The Evolution Of Grassroots Governance And Its Enlightenment Of Public Economy In The Remote Inland Areas Of Western China

Grassroots governance in remote areas is one of the important issues that any large country’s governance system must face,and it is a practical difficulty in the governance of large countries.The proposal of the rural revitalization strategy also highlights the country’s attention to the economic and social contradiction of unbalanced regional development.In particular,the risk of returning to poverty in the contiguous destitute areas in the central and western inland areas has made it a key area that needs urgent attention in the modernization and transformation of the national governance system.Regarding the governance dilemma of remote inland areas,the existing literature mainly conducts related research from the perspectives of mountain governance,national integration,and frontier development,and pays less attention to the relationship between local fiscal systems and the logic of governance of large country.This research focuses on the grassroots governance in remote areas of southwest China from the perspective of institutional reform.Using the cost-benefit analysis in the process of supplying local public goods as a tool,this research analyzes the economic transition from the indirect governance of the chieftain system to the direct governance of the county system that began in the Ming and Qing dynasties.Due to the historical low efficiency of governance in the remote inland areas of southwest China,it is easy to notice the relationship between the problem of national governance sinks to the local level and the central-local relationship in the financial system and the governance system of peripheral territories.This paper argues that the traditional Chinese county system is the product of the convergence of Confucianism and Law,the basis for the continuation of Chinese civilization,and the basic mode of the governance of large country.The jimi system,which has existed for a long time in the remote inland areas of western China,is the result of the subjective and objective limitations of the expansion of the Confucianist governance mode in space under the limited technical conditions.After the Qin and Han dynasties,China’s governance space and population expanded rapidly,and the central-local relationship and grassroots governance structure also changed in response to the expansion of space.Since the execution cost of governance is closely related to terrain and cultural resistance,the efficiency of execution is severely limited by the cost of spatial distance in information transmission and the resistance of cultural differences.Although in a unified governance theory,the corresponding spatial differences should be different levels and types of public goods and tax obligations,which are local governance according to local conditions.However,under the conditions of geopolitical and cultural differences,the acceptance of Confucianism and Legalism often fluctuated due to the change of dynasties s,and the debate on hua-yi often replaces the concept of “Tian-Xia”,and often regains to the governance based on blood ties.Therefore,the influence of spatial distance and topography on the extension of the county system and the spread of Confucianism and Legalism in the history of traditional Chinese governance is shown as the long-term existence of the special financial system of jimi,which leads to the long-term absence of formal governance in the remote inland areas.After the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties entered the Central Plains through the southwest,the national defense status of the southwest region became prominent.However,due to the expansion mentality,the Yuan Dynasty the Yuan dynasty took the southwest as the expansion base,and promoted the chieftain system in southwest China in imitation of the Song Dynasty for indirect governance.However,due to the absence of Confucianism and the localization of finance and military system,the people in the remote inland areas of southwest China have long faced the dilemma of heavy tax burden,unpopularity of culture and education and disorder of order.After the Ming and Qing dynasties returned to Confucianism,under the guidance of the concept of the “Tian-Xia” system,the imperial court began to reform the county system in the remote areas of the southwest inland.In view of the basic demand structure logic of the public goods that need to be satisfied in national governance,the reform of the Ming Dynasty in the southwest region was carried out under the idea of emphasizing Yunnan and Guizhou to protect national defense,and governing Hunan and Guizhou to protect post roads.The diversion experiments in different areas of western Yunnan in the Ming Dynasty revealed the huge influence of topography and cultural inertia on the reform of financial systems.After entering the Qing Dynasty,on the one hand,the surrounding geopolitical security was basically safe,and on the other hand,the Qing governing elite represented by Yongzheng redefined the connotation of Confucianism and Law thought,and carried out a large-scale promotion campaign of reformation and repatriation in practice.In addition,the improvement of transportation,agriculture,and cultural and educational propaganda technology during the Qing Dynasty further overcame the difficulties of county-based governance in remote inland areas,thus making the reformation a great success,and making the direct governance model of Confucianism and law sink to the grassroots level be possible.The tortuous history of the Ming and Qing dynasties in the practice of reforming in the southwest shows that the sinking and popularization of state governance requires both theoretical cognition and certain technical and cultural conditions.Obviously,in the process of native officials governing the native people,it was precisely because of the lack of Confucianism and Legalism that the selfishness of the native officials was unsuccessfully eliminated and restrained,the grass-roots governance effect of the original chieftain district was generally poor.But without the cost-benefit changes brought by various technological advancements and institutional changes in the mid-Qing Dynasty,it was difficult to achieve the expected effect.On the one hand,it is the advancement of transportation,communication and agricultural technology that makes it possible for remote areas in the southwest to accept the farming lifestyle.,on the other hand,the popularization of agricultural way of life is what makes the success of the Confucian education possible,and the Confucian thought of controller in the cultivation of public interests above everything else eventually improved the inland rural financial system and governance efficiency.Based on the history of traditional governance in Southwest China and the reform of fiscal system in Southwest China in Qing Dynasty,this paper draws the following two public economic enlightenment on grassroots governance in big countries: 1.As a public good of internal order,the supply efficiency of the formal system of grass-roots governance is subject to the implementation cost brought by topography and cultural inertia.Although technical conditions can reduce the implementation cost,the public will of local governors is more critical under the Confucianist governance model.Two,in a market economy is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people of the contemporary,grassroots governance’s biggest problem is not the space terrain factors such as the heterogeneity of local public goods supply and demand,but in the local governance elites ’ cultivation of public interests above everything else,strengthen the basic-level party organization and the village two committees’ public interests above everything else cultivating means a lot to modernization transformation of grassroots governance and rural revitalization.