Autonomy Or Control:A Study Of Jiangning Autonomous County (1933-1937)

Since the late Qing dynasty, the theory of local autonomy had been powerful social ideological trend, represented by Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and Sun Yat-sen, who had their own theories of local autonomy. At the same time, the theory of local autonomy had been put into practice, such as the Qing Terminal New Deal and the village governance of Zhaicheng and Shanxi.After the Nanjing National Government was established, it began a nationwide movement of local autonomy, guided by Sun Yat-sen’s "Three People’s Principles" and "allocution politics". After the 2nd Country Internal Affairs Conference, Jiangning County was set up as an experimental county, to find out the best mode of local autonomy and a universal way to put it into effect. The County Administration Construction mainly could be divided into the following several aspects: First, the reform of Jiangning County’s administrative structure, which mainly including the setting up of county administration committee and the dissolution of bureaus. Second, the reformation of Jiangning’s administrative structure, including the county and township level and the village level. After the consolidation in the grassroots administrative setup, Jiangning county carried out a county-wide census, further strengthening the administrative control of rural society. For Jiangnig county, land reform is also an important content of the political reform. The county government demanded the landlords to report the exact amount of the cultivated areas and its location, along with the reform of taxes. The land checking standardized the management of rural land, at the same time, tax reform contributed to strengthening the financial control of grass-roots society. Different from the past Shen Zhi system, Jiangning county government took the responsibility of the public goods supply,which included education, public security, rural finance, agriculture and forestry industry and traffic.After four years’experiment, Jiangning county returned to ordinary county as before. As a fact, Jiangning’s country autonomy movement did improve the governance of grassroots and local people’s living standards. However, on the other hand, the movement typically took the mode of self-government under administrative leading, preventing it from achieving the goal of "autonomy", which was crucial for the transition to constitutional politics. Moreover, the experimental experience had been denounced for its lack of universality. The theory of local autonomy originated from the west, which didn’t fit to China’s national conditions, such as the small peasant economy and the lack of civic culture. In consideration of the social environment at that time, the most urgent task of Kuomintang was the pursuit of the survival of its regime. Thus, for Jiangning’s autonomy movement, it might be an inevitable result that administrative control took the place of self-governance.