Regionalism in China's Postwar Reconstruction

TEGIONALISM, as here conceived, advocates the introduction of a government program for the coordinated development of the potentialities of the various geographical regions directed toward promoting the general welfare of the nation as a whole. In no other country is the need for such a program more urgent than in China. In no other country has the stage for it been so well set. Before their official contacts with the West in the middle of the 19th century, the Chinese people had been organized under a governmental system of administrative decentralization. This governmental system was the natural outgrowth of a longestablished tradition which, for more than three thousand years, had sanctioned the right of the people to impeach their ruler whenever he became licentious or oppressive. In the absence of an unimpeachable sovereign, internal political changes were determined mainly by the economic development of the various geographical regions. So long as one region achieved absolute economic superiority, the leader of that region was able to extend his influence all over the land and become the emperor of China. As soon as his region failed to maintain such superiority, another leader from another region would succeed him as emperor, thus forming a new dynasty. Repeated military reverses suffered by China in the latter half of the 19th century proved conclusively that the traditional governmental system of administrative decentralization was no longer compatible with modern conditions. The utter helplessness of the Manchus in all the fields of battle and their submission to the humiliating terms imposed on them by the imperialistic Powers convinced the Chinese leaders of this incompatibility. In his Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Chinese Republic says: "From 1885, i.e. from the time of our defeat in the war with France, I set before myself the object of the overthrow of the Tai-Tsing (Ch'ing) Dynasty and the establishment of a Chinese Republic on its ruins." This conviction was shared by his successor, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek who in 1926 launched his Northern Expedition to complete the national unity which had remained incomplete after the Revolution of 1911. The successful accomplishment of national unity provided China with a plan for her political reorganization. During his lifetime, Dr. Sun had travelled in all the principal countries in Europe and America and had studied their political structures. From the knowledge so obtained, he had worked out a democratic system of government which, he believed, should replace the outmoded system of administrative decentralization. The new system includes a constitutional order of five yutan or branches which are component parts in the administrative hierarchy. They * This issue of SOCIAL FORCES continues the discussion of regionalism and regional planning, and tends to focus on the application of planning to special regions and regional problems. Of particular timeliness is the contribution of Cheng Ch'eng-k'un, whose scholarship and experience have equipped him admirably for this task. Dr. Cheng was educated at YenchingYJniversity in Peiping in North China. For several years he was assistant professor at the University of Amoy in South China. Between 1940 and 1941 he traveled extensively in Free China and was at the same time visiting professor at the West China Union University in Chengtu. He is now instructor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington and is working under the direction of Professor Jesse F. Steiner in the continuation of this task.-Editors.