Government in Republican China

To the cynic, two nations clasped in murderous embrace yet nominally living in peace with each other might well be one of the miracles of our century. No less miraculous has been for many the tenacity of Chinese resistance to Japan's invasion ever since the first bullets whizzed through the night near the Marco Polo Bridge southwest of Peking early in July, 1937. The undeclared war has spread disaster through an area larger than that immediately affected in Europe's battles from 1914 to 1918; hundreds of thousands have died in action; for months China's capital has been in the hands of the enemy. But China is not on her knees.

The explanation is simple. For the first time in her history, China fights as a nation. More is involved than can be attributed to Generalissimo Chiang K'ai-shek's personal leadership or the strategic and organizational services rendered, until his recent recall to Germany, by Alexander von Falkenhausen, chief of staff of the Turkish armies during the World War. A people without allegiance to its government and without faith in itself would have been incapable of braving the ordeal of retreat, massacre, and occupation as successfully as have the Chinese. That China fights today as a nation is no small tribute to the National Government of the Kuomintang established at Nanking in 1927. How long she will be able to fight as a nation is a question to be answered only by reference to the national mentality and political institutions which have emerged since the collapse of the Manchu Empire in 1911-1912. It is the purpose of this volume to appraise the record of China's republican era.

The author was compelled to beat his own path. Only a few books on modern government in China are available in English, and these, written by Chinese, are modeled in their presentation on Western prototypes to an extent of obscuring, though unintentionally, the very substance of Chinese politics. In Dr. Linebarger's pioneer venture the dynamics of internal instability, typical of the earlier phases of the Republic, and the gradual consolidation under the Nanking regime are analyzed with extraordinary penetration. Instead of being confronted with meaningless form and empty legality, the reader is placed in a position to view step by step the evolution of conflicting and merging forces: political movements and their contest for the loyalty of the masses, the rough and ready rule of military might, and the official hierarchies representing organized governments. Throughout this work, as in Dr. Linebarger's earlier Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen, the broad stream of Confucian thought fertilizing age after age of China's social existence and Sun's purposeful ideological adaptations combined in his San Min Chu I are shown in fundamental harmony. One distinction, however, stands out clearly. The Confucian tradition applied itself to a vaguely conceived but essentially unified world order. In the San Min Chu I we encounter the elements of a national credo, self-assertive and militant.

The role of ideology in modern government has suffered curious neglect among students of politics for a considerable time. In periods of relative ideational saturation or stagnation, the mechanics of constitutional law or the give and take of legislative barter may distract from the basic framework of values and objectives giving shape to the political order. The rise of totalitarian systems relying heavily on ideological appeal and propaganda techniques has laid new stress upon those factors which predetermine political behavior. In China's vast experience we have the supreme example of ideological guidance so firmly established as to reduce to a minimum direct governmental intervention in the affairs of the individual. It is perhaps Sun Yat-sen's tragedy that for years he placed his faith in the magic of democratic verbiage imported from the West; a new orientation came to prevail after 1923, when at Sun's instance tested practitioners of mass organization from the Soviet Union began to overhaul and streamline the Kuomintang apparatus.