Government of China

“ The only safeguard against bad government was good government by good men; the only remedy for bad government was the effort of good men. The Chinese never set up an imaginary machinery and turned themselves into its cogs. To the simple, common-sense humanity of the Confucians, a government made up of rigid laws—a system having no reference to the personality or value of individuals, but embedded in a vast mechanism of numbers—would have seemed anathema and lunacy.
Government in China was an auxiliary activity, the reserve power of a hierarchy given to the pursuit of different ends. ”

“ China has been proceeding not from partial control to complete control, as are Italy,2 Germany,3 and the Soviets,4 but from complete control to something not far from universal license—freedom all-pervading, unwanted, and terrifying. The problem of modern Chinese government is the problem of re-creating government out of its raw materials: land, people, doctrine, force, and law. ”

“ In China some of the most benevolent and effective emperors advocated at times a government of rules and not of men, in order to check the caprice and the oppression of officials; yet the role of law in China, in contrast to the part it has played in the West, remained slight. The West affords instances of effective political work outside legal systems, while the Chinese have produced law codes of considerable breadth and significance. Nevertheless, the power of Chinese government aside from law is just as clear as the Western development of government within law. ”

“ Government in China has in the Republican era undergone one of the most significant transformations to be found anywhere in the world's political experience. The oldest society on earth found itself forced to redefine its position and to reconstruct its ways of thought and internal means of organization. Pressure from without compelled China to adopt the modern state. Chinese society was required to incorporate this state and all implied institutions in its routine living. ”

“ In fact, the Chinese are constantly becoming more anxious to find precedent for political growth and development in their own past rather than in the past of the West, which they could never appreciate as much as do Westerners. ”

“ It is thus patent that the new Chinese world which is appearing must grow out of the background of the past and the necessities of the present. It cannot readily be planned because there are not enough formulas common to the old Far Eastern and the new Western worlds. New China must be a blending, from use, from habit, from new skills imposed upon old. Out of the dangers and misfortunes of the years since 1912 the Chinese have developed a small body of political methods which is temporarily workable. ”

“ The policy of China is the most perfect model of an arrangement at which the ordinary refinements of government are aimed; and the inhabitants of that empire possess, in the highest degree, those arts on which vulgar minds make the felicity and greatness of nations to depend. The state has acquired, in a measure unequalled in the history of mankind, numbers of men, and the other resources of war. They have done what we are very apt to admire: they have brought national affairs to the level of the meanest capacity ”

“ The ideal ruler of old was a humane classicist with a taste for historical studies; the contemporary Chinese ruler must be military, if not militaristic, and must have the inevitable background of engineering and management which modern war connotes. The soldier must collaborate with the modern administrator, while both recapture the high ideals of devotion typical of the old scholastic rule, even if they cannot use its substance. These imperatives are indispensable if China is to live. ”

“ If government in Republican China is an extemporized and doomed system, rooted in no past, committed to no future, why should it be scrutinized at all? A number of reasons for examining Chinese government suggest themselves. ”

“ The Chinese society, with a single supreme ritual leader, was termed an empire, and the predominant hierarchy of that society a government.
Actually, modern political scientists would have to hesitate before applying the term government to the hierarchy of old China. In many respects that hierarchy was more like Europe's medieval universities and our fraternal societies than the governments of the West. The prestige accruing to positions in the system was not derived so much from political power as from the status which the system offered to its members. ”

“ Obviously, government in Republican China cannot be understood without analysis of the foundations upon which it is built. Such an analysis requires an inquiry, however cursory, into the peculiarities of old China and those of contemporary China. Some of the difficulties of modern China arise from the very adequacy of the old system. Had the Chinese of the past been less satisfied with their society, they might have become more accustomed to change and transience. ”

“ It is the sincere desire of my Government that the interests of its citizens may not be prejudiced through exclusive treatment by any of the controlling powers within their respective "spheres of interests" in China, and it hopes to retain there an open market for all the world's commerce, remove dangerous sources of international irritation, and thereby hasten united action of the powers at Pekin to promote administrative reforms so greatly needed for strengthening the Imperial Government and maintaining the integrity of China, in which it believes the whole Western world is alike concerned. ”

“ This duality of role strongly affected the development of government in China, and is a factor which still plays a great part. The Chinese owe many of their social and political peculiarities to the effectiveness of their mass action, which is able to take place with a minimum of formal leadership and coordination and with a maximum of secrecy and totality. In times when foreign conquest of China is no longer in the realm of the improbable, it is worth remembering that the Chinese are a people adamant in resistance to force and schooled in centuries of rebellion. ”

“ While the Government of China is a paternal despotism in form and while it is always weak and corrupt and often cruel and tyrannical in practice, nevertheless there is a larger measure of individual freedom than might be supposed. ”

“ Fourth, old China offers a challenging demonstration of secular, civilian, pacific world government. The Chinese commonwealth of the past was supernational; it seemed to the Chinese like unified civilized humanity. Among the conflicting currents of present world politics, there are some which drift toward world unity; old China may present significant analogies to the international institutions of today. ”

“ Controlling men through controlling their minds and through making sure that every possible leader would lead from within the hierarchy—these devices of the past had failed. There were now Chinese to whom the Confucian rules were pleasant and homelike but not the real material of modern life. These Chinese possessed intellectually trained leaders who had nothing in common with the dominant elite—who were more interested in building railroads, improving water supplies, defending China's frontiers, and modernizing the country than in augmenting the virtue of mankind. ”

“ Disagreements, frictions, and constant civil war would have ensued if any attempt had been made to establish a Chinese dynasty. Another fact is that a large majority of the intelligent people of China were disgusted with the system of monarchial government. Thus it will be seen that for the sake of the peace and welfare of the nation there was no other course for the people but to take a long jump and to establish the present Republic. The law of evolution has been very actively at work in China, and no doubt it will be for her ultimate good, and therefore for the benefit of all mankind. ”

“ But then China has ages of experience, both in organizing and in rebelling, back of to-day. Establishing a Republic, however, is something new; the Chinese have never before tried their hand at that, but if they will only bring into play now all their undoubted power of organization, of resource, of moderation, they will certainly make a success of their new experiment in government. ”

“ The governing of China is not and has not been confined to governments. In many instances the working of specific institutions called governments has been of less importance than that of other establishments and organizations. The problems of government in Republican China are affected but not determined by the fate of individual governments. Movements and armies have predetermined action ”

“ The old Chinese system was based upon control through ideas, control exercised through the maintenance of clear notions of right and wrong, as founded in certain well-established common-sense traditions. ”

“ There is nothing of any interest in China; if you have seen one village you have seen all the country. I have really an immensity to do. It will be a good thing if the Government support the propositions which are made to the Chinese. ”

“ Great Britain having not only the preponderating interest, but being still the leading Power in the Far East, it was obviously a great advantage for the Chinese that it should be that Power which came particularly under the influence of the inspector-general. To tie the hands of the British Government for a whole generation was, indeed, an achievement worthy of a master of policy; but it was by no means the only service which might be rendered to China even by an Inspector-General of Customs. ”

“ Sixth, the Chinese state—if China is to solve political questions through governmental procedures—must be constituted as a clear and legal entity. The old imperial society of China was able to dispense with law through reliance upon social forces expressing themselves in a large number of small but stable units. If these disappear the question arises: How can the individual conceive clearly his relationships within Chinese society? Systematized modern organization requires a legal framework. ”

“ The Peking government was technically based on the Provisional Constitution of 1912. At the earliest period of the restored Republic (1917) it fell into the hands of the Anfu clique, which administered to China a dose of Reconstruction on the American model. The treasury was literally looted, and the politicos who attached themselves to the government and to the military dominating it fell over each other in their haste to sell the nation out to Japan. ”

“ They would have to be men of practical experience, of unquestioned ability and character. While these men were thus engaged to give their best advice in their respective departments, it should be taken up and acted upon, and young and able Chinese students should be selected to work under them. In that way, the government would have been rebuilt upon Western methods, and on principles and ideas that look to the reformation of the administrative government of China. ”

“ The foreign Powers have been openly and persistently defied—their people massacred throughout the empire. Yet the nations so hated and flouted assume that they have a mission to fulfil in setting up a stable Government in China, a Government to be created for their own convenience, with which they may in future negotiate,—a puppet Government, therefore, yet one which is to maintain peace and good order throughout a vast empire by the prestige of its authority over a loyal and devoted people. ”

“ China, he saw, could be best served by a virtual control of the British Legation. The nascent power was, however, too precious to be trusted to personal accidents, and the inspector-general wisely availed himself of circumstances as they arose to widen his basis of influence by establishing such relations with the Home Government as might save him from being wholly dependent on the life or the caprice of the representative for the time being at Peking. Such to an ordinary man might have appeared a hopeless ambition, considering the circumstance of distance and other adverse conditions. ”

“ The stability of the Chinese government; the few changes that have been made in its civil institutions for such a number of ages; the vast extent of empire and immense population, forming one society, guided by the same laws, and governed by the will of a single individual, offer, as Sir George Staunton has observed, "the grandest collective object that can be presented for human contemplation or research." ”

“ It is plain that the Chinese Government proceeds to the fullest extent of possible concession in view of the strong national sentiment manifested by the people throughout the whole period of the negotiations. All that the Chinese Government strove to maintain was China's plenary sovereignty, the treaty rights of foreign Powers in China, and the principle of equal opportunity. ”

“ The Chinese, not unnaturally, resent the suggestion that they should apply to a foreign government for the loan of a guide and teacher, or that among all their millions of population they possess no able statesmen of their own ”

“ The continuity of Chinese civilization depends not alone upon its political virtues, but upon its working effectiveness in all relevant spheres of human activity. In emphasizing certain aspects of old China, it is impossible to trace the entire broad evolution.1 In fact, the emergence of those devices which, along with government in the narrow sense, guided China in her long past dates back to prehistory. ”

“ Facts which cannot lie have proved that these three Powers have long cherished designs upon the territory of China. No doubt they flatter themselves with the belief that their rule over such portions of Chinese soil as may come under their control would be a blessing to mankind, an opinion which it would serve no good purpose to controvert. And they reckon that, in addition to the higher civilisation which they propose to confer on the Chinese people and Government, they will secure material advantages for their own populations. ”