LEUNG Anfu Era 2

An Ill-fated Attempt at Corporatist Developmental State-Building,

1917.7-1920.7
Summary The Anfu Regime has an evil reputation in modern Chinese history, being
the embodiment of the absence of morals, ideals or achievement, and for having brought
destruction and misery to the country. It was seen as having begun a long warlord era
and was thus Since the 1980s, Chinese
and foreign historians have produced totally new verdicts on many previously-maligned
periods in Republican China. The Kuomintang regime, Yuan Shih-
have seen their reputation rehabilitated. Yet the Anfu Regime has been deliberately left
out. This manuscript argues that the Anfu System had been greatly misunderstood. The
years 1917-20 were indeed years of brutal internal strife, but the regime had a vision of
establishmentarian reformist progress unique in modern China. Anfu should be seen as a
classic case of failed developmental state-building, comparable to other 20th century East
Asian and Third World military-dominated, single-
The foundations of the political system and economic strategy were laid by men from
the erstwhile Progressive Party in late 1917. The Anfu Club later governed on this basis.
The -Anfu displayed the characteristics m
its attempts to build a disciplined political party with centralised decision-making, and to
consolidate a stable alliance between interest groups. This enabled the emergence of a
militarily-supported constitutional dictatorship of the gentry, which in the process of
transforming itself into an industrial class, required support from an expanding corpus
of technocrats, and with the help of German legal theories transmitted through Japan,
attempted to justify greater representation in the institutions of the state. Meanwhile the
mindset of the entrepreneurial regime, intent on building State Monopoly Capitalism, was
influenced by Listianism and State Socialism, also transmitted through Japan.
This manuscript raises the as exhibited through Anfu-
era military modernisation, frontier colonisation, technocratisation, industrialisation and
urban planning. It proceeds to consider two economic lift-off attempts involving the state
assuming control over the commanding heights of the economy. One was directed by the
Progressives with Anfu help, another by the Anfu alone. The first,
the Nishihara Loans and top-down industrial plans drafted by Ministry of Agriculture and
Commerce technocrats on the basis of the war and in post-war
economic competition it was to have been a was
the Anfu This focused more
on institutional innovation at the grassroots economic level, expanding industrial cities,
and developing domestic financing; it would have involved projects such as the
nationwide cooperativisation of agriculture, compulsory schooling, legislation on labour
rights, the unification of the logistical network, and hydro-electricity. Had the Anfu
Regime survived past the end of 1920, it could probably have gone in either direction
social democratisation or proto-fascistisation. It is argued finally that the political and
economic institutional trajectory of modern China was first decided during the Anfu era.
LEUNG Anfu Era 23

B.
1 F
As we have seen, the Anfu Club Council and its corpus of parliamentarians were a highly-
disciplined, even centralist body. In what theoretical context should this be understood?
hilippe C.
Schmitter has pointed out that all too often, analysts of corporatist and authoritarian

return, its replacement with some more formalistic, authoritative (if not authoritarian)
39

This is precisely the case with Chinese historians, beginning in the 1930s, of lamenting
how Anfu killed off pluralist, competitive parliamentary politics. Yet this, in the eyes of
Schmitter, does no justice to Corporatism as an alternative model, defined as
A system of interest representation in which the constituent units are organised
into a fixed number of singular, ideologically selective, non-competitive,
functionally differentiated and hierarchically ordered categories, created,
subsidized and licensed by a single party and granted a representational role within
that party and vis-à-vis the state in exchange for observing certain controls on their
selection of leaders, articulation of demands and mobilisation of support.40
Schmitter proceeds to distinguish between two forms of Corporatism based on different
premises -liberal, delayed capitalist,
41 states, whereby the government chooses and appoints

representatives of interest groups to form the government, and consciously plans the
make-up of representative institutions in order to ascertain the source and composition
of state authority, rather than letting this be determined by free, competitive elections.
The best-known examples were the National Council of Corporations, and the Chamber
of Fasces and Corporations under Mussolini, who seized power only two years after the
fall of Anfu, in addition to various military dictatorships in Spain, Portugal, Brazil and so
on. Of course, Schmitter was unable to define clearly whether economic backwardness
caused State Corporatism, or whether this was needed to lift countries out of economic
backwardness; one might therefore assume for the moment that one reinforces the other.
Opposed to

this nature is still made up of interest sectors, but representatives are produced via free
competition within the sectors, and are then appointed to governmental or advisory
positions, where policies are formed on the basis of mutual consultation. As for the nature
of the corporation a collective and public
organization composed of the totality of persons (physical or juridical) fulfilling together
the same national function and having as its goal that of assuring the exercise of that
42 The Anfu Club was not

