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Warlordism Versus Federalism: The Revival of a Debate?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Arthur Waldron
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For anyone who studies modern Chinese political thought, the revival of interest in federalism is one of the most striking features of the current scene. It has been particularly visible abroad in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre, and its most conspicuous spokesman has been the former director of the Institute of Political Science of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Yan Jiaqi. In remarks delivered to the First Congress of Chinese Students and Scholars in the United States, held in Chicago in July 1989, Yan proposed a Chinese “federation” (lianbang guojia) having a democratic system as the best hope both for reforming China's internal politics and ultimately for resolving the problems of Hong Hong, Taiwan and Tibet. He made similar remarks in other speeches in America and at the founding meeting of the Federation for Chinese Democracy, of which he was elected president, held in Paris in September 1989. Some other mainland Chinese intellectuals, among them Ge Yang, former editor-in-chief of Xin guancha, have supported such views, as have members of the China Spring movement. A recent official denunciation of such views is testimony to their growing influence.

These are surprising developments. Federalist programmes for China have long been seen as little more than relics of an era which ended in the 1920s. As the Cihai entry for liansheng zizhi (one of the phrases for the idea in Chinese) puts it, while certain warlord politicians of the 1920s believed that federalism was the appropriate political system for China, “after the Guangdong revolutionary government launched the Northern Expedition in 1926, no one advocated federalism again.”

Type
Research Note
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 121 , March 1990 , pp. 116 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1990

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References

1 Jiaqi, Yan, “Weilai Zhongguo sibuqu” (“The four stages of China's future”) (remarks delivered at First Congress of Chinese Students and Scholars in the United States), Conference News (Chicago), No. 3, p. 7; 29 July 1989Google Scholar; also the news items, “Minzhen mubiao: jianli Zhongguo lianbang” (“The goal of the Federation for Chinese Democracy: Establishment of a Chinese Federation”) Shijie ribao (World Journal) (New York), 4 August 1989, p. 1; “Ruhe kandai ershishiji de Zhongguo lishi?” (“How should twentieth-century Chinese history be looked at?”) Shijie ribao, 14 September 1989, p. 16, and the Shibao zhoukan (China Times Weekly), No. 236, 2–8 September 1989, pp. 5, 16–17; “Chinese exiles form Worldwide Opposition Group, The New York Times, 25 September 1989, p. A10; Gang, Zhang, “Chongjian gongheguo de gangling (taolun gao)” (“Outline for reconstruction of the Republic, discussion draft”), Zhongguo zhi chun (China Spring), No. 77 (October 1989), p. 2.Google Scholar Also author's personal information.

2 Gongmin, Xu, “Ping Yan Jiaqi de ‘lianbangzhi’ zhengzhi zhuzhang” (“Commenting on Yan Jiaqi's political advocacy of federalism”) Liaowang (Outlook), overseas edit., No. 3 (15 January 1990), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar Trans, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service-Daily Report China (FBIS-CHI), 90-028-S, 9 February 1990, pp. 14–16.

3 Cihai (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe, 1979), p. 4164.

4 Nathan, Andrew J., “A constitutional republic: the Peking government, 1916–28,” The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 12, Fairbank, John K. (ed.), Republican China 1912–1949, Pt. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p.257Google Scholar; Chesneaux, Jean, “The federalist movement in China, 1920–3,” in Jack, Gray (ed.), Modern China's Search for a Political Form (London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 96–137Google Scholar, quotation is from p. 136. Two important articles by Schoppa, R. Keith should also be mentioned: “Local self-government in Zhejiang, 1909–1927,” Modern China, Vol. 2, No. 4 (October 1976), pp. 503–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Province and nation: the Chekiang provincial autonomy movement, 1917–1927,” Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 36, No. 4 (1977), pp. 661–74.

5 Dajia, Li, Minguo chunian de lianshengzizhi yundong (The Federal Movement in the Early Years of the Republic) (Taibei: Hongwenguan, 1986)Google Scholar is perhaps the best survey; see also Qunhui, Hu, Minchu de difang zhuyi yu liansheng zhizhi (Localism and the Federal System in the Early Republic) (Taibei: Zhengzhong shuju, 1983), pp. 45Google Scholar and passim; Schoppa, “Local self-government,” pp. 504–505; Esherick, Joseph, Reform and Revolution in China: The 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 91–105.Google Scholar

6 Jizhan, Wang, “Junfa shi shenmo dongxi?” (“What is a junfa?”) Jingbao (Capital Daily), 20 February 1926.Google Scholar I have not been able to consult the original text, and rely on Zhihui, Wu, “Junfa wenti da Yihan xiansheng” (“A reply to Mr Gao Yihan on Junfa”), Xiandai pinglun, Vol. 3, No. 62 (1926), pp. 186–88Google Scholar, and Vol. 3, No. 64 (1926), pp. 225–29, the second of which quotes the relevant speech extensively.

7 Yang, Dali, “Yan Jiaqi – yiwei juyou duli renge de zhishifenzi (shang)” (“Yan Jiaqi: an intellectual with integrity (part 1)”), Shibao zhoukan (China Times Weekly) No. 237 (9–15 September 1989), p. 42.Google Scholar

8 Yihan, Gao, “Pingmin geming de mudi yu shouduan” (“The goal and methods of popular revolution”) Xiandai pinglun, Vol. 3 No. 53 (1925), pp. 2–3Google Scholar; “Wu Feng de sheng bai” (“The victory or defeat of Wu and Feng”), Vol. 3 No. 62 (1926), p. 1.

