Official Governance and Self-Governance: The County System in China in the First Half of the 20th Century

Author: Wei Guangqi
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-10-01
Features: Ancient Chinese local primary administrative divisions were collectively referred to as "xian" (county) from the Qin and Han dynasties to the Tang and Song dynasties. During the Yuan Dynasty, some "zhou" (prefecture) established under provinces, roads, and prefectures did not have subordinate counties, and thus also belonged to local primary administrative divisions. The Ming and Qing dynasties inherited the Yuan system, establishing "zhou" and "zhili zhou" in some areas, which, together with "xian," were considered local primary administrative divisions, collectively known as "zhou-xian." By the Qing Dynasty, in addition to "zhou" and "xian," "ting" and "zhili ting" were established in remote areas, while a very small number of second-level local administrative divisions, such as "fu" (prefecture), not only governed "zhou" and "xian" but also had their own direct administrative regions. Thus, the local primary administrative divisions of the Qing Dynasty took the forms of "fu," "ting," "zhou," and "xian." After the establishment of the Republic of China, all "fu" with direct administrative regions, "zhili ting," "zhili zhou," and other scattered "zhou" and "ting" were uniformly changed to "xian," once again unifying local primary administrative divisions as "xian." During the Nanjing government period, some prosperous counties were changed to "shi" (city), making the second-level local administrative divisions below the province consist of both "xian" and "shi." However, regardless of how the form of China's primary local administrative divisions changed, "xian" remained the main form. Additionally, since the late Qing Dynasty, various district and township administrative systems established to break the traditional practice of not setting up local governance below the county level were all subordinate to the county (city). Given this situation, it is entirely reasonable to use the term "xian zhi" (county system) to refer to the grassroots administrative systems of various historical periods in China. For example, Hu Cuiwei's book "History of the Republican Era County System" (1940s) includes both the county administrative system and the district-township system of the relevant period. The concept of "xian zhi" used in this book also shares the same connotation and scope. As for "guan zhi" (official governance) and "zì zhì" (local self-governance), these were familiar terms in the field of "xian zhi" during the first half of the 20th century. The former refers to national administration operated by officials appointed from above by the state, while the latter refers to local self-governance operated by local residents elected from below. I believe that the mutual exclusion and integration of these two basic models constitute the main axis of the reform and evolution of China's county system during the first half of the 20th century.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, I served as a laborer in a mountain village in the Jinshan area for four years. This experience deepened my affection for farmers and sparked a strong interest in rural issues. Based on this irrational emotion and interest, I gradually developed a rational perspective during my later professional studies: the social and administrative system of county-township integration serves as the foundation and basic unit of China's social structure, a feature that will not fundamentally change even in the foreseeable modernization process. Therefore, scholars with a sense of social responsibility should study China's county system from various perspectives such as history, politics, and sociology, in order to fill the gaps in relevant academic fields while providing references for the reform of local administrative systems and the construction of grassroots institutions in contemporary China.
Based on this understanding, in the 1980s, while teaching at the History Department of Hebei University, I organized some students to conduct social surveys on the county system in their hometowns during vacation breaks. However, due to various reasons, the project did not yield any results. In the early 1990s, I began my research on the modern Chinese county system. At that time, my master's advisor, Qiao Zhiqiang of Shanxi University, was in charge of the National Social Science Fund project "Social Changes in Northern China's Rural Areas in Modern Times," and assigned me to study the implementation of local self-governance in northern China during the late Qing and early Republican periods, writing relevant chapters for the final report. Being naturally reserved, I took up the task without hesitation and spent nearly a year in the library diligently collecting and transcribing hundreds of thousands of words of materials, completing the assigned work on time. At the same time, I developed a strong interest in the modern county system. In the following years, I continued my research on the topic and began publishing papers on the issue of local self-governance in Zhili during the late Qing and early Republican periods, as well as the rural system of the Qing Dynasty.
In 1999, my research project "Study on the County-Township Administrative Systems in China in the Early 20th Century" was approved by the National Social Science Fund. With the help of my colleagues and students, after more than two years of effort, I completed the manuscript of 500,000 words in the fall of 2001 and passed the expert review. However, I am fully aware of the various levels of flaws and issues in the submitted manuscript, so I dared not seek immediate publication. After another two years of revision, supplementation, and, the book finally took its current form. To be modest, I must say that I am still far from satisfied with this draft. However, due to my limited knowledge and the influence of various practical factors, I had no choice but to let the "ugly daughter-in-law" go to meet the "in-laws," hoping that after publication, I would receive criticism and corrections from teachers, peers, experts, and readers.
In my view, this book may make some contributions to relevant academic research in several aspects: exploring the evolution of various systems within the modern county system and striving for comprehensiveness; explaining the initial design of each relevant system while also examining its actual implementation; conducting a preliminary study on the financial aspects of the county system from the Qing Dynasty to the Nanjing government period (I believe that the backwardness of the financial system remains a major factor restricting the modernization of China's county-township system); making preliminary explorations into the rise and fall of social forces behind the evolution of the county system; and drawing lessons from history to propose some views and suggestions for the reform of China's county system today.
It is obvious that this book has many shortcomings, and as far as I can identify, they mainly manifest in the following aspects: due to my limited theoretical background and the initial intention to focus on description with the aim of incorporating analysis, the theoretical analysis is relatively weak; the modern Chinese county system involves a vast scope, and many issues that should have been explored did not come within my field of vision. For example, the administrative activities of various county-township administrative organizations during the late Qing and Nanjing government periods were dynamic manifestations of the county system at the time, but due to limited time, I was unable to delve deeply into them in this book; the relevant materials for studying the modern county system are extremely rich, and although I made great efforts to collect and organize them, I cannot claim to have exhausted them, nor can I avoid omissions in some basic materials. Additionally, there are many one-sided and incorrect explanations of specific issues. All of these shortcomings are sincerely hoped to be criticized and corrected by experts, peers, and readers.