The Dragnet of Local Government in China

Abstract

lEFICIENCIES in the local government of China are commonly attributed to the fact that the Central Government has not yet fully extended its authority over the provinces; the assumption being that when the present forms of authority have been more completely applied, and purified of abuses, the common people will not be so severely galled by the processes of administration. It is possible however that more is in question than the mechanical gears between the National Government and the lower organs of the provincial, county and district governments. Chen Han-seng, the leading agrarian economist of China, has described the Chinese landlord, in a striking passage, as a quadrilateral being, who is simultaneously a rent collector, merchant, usurer and administrative officer. Moreover the landlord class stands astride both the old social structure and economy of China, which it used to dominate under imperial rule by contributing to the mandarinate the majority of the old scholar-officials, and the new social and economic order of industrialization, modern banking methods and the modern military system, to which it has transferred a great part of its activity. Chen Han-seng puts the case as follows: