Chapter VIII Extra-Political Forces
Government, wherever organized, is distinguished from other social institutions by claims to universality of scope and competence, and paramountcy of authority; the term political, on the basis of such a distinction, refers to activities, occasionally individual but more usually collective, involving access to the symbols of government; and the term governmental refers to the application of such symbols in governmental sanctions and services. The process of government is accordingly one wherein groups smaller than the totality of society seek (“politically”) to obtain action in the name of the totality (“governmental”), for or against other groups according to shifting interests. In the West this politico-governmental process has been further characterized by ceremonial forms (“laws”) and reinforced by conceptions of amoral omnicompetence (“sovereignty”).
The cellular socio-economic structure of old China, plus the Confucian employment of ideological as opposed to governmental control, kept the entire process of politics and government at a very low level of intensity. Modern China, inheritor of an apolitical past, is still the most pluralistic society in the world, and modern Chinese government—despite recent gigantism—a frail legal superstructure above a flood of extra-political power. Western societies depend upon their states; the Chinese state depends upon a society which could, albeit uncomfortably, dispense with states altogether.
This condition amounts in international politics, to both a strength and a weakness. Chinese society suffers more political ruin with less social disturbance than does any comparable society; the guerrillas, for example, probably find government helpful when available, but regard it as a luxury rather than a necessity. Chinese society is near to an orderly anarchy; uniform conditioning from the past, or uniform present opinion, takes the place of mass organization and totalitarian government. The high death rate of traitors is probably not owing to activity on the part of Chungking, but to the spontaneous action of ordinary men; on one occasion a high pro-Japanese official was shot by his own bodyguard while the two sat in a sedan on a busy street: the bodyguard had experienced a revulsion of conscience. Fu Hsiao-ên, Wang Ch’ing-wei’s Mayor of Shanghai, was also killed by a member of his own household. Spontaneous but uniform action applies not only to sensational political matters; it appears in less dramatic but equally important affairs, such as commercial rivalry, landlord-tenant relationships, and the police power of the community and the family. However, in a contest for power, while the Chinese lose little by defeat, their counter-attacks are correspondingly more difficult. The fluid autonomy of innumerable groups slows down the engines of formal power. The political-governmental process is apt to be sluggish in crises.
The Foundations of Chinese Government
The society upon which the National Government of China, its Left associates, and its Japanophile rivals rest is not a settled, stagnant society. An extraordinary ferment has gripped China for more than a century—arising from cadastral, agrarian, technological, economic, fiscal, ideological, political, and governmental change. The Chinese people have endured; they have also acted. Within a single century, three blazing revolutions have swept China: the T’aip’ing Rebellion, put down with Western aid after fifteen years of war; the Boxer uprising, deflected into xenophobia by the Manchus; and the Great Revolution, which succeeded in part. Between these, there have been changes, bloody but of secondary magnitude: the Moslem rebellions; the minor uprisings of Sun Yat-sen; the Republican Revolution; the 1919 movement; the tuchün wars; the Communist communes, which failed utterly in Shanghai and Canton; the Communist jacqueries, which continued; and the present rip tide of resistance. None of these was effectively mastered by organized government; each was exploited by one government, and opposed by another. Unlike a Western state, wherein government becomes the prime mobilizer during crises, Chinese society shifts its incalculable forces, and governments leap forward to take advantage of them.
This extensive, unorganized residue of opinion and power, outside the reach of government, keeps any modern Chinese government in a peculiar condition. Like a perpetual process of revolution, social changes demand that a government exploit them, deflect them, or employ them—but not launch or stop them. The Kuomintang has failed in its attempts to launch favorable mass movements, and also failed to stop antagonistic ones. The secret of the Chinese Communist power has lain in the skill of the Red leaders, who utilized available movements. Hence the continued development of Chinese government rests upon the wills, fancies, interests, mob action, enthusiasm or dispiritedness of a people who in their own communities do not read newspapers, listen to radios, or pay much attention to the national state. Despite attempts to bring society under the control of government, in order to make it possible to bring government under the control of society (constitutionalism), the decisive forces of modern Chinese life are outside the reach of propaganda or control.
General opinion in China is not ascertainable, except through action. In vital matters this action is apt to be either violent, or the equivalent of violent: sit-down, general, or go-slow strikes; boycotts; universal derision. The National Government possesses unprecedented amounts of power by Chinese standards. By Western standards it is incredibly obliging, casual, and unsystematic. The power which the Government, with Chiang as leader, enjoys, arises from a support which it could not compel, and which it cannot ensure by any means other than the pursuance of support-arousing policies. The Kuomintang, the Communists, the National Salvationists, the independent Left guerrilla leaders—these agencies are not the organization of entire opinion groups, but the spearheads of immeasurable forces. The modernization of government, both administrative and constitutional, awaits the transformation of materials around and under government. Greatest of these is popular mentality. Ancillary are economic, organizational, educational and cultural forces. Progress toward the omnicompetent state is slowed by the fact that few Chinese wish to abandon the freedom of a pluralist society for the efficient universality of legalism. They desire modernization, but haggle at the price.
Three factors in particular are working upon and among the millions of farmers and townsmen: mass education, rural reconstruction, and the cooperative movement. Each not only takes immediate, beneficial effect, but also transforms the political material of China. These forces, not in any strict sense political, possess enormous political importance.
Mass Education
Literacy has risen very rapidly in modern China. Before the impact of the West, becoming literate was in itself a career. By the time one could read at all, one was a scholar, unless one learned the limited quasi-shorthand of the merchants. Educational reforms came about as the result of modern schools, particularly British and American Protestant schools, and the action of the government. The fabric of Chinese society had begun to change even before the downfall of the Ch’ing dynasty. The literary revolution led by Hu Shih after 1915, which popularized pai-hua (a written form of the Chinese spoken language) had extensive repercussions, and made possible the rapid diffusion of ideographic literacy. (Phonetization failed then, and later.) Almost every government in China has attempted the diffusion of literacy. The popular demand is intense.
The present status of literacy in China is revealed by official figures from the Ministry of Education, which may err somewhat on the side of optimism. These put the total population of China at 450 million (Manchuria presumably remaining unmentioned), of which 90 million are literate and 360 million illiterate. Such an estimate would give China about the same absolute number of literates as the United States. The remaining 360 million illiterates are broken down as follows: 40.05 million children below the age of six; 45 million aged six to twelve; 29.25 million aged twelve to fifteen; 79.43 million persons over forty-five; and 1.57 million dumb, deaf, cripples, or insane. The adults to be reached by the mass literacy movement amount therefore to 165 million; government estimates state that 46,348,469 illiterates were educated since 1938, of whom 25.2 million were adults between fifteen and forty-five, leaving roughly 140 million to be educated.1
The mass education program is supplementary to the education of children, which is far from complete or even adequate. The literacy imparted is of the most elementary kind; but in a civilized society such as China this has immediate effect. The author never knew a Chinese who could read and was not addicted to it; a common sight in Western China is a knot of coolies deciphering a newspaper together. The intense reverence for learning and scholarship makes the training welcome, and the teachers who seek to teach the minimum of one thousand ideographs in six weeks never lack pupils.
The program of the National Government was summarized by Ch’ên Li-fu, the Minister of Education, speaking over the radio after the Mass Education Conference of March 1940:
Accordingly, our first step is to wipe out illiteracy. In this respect we proceed simultaneously with the enlightenment of the masses of adult illiterates, both men and women, and with the education of children in order to put an end to illiteracy that may otherwise arise in the future. At the National Conference on People’s Education held from the twelfth day to the sixteenth day of this month in Chungking, the five-year plan for the people’s education, adopted by the Executive Yüan, was further deliberated and promulgated. The proper enforcement of this plan will help to convert at least one hundred and forty million (140,000,000) adult illiterates into intelligent citizens for China within the coming five years.
At present there are already 44 per cent of the entire number of children of school age (from six to twelve) in school; that is, nineteen million and eight hundred thousand (19,800,000). By the enforcement of this plan, there should be, during the first two years, at least one people’s school in every three pao. And each village should have a nucleus school, according to the plan. In this way there should be at least more than 260,000 people’s schools for the 800,000 pao of the entire nation at the end of the first two years. Each people’s school consists of three divisions or classes, namely, the children’s division, the men’s division, and the women’s division. During the second two years there should be at least one people’s school in every two pao. In the fifth and last year there should be at least one people’s school in each pao. That is to say, at the end of the fifth year there should be at least 800,000 people’s schools for the 800,000 pao of the nation, besides the 80,000 or more nucleus schools and the 200,000 schools of the same grades now already existent which can be improved, to provide education for at least 90 per cent of the entire number of children of school age. As a matter of fact, certain provinces have already succeeded in establishing one or even two people’s schools in each pao. Kwangsi Province, for instance, has at present one people’s school in each pao, while Fukien Province even has two people’s schools in each pao. The fulfillment of this five-year plan needs at least $2,932,000,000 and 1,600,000 properly trained teachers.
