Advocate And Practice Of Local Self-government

From Qin dynasty on to Qing dynasty, China has pursued to keep powerful central-administration, however, as big as she is, it is pretty difficult for the Royal empire to absolutely keep the whole country in control at the same time to guarantee unification of the country; but it is also impossible to keep unified phase for such a long period of time without this strong Royal hegemony or central autonomy. Therefore, there has always been local self-governing.End of 19th century and the beginning of 20 century local autonomy was advocated for "saving the country of destruction and prosper her", and also had been supported from Qing empire constitution party and revolution party those had different political benefits. In 1909,Qing dynasty promulgated "regulations of local autonomy in villages and towns" , local autonomy could be generally active. But, some of cities had already tried local autonomy from the time of "Wuxu.bianfa", those regulations of Shanghai and Tianjin were most complete and effective, and they gradually became the model of whole country. So, this article approaches a subject 'the features of local autonomy of late Qing dynasty by means of comparison between Shanghai and Tianjin.This article comprises three parts of introduction, main text (three chapters and six sections), and conclusion.The 1st chapter 1st section will make a inquiry into the fact that one can find the late Qing dynasty's influence on local autonomy as well as Western local autonomy's effect. Especially having the Gu yan-wu's philosophy as its main point, this section discourses how the advocates of local autonomy has reflected the contents in around the time of Wuxu political revolution. The 2nd section, by the comparison between the "autonomy regulation" that Qing dynasty promulgated and the contents of autonomy published in the local periodicals, will explain autonomic consciousness of the two.The 2nd chapter will emphasize the influence of concession on the local autonomy in two cities-Shanghai and Tianjin. The 1st section will investigate scale difference, British effect and intention of the opening of concessions. The 2nd section, by conflicts between concession and local residents, will compare the process and contents of "dongnan hubao" after YiheTuan movement and founding background of Tianjin Dutong Yamen and from this comparison, explanation for outer conditions of local autonomy organization establishment of the two cities.The 3rd chapter will account for the situations of autonomy movement in Shanghai and Tianjin. The 1st section explains autonomy practice's inner settings by history, periodical's conditions, non-government organization (or the former format of autonomy organization) and formation of autonomy's supporters. Because there was a change in the vote and organization contents in two cities before and after the promulgation of autonomy regulation in Qing dynasty, 2nd section holds 2 parts of respective period, and explains the situations of vote, organization and case (including source of cost) processing.The following is the conclusion:First, as for the proposition of local autonomy, we can find the influence of Qing dynasty's feudalism as well as western theory's effect. Especially it had been influence by Gu,Yan-Wu's philosophy, which has got the opinion like "xing feng jian zhi yi yu jun xianzhi zhong(executing feudalism should be from villages and towns )", and had maintained participation of locals and local autonomy . Different from the time of Wuxu political reform, it broadened support-foundation, and one of factors of practicing local autonomy.Second, for the effects of concession on autonomy, the Shanghai concession was not only earlier and broader than Tianjin, but also, in the municipal governing wise, Shanghai had been more influenced and under control of British Empire. In Tianjin, however, joint governing of 9 different countries had aspects of Tianjin's municipal government have chaotic state. At the same time, as to the aim of opening of concession, Tianjin's has strong mili...