the local autonomy. This paper is based on the historical data, historicalfacts, the existing views of books and papers, uses the historical narrative,contrast argumentation writing methods. The article includes the foreword,text, conclusion which compare the European medieval and modern Chinesemerchant groups’impact in the local autonomy.At the last it will analyze thecause of the loss in modern Chinese merchant groups and the localautonomy. The foreword part determined some important concept andhistorical period.The text is divided into four parts. The first part is about the history of themedieval European and the modern Chinese merchant groups and cityautonomy, and the relationship between the merchant groups and the localautonomy: merchant groups participating in local autonomy, local autonomypromoting merchant community’s self-governance, and conflicts between the merchant groups and the local autonomy. The second part will take theEuropean medieval and modern China merchant groups as the clue, andcompare their roles in the local autonomy. It will argue the different impacton the construction of local autonomy caused by the difference of themerchant groups’social status, degree of independence and the survival time.The third part mainly analyzes the reason why the modern Chinese merchantgroups couldn’t lead the local autonomy well. It includes the influence ofthe turbulent situation, the destruction from the official intervention and theold system and concepts. It is the merchant groups’ weakness, independenceand idea behind that caused the negative effect on the local autonomy.Finally the Chinese merchant groups and local autonomy is forced into thesystem of the powerful government, losing themselves in the history. Thefourth part is a summary of full text. From the history, the comparisonresults and analysis of the causes we can see that it is rather difficult topursue autonomy rights in such a power-concentrating country like China.In the process of constructing local autonomy, the existence and theoperation of social intermediate organizations is extremely important. Thenongovernmental organizations act as the bridge of the government andcitizens, working for expressing and conveying. The social intermediateorganizations play an important role on the local governance.