39 The Review of Politics 36, (1974, 1). 95-96

40 Ibid., 93-94
41 Ibid., 105.
42 Le Siecle du Corporatisme, 176. Quoted in S
LEUNG Anfu Era 24

explicitly made up of corporations, but it was a powerful corporation in itself that bound
together consciously into one centralist organisation the representatives of bureaucratic
and parliamentary factions. By doing so, it was able to ensure the stable operation of the
three branches of government for almost three whole years, which became essential for
the economic reform initiatives. In addition, it controlled a legislature that according to
the original plans would have had an economic and ethnic corporatist Senate, and which,
after the plans were defeated, still ensured adequate representation for the leading social
class. It achieved monopolization through de facto uncontested elections, and made
possible reciprocal support between politicised soldiers and the industrialising literati.
In fact, many have argued that Chinese government after the Kuomintang has been
characterised by Corporatism.43 Many such Corporatist regimes have been referred to, or
,44 examples including
Spain under Franco or Indonesia under Sukarno and Suharto. A whole philosophical
tradition existed in Germany, notably counting Hegel amongst its ranks, that sees the
45 of Swiss-German jurist Johann

Kaspar Bluntschli from 1875-76 entered East Asian consciousness very early on, though
46 - 47 political
communities (or states) function like natural organisms in which the parts, be they
individuals, families, or interest groups, exist to contribute to the well-being of the whole
collective interests take precedence over individual or sectional interests and
consensus takes precedence over institutionalized conflict .48 Organicism later became
one of the theories that fed into Fascism, being much favoured by Catholic theorists. In
the late-Manchu period, the intelligentsia already possessed certain Statist, Corporatist
and Organicist inclinations in their understanding of political organisations that it
should be a corpus with a unified, directional ideology representing universal interests,

disc 49 Yang Tu, [ ] a Constitutional

Monarchist theorist, quoted on in 1908 and in his book
[ ] a few western legalists including Edmund Burke and Bluntschli who
advanced that political parties, , should adopt a consistent
ideology to take-over, when the chance comes, all of politics [ ] implement
specific policies for national interest and popular livelihood, and to advance the benefit
of all society.50 The party must become the leader of the organic national totality.

He was a Freemason who criticized Christianity and hated Catholicism. In the aftermath
of the July Revolution of 1830 in France, he contemplated for years how a legal state could

43 Brian Tsui, China's Conservative Revolution: The Quest for a New Order, 1927 1949. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2018. 37, 41, 73, 231.

44
45 Johann Kaspar Bluntschli, The Theory of the State. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885.
46
47

48 David Bo The Oxford Handbook of Comparative

Political Theory. Leigh K. Jenco, Murad Idris, and Megan C. Thomas, eds. Oxford, 2019. 600
49
50 1908-04-15, 1. « »
2015.
LEUNG Anfu Era 25

end up being overturned by an emotionally-charged mob. Rather than sticking to the pre-
revolutionary order however, Bluntschli determined that evolutionary political change

through which God speaks to the individual. The state needs to assume that the individual

responsible for creating the conditions for conscience to be opted for. The state must
-embracing, permanent express of this common interest as the

into a patriarchy suppressing individual freedoms, the bureaucrats must follow clearly-
defined legislation and also pledge allegiance to their superiors and the head of state.
Legal theories that threatened to weaken the state must be opposed. This theory greatly
influenced American Progressives at the turn of the century, including Woodrow Wilson,
President during WWI, and constitutionalist Frank Goodnow who provided theoretical
support to Yuan Shih-
the rotten liberalism of the late-19th century, and approved of the German model of the
strong bureaucratic executive state; that although over-intervention in the economy was
American economy
to at least build a more responsible economic system. For this, executive power must
be expanded, and since the separation of powers threatened the organic integration of
society and blurred the lines between politics and administration, it must be modified.51
The Progressive or the Anfu did not seem to have directly quoted State Organicism
in their official documents, but in 1916- -
was being set-up, the theory was in vogue amongst its members, and in fact became so
embedded in their consciousness that it often featured without warning in their remarks
on various matters. It was quoted by future Anfu MP Huang Yun- [ ] (LLB,
Waseda) during the Constituent Conference of early 1917, at a time when he was a
member of the pro- [ ] It was a speech in support of
ex-police bureaucrat Sun Jun-yu [ ]
[ ] and opposed direct democracy modelled upon Switzerland.52 Lin
Pai-shui, editor of
an organic composition and 53 The theory was mentioned
several times54 by editor - [ ]
Hu Cheng-chi, [ ] (LLB, Tokyo Imperial) .[
]
Awakening [ ] on August 16th 1917, soon after war was declared, where he

China should deal with the pressures of imperialism, economic warfare and national
industrial development (see section C1). He felt that there was an objective need for China
to declare war against Germany and Austria in order to catch-up with economic trends

51 K
Administrative Theory & Praxis 36 (2014: 1), 7, 100-101, 103, 106
52 1917-02-01, 2
53 1917-09-02.
54 1916-12-20, 2 1917-03-02
-03-02 1917-08-16
LEUNG Anfu Era 26

Elsewhere he also advocated that provincial

government must be reorganised under the pressures of global economic warfare.
Pluralism and Corporatism are opposing solutions to the increasingly diversified

their faith in the shifting balance of mechanically intersecting forces; corporatists appeal
55 The prelude to

- -17
towards pluralist politics; the complicated events during this year merit a separate paper.
When Yuan Shih- -jui, who
had opposed monarchism and was reappointed Premier by Yuan in his dying days, tried
to end the North-South civil war by calling the second session of the 1912 Parliament.
This allowed both all Kuomintang and Progressive legislators, stripped of their positions
in 1913-14, to come back to Peking. Their battles surrounded the composition of a joint
Peiyang-Kuomintang-Progressive cabinet, the new constitution draft and provincial
autonomous powers, the severance of relations with declaration of war against Germany
and Austria, and the make-up .[ ]

The factional situation in 1916-17 was dizzying and ever-changing. The two main
parties were initially amicable to each other, and had run a joint Military Council in
Kwangtung during the anti-Yuan war. By the time they returned to Peking, the
Kuomintang started to splintered into four factions, and each faction was further
subdivided into smaller groupings; Sun Yat-sen, who did not go to Peking, ran his own

. This became one of the four factions and most pro-

[ ] The erstwhile Progressives also
- [ ] joining
[ ] to form the most ardently anti-
[ ] The Peiyang establishment was also far from united. Amongst the
[ ] a junta formed of regional military commanders or
,[ ] there were those who supported Tuan (eg. Anhwei Commander Ni Ssu-
chung ) and opposed Tuan (eg. Chang Hsun ). This was in addition to lingering
hostility between the Peiyang and the southern military leaders, descended from the
ablishment. Since the 1912 Provisional Constitution, still in
force in 1916, was modelled upon the 1871 French Third Republic Constitution, this had
the unfortunate effect of introducing to Peking politics all the inherent instabilities of
French multi-party politics and the frequent changes of cabinet, in addition to all sort of

-
[ ] and they became a staple of Peking political life until the Anfu Club came along.

