Republic Of China Ministry Of Transportation (1912-1916)

The Qing government approved the establishment of the Ministry of Post on November 6th, 1906, in order to manage the four ministries of communications departments of railway, steamship, telecommunication service and postal service. The first officially unified management of the whole nation's transportion appeared in Chinese history at this time. However, the establishment was passivly responsed to the situation of China's transportion which lagged behind the needs, resulting serious problems in the management of the Ministry of Post in the four ministries of communications. Although the Ministry of Post plays a certain role on transportation industry, it miserably ended with the last Chinese Dynasty.Learning from the lesson of the experience of the Late Qing Dynasty, the republic of China replaced the Ministry of Post with the Ministry of Communication and constantly revised and improved its bureaucratic establishment and various regulations. Drawing on the experience from western, the government unifily planned and adjusted the traffic administrations at all levels combining with the traditional Chinese management system. Through the further improvement the direction, management and supervision of transportation industry were strengthened. At the same time the Ministry of Communication actively cooperated with other government departments and adopted actions to develop all four ministries of communications departments, and steadily promoted the development of transportation. In addition, the Ministry of Communication established and supported many provisional institutions and social groups,such as varied seminars, railway association, so as to fully played leading role of the national transportion management in the new transportation's development.The state-owned policy of main roads, building roads in debt and state-managed policy on the one hand greatly promoted the modernization of the four ministries of communications departments in the early years of republic of China. On the other hand, there are still many problems in it. An detailed analysis and a realistic assessment have great meaning for developing our current transportion and solving traffic problems in the process of our development.