Local Self-governance And The Western Tradition Chance Game In Chinese Constitutional Movement In Modern Times

Constantly learning from the west in modern China, from learning the implements of thewestern technology to studying western Ideological system, the ideas of the western systemtheory and adjustment between traditional Chinese ideas of system theory constitute one of thefeatures of modern China.Since the taiping heavenly kingdom movement in the late qingperiod,the power of gentlemen and the rights oft the local governors grew stronger andstronger,the rights of central has faded.To save the rule of the qing dynasty, at the same time toseek a way of restricting the power of local governors, the qing dynasty to learn from the localautonomy system of western rose of the local self-government movement.The preparation forconstitutionalism was practiced in the late qing dynasty, and local autonomy as the basis ofconstitutionalism was endowed with the value of constitutionalism kernel.AS western local autonomy system was introduced to China and,it was used for the tools ofsaving the rule by the qing dynasty,and from the theoretical knowledge to the system design itwas not core to realize the value of local autonomy—"rights" kernel. And when western localautonomy system met with traditional gentlemen and governance model, on the onehand,traditional gentleman consolidated their throughout in the authority of the local society bythe way of ambiguous to support local autonomy,on the other hand,it rejected the western localautonomy system in a different form. It also fit into the process of learning from the west inmodern China, which was neither "wholesale westernization", also does not had been goingalong the traditional way. It lead to an outcome was that neither learned well the system of thewestern theory of kernel, and lost their own traditional theory at the same time. Therefore, thatmade China paid a heavy price in the process of learning from the west in the modern society.The traditional gentry governance, as a Chinese-style model of autonomy is deeply rootedin traditional society, the local gentry rely on their political and economic privileges has achieveda good governance of local society, by this reason, a stable social relationship between theofficial government-the gentry–the people has been formed. Traditional gentry rule appearedsince the Ming Dynasty and continued till the late Qing Dynasty, with the deep study that themodern China did from the western civilization, the local self-governance system from the Westwas introduced to China, from then on, the traditional gentry governance and the western localself-governance system have been into a fierce game contest. The local self-governance systemfrom the West rooted in the democratic and free atmosphere of the commodity economy, when itencountered with the gentry governance, the¨right¨ of the local autonomy and the expansionaryof the¨power¨ of the gentry governance produced a competition and conflict. During the conflict,the¨right¨ of the western system has been harmed by the traditional gentry governance, on theother hand, the western local self-governance made the gentry class on the opposite way of thepeople.These two different governance system rooted in the different cultural environment, butbetween these two governance system there are some striking similarities, such as its autonomyindependence, property of¨right¨ and property of¨power¨; while there is also another verydifferent side, such as the different forms of organization, different legal protection, differentcultural backgrounds, and it is these similarities and differences between the two system thatproduced the fierce competition and conflict in the constitutional movement in Modern China.Till the end of the conflict and the fright between the two system there has been produced acombination, and the result of the mentioned combination is the¨alienation¨ of autonomy in the late Qing Dynasty, which does not belong to the traditional gentry governance neither belong tothe western local self-governance. This¨deformed births¨ is the result of the conflict between theChinese and the western civilization, and also is the result of the adaptation of the traditional andforeign culture.The competition, conflict and combination between the traditional gentry governance andthe western local self-governance during the constitutional movement in Modern China, thisproses also is the fighting proses of the chines and western culture. In the process of learningfrom the West, we should pay attention to the connection of the local content and the transplantcontent, also should pay attention to the local cultural resources, we can not blindly adopt "ism"approach.