The Role of the Military in Chinese Government

Abstract

ONE of the significant differences which distinguish good governments from bad is the subordination of military power to political power and of military personnel to political personnel. The military mind tends to be narrow and irresponsible. Militarists may be experts, but their expertise often prevents them from giving due weight to interests other than military. Military power, unless kept in its proper place, usually runs amok and takes the whole country with it. Up to very recent times, China was signally free from military domination. The strength of the civilian tradition in Chinese government may be illustrated by some of the greatest military upheavals of the last seven centuries. The Mongol conquerors who founded the Yuan Dynasty never rid themselves of the military nature of their organization. Weakness soon followed their initial successes and persisted throughout the dynasty-a short one of barely three generations. Benefiting by the experiences of the Yuan, the Ming and the Manchu founding emperors, although all of them were primarily military-minded, installed civilian regimes as soon as their conquests had ended. It was due to the strength of the tradition of civilian rule that some of the greatest military commanders of the Ming and Ch'ing Dynasties were in origin scholars, who, when their campaigns were over, at once resumed civilian status.' The misfortune of modern China is that, at the time of the multitude of paper reforms which enshrouded the country in the first decade of this century, she should have entertained a serious liking for the military institutions of Prussia and Japan. The Prussian tradition had been adopted wholeheartedly by the receptive Japanese samurai when the Japanese looked to the West for instruction. When the time came for China to look abroad, she adopted the military institutions of Japan and Germany.