During The Nanjing National Government, Local Self-government Research

In the 20s and 30s of 20th century, at Dingxian County of Hebei province, many idealistic members of"promotion association for education of Chinese citizens"participated in autonomy of Dingxian County. They began the famous and impressive"Dingxian experiment", which turned into a big support for regional autonomy which was advocated by Nanjing national government. This movement followed the tradition of Zhaicheng village and Dingxian County's own experience as"model county". Led both by county government office and the"promotion association for education of Chinese citizens", the achievements were remarkable, and laid the first stone for Dingxian County to be pointed"experiment county"by the national government, and the founding of the academy of Hebei county affairs as the unification of sate and the church. The founding of modern institution structure inside Dingxian county office, selection and training personnel of autonomy both for Dingxian county office and"promotion association for education of Chinese citizens", implementation for citizens, regional election in Dingxian county, the generalization of modern science and technology, or the founding of local defending military groups, all pointed to a modernized goal of the transition from traditional society to modern society and restructure the power relations in the local level and foster new societal forces by enforcing regional autonomy. On the other hand, some measures met resistance for impairing local squires'interests, and some unreasonable settings of national taxation system hugely limited the autonomy experiment. This means, in the process from national system enforcing on societal level to reflecting to national level, regional autonomy was also limited by political goal of national government and factors in rustic society.The Nanjing national government wanted to accomplish the ideal of regional autonomy of Sun Yat-sun, enforced the movement of regional autonomy, and issued the organization law of counties, and designed the county-town autonomy mechanism; but, on the other hand, it had to tighten the control of local rural area, leading to the lack of autonomy powers, and this led to the difficulties and decline of regional autonomy. We will discuss the autonomy of Dingxian County in five parts, and I hope to get a better picture of enforcements of regional autonomy by Nanjing national government in this sample analysis.The first part would explain the system design and goals of regional autonomy, and briefly introduce the founding process of the autonomy structure of Dingxian County, and the reason for this process, then briefly introduce the autonomy of Zhaicheng village and the"promotion association for education of Chinese citizens". We will analyze the settings, duties, and authorities of autonomy offices by analyzing the judicial, administrative and legislative and autonomy office in the rustic level. Then we will analyze the selection, distribution and training of personel.The second part will specify the operation mechanism of Dingxian County's autonomy. We would focus on the implementation of public education, local military defense, the establishment of health and hygiene system, implementing of cooperation, generalization of popular culture and education of school, advancement of judicial system, purifying the air. We would point out the achievements from education, construction and agriculture.The third part will investigate the financial problems and analyze the sources of fiscal revenues. We would list the expenses of the autonomy experiment of Dingxian County, and focus on the restraining factors of Dingxian County's revenue expansion. We would point out that the difficulties of Dingxian County's finance were directly caused by the irrationality of the state revenue system, and the fundamental reason was that Nanjing national government prioritized other goals in front.The forth part will analyze the relation of powers in regional autonomy. We will point out the head commissioner of Dingxian County was in fact both head of secular and ecclesial sectors. We would give the historical ground for Dingxian being"model county"and"experiment county", and analyze the relation of"promotion association for education of Chinese citizens"and academy of Hebei county affairs, and focus on the conflicts of local squires and autonomy offices, and the conflicts inside the offices.The fifth part would investigate the reason of the difficulties of Dingxian County, and give the conclusion that the very crux of the decline of Dingxian County's autonomy was the dilemma of the unification of the state and the church, and the fragile agriculture, the slack morale of local organization of Kuomintang, the destruction to local areas by the army, little awareness of rights of peasants, and the brain drain of rural areas.In the end, we come to the conclusion that Though regional autonomy was one of the goals of legal system and political agenda, but obviously it conflicted with other political goals of higher level, unfortunately, the national government shifted its focus to the latter. Nanjing national government met the dilemma of"bureaucracy"and"autonomy","centralization"and"decentralization", and failed to manage the relation of"establishment of strong state power"and"regional autonomy". So, the autonomy of Dingxian County inevitably declined despite its plenty achievements.