No summary could be complete of the chaos that ensued. Executive-legislative

relations were at their all- 56 similar to Japanese

practice resulted in a protracted deadlock. In November 1916, the largest Kuomintang

faction split on the question of whether to elect a northern general, Feng Kuo-chang, or a

55
56 Nathan, Peking Politics, 17.
LEUNG Anfu Era 27

southern one, Lu Jung- [ ] as Vice President, and the election was cancelled. The
-i, [ ] an ex-Premier who had
studied in the US, whom Yuan hated and later aligned himself with the Kuomintang, from
being appointed as Interior Minister in the Tuan cabinet. This prevented Tuan from
gaining the support of the Kuomintang, and their relations soured. Things improved for
-
for the severance of relations with Germany and Austria, and in a rare stroke of luck for
Tuan the bill passed in Parliament. Tuan then decided to promote again the idea of having
Kuomintang ministers, this time also including Tsen Chun-hsuan, [ ] a late-Imperial

The Kuomintang factions

for granted, perceived of him as a hypocrite, and thought the Tuchuns to be carrying out
plot; with the exception of the Political Science Society, all of these factions
mustered their full strength to topple Tuan (known as ). Any compromise would
be predicated on Tuan resigning. Presidential Secretary Ting Shih-i, [ ] a member of

in the 57 In Spring

1917, the Procuratorate charged a large number of officials with both real and false
charges of corruption. These included Kuomintang men in the Tuan administration, hated
by anti-Tuan sections of the Peiyang establishment, such as the Minister and Vice Minister
of Finance in addition to three counsellors and a Bank of China manager. Men from the
Peiyang establishment accused include the Communications Minister and Vice Minister,
and the Director and Vice Director of the Tientsin-Pukow Railway, involved in a scandal
surrounding hiring railway vehicles from an American company. Also accused but not
charged were the Naval Minister and Vice Minister, and the House of Representatives
Budget Committee Chairman, a member of the [
] Thus the political battle had spilled into the legal system and had become a
direct threat on Tuan. Further dispute over whether to include provincial autonomous
powers in the constitution draft, or to legislate separately on the issue; the Kuomintang
factions, anxious to prevent another usurpation of their Parliamentary authority, saw this
issue as vital to their survival, something on which no compromise could be possible.
The first State Corporatist solution was suggested at this critical juncture. After

the cabinet,

come from Chang Shih-chao (appointed to the CPPCC, NPC and CRICH after 1949), who
was a member of the Political Science Society as a p

composed of himself, three Conservative leaders, and one Labour leader. Chang argues

of all special forces in a way that would allow them to assume responsibility over the

57 « » 1971 62 «
» 2007 232
LEUNG Anfu Era 28

Staff Wang Shih-chen, [ ] 58

(1881- (1874-1949) (1877-1951)

Tuan was at first wary of proposal, for it would have allowed southwestern
political forces to extend their arm into Peking. On March 13th
[ ] that had certain corporatist functions but included
only second-tier factional leaders.
Tuan by May had become more open-minded (or perhaps desperate) about cooperation
with Kuomintang leaders. To prevent a dissolution of Parliament, perceived then to be a
suicidal act for the military, [ ] Tuan announced on May 8th 1917 to all factions
at a meeting at the State Council that once the War Bill was passed in Parliament, he
would reform the government and set up the Cabinet of National Defence. Yet in the night
of May 9th the Political Science Society held a special meeting to debate the issue, where
pro and anti-Tuan members debated for some four hours. Despite the best efforts of two
of the
support the War Bill was voted down by a small margin, which meant that the last
moderate Kuomintang faction had decided to give Tuan a vote of no confidence. The next
morning, when Parliament resumed its session, thousands of thugs and beggars dressed
in blue vests, [ ]
lieutenants, Chin Yun- [ ] and Fu Liang-tso, [ ] notorious for their
brashness, surrounded the houses of Parliament and beat up Kuomintang legislators.
Some reports suggest that the Kuomintang had sent in their own agent provocateurs. 59
This became the last straw on executive-legislative relations, and all members of cabinet
save for Tuan himself resigned in protest. Chang Hsun then pressured President Li Yuan-
hung into dissolving Parliament and restored Emperor Puyi for a week, before he too was

was carried out on the Forbidden Palace.

