Provincial Politics Of Beiyang Government And National Politics

As the last powerful man who can command the whole country, the death of Yuan Shih-k’ai brought the disorderly central government into chaos. As we can see from the political change since 1916, the core power of country decreased with every upheaval until this country plunged into anarchy. After the collapse of traditional political system of monarchy, new democratic republic can’t play its role in tumultuous times that caught China in a system fracture, meaning confusion and value confusion of multiple puzzles. In such a situation, it was a theme of the times that achieving national unity and establishing the central government which can control the domestic situation.After the introduction of democratic republic, some Chinese wanted to reform government with democracy. In that special times, what China needed was an efficient authoritarian government, while representative democracy based on the principle of check and balance diverged from Chinese social and political practice of that time. Therefore, representative democracy couldn’t solve the reality issues and finally failed.Under the condition of political turmoil, the provincial military strengths took control of the provincial governments and pushed forward the emergence of the Joint-Provinces’ Autonomy. But from the practice, the Joint-Provinces’ Autonomy was one of political means that warlord played. So the method of reforming country started from local politics would only cause more severe disruption rather than fundamentally changed the chaotic political situation of that time.In order to break this dilemma of central politics, local politics and representative democracy, Dr. Sun Yat-sen envisaged three stages of military rule, political tutelage and constitutional government on the basis of summarizing his revolutionary experience. Under the direction of this most scientific revolutionary strategy, the face of the Chinese revolution has been changed fundamentally. The success of the Northern Expedition changed the fragmented political situation and established Nanking national government. After the Central Powers fall into the lowest, the newly established Nanking national government began to restore the central authority.