The Edge Of The Nanjing National Government Affairs

Borderland history and geography is one of the important research objects of the historical geography. The period when the Nanjing National Government(NNG) was in power is an indispensable stage in the course of history in which modern China's border philosophy and the historical territory underwent a great change. The NNG's border governing belongs to the study of China's borderland history and geography. This dissertation, based on previous studies and by dredging and mining historical data, intends to have a systematic and thorough study on the NNG's frontier concepts, ethnicity views, governing ideas, institutional setup, governing practice and gains and losses etc.By using the empirical and comparative approaches, the author examines the NNG's views of national sovereignty, border issues and ethnicity. The author believes that after the new sea routes opened, the modern sense of the frontier theory in the western countries came into being and that with the eastward western forces, China began to have the modern concepts such as national sovereignty, border and ethnicity views. With the forming of modern national sovereignty, border philosophy and ethnicity views, the traditional Chinese borderland ideas and strategy were gradually replaced by new and more rational policies.While reading a great deal of original data and books and theses on the concerned subject, the author studies the NNG's frontier governing ideas and concludes that the NNG's frontier philosophy was mainly composed of the followings, i.e., the governing rules of Three Peopls's Priciples, declaring China's sovereignty over the border, promoting the comprehensive development in the border areas and so on. These ideas not only embodied the NNG's frontier philosophy but also generated from its border and ethnicity views as well as the related social reality and political patterns.Both in the central and border areas, the Nanjing government set up more systematic political institutions that bore the following features. First, all these institutions had the same characteristics as that of modern Western political organizations. Second, the institutions in the central level were more and relatively perfect. Third, the institutions in different frontier provinces had different subordinacies. Forth, these border institutions were set up on the basis of the modern concept, but they lacked consistent planning and managing, and what's more, they were of academy but not of policy-making and execution. Fifth, these institutions had a duality characteristic which traditional Chinese political philosophy and modern western political ideas both affected the border governing theory as well as its practices. Sixth, the vertical linkages were rather weak between the central and local border management agencies. Seventh, the authority and the effects of the management agencies were less obvious.During the NNG's rein, there co-existed the imperialism "sub force" and the local political forces or military strengths in the border areas. The local forces appeared under the influence of modern political awareness and had greater autonomy. Consequently, this led to the complicated relationships between the border areas and the Nanjing government, which had a direct influence on the NNG's border ruling.From the perspective of politics, economy, education and culture, the author has a detailed study on the NNG's border practices and the related issues. Based on this, he analyzes its gains and losses. The author holds the view that the NNG's border governing was influenced by multiple important factors, such as the central political authority, the traditional political ideology, international situations, geopolitical relations and so on. Although the NNG had made much more progress than their antecessors in border governing concepts and practices, they still had many deficiencies and limitations. And such features as transition, marginality and practice were indicated in their governing.