HSIEN ("county") ^ | Militia Elected | Schools, Kuomintang | ^ CH'Ü | | | | ("township") | | | | | | | and Police Representative | Secondary and Party | | HSIANG | | | | ("community") | | | | | | | | | PAO | | | | ("neighborhood") | | Organs Assemblies | Elementary Organizations | | CHIA | | | | ("a group of households") | | | | | | | | | \/ | | | |--------->THE PEOPLE | | | ^ | | |____________________________|_____________|______________| [Footnote 10: A detailed chart will be found in Appendix III (C), at p. 388.] This is the official government plan. If ever put into complete effect, China will consist of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of self-governing units, arranged on seven levels (the five local levels; provinces; nation), and the world will wonder at a massive new democracy. In practical politics, what seems to be happening is that the system extends to the National Government areas, involving less than three hundred million people. Much of the application is purely formal, and signifies no more than did the grant of an imaginary suffrage under the first Republic. Elsewhere the new system is installed with telling administrative effect, improving the bureaucracy, strengthening the state, but not arousing much popular participation or enthusiasm. And in the remainder the program is beginning to work as is intended with genuine elections and popular participation in government.