9 See Boorman, Howard L. (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Republican China (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1967), Vol. 3, pp. 217–420.Google Scholar

10 Ulam, Adam B., A History of Soviet Russia (New York: Praeger, 1976), p. 30.Google Scholar

11 Wu Zhihui, “Junfa wenti da Yihan xiansheng (xia)” (“A reply to Mr Gao Yihan on Junfa (part 2)”).

12 “Deng Xiaoping zancheng xin quanwei zhuyi (“Deng Xiaoping endorses new authoritarianism”), Shijie ribao (New York), 17 October 1989, p. 16.

13 See Ch'i, Hsi-Sheng, Warlord Politics in China 1916–1928 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976), esp. pp. 135–41.Google Scholar

14 Barme, Geremie, “Enemy of the people,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 August 1989, p. 29.Google Scholar

15 Engels, Friedrich, Anti-Dühring, trs. Emile, Bums (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1947), esp. pp. 190–203Google Scholar, quotation is from p. 201; for a summary of the debate on militarism, see Berghahn, Volker R., Militarism: The History of an International Debate 1861–1979 (New York: St Martin's Press, 1982), esp. pp. 21–27Google Scholaron the Marxists.

16 In Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), Vol. 2, pp. 219–35; his words, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” are on p. 224.

17 Duxiu, Chen, “Duiyu xianzai Zhongguo zhengzhi wenti de wojian” (“My views on contemporary Chinese political questions”), Hu Shi zuopin ji, Vol. 9 (Taibei: Yuanliu, 1986), pp. 82–87Google Scholar, quotation is from p. 85.

18 Shuming, Liang, “Jing yi qingjiao Hu Shizhi xiansheng” (“May I be enlightened by Mr Hu Shi?”) Cunzhi, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1930), pp. 1–8Google Scholar; also in Shuming, Liang, Zhongguo minzu zijiu yundong shi zuihou juewu (The final Awakening of the Chinese People's Self-salvation Movement) (Shanghai: Zhonghua, 1936), pp. 381–91.Google Scholar

19 Shi, Hu, “Liansheng zizhi yu junfa geju-da Chen Duxiu” (“Federalism and warlord partition”), Hu Shi zuopin ji (Taibei: Yuanliu, 1986), pp. 75–82Google Scholar; see also Duxiu, Chen, “Liansheng zizhi yu Zhongguo zhengxiang (“Federal autonomy and China's political situation”), Chen Duxiu wenzhang xuanbian (zhong) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1984), pp. 201–205Google Scholar(originally published in Xiangdao, No. 1, September 1922).

20 See Young, Ernest P., The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai: Liberalism and Dictatorship in Early Republican China (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1977), 139 ff.Google Scholar

21 “Da Liang Shuming xiansheng” (“Reply to Mr Liang Shuming”) Hu Shi luncun, Fourth Series (Taibei: Yuandong tushugongsi, 1953), pp. 444–46.

22 Yang, Dali, “Yan Jiaqi – yiwei juyou duli renge de zhishifenzi (xia)” (“Yan Jiaqi: an intellectual with integrity (part 2)”), Shibao zhoukan, No. 238 (19–22 September 1989), p. 47.Google Scholar

23 Jiaqi, Yan, “Zhongguo bing bu shi ‘gongheguo,’” (“China is no ‘Republic’”), Huaqiao ribao (New York), 24 July 1989, p. 8Google Scholar; concluded in Huaqiao ribao (China Daily News) (New York), 25 July 1989, p. 8. Orginally published in Ming Bao (Hong Kong), 23 and 24 July 1989.

24 Jiaqi, Yan, 13 July 1989; interview with Zhongguo shibao (Taibei), in Huaqiao ribao (New York), 14 July 1989, p. 3.Google Scholar

25 Dali Yang, “Yan Jiaqi,” No. 237, p. 47.

26 This argument is thoroughly documented and developed in Maisog, M. E., “The reunification of China: a historical perspective” (BA thesis: Princeton University, 1989).Google Scholar

27 Dali Yang, “Yan Jiaqi,” No. 237, p. 41.

28 Such questions have also dominated much recent China scholarship. See Duara, Prasenjit, Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900–1942 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), esp. pp. 1–6, 59–77.Google Scholar

29 Beijing formally adopted the “one country, two systems” policy towards Hong Kong and Taiwan in 1984; see Jiaquan, Li, “Formula for China's reunification,” Beijing Review, Vol. 29 No. 4 (3 February 1986), p. 19Google Scholar, cited in Lasater, Martin, U.S. Policy Toward China's Reunification (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation, 1988), p. 62Google Scholar: for “multi-system nations” see Hungdah, Chiu and Robert, Downen (eds.), Multisystem Nations and International Law: The International Status of Germany, Korea, and China (Proceedings of a Regional Conference of American Society of International Law), Occasional Papers/Reprints Series in Contemporary Asian Studies, No. 8 (Baltimore: School of Law, University of Maryland, 1981).Google Scholar

30 See, e.g., Cheung, Tai Ming, “Power of the gun,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 21 September 1989, pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

31 Goble, Paul, “Towards a new kind of Soviet Federalism?”, Radio Liberty Report on the USSR, 8 December 1989, p. 5;Google Scholar also see “Sakharov's alternative view,” Soviet Analyst, Vol. 18, No. 13 (28 June 1989), pp. 2–4.

32 Author's personal information.

33 The New York Times, 30 June 1989, p. A6.

34 See, e.g., Yen, Yin, “Hutong shenchu ting xinsheng” (“Heartfelt wishes heard in alleys and side-streets”), Huaqiao ribao (New York), 10 July 1989, p. 6.Google Scholar