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Republic of China - 1928-1937

By 1928 all of China was at least nominally under Chiang's control, and led by the United States the Nanjing government received prompt international recognition as the sole legitimate government of China. On 08 June 1928 the National Revolutionary Army recovered Beijing from control of warlords and it is announced that the Northern Expedition has been successfully completed. On 03 October the Kuomintang implemented and begins to promote its program of "political tutelage for the people". On 10 October 1928 the National Government of the Republic of China was set up. Chiang Kai-shek was sworn in as President of the National Government along with heads of the five branches of government. On 29 December 1928 the "White Sun in Blue Sky over Crimson Background" national flag flies in Manchuria and the country is finally wholly united.

The decade between the conclusion of the Northern Expedition in June 1928 and the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in July 1937 was the "Golden Decade" in modern Chinese history. It was the first time the Chinese Nationalist Party (the Kuomintang) actually controlled national political power and implemented its program to build up a modern nation. During this period, the National Govemment faced a variety of political, diplomatic, economic, financially, and military difficulties. But for a time the govermnent overcame these difficulties and gradually accomplished its preliminary ideals of building up a modern nation, a performance unprecedented in the history of China.

The Nationalist government announced that in conformity with Sun Yat-sen's formula for the three stages of revolution -- military unification, political tutelage, and constitutional democracy -- China had reached the end of the first phase and would embark on the second, which would be under Kuo Min-tang direction. By the late 1920s, the Chinese government had gained at least nominal control over most of the country and embarked on a path of reform and modernization, with advice and support from selected foreign governments and individuals. China's economy had developed in a pace faster than any previous period.

The Nationalists were recognized as the sole legitimate government of China. The decade of 1928-37 was one of consolidation and accomplishment by the Kuo Min-tang. Some of the harsh aspects of foreign concessions and privileges in China were moderated through diplomacy. The government acted energetically to modernize the legal and penal systems, stabilize prices, amortize debts, reform the banking and currency systems, build railroads and highways, improve public health facilities, legislate against traffic in narcotics, and augment industrial and agricultural production. Great strides also were made in education and, in an effort to help unify Chinese society, in a program to popularize the national language and overcome dialectal variations. The widespread establishment of communications facilities further encouraged a sense of unity and pride among the people.

The genuine and systematic planning for a national economic development of China as a whole, in the modern use of the word 'planning' was initiated, by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. The number of succeeding plans included the 10-year plan of Sun Fo, the 6-year plan passed at the National Peoples Convention of 1931, the 10-year plan announced in Geneva in August 1931, the 3-year plan of the National Economic Council, and Chen Kung-po's 4-year plan. In addition to the national plans, practically every Province had one or more plans.

In China there were few great landowners. While landowners tended to multiply, the size of their holdings tends to grow smaller, largely on account of the law of inheritance, which makes all a man's male relatives his heirs. By altering the law of inheritance the Kuomintang showed an inclination to arrest the subdivision of holdings and to bring about the growth of a yeoman class. But it appeared from investigations in 1927 by the Peking Ministry of Trade and Agriculture that about half the Chinese peasantry had insufficient land to support life. A great many families have holdings of less than two acres, on which they cannot grow enough to feed themselves. Thus about half the peasantry had to rent the land on which they worked.

The peasants were classified as rich, middle, and poor peasants. While in the years 1931 to 1936 the average size of all holdings decreased, the middle peasants were losing their land faster than the other two classes. The general trend was in the direction of concentration of land ownership, the substitution of the tenant for the small landowner and a rapid breaking up process in the cultivation of the land. Waste land in China was increasing in area, and landless peasants were growing in number. By 1934 at least 60,000,000 were unemployed in China; meantime the agricultural land was being concentrated in the hands of new, powerful, big landlords who alone could take advantage of the fall in price. The degree of land concentration was even greater in provinces where the population was thinner and the land was less cultivated. Such a contrast between land owning and land using is the kernel of the present agrarian problem in China. About half the farm households cultivated their own land, a fourth owned part and rented the rest while another fourth rented all the land they used.

