THESIS
2012
xii, 224 p. : ill., maps ; 30 cm
Abstract
The establishment of the capital of the Republic of China in Nanjing in 1927 was
followed by Guomindang’s implementation of a set of nation-building policies based
on the concept of “national survival”. Scholarly discussions on those policies took
place mainly around metropolises like Shanghai, Tianjin and Beijing. How these
policies were carried out at the county level and their effects on local society
remained unfamiliar and this research aims to investigate these issues in Zhongshan
County in Guangdong Province. As an honor to Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen), his
hometown Xiangshan County was renamed into Zhongshan and was also proclaimed
a “model county” in 1929. Hoping to make Zhongshan “modern”, the local
government ambitiously re-modeled its police force, reformed its publi...[
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The establishment of the capital of the Republic of China in Nanjing in 1927 was
followed by Guomindang’s implementation of a set of nation-building policies based
on the concept of “national survival”. Scholarly discussions on those policies took
place mainly around metropolises like Shanghai, Tianjin and Beijing. How these
policies were carried out at the county level and their effects on local society
remained unfamiliar and this research aims to investigate these issues in Zhongshan
County in Guangdong Province. As an honor to Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen), his
hometown Xiangshan County was renamed into Zhongshan and was also proclaimed
a “model county” in 1929. Hoping to make Zhongshan “modern”, the local
government ambitiously re-modeled its police force, reformed its public health system,
intervened in its local business sector and implemented the Republican Law in urban
and in rural Zhongshan. The authorities made these reformative changes not only to
modernize institutions and infrastructure, but also following Guomindang’s national
goal, which was to make modern citizens who were healthy, disciplined and cultured
enough to protect and to build a strong nation. In the course of nation-building,
limitations and difficulties of state penetration into the local society are revealed.
Nation-building was also curbed by budgetary problems. However, perhaps more
importantly, the efforts and the accomplishments made by the local government
suggest that it was not as corrupt as a number of past scholarships claim. Furthermore,
despite conflicts between the state and the society did occur, but more often, as this
thesis shows, their relationship remained cooperative.
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