The China of Chiang K'ai-Shek: A Political Study. Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger
Yüan, with a President and Vice-President, is composed of a central Yüan office, which supervises two organs: the Ministry of Personnel (Ch'uan-hsü Pu), operating a selective promotion system, and the Examinations Commission (K'ao-hsüan Wei-yüan-hui). In absolute numbers, few examinations have been held. In practice, standard recruitment technique continues to involve introduction, influence, or family connections. The familiarity of such devices in China at least gives them a high polish, and precludes utter inefficiency. Under the circumstances, the Examination Yüan finds scope for valuable, creative work in the preparation of administrative studies and analyses of very considerable importance.
The Control Yüan is of interest to Westerners, because of the novelty of its functions. Through the courtesy of the Yüan President, a full official memorandum on the structure and procedure was prepared, surveying the work of the Yüan during the course of the war. This is reproduced as Appendices I (E) and I (F) below.[28] Some of the unofficial observers, both Western and Chinese, felt that the Yüan possessed further enormous possibilities of activity, and that the need for controlment was very great indeed. In general, the Yüan resembles its legislative, judicial and examination coordinates, in that the war-time executive growth has relegated it to a secondary position.
Decrease in the importance of the yüan system during hostilities cannot be taken, by a too simple cause-and-effect argument, as proof of the unwieldy or impractical character of this five-power system. Measured on a scale of other world governments, success is slow; but it is enormous in contrast to other Chinese central political institutions. At present, it is most improbable that the form of government will be changed, save in the event of catastrophe beyond all reckoning
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu I, Shanghai, 1927, henceforth cited as "Price translation," p. 296 ff.; or d'Elia, Paschal M., S. J., The Triple Demism of Sun Yat-sen, Wuchang, 1931, p. 348 ff.
[2] An attempt to correlate Sun's democratic theory with Western concepts is made in the present author's Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen, cited, p. 107–9. The notion is clearly put in L'Esprit des Lois, Book 11, ch. 2.
[3] See Holcombe, Arthur N., The Chinese Revolution, Cambridge (Massachusetts), 1930, passim, for the outstanding elaboration of this curious experiment, and for a lucid delineation of the genesis of the National Government.
[4] Statement to the author by Col. Ch'in Po-k'u, interview cited, p. 38, n. 20, above.
[5] The names of agencies and offices in the discussion of government and Kuomintang organization are taken from K'ao-shih Yüan [Examination Yüan], Tang Chêng Chien Chih T'u-piao [Charts of Government and Party Development and Organization], Chungking, XXIX (1940), passim. This work has not yet been published, since it is a draft printing, to be revised and re-edited before formal publication. The author was allowed to consult a copy through the courtesy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Wang Ch'ung-hui, and the kind assistance of Mr. C. C. Chi of the Party-Ministry of Publicity. These charts, provisional as they are, are by far the most systematic presentation of modern Chinese government structure which the author has ever seen. For a brief commentary on the Council, see the one-paragraph section, The Supreme National Defense Council in Tsiang Ting-fu, "Reorganization of the National Government," Chinese Year Book 1938–39, cited, p. 356. Dr. Tsiang, whose other writings on Chinese government have been models of clarity, candor, and concreteness, is obliged to state: "As its major functions are involved in the prosecution of the war, military necessity compels the writer to withhold the details of its organization and work for a later issue."
[6] For a biased but bitterly graphic portrayal of Chiang's tiger leaps in politics, see Isaacs, Harold, work cited, passim. Mr. Isaacs' portrayal of Chiang shows him as ambitious, able, and villainous in his need for power and his hostility to the proletariat. The Trotskyite viewpoint is a usefully different one from that obviously adopted by the present author.
[7] Statement to the author, August 1, 1940, in Chungking, by Dr. Wang Shih-chieh, Secretary-General of the People's Political Council and Party-Minister of Publicity.
[8] Wang Shih-chieh, Pi-chiao Hsien-fa, cited above, p. 658 ff.
[9] For example, the date of the law given in Appendix I (G), p. 324, below, is given as August 31, 1939, and it is stated to have passed the Council on that date at the 14th Regular Session; since the Council had been established seventeen months previously, some notion of the frequency or length of sessions may thus be derived.
[10] Wang Shih-chieh, Pi-chiao Hsien-fa, cited, p. 662. The author adds that though the Central Political Council possesses ample authority to interfere in the specific work of the Judicial, Examination, and Control Yüan, such authority was rarely exercised, the Executive and Legislative Yüan constituting the prime objects of its attention.
[11] The same, p. 666.
[12] The same, p. 667–68. The following materials on the independent agencies are also adapted in general from Wang Shih-chieh's work, although interviews, other materials, and the practical experience of the author have been taken into account. From 1930 to 1937 the author's father, Judge Paul Linebarger, was Legal Advisor (Kuo-min Chêng-fu Fa-lü Ku-wên), directly subordinate to the Council of State, and throughout this period the author served as Private Secretary to the Legal Advisor, being authorized by the Council of State to take charge of the American office of the Advisor during the latter's absences from the United States.
[13] Adapted from the Examination Yüan, Tang Chêng Chien Chih T'u-piao, cited; various issues of The Chinese Year Book, Shanghai and Hong Kong; and [The China Information Committee] An Outline of the Organization of the Kuomintang and the Chinese Government, Chungking, 1940.
[14] For a description of this function in the T'ang dynasty, see des Rotours, Baron Robert, La Traite des Examens, Paris, 1932, passim; and see Fairbank, J. K., and Têng, S. Y., "Of the Types and Uses of Ch'ing Documents," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1 (January 1940), particularly p. 5 ff., for the Manchu empire.
[15] Wang Shih-chieh, Pi-chiao Hsien-fa, cited, p. 671.