Private attempts to bring about rural reconstruction in China were superseded by the work of Government agencies after the establishment of the Kuomintang regime in 1927. A series of misfortunes necessitated various measures for rural economic rehabilitation of which the more important include water conservancy and afforestation, road construction, agricultural improvement and extension, cooperative organization, and reform in land tenure and taxation.

Economic reconstruction since 1927 included rural reform, including extension work and afforestation. Fundamental reforms in land tenure and taxation were contemplated in the land law passed in 1930 and in force since March 1936. But the actual steps being taken were confined primarily to the reduction of farm rent, colonization, cadastral and quasi-cadastral surveys, and land value taxation. A plan for a land survey of the whole country was announced by the Government. The land holdings in the districts evacuated by the bandits were to be restored to the original owners within certain limits. Unclaimed land was to be considered public property and to be distributed to the landless or to those with insufficient holdings. Limits were set to the size of holdings. A plan of military colonization in the districts devastated by the bandits and the 'communists' was worked out and a small beginning was made. Flood prevention, irrigation, and rural reform were also problems for the Provinces.

The area of cultivated land per capita was 0.4 acres, and large tracts of tillable land lay untouched through lack of machinery and power. Much of the land located not over 30 miles from a railroad, especially the sub-humid to semi-arid land in the northwestern provinces, could be profitably plowed and seeded to wheat by using machinery. With the exception of certain limited areas, all agriculture in central and western China depended upon irrigation. Accordingly there was the problem as to the extent to which inner China, excepting northern Mongolia and Tibet, was fit for colonization. Since intensive industrial activities were impossible, population must depend upon the availability of water and its use. Colonization as a means to rehabilitate the Chinese countryside because of over-population had a limited prospect of development. According to authoritative estimates, the northwestern provinces of China can at best accommodate only another 10 million of population, which compares very poorly with the possibility of settling 20 to 40 more million people in the lost provinces in Manchuria.

A program of economic reconstruction in China, outlined by General Chiang Kai-Shek, included promotion of reclamation projects. Large tracts of waste land in the various provinces would be turned into farmland, pastures and forests, in accordance with climatic conditions and the nature of the soil. The program laid down by the Chinese Government included irrigation and river conservation; the reform of land tenure by the fixing of rents, the establishment of 5 years as the minimum period for the currency of a lease, and the prohibition of the payment of rent in advance; the survey and reclamation of waste land.

The problem of land tenure had two aspects, which were often confused. It consisted partly in the exploitation of the tenant by rack-renting and partly in the existence, side by side with the tiny holdings of the majority of peasants, of large blocks of land in the occupation of individuals. Large tracts of waste and deserted lands in the bandit areas of Northern Shensi were distributed by the Northwest Bandit Suppression Headquarters among the original tenants and farmers to whom land had been formerly assigned. This step was taken by the organization as part of its plan for rural rehabilitation and agricultural development. All profits derived from the lands are to go to those to whom they have been assigned for cultivation, one year's moratorium on land rentals and loans being allowed.

In Kwangtung, measures to relieve unemployment have been decided upon, such as the encouragement of farming, reclamation projects, construction of roads, and training courses for the unemployed. During the year 1935 considerable progress was made in the work of water conservation and in the construction of highways and railways. At the end of October 1935 over 20,000 kilometres of roads had been built, and in north-west China about 75,000 acres of land were irrigated. This region is becoming an important cotton-producing centre. Other projects are now in hand and some nearing completion. Not far from Hankow 150,000 acres of land were reclaimed, and in the basins of the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers much work had been done towards flood prevention.

American companies invested millions of dollars towards China's modernization and to support Chiang. Japan, meanwhile, began to creep across the Chinese territory of Manchuria while Chiang was preoccupied with anti-Communist campaigns. While also recognized by Japan, Tokyo continued to eye China's vast resources. The bitter struggle between the KMT and the CCP continued openly or clandestinely through the 14-year long Japanese invasion (1931-45), even though the two parties nominally formed a united front to oppose the Japanese invaders in 1937.