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Second, the promotion of local self-government partially changed the shape of local political power. Even though the Qing government emphasized the goal of “using self-government to aid bureaucratic rule,” the establishment of representative assemblies at each level brought the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie, carrying the spirit of capitalism, into local politics. They gradually reformed the predisposition to “unify the empire” held by the traditional landlord class and began to change the nature of local political power. Because the members of assemblies and managerial boards were all selected by local elections, many of the representatives of the business community, possessing economic power and a certain social influence, were able to move into self-government organs and demand a share in local administration and leadership. For example, the participants in the Shanghai local self-government of the late Qing included retired officials, compradores, and every kind of merchant and industrialist, as well as people from the worlds of education, philanthropy, and the like. However, the real leadership of self-government organs remained from beginning to end in the hands of the bourgeoisie, led by the business and educational communities. In Suzhou the leaders of the self-government movement chiefly came from the more socially influential middle and upper levels of the merchant community. Through such basic self-government organizations as the Citizens’ Association （Shimin gongshe）， they began to acquire the administrative powers necessary to manage city government. Even though these were self-government organs that the Qing government had planned to be under official control, many new-style gentry-merchants participated in them. This not only caused political power to gradually shift downward, but it also reformed the feudal nature of traditional local power, thus laying the foundation for the bourgeoisie to create a new national regime. Third, the promotion of local self-government enlarged social and political participation. Traditional society was an autocratic society monopolized by Confucianism, and the vast majority of people had long been forced outside of political life, completely indifferent to political concepts. But in the late Qing, the development of society, the economy, culture, and especially the promotion of local self-government caused the transformation of local political life. Not only did it raise political consciousness, but it opened avenues of participation for the people. One important form political participation took in the late Qing was voting in elections. When the Self-Government Bureau of Tianjin （Tianjin zizhiju） was established, it immediately conducted general elections. Although qualified voters comprised only 3 percent of the total population, these elections nonetheless foreshadowed the universal participation of modern times. The “public elections” of the Shanghai General Public Works Bureau （Shanghai zong gongchengju） were limited to the gentry-merchants rather than general elections, but the Bureau still promoted the rights of the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie. Representatives elected to self-government organizations expressed the interests of various social groups, reflecting a new level of political participation. This had positive effects on the development of local politics in the late Qing. Fourth, the establishment of local self-government organs opened the road to parliamentary politics for the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie, who used the opportunities thus presented to make important gains in local enterprises, urban government, and culture and education. Of the nearly seventy proposals made to the General Public Works Bureau and the City Self-Government Office of Shanghai, aside from a few dealing with the self-government organs themselves, the great majority concerned local enterprises and city government.63 Such resolutions resulted in the general development of Shanghai: repairing roads, establishing schools, fixing bridges, dredging canals, rebuilding walls and gates, increasing the number of wharves and dikes, establishing police offices, increasing tax receipts, and so forth.64 Zhang Jian, a leader of the Constitutionalist movement, was also a proponent of local self-government who systematically built up local self-government in his hometown of Nantong. He said, “I embrace village-ism and local self-government including enterprises, education, waterworks, communication and transportation, charity, public benefit, and so forth.”65 In sum, the local self-government movement of late Qing managed to promote political reform. If early European local self-government was a “political achievement” that stemmed from the long development of the bourgeoisie, then the local self-government of the late Qing was also a product of the development of Chinese capitalism, a political achievement rooted in the developmental stage of the national bourgeoisie. The Historical Limits of Local Self-Government in the Late Qing Even though the local self-government movement had positive and progressive functions, it did not develop completely according to the desires of the bourgeoisie. It was not able to attain the bourgeoisie‘s initial goal of local political reform, which was frustrated in the end. The two basic reasons for this are as follows: First, local self-government formed but one part of the overall plan for constitutional preparation, and it was directly related to everything from other aspects of building a constitutional system to general socio-historical conditions. Chinese social development was extremely unbalanced in the late Qing. Outside of a few commercialized ports and important cities that had been brought into the twentieth century, the great bulk of society was still sunk in traditional agrarian conditions, a stagnant economy, a lack of finances and resources, and a low level of culture and education. The promotion of local self-government was thus obstructed, and it did not produce the effects across society that it should have. The problem of education was key. It was first necessary to develop the people’s knowledge in order to put local self-government into practice; otherwise democracy could not be strengthened. The Qing government‘s nine-year plan for constitutional preparation included universal elementary schooling so that within five years the literacy rate would reach 1 percent; within six years, 2 percent; and within seven years, 5 percent.66 This plan was commendable but was not easy to put into practice. Money was needed before schools could be built, and it was difficult to raise self-government funds at the time. In the economically developed areas of Jiangsu, for example, ordinary departments and counties raised 1,000 to 6,000 yuan in self-government funds, sums never enough to disburse. In Henan, according to the official financial estimates, the province would need more than 1.2 million taels to establish preparatory offices, self-government study offices, propaganda offices, and to conduct investigations and hold elections--but the province was broke. Merely to budget the 80,000 taels necessary to begin in the capital alone was difficult.67 How much worse off were the self-government offices in the rest of the province! Moreover, with all the various elements of constitutional government being pursued at the same time, it was difficult to keep track of them all. Objectively, this accounted for the extremely limited results of self-government in the late Qing. |