Oriental Switzerland—Study On The Modernizastion Of XiZhou In The Republic Of China

This paper takes the social development of Xizhou village in Dali city of Yunnan Province of the Republican period as a research object, from the point of view of modernization and the history of regional society, shows the social development status of Xizhou in Republican period from five aspects including the manifestation and development of political modernization, the emergence and development of modern capitalist industry, the manifestation and development of educational modernization, the modern transition of custom and the emergence of modern social organization, and further summarizes the path of social modernization and features of Xizhou in Republican period. We can reach a conclusion that:Firstly, the guiding force of modernization of Xizhou was the business group of Xizhou. The modernization development of Xizhou always kept the same pace with the rise and decline of business groups. After the People’s Republic of China was founded, Three Great Reconstructions were carried out nationwide, at the same time, business groups in Xizhou were on the wane and its modernization development came to an end as well. Secondly, the modernization of Xizhou was started later than the national modernization and was divided into two stages:the initial stage and the deepening & expanding stage. The previous stage started from the time when Tengchong was formally opened up as a commercial port in 1902 and ended with July 7th Incident of 1937. This stage was characterized in a long duration and a slow development. The latter stage began with the outbreak of comprehensive Anti-Japanese War and ended before the foundation of the People’s Republic of China. Although the duration of this stage was short, the modernized politics, economy, education, custom change and social organizations appeared intensively and were embodied very distinctly in this period.