Research On Interest Groups And The Independent Opening-up Policy In The Late Qing Dynasty

The concept of independent opening-up was relative to the concept of treaty opening-up. The British forced China to open up by the war in 1840. Since then, the western countries forced China to open foreign trade ports constantly by the unequal treaties. This form of opening-up which was caused by the unequal treaties was called“treaty opening-up”. Those ports were called "treaty opening-up ports". In the 1870 s, many officials, thinkers, and the new bourgeoisie began to realize that China should open foreign trade ports independently. In the reform in 1898, the government announced to "open foreign trade ports". This was the beginning of independent opening-up, and it reached a peak in the reform named the“new-policise-reform in the late Qing dynasty”. This form of opening-up was called“independent opening-up”. Those ports are called "independent opening-up ports".In this aiticle, the research on the independent opening-up policy in the late Qing dynasty based on the interest group theory of the economics. In the early 18th century, politicians of the United States had begun to pay attention the roles which the interest groups had played in the government decision-making. The beginning of the research on interest groups of economics was much later, but it was developed rapidly. The research on interest groups of the economics involved group behavior, policy decision-making and political process, etc. The interest group theory of the politics was supplied and corrected constantly by the research on interest groups in economics through its unique visual Angle and analysis method. The more important thing was economists recognize that the game between the interest groups was an important influence factor of institutional change, and they did a lot of research on it. This article aimed to clarify the causes of independent opening-up policy and the stages of the policy evolution, and to analyze the problems in implementation. It tried to explain the difference of advancing speed at various stages and the difference of the effects in different areas.Opening-up policy was the necessary condition of the sustained economic growth for a country. It also acted as a catalyst of institutional change. Independent opening-up in late Qing dynasty was a profound event in modern history of China. The period was the initial stage of modernization of China. The qualitative change of economic system and political system in China was starting to happen. In this historical stage the independent opening-up policy which was dominated by the government of Qing dynasty was an important change for the modern history of China. The independent opening-up in the late Qing dynasty was a mandatory system change. It completely reversed the foreign policy of China, and broke the path dependence which was continued for hundreds of years. This system change not only promoted the development of industry and commerce of China, but also changed the idea of Chinese people on the opening to the outside world. And it opened up an instituting system which was laid the foundation of the opening-up and development of China’s economy. The independent opening-up policy had extremely important history significance for the economic growth and the modernization of China.There were ten chapters in this article. Chapter 1 was the introduction. The title of chapter 2 was“the background of Independent opening-up policy”. This chapter reviewed the economic, the political, the ideological and the cultural of the society in the late Qing dynasty. This chapter introduced the historical inevitability of the opening-up in the late Qing dynasty from the angle of the macro historical evolutionThe title of chapter 3 was“analysis framework of the choice of reform strategy and introduction of the related interest groups”.At first, this chapter introduces the analysis tools of the research on the development stages of independent opening-up policy. It was the theoretical analysis framework which solved the vote paradox by the historical process. In the rest of the chapter, the chapter introduced the interest groups who were involved to the process of decision-making and implementation in the reform, and analysed the selection sort of each group in the reform. These interest groups were divided by the interest improvement of the people involved in the reform in the late Qing dynasty. The selection sort of an interest group was decided by the interest improvement of the members under the different way of the reform. The research on the revenue of the members of the interest groups was analyzed from the money income, the power, the privilege, the prestige, the satisfaction caused by the loyalty, and the sense of achievement caused by serving the society. For different interest group, these revenues were given different weight. A group maight consider only several of them.Chapter 4,chapter 5 and chapter 6 analyzed the three developmental stages of the independent opening-up policy. These chapters analyzed the policy starting stage, the policy implemented slowly stage, and the policy implemented fully stage using the analysis framework which is devised in chapter 3. These chapters of the article explained the reason that the policy was implemented with different speeds at the three stages, and the reason that the implementing effects of the policy were different in different areas.Chapter 7 analyzed the failure of the independent opening-up policy with interest group theory, and introduced the development of the independent opening-up policy in the period of the Republic of China.The title of chapter 8 was“the problems of the implementation of the Independent opening-up policy in the late Qing dynasty”. The research was on the two problems of the implementation. One problem was lacking of the coordination by the central government. Each province implemented the policy in its own way. The local governors effected the implementation too much. The other problem was the execution of the local government was too weak. The effect of the implementation depended on the assistance of the local gentry. The main local gentry group belonged to which interest group affect the effect of the policy too much.The title of chapter 9 was“the analysis of policy effect”. The chapter demonstrated the point that the effects of the policy were quite good in the areas where the main local gentry group belonged to the gradual reform interest group, especially in the area where the government dominated the implementation. And the effects of the policy were not so good in the areas where the main local gentry group belonged to the conservative interest group.The title of chapter 10 was“the evaluation of the policy and some thoughts”. At first, the chapter summarized the research of the whole article. The other part of the chapter did some theoretical discussion on the problems of the stages, the implementation and the effects of the independent opening-up policy in the late Qing dynasty.