Towards Authoritarianism: Withholding Democracy and Rights for the Good of the Nation (1928–49)

Abstract

A strong consensus emerged amongst reformers during the late Qing dynasty that the introduction of a system of democracy and individual rights might well provide the solution to China’s problems of national weakness. The thinking was that greater political participation and freedom of expression would encourage the Chinese people to rally behind their government in the ongoing quest to defeat foreign imperialism. Yet, as we saw in the previous chapter, by the early 1920s many Chinese thinkers had lost faith in the wisdom of this view. The parliamentary system implemented during the early years of the Republic had been plagued with problems from the outset, including corruption, party factionalism, innumerable changes of constitution and president and even a self-declared “grand marshal”, Zhang Zuolin. Meanwhile, China remained at the mercy of foreign powers, notwithstanding its new democratic institutions. This apparent failure of democracy to make China strong convinced the KMT, under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, that a one-party system of government offered a better route to national salvation. By June 1928, the KMT had assumed full control of China’s National Assembly from the new capital in Nanjing, signalling the beginning of what became known as the Nanjing Decade.