The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen: An Exposition of the San Min Part 14

The Chinese, toward each other, feel conscious of family, village and provincial ties; face to face with the foreigners, they are beginning to know themselves as Chinese. Until the wave of nationalism swept the country, provincial rivalry was a live issue; even today, it cannot be called forgotten.

Sun Yat-sen's opinions on many points of government remained stable through his life. The fundamental ideas and ideals seem to have been expanded, rather than changed, as his theory met the test of his growing experience and the lessons of the revolution; but even with expansion, they remain, for the most part, consistent. Sun Yat-sen was steadfast in his beliefs.

This cannot be said of his and his successors' opinions on the problem of province versus nation. There is no one doctrine dealing with the question of provincial autonomy. There may be a trend, however, which can be described as a swing from definite emphasis upon the province toward neglect of that unit of administration. This trend may be ill.u.s.trated by several points.

At the time of the first Republic the provinces were treated much as are states in the United States. The members of the Senate of the Republic (_Ts'an Yi Yuan_) were to be elected by the a.s.semblies of the provinces, and, when representing persons not under the jurisdiction of a provincial a.s.sembly, by Electoral Colleges. The House of Representatives was to be elected directly by the people, in the proportion of one member to each eight hundred thousand of population, with the reservation-again in propitiation of provincial vanity-that no province should have less than ten representatives.(283) The first Republic was distinctly federal although by no means confederate.

Sun Yat-sen did not immediately shift from this position. As late as 1919-1922, when he was preparing his official biography, he spoke enthusiastically to his biographer of the potentialities of democratic provincial home rule.(284) He still believed in the importance of the provinces as units of a future democracy in China.

From the time that Sun went South, and the Kuomintang was reorganized, to the present, the tendency in the Sun-Kuomintang theory seems to have been toward minimization of the importance of the provinces in the democracy to be set up. The Party Declaration of the Kuomintang at its First National Convention in 1924 in Canton criticised several political viewpoints prevalent; among these was that of the Confederalists, so called. The Declaration states, in part: "Undoubtedly regional self-government is in entire accord with the spirit of democracy and is a great need of our nation. But a true regional self-government can be realized only when our national independence is won, for without national freedom, local freedom is impossible.... Many social, economic and political problems facing the individual provinces can be solved only by the nation as a whole. So the success of the peoples' revolution is a prerequisite to the realization of provincial autonomy."(285)

Sun Yat-sen himself stated, a few months earlier, a point of view which may seem inconsistent with the Party Declaration:

18. The _Hsien_ is the unit of self-government. The province links up and provides means of co-operation between the Central Government and the local governments of the districts.(286)

Whatever the occasion for the slight difference of opinion, it has been the policy of the Kuomintang to emphasize _hsien_ rather than provinces as units of self-government. The Party itself is quite centralized. The Resume of the Kuomintang Third National Congress Resolutions Concerning Political Matters, adopted March 27, 1929, states unequivocally: "The traditional policy of attaching greater importance to provincial government than to _Hsien_ or district government must be corrected or even reversed." It adds, "The provincial government, on the other hand, shall act only as a supervisor of local self-government, standing in between the _Hsien_ or district government on the one hand, and the Central Government on the other."(287)

The province is thus reduced to the lowest possible level. It is not probable that this tendency was influenced by Marxism, but it certainly resembled the Marxian idea of a vast confederation of self-governing communes, acting, by some proletarian metempsychosis, as a highly centralized instrument of revolution.(288) The doctrine of the _hsien_-province-nation relationship which places emphasis upon the first and the last is the authoritative one, and is quite harmonious with the earlier picture of Imperial China which, apart from the strictly governmental, was a vast confederacy of largely autonomous communities. In the picture of the new democratic national government which emerges from this doctrine, the central government may be regarded as a centralism versus the provinces, and a super-government in relation to the _hsien_; that is, while the people govern themselves as groups in the _hsien_, they will govern themselves as one people in the National Government. The province will remain as a convenient intermediary between the two.

This is one of the few doctrines of Sun Yat-sen upon which no one definitive and final p.r.o.nouncement is to be found and concerning which, consequently, recourse must be had to the history of the development of the Sun Yat-sen political philosophy.

The _Hsien_ in a Democracy.

The _hsien_, or district, was one of the most important social inst.i.tutions in old China. The lowest official, the _hsien_ Magistrate, represented the Empire to the people of the _hsien_, while within the villages or the _hsien_ the people enjoyed a very high degree of autonomy.