From the point of view of the Peiyang leaders, pluralist politics created a situation
that was as uncontrollable as it was beyond comprehension, and the Kuomintang
rent seeking behaviour, thoroughly disgusted Tuan and many Peiyang officials like Tseng
Yu-tsün (whom in his old age in the 1950s, still insisted that politicians in 1916-

58 1917-03-12 « » 46 47
59 « » 1917-05-11, 2.
LEUNG Anfu Era 29
60)
One can imagine that even the more
open-minded amongst them would have asked why it was necessary to pay an
extraordinary political price to maintain a frequently gridlocked pluralist system, when
so much needed to be done. On the other hand, many bureaucratic leaders were only half-
informed of ground-level facts in the factional struggle, even when a major political crisis
was at hand. Chang Kuo-kan, for example, tried to persuade Tuan to incorporate in his
Cabinet of National Defence two men from the Kuomintang, two from the Progressives,
and two from amongst the State Council bureaucrats. 61 This totally ignored how the
Kuomintang was itself a cluster of four factions the Good Friends, [ ]
Friends, the Recreation Club, and the Political Science Society all of which could be
further subdivided. Only Chang Shih-
Council proposal could have resolved the problem, yet it was not taken up.
Neither the Kuomintang and the Peiyang establishments were one solid mass until
June 14th 1917, when Sun Yat-sen sent Hu Han-min [ ] to Canton to discuss setting
62 Sun had perceived a political opportunity when

Chang Hsun, who had entered Peking with his troops on the invitation of the gullible
President Li, proceeded to pressure him into dissolving Parliament, before announcing
Emperor Puyi restored to the throne. Kuomintang legislators then streamed south, but
the Canton Extraordinary Parliament never managed to reach a quorum, and continued
in limbo. The factions that were formed in Peking continued to quarrel in Canton, and a
single-party state was never achieved. The task for the Peiyang establishment now was
to stop its own legislators from splintering once again into factions for minor gains. The
Progressive Party had advocated Statism in its charter as early as 1913, and Liang was
-16
when he joined forces with the Kuomintang in the war against Yuan, the Military Council
had adopted a consensus-based system of decision-
63 In fact, independent of its results, any system that intends to

reduce or eliminate political competition and opposition in the country, such as by setting

though which China could represent national common interests and fight external and
internal enemies constitute State Corporatism. In this sense, State Socialism, which
reduces or eliminates domestic economic competition in the aim of achieving maximum
efficiency and minimum waste is the corresponding economic ideology to Corporatism.
Yet whom would have benefitted,
beyond the narrow confines of the Peiyang establishment? If we are to trust the judgment
-
Facing the chaos of political pluralism and anxious about their replacement by immature
political forces such as the young revolutionaries, the gentry, or mandarin literati, were
eager to reinvigorate their political strength by building a controlling political party, and
to foster a German and Japanese -styled economic protectionist policy.64 Liang elaborated
on his [ ] as thus

60 « » 68 32.
61 821
62 « » 1917-06-14.
63 « » 123 « » 2007 69.
64 « » 15, 19.
LEUNG Anfu Era 30

The nation needs a central core class

and noble minority, that receives the respect and adoration of the citizenry, so that

majority politics is stil

party in the world are they directed and commanded by a majority or a minority?
One would not need to ask to know that it is by the minority. And in nations where
the central core class exists
society, they must enjoy public recognition as a group with a special privilege, and
yet in person they must be connected in their fate to the state, and thus lead the
majority of the citizenry. Where their followers are numerous, every raising of the

majority can only be formed when a minority guides a majority that follows.65
We cannot be precisely sure whether
-yuan has it,

ected political thinking, and commanded over a party that represented the
views and interests of the ruling elite, would have necessarily been a corpus with socio-
economic properties. Liang did not specify whether this elite must cover the whole of
nationa