Our vocational education aims at building a sound middle cadre for the various professions and industrial enterprises. There are training schools and short-time classes for mechanics, electrical communications, metal work, etc. Also, special classes are opened in more than ten colleges and universities for advanced studies along such lines.
Our attempt to universalize productive education may be evidenced by the incorporation of productive education courses into the middle school curriculum, besides instituting organizations for the same in the various vocational schools in order to facilitate the practice of students along such lines.... In 1938, for example, only 53.0 per cent of the entire number of students who took part in the examination studied science and engineering, but in 1939 it jumped to 59.4 per cent.2
This statement gives the official view, which is highly optimistic. In terms of practical politics, however, the Generalissimo has given the movement his cordial backing, and sees in it a preliminary to democracy. Although final results might fall far short of the hopeful estimate, the effect would still be considerable. Diffusion of literacy creates a momentary satisfaction with the political system which makes literacy possible, but the after-effect of literacy is to make men of any nationality easier to govern well and harder to govern badly. A government which diffuses literacy without advancing reforms is sharpening weapons against itself. The National Government’s American-inspired trust in education as a panacea implies that Chiang and his fellow leaders expect to remain popular, and do not contemplate appeasement, reaction, or other unpopular measures.
Rural Reconstruction
An even more interesting aspect of the mass-education movement is its connection with rural reconstruction. In this field much is owed to Dr. James Y. C. Yen, a graduate of Yale and Princeton who began his work with the Chinese labor corps in France during the 1914-18 war. The war-time work of the correlated mass education and rural reconstruction movement was summarized by Dr. Yen himself:
The most hopeful factor in the whole China situation is that her greatest and most valuable resource, the three hundred and fifty million farmers, has not yet been tapped for the upbuilding of the nation. The Chinese farmer has had a measure of freedom and responsibility, of dignity and independence. He is thrifty and industrious, intelligent and an expert in intensive farming. A great number of our national leaders are sons and daughters of our farmers. The fathers of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek were farmers.
These nearly three years of terrible war have proved beyond doubt that our faith in the Chinese farmer has not been misplaced. It has revealed his greatness. Our nation is rediscovering the “forgotten man,” the tiller of the soil. Most of our soldiers come from the farm. To a remarkable extent he has also financed the war. He is the real hero of this war.
The Chinese Mass Education Movement was organized in 1923 to explore the potentialities of the rural masses and find a way of drawing out the best in them. Since the first publication of the “thousand character test,” it has been estimated that some thirty million illiterate people have been taught to read during the past five years.
Beginning with 1929 the point of emphasis of the Movement shifted from extensive promotion of literacy to intensive study of the life of the farmers in the rural districts. As a living social laboratory in which to do our research and to work out principles and techniques, we selected Tinghsien, a district of four hundred thousand people, one-thousandth of the total population of China, in Hopei Province. This was the first time in our history that an organized group of Chinese intellectuals went deliberately to the country to live among the rural people to study their life and find out how to develop their latent possibilities. The Movement has evolved what is known as the “Tinghsien Four-fold Reconstruction Education” including the cultural, economic, health, and the political.
Several other experimental hsien,—Hengshan in Hunan, Central China, and Hsintu in Szechwan, West China, were established in cooperation with the provincial governments. One of our special emphases in these experimental hsien has been the reform of the hsien government, i.e. the local government.
The Tinghsien Experiment with its “laboratory approach” to social and political problems and with its correlated program of rural reconstruction as demonstrated in the district attracted attention from all over China and inspired similar experiments in various parts of the country. As a result the movement for rural reconstruction gained great momentum in China.
Since the outbreak of hostilities the Mass Education Movement has thrown itself unreservedly into the task of assisting the Central and Provincial governments in strengthening the nation’s struggle against the enemy. It was most gratifying that at this hour of China’s supreme struggle we have been able to help the government to revitalize the hsien government, to train civil service personnel and to mobilize the farmers. Extensive application of the new system as developed in the experimental hsien was made to an entire province such as we did in Hunan—a rich province with a population of thirty million.
