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Fourth, local self-government formed the basis of cultivating citizenship, extending popular rights and carrying out constitutional government. Extending popular rights and carrying out constitutional government was the heart of the political reform movement of the bourgeoisie at the beginning of the twentieth century. Extending popular rights required first raising the national consciousness and the people‘s capacity for political participation. The students proclaimed that the significance of local self-government lay not only in popular political participation but also in perfecting constitutional government. The nations with constitutions today must exert themselves to foster local self-government if they are to carry out constitutional government. This is precisely because popular political participation lies first in constructing the institutions of the state and second in constructing local institutions. These are related tasks, and managing the great affairs of state is impossible without local rule.38 In the upsurge of constitutionalist thought in 1905, public opinion began to focus on the question of the relationship between local self-government and constitutionalism. In that year the Pubao of Shanxi advocated local self-government as a way to get the people ready for constitutional government.39 And the Nanfang bao proclaimed, “A constitution in China today should be based on local self-government” and it asked the government to prepare for constitutional procedures by permitting public elections of local gentry and public discussions of local affairs.40 “Local assemblies are the basis of the self-government of the people,” a Dongfang zazhi editorial proclaimed in 1906, adding that, indeed, they were already being established, thus giving the people political experience which “should produce great results after the constitution is promulgated.”41 Fifth, based on their knowledge of the above points, public opinion leaders suggested concrete plans to implement a program for pursuing local self-government. The students in Japan published an article in 1903 which pointed out that although Chinese society did not call itself self-governing, such was in fact local reality. “Gentry are truly the representatives of local self-government” since the scope of their activities in managing local affairs was roughly equivalent to local self-government bodies in other countries. The basis of local self-government in China was firm, though it was not highly effective owing to the lack of self-government institutions. Therefore, the key to this problem lay in “organizing local self-government institutions,” which particularly required that: 1. The gentry who were well established in each locality be unified into a self-government body; 2. Self-government bodies be divided into assemblies and administrative organs; 3. The delegation of responsibilities be determined by voting among the gentry; 4. Matters of debate be determined by majority vote; and 5. The officials of the organs all hold honorary posts. The author of this essay believed that “the foundations of local self-government in China have thus developed historically, while the methods for implementing self-government can simply and easily be practiced in this way. Therefore, of all the areas of reform occurring in China, local self-government holds the brightest promise for a better future.42 The Ideas of Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao on Citizen Self-Government Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao were the most important representatives of the bourgeois constitutionalists. They were new-style intellectuals they neither wished nor dared to destroy the structure of feudal despotism. They only urged top-down reforms to make China rich and strong within the scope of traditional morality. After the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, they began to organize constitutionalist groups in and out of China, published constitutionalist journals, and launched a number of nationwide petition movements, thus forming the backbone of the constitutionalist movement in the late Qing. In sketching out the intellectual system of the reform policies of constitutional monarchism, Kang and Liang included a number of ideas supporting local self-government and cultivating citizenship consciousness: First, Kang and Liang regarded the relationship between local self-government and the strengthening of China as crucial. In his “Citizen Self-Government” （1902） Kang found that the Western nations were constantly becoming stronger, their people smarter, their resources better utilized, their schools more plentiful, their technology more advanced, their bridges and roads improved, their police creating greater security, their railroads and banks expanding, and their lands and lakes being developed--and that their military preparedness and shipping industry were perfected to the point “they dominate the whole world and are taking over the Orient.” The reasons for this “are that in all these countries, the citizens exhaust their strength, work with all their intelligence, self-govern their localities （zizhi qi xiangyi）， and thus stabilize the foundations of the state.’‘ This described not only Europe and the United States, but also Japan, which, since the Meiji Restoration, has achieved “sudden strength’‘ （zouqiang） through the practice of local self-government. That Russia and China were “alike in their autocracy” but “differed in strength” was also owing to the former’s practice of local self-government. Kang claimed that China‘s “defeats and weaknesses” were a “problem that lay in officials who displaced democratic governance instead of allowing the people to govern themselves. The solution for this lies in respecting local self-government.”43 In a postscript appended to Kang’s article, Liang Qichao noted, “We can say that to make local self-government the basis of the state will create political skills, and it is the most urgent task confronting China today.”44 Second, Kang and Liang demonstrated the relationship between self-government and the concentration of power. Kang‘s 1903 “Critique Bureaucratic Rule” （Guanzhi yi） began with a criticism of the evils of the Chinese bureaucracy.45 “The way China is governed is nothing more than the way other nations govern their dependencies, simply seeking to suppress disturbances and manage finances,” he noted. “When people lack the right of self-government, they cannot achieve everything they should. When government lacks centralization, it cannot administer affairs appropriately.” Kang proceeded to point out that reforms had to begin by dealing with the bureaucracy: Bureaucratic systems take three forms: for the sake of the people, for the sake of the state, and in the area between the state and the people. …The best institutions for the people are found in citizen self-government （gongmin zizhi）； the best institutions in the area between the people and the state are found in making borders and increasing the number of officials; and the best institutions for the state are found in establishing more offices while centralizing powers. |