The Study Of Zhang Tai-yan’s Thought Of Province-union Autonomy

Late19th and early20th century was a period of great changes in the history ofmodern Chinese thought, Zhang Tai-yan has experienced the most time of this period, histhought was constantly shift with the social change.”Province-union Autonomy” was anew political idea, it was proposed after the failure of "unified Republic" efforts.Zhang Tai-yan’s thought of province-union autonomy was proposed with social andtheoretical basis. After the death of Yuan Shi-kai, the central government was stillcontrolled by Northern Warlords, but the local warlords refused to take orders from theBeiyang government. They were the kings in their occupational areas,so wars oftenbroke out between the two sides.In the interior of northern warlords, various factionsbattled for power, the series of wars made the Republic of China which was just set up indisintegration. In order to alter the situation, revolutionaries launched a series ofrevolutionary movements, but these movements all failed at last. China came into asituation that they not only couldn’t realize the unity of the north and the south but alsothe unity of the interior of two sides.At this time, some scholars put forward they canfollow American federal system to make the Federalism thought rise again. On the basisof the theory of federalism, Zhang Tai-yan proposed his thought of province-unionautonomy.Zhang Tai-yan’s thought of province-union autonomy including three stages:“localautonomy”,“province-union autonomy”and “setting up province-union government”.Thebasic of this thought is local autonomy.Its essence is to save the current situation. Hehoped that he ccould eliminate wars through “local autonomy” and centralized systemthrough “province-union autonomy”. So he could realize the union of nation throughsetting up province-union government.Zhang Tai-yan put forward the theory of Province-union autonomy. His intentionwas good, but the theory not only couldn’t suit the Chinese society at that time but alsocouldn’t alter the situation of warlord conflicts, and even it became an amulet ofseparatist action of local warlord. Finally under Wu Pei-fu’s pressure, this plan failed.Although the thoughts of Province-union autonomy was eventually abandoned bypeople, but the idea of democracy which was advocated went gradually and deeply intopeople’s hearts. Finally it greatly accelerated the progress of Chinese modern democracy.