In order to insure that the new political machinery should function effectively a School of Public Administration to train administrative and technical personnel from the magistrate down to the village elders was established with the senior members of our Movement taking full charge. Altogether the School trained about 4,000 higher officials for the local government and some 35,000 of the village elders. Since Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek assumed concurrently the governorship of Szechwan, a new system of hsien government (chiefly modelled after the experimental hsien of the country) with the object of releasing the new life of the rural masses has been promulgated. Under his order the same is taking place in neighboring provinces.
Unless serious and painstaking study of rural reconstruction is made by scientists and scholars on the one hand, and administrative and technical personnel are systematically trained and imbued with a spirit of service to the rural masses on the other, the movement for rural reconstruction may dwindle away as so many other movements have done in the past.
It is most heartening to state that Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek has given his public approval and backing to the new National Institute of Rural Reconstruction which he considers to be of fundamental importance to China’s post-war reconstruction. The inspiration of the Institute has already helped to mould the principal rural reconstruction groups in the country into one national force. The rural reconstruction movement has achieved a united front unparalleled in its history. Today it is a great unifying force, an outstanding national platform upon which all Chinese can agree. It will meet the needs of China today and lay the foundation for the China of tomorrow.3
This program possesses obvious merit. Lacking a foundation of dogma, it requires no implementation through terrorism. The politically innocuous character of the movement is attested by the frequent demands by provincial officials for personnel from the Mass Education training centers. Since the purpose is to improve the entire community without revolutionizing its class structure, the enlightened landlords are as favorable as the peasants themselves. Unfortunately, enlightened landlords are not always prevalent. Despite the modesty of the program, it finds stumbling blocks in actual corruption, extortion, and illegality. Many hsien are under local machines which permit wealthy conservatives to evade tax payments, steal government funds, and repress genuine farmer organization. The consequence has been that the movement succeeds only when it has the immediate backing of a provincial or central authority; its progress has been slow. Many critics, both Chinese and Western, have become disgusted with the slowness of social reform on the land, and despair of anything save reconstruction through implicit class war.4
The present period of resistance and reconstruction opens a very promising period in rural modernization. In the first place, war-time stress puts great power in the Generalissimo’s hands. Ubiquitous armies can, on short notice, enforce orders from Chungking. The shift of troops among provinces makes the central government an outside power now physically present in tens of thousands of communities. Devolution of watchfulness by the Commander-in-Chief and his staff results in slow but irreversible accumulation of governmental authority.
Secondly, the proclamation of manifold programs has the effect, obviously, of drawing attention to each of them. The Kuomintang, anxious to retain its paramountcy, promotes new local government changes. These face frustration by mass illiteracy. Mass education is impeded by local economic injustices. The Whampoa and Erh Ch’ên groups in the Kuomintang, while they have landlord connections, are interested—even assuming a strong economic-class interest—in the maintenance of government. Action is appearing, slow and haphazard by Western standards, but indisputably present. The minimum of good government in China is a very low minimum, but it is rising in the face of the Communist and Japanese pressure. One may be sure that the National Government will not pass below that minimum if the state’s existence is in danger.
Thirdly, there is a very genuine boom condition in Western China. The movement of the government to the West, and lightening of intolerable but long-endured tuchün exactions, would in itself have led to sudden prosperity. To this are added more than twenty millions of new population, a growing network of communications, a sharp but controlled inflation. These further stimulate speculation and construction and development. The most important factors in a new prosperity have been, however, the reappearance of handicraft-type industry as a consequence of blockade, and governmental advocacy of every conceivable development. The author beheld, during the summer of 1940, conditions of prosperity in Szechwan which he had not expected to find in China within the space of one lifetime. Narcotics were eradicated. The working population was commanding high wages, but suffering from high prices; the prices were somewhat ahead of the wages, but not so far that social morale was troubled. Skilled labor was in a superb bargaining position; chauffeurs, electricians, good carpenters, etc. were in considerable demand. The salaried classes were suffering at all levels, a factor which was patently wholesome in stimulating working-class morale. The clerical class, which had held itself aloof from manual labor with a persistence which boded ill for China, was placed more nearly on a par with its American equivalent. While poverty was still universal by Western standards, the pathological squalor endemic to the coast was nowhere visible.