Confucian upbringing and up-to-date western knowledge; they bore the brunt of the
mission to 66 Despite some fluctuations from

time to time, Liang was mostly a believer in unicameralism, especially in 1916, on the
grounds that China had no aristocracy. This could be understood as an extension of his
belief in the need to concentrate power in the gentry. Liang also detested pluralism
Anyone, however worthless he is, going about uttering his words, however
worthless they are, will be followed by someone, and will therefore create an effect
on politics. In any country, the more numerous the self-proclaimed publicists, the
less likely there will emerge a party that will adequately represent the majority.
Thus in the chaos of nonsense, small parties splinter this is only natural of such
countries. For what is majority politics? It depends on whether, for any question,
public opinion can be neatly divided into two camps, one of which must then assume
the majority. The implementation or retraction of policies in a state depends
-collisional.67

to want a dualistic political system a two-party system perhaps but wants only one
central core class, leading if necessary two parties. As such, what he really wanted was a
monist political system. The fact of a single-party system could be achieved without
explicitly calling it as such. Liang had strict requirements when it came to party discipline.

that he wanted nothing less than a vanguard party of the mandarin literati. In 1912-13 he
issued these guidelines for his Republican Party (later merged into the Progressives)

65 « » 1936 35-36
66 « » 19
67 37.
LEUNG Anfu Era 31

Rule IV Party members must refrain

action is often enough to render the party in a state of danger and defeat. For a
party is like an army
to be formed to be sent to the battlefield, it is to be equipped with the drill

derived from the command, and officers and soldiers alike rush to the enemy as

Parliament as its battleground, and members of parliament its combatants, using

the plans for the bill Members of parliament from the whole
party should given designated positions whom to launch the first attack, whom
to be the guerrillas, whom to be the core, whom to be the main charging force,
whom to guard the rear, how to take advantage of a victory, and how to make up
for losses. With a plan decided, it will have to be carried out once one enters the
chambers of parliament, making sure that it is done in a systematic way, with no
weaknesses that can be exploited. This is the way to ensure victory. It is so within
Parliament, and also for those who run errands and supportive preparations

Thus the interdiction on free action in the party is the same as the interdiction on
free action in the army.

of the nation, the nation will have no basis on which to stand; should the party
member refuse to be the mechanical apparatus of the party, the party will not live.

How? When the party decides its course, its members must all be in attendance,
and freely express their opinions. A vote of majority is then taken, and once a
resolution is made, it should be followed. Much as there shall be no freedom after
the deliberation, there must be complete freedom during the deliberation.68
After the outbreak of WWI, Liang deeply admired the German wartime state, and under

waging mechanised wars, continued to expand on the notion of the state being a machine.
In 1914 he wrote
I dare say Germany will win. Why? I see beauty in German political organisation,
the well-trained and developed national character they possess, the speed of the
progress of their academia, the rigorousness of their manufacture and
amelioration, the austere loyalty of their army, the swiftness and flexibility of their
transport facilities they all allow the whole citizenry to be the mechanical
apparatus of their country and yet to all function according to their abilities. On
any of these points, no country around the world can attain what Germany has

for all of the world today. Statism might well perish, but should it for one day
continue to exist, its model nation will never place itself in the position of defeat.69
By the time Chang Hsun fell in July 1917, Liang and the Peiyang establishment had been
looking east for solutions how to build a Japanese- [

68 « » 26-27
69 « » 1914 100-101
LEUNG Anfu Era 32

] and solve the problem of pluralism at one stroke. Terauchi Masatake, made
Prime Minister in 1916, had been based in France in 1882-86 and studied at St. Cyr, later
becoming Governor of Korea -14, Prime Ministers
toppled one after another. Populist

achievements fell short of expectations, whilst his attempt to impose the Twenty-one
Demands on China, in the hope of turning it into a protecto

to internal strength guide the people without bias 70

The strategy would have appeared to the Chinese to have worked, for by March 1918 it
was reported in the Chinese press that the Seiyukai, [ ] National Party [ ] and
Kenseikai [ ] held a special conf
71

( 1889-1949) (1859-1919) (1852-1919)

The concept of incorporating multi-focal interests under a wartime National Unity system
had come to China soon after the outbreak of war in August 1914, and soon became
term signifying all that was new about the age of war. The Japanese-run, pro-Anfu Shun-
hih- reported on August 3rd that after Britain, France and Germany had declared
war, their internal disputes such as for Irish autonomy were reduced, and then asked a
rhetorical question name the
same family where the elites and masses are one, those in government should ask
themselves: if one day an emergency should happen in the country, could National Unity
72 Liang analysed in 1915

the various National Unity systems in Europe, and also suggested that declaring war
could help sooth ethnic and socialist struggles
The first reason would be that with the improvement of state organisation, and a
decrease in repressed peoples, indignified feelings have dispersed, and the people
could be controlled as one and employed when emergencies happen; the second
reason would be that politics improve on a daily basis, and the state grows more

70 Frederick Dickinson, War and National Reinvention - Japan in the Great War, 1914-1919. Harvard:
Harvard University Press, 157.
71 « » 1918-03-02.

