Official Governance and Self-Governance (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" (directly administered prefecture) in some areas, which, together with "xian," were considered local primary administrative divisions and collectively referred to as "zhou-xian." By the Qing Dynasty, in addition to "zhou" and "xian," "ting" (subprefecture) and "zhili ting" (directly administered subprefecture) were established in remote areas, while a very small number of "fu" (prefecture) as secondary local administrative divisions, in addition to governing "zhou" and "xian," also had their own directly administered territories. 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, those "fu" with directly administered territories, "zhili ting," "zhili zhou," and other scattered "zhou" and "ting" were all changed to "xian," and the local primary administrative divisions were once again unified as "xian." During the Nanjing government period, some prosperous counties were changed to "shi" (city), making the secondary 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 establishing local governance below the county level have all been 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 History of the Republic of China County System (1940s) includes both the county administrative system and the district and township system of the relevant period. The concept of "xian zhi" used in this book also has the same connotation and scope.
Regarding "guan zhi" (official governance) and "zì zhì" (local autonomy), 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 top-down by the state, while the latter refers to local autonomy operated by local elites elected bottom-up by the local society. I believe that the mutual exclusion and combination of these two basic models constituted 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 once worked as a farmer in a mountain village in the Jinshan area. 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 very rational viewpoint in my later professional studies: the social and administrative system of county and township integration serves as the foundation and basic unit of China's social structure, which is an important feature distinguishing it from other civilizations. This feature will not change fundamentally 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 supervisor, 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 autonomy in northern China during the late Qing and early Republican periods, writing relevant chapters for the final report. My personality is naturally reserved, and after accepting the task, I did not dare to slacken. For nearly a year, I painstakingly collected and transcribed hundreds of thousands of words of materials in the library, completing the task assigned by my supervisor, while also developing 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 local autonomy of Zhili in the late Qing and early Republican periods and the rural and township system of the Qing Dynasty.
In 1999, my research project "Study on the County and 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 autumn of 2001 and passed the expert review. However, I am fully aware of the various levels of flaws and issues in the final manuscript, so I did not dare to seek immediate publication. After another two years of revision, supplementation, and deletion, the book finally took its current form. To say modestly, I am still very dissatisfied 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 "parents-in-law," hoping that after publication, I would receive criticism and corrections from teachers, peers, experts, and readers.
In my opinion, this book may make contributions to relevant academic research in several aspects: exploring the evolution of various systems within the modern county system and striving for comprehensiveness; while explaining the initial design of each relevant system, also discussing its actual implementation; preliminarily examining 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 is still a major factor restricting the modernization of China's county and township systems); preliminarily exploring 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 see, 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 very broad scope, and many issues that should be discussed did not enter my field of vision. For example, the administrative activities of various county and 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 could not even claim to be exhaustive, and it is inevitable that some basic materials were omitted. Additionally, there are many one-sided and incorrect explanations of specific issues. All of these sincerely hope for criticism and corrections from experts, peers, and readers.