Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.1, 2013

The “Attendant Tendency” of Agents of Chinese Political Power at the Grassroots Level in the First Half of the 20th Century: With a Comparison with the Rural Societies in Northern China during the Qing Dynasty

(Abstract)

Qu Guiping

From the beginning through the end of the Qing Dynasty, members of rural control organizations such as paochia chiefs, lichia chiefs and village officers with specific “local self-government character” increasingly became “official attendants” under the complete control of local governments. This posed a threat to the healthy functioning of Chinese political power at the grassroots level of the Qing Dynasty. Starting from the “New Deal” toward the end of the Qing Dynasty, the rural power structure of Northern China underwent drastic changes. In the modern context of local self-government, the state began to bring local gentry and village leaders into the power system within the institution, so that they could become a dominant force in local selfgovernment. The state attempted to employ local gentry and elites for rural power restructuring and governance in an unprecedented way. But like those members of rural control organizations of the Qing Dynasty, the new leaders of local self-government also became “official attendants.” History firmly pursues its own course of returning to traditions.