72 ( 1914-08-13, 2.
LEUNG Anfu Era 33

amicable with the people, such that the people all understand that the state invests
its life in them, and depend on nobody else. Thus in national emergencies, they act
like limbs defending the head and eyes. Thirdly, education is now increasingly
popular, and most nationals understand the trends of the world and the severity
of competition. Unless forces are mustered in great numbers, they will not be
enough to be depended upon. As such they desist from conflict over views which
would induce disintegration and only weaken themselves.73
National Unity under Terauchi was the subject of many reports on and the
newspaper explained the concept from the point of view of the co-optation of domestic
interests and facing up to external military and economic challenges. It wrote that post-
war economic competition was also being met by planning on the basis of National
Unity.74 Even Vice-President Feng Kuo-chang mentioned the concept in his speech when
arriving in Peking on March 1st 1917, in the presence of Tuan, the State Council, legislators
and even Wang Ching-
75 Yet

when National Unity was put into practice in July 1917 by Liang and others, it had given
up on co-opting the recalcitrant Kuomintang young turks; only mature representatives of

in P 76 and opposed any suggestion of reconvening the 1912 Parliament, opting

instead to appoint a new, unicameral Provisional Senate which would pave way for the
domination of power by a new, regrouped Progressive Party at the head of a monolithic
wartime state. Editor of Hu Cheng-chi still hoped in February 1917 that, with

ideal.77 Having
experienced the bitter struggles of mid-1917 topped by Chang Hsun, Hu evidently lost his
patience, and exclaimed, at the start of what was to be a decade-long war
Now if we are to consider the long-term benefits of this country, we should take
advantage of the "Third Making of the Republic", and establish a national strategy
for the next century. We should, in the spirit of National Unity, seek a solution for
our legislature. In the case of the old Parliament, it has been disbanded twice in the
same session, and has lost all sacred dignity and respect from within and without.
One should no more recover spilled water than to go through this all over again.78

On March 16th 1917, Yang I-te, [ ] Police Commissioner of Tientsin and Chihli
Province, led hundred of police officers to take over the German concession in Tientsin, and
redesignated it Tientsin First Special Zone. In 1919 Yang was designated future Mayor of Tientsin.
These six photographs show the German police headquarters, the Boxer Monument before the
German Consulate, -
over ceremony, policeman in German employment; and Yang negotiating with German deputies.
1917-05-13.

73 « » 22.
74 1917-08-29
75 1917-03-02.
76 « » 1958 523 « » 81.
77 1917-02-28.
78 1917-07-14.
LEUNG Anfu Era 34
LEUNG Anfu Era 35
LEUNG Anfu Era 36

2
The restoration of Emperor Puyi by Chang Hsun was itself a reaction against what he
, and in the nine theses
announced on July 1 , promised to design a political system on the best practices of
st

constitutional monarchies worldwide. -jui in turn launched on

July 3rd 1917 against Chang, - a host of technocrats
the so- paved way for a new, renovationist
political system to be designed by a newly appointed Provisional Senate, dominated by
Statist elites. When fleets of trains spirited m Tientsin into Peking,
where - , it was not only
a revolution against a monarchism that had been rendered increasingly anachronistic
by the Chinese revolution of 1911 and the Russian revolution earlier in 1917, but also put
the final nail into the coffin of political pluralism, and as we shall see, economic liberalism.
Military revolutions like these, involving no change in polity but a substantial
change by old elites to a previously dysfunctional political system in the aim of pushing
such
as in South Yemen in 1969, Syria in 1970, and Egypt in