The China of Chiang K'ai-Shek: A Political StudyLinebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
History
The China of Chiang K'ai-Shek: A Political Study
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
Chiang, Kai-shek, 1887-1975; China -- Politics and government -- 1912-1949
Chapter V of the Draft Permanent Constitution deals with local
government. The institutions of provincial government are wittingly
minimized, because of recent trouble with provincial satrapies and the
dangerously centrifugal effect of provincial autonomism. In contrast to
this, government at the district (_hsien_) level is designed in strict
accordance with the realities of twenty-odd centuries' experience. It is
probable that no other constitution in the world provides for such
careful guarantee of district, county, canton, or _Kreis_ autonomy. The
old Imperial Chinese system was a loose pseudo-centralized federation of
two thousand near-autarkic and near-autonomous commonwealths; the Draft
Constitution attempts to reinstitute (at the political level) this
vigorous cooperative independence of the _hsien_. The _hsien_ meeting,
extrapolitical, unsystematic, and occasional in the past, is made the
foundation for the new legal structure. (These proposed reforms are now
being anticipated under the Provisional Constitution and current
statutory changes.[11])
[Footnote 11: See below, p. 106 _ff._, and Appendix I (G), p. 324.]
Chapter VI provides that the economic system shall rest on Sun Yat-sen's
principle of _min shêng_ (_q.v._, below). Willing to apply whatever
worked best, Sun himself had no theoretical objections to capitalism,
communism, state socialism, or any other economic doctrine. Hence,
proletarian ownership of the means of production is not guaranteed; yet
state ownership is not restricted, and is specifically required in the
case of "all public utilities and enterprises of a monopolistic nature"
(_Art._ 123). Henry George's influence on Sun is shown by mandatory
taxation of unearned increment (_Art._ 119). Room for free future
adaptation from corporative economic techniques successful in the
outside world is assured (_Art._ 125): "Labor and capital shall, in
accordance with the principles of mutual help and cooperation, develop
together productive enterprises." It is likely that any imaginable
economic system would be constitutional on this basis, provided that it
was initiated by due legal procedure and without hardships irresponsibly
imposed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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