The _hsien_ was the meeting point of the political system and the extra-legal government, generally of a very vaguely organized nature, by which the Chinese managed their own affairs in accord with tradition. An estimate of the position of the _hsien_ may be gleaned from the fact that China has approximately four hundred eighty million inhabitants; apart from the cities and towns, there are about half a million villages; and the whole country, with the exception of certain Special Munic.i.p.alities, such as Shanghai, is divided into nineteen hundred and forty-three _hsien_.(289)

The _hsien_, however significant they may be in the social system of China, both past and present, cannot be described in a work such as this.

It is not inappropriate, however, to reiterate that they form what is perhaps the most important grouping within China, and that much of Chinese life is centred in _hsien_ affairs. It is by reason of _hsien_ autonomy that the Chinese social system has been so elastic as to permit the shocks of invasion, insurrection, conquest, famine and flood to pa.s.s through and over China without disrupting Chinese social organization.

Sun once quoted the old Chinese proverb about the Lu Shan (mountains): "We cannot find the real shape of the Lu Shan-for we ourselves are on it."

From the viewpoint of the Western reader this proverb could be turned against Sun in his treatment of the _hsien_. He was pa.s.sionately emphatic in discussing the importance of the _hsien_ with his foreign friends;(290) in his writings, addressed to his countrymen, he, as they, simply a.s.sumed the importance of the _hsien_ without troubling to make any cardinal point of it.

The _hsien_ is in the unit of the most direct self-government of the people, without the interference of any elaborate set-up from officialdom.

Apart from its age-old importance, it will gain further significance in the democracy of Sun Yat-sen.

Some of the functions to be a.s.signed to the people in a _hsien_ are a.s.sessment, registration, taxation, and/or purchase of all lands in the _hsien_; the collection of all unearned increment on lands within the _hsien_; land profits to be subjected to collection by the _hsien_, and disburs.e.m.e.nt for public improvements, charitable work, or other public service. Add this to the fact that the _hsien_ have been the chief agencies for police, health, charity, religious activity and the regulative control of custom-sometimes with the a.s.sistance of persons-through the centuries, and the great importance of the _hsien_ in the nationalist democracy becomes more clear.

The Family System.

Sun Yat-sen's democracy differs further from the parliamentary, mechanical democracy of the West in that it incorporates the family system.(291) Of course Sun understood the extraordinary part that the family plays in China-a part more conspicuous, perhaps, than in any other country. He pointed out that the family required in China much of the loyalty which in the West is given to the state. "Among the Chinese people the family and kinship ties are very strong. Not infrequently the people sacrifice their lives and homes for some affair of kinship; for instance, in Kuangtung, two clans may fight regardless of life and property. On the other hand, our people hesitate to sacrifice themselves for a national cause. The spirit of unity has not extended beyond the family and clan relationships."(292)

Speaking of the early Emperors and the revolution, he said: "You see, gentlemen, the methodology of Yao, like that of ours, was to begin his moral and political teachings with the family, then the nation-group, then the world."(293) How did Sun Yat-sen propose to join the strength of the family spirit and of nationalism, to the common advantage?

He planned to reorganize the already existing clan organizations in each district. These organizations have existed from time immemorial for the purposes of preserving clan unity, commemorating clan ancestry, performing charitable functions, and acting as a focus-although this last was not an avowed purpose-for clan defense. The reorganization which Sun proposed would probably have involved some systematizing of the organization for the purposes of uniformity and official record, as well as effectiveness.

Once the district headquarters were reorganized, they could be combined throughout a province into a provincial clan organization. Such organizations already exist, but they are neither systematic nor general.

After the clan was organized on a provincial basis throughout the provinces, the various provincial organizations could be gathered together in a national clan organization.

It is only when one contemplates the strength of the family system in China that the boldness of this plan becomes apparent. A series of vast national clan organizations would include practically every Chinese. Not content with this, Sun proposed inter-clan organizations, certain clans being more related to one another. A further series of national inter-clan organizations would draw together the allegiance of numberless individuals. There was always the possibility that a convention of all the clans might be called-although Sun was not sanguine about this last.(294)

This methodology, according to Sun Yat-sen, would automatically bring about nationalism. The Chinese people were already vigorously attached to their families and clans. A union of all the families and clans would lead the Chinese to realize that they were one people-one enormous family, as it were-and cause them to join together as a nation. Since there are only about four hundred surnames in China, the alliance of the clans was not so far-fetched a suggestion as it might seem. Some clans have a membership running into the millions, and clan spirit is so great that, in spite of the absence of legislation, the Chinese marriage system is still largely exogamic on this clan basis.

The suggestion of clan organization is relevant to Sun Yat-sen's democracy, in that the clan was one of the democratizing influences in old China. An individual who failed to exert appreciable pressure on the government, or on some other group, might appeal to his clan for a.s.sistance. The Chinese record of relationships was kept so extensively that there were few men of wealth or power who did not have their kinsmen commanding their a.s.sistance. The non-political authority of the family system controlled many things which have been within the scope of the police power in the West, and the adjustments of society and the individual were frequently mitigated in their harshness by the entrance of the clan upon the scene. A stable Chinese democracy with a clan system would be remarkably like the traditional system. The recourse of political democracy would have been added, but the familiar methods of political pressure upwards through the clan to the government might, not inconceivably, prove the more efficacious.

CHAPTER VII. THE PROGRAMS OF _MIN SHeNG_.

The Three Programs of _Min Sheng_.

The new ideology of Sun Yat-sen, as has been shown, demanded three fulfilments of the doctrine of _min sheng_: a nationalistic economic revolution, a deliberate industrial revolution, and a social revolution.

The last was to be accomplished negatively rather than positively. It was to aim at the reconstruction of the Chinese economy in such a manner as to avoid the necessity of cla.s.s war. Since Chinese society was to be revolutionized by the development of a nation and a state, with all that that implied, and was to be changed by a transition from a handicraft economy to an industrial one, Sun Yat-sen hoped that these changes would permit the social revolution to develop at the same time as the others, and did not plan for it separately and distinctly. The three revolutions, all of them economic, were to develop simultaneously, and all together were to form a third of the process of readjustment.

In considering the actual plans for carrying out the _min sheng_ principle, the student encounters difficulties. The general philosophical position of the _min sheng_ ideology in relation to the ideologies of nationalism and democracy, and in connection with such foreign philosophies as capitalism and Marxism, has already been set forth. The direct plans that Sun Yat-sen had for the industrial revolution in China are also clear, since he outlined them, laboriously although tentatively, in _The International Development of China_;(295) but whereas the ideology and the actual physical blueprints can be understood clearly enough, the general lines of practical governmental policy with regard to economic matters have not been formulated in such a way as to make them indisputable.

Sun Yat-sen was averse to tying the hands of his followers and successors with respect to economic policy. He said: "While there are many undertakings which can be conducted by the State with advantage, others cannot be conducted effectively except under compet.i.tion. I have no hard-and-fast dogma. Much must be left to the lessons of experience."(296)

It would be inexpedient to go into details about railway lines and other modern industrial enterprises by means of which Sun sought to modernize China. On the other hand, it would be a waste of time merely to repeat the main economic theses of the new ideology. Accordingly, the examination of the program of _min sheng_ will be restricted to the consideration of those features that affected the state, either directly or indirectly, or which had an important bearing upon the proposed future social organization of the Chinese. Among the topics to be discussed are the political nature of the national economic revolution, the political effect of the industrial revolution upon the Chinese, and the expediency of Sun's plans for that revolution; the nature of the social revolution which was to accompany these two first, especially with reference to the problem of land, the problem of capital, and the problem of the cla.s.s struggle; the sphere of state action in the new economy; and the nature of that ideal economy which would be realized when the Chinese should have carried to completion the programs of _min sheng_. Railway maps and other designs of Sun, which have proved such an inspiration in the modernization of China and which represent a pioneer attempt in state planning, will have to be left to the consideration of the economists and the geographers.(297)

The program of _min sheng_ was vitally important to the realization of the Nationalist revolution as a whole, so important, indeed, that Sun Yat-sen put it first in one of his plans:

The first step in reconstruction is to promote the economic well-being of the people by providing for their four necessities of life, namely, food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. For this purpose, the Government will, with the people's co-operation, develop agriculture to give the people an adequate food supply, promote textile industries to solve their clothing problem, inst.i.tute gigantic housing schemes to provide for them decent living quarters, and build roads and ca.n.a.ls so that they may have convenient means of travel.

Next is the promotion of democracy....

The third step is the development of nationalism....(298)

The plans for realizing _min sheng_ were to be the most necessary and the most difficult. In the change from a world-society to a race-nation, the Chinese had their own social solidarity and the experience of the Western nations to guide them. There was little in the development of a nation that had not already been tried elsewhere. The only real obstacles were the ignorance of the people, in relation to the new social environment in which their whole society was involved, and the possibility of opposition from the politically oppressing powers.

In the development of democracy the Chinese could rely in part upon the experience of the West. The Kuomintang could observe the machinery of democratic states in regular operation abroad. Although the new democracy of the five powers and the four rights was differed from the democratic methods of the West, still, as in mechanics, certain fundamental rules of political organization in its technical details could be relied upon. The Chinese people had a democratic background in the autonomy of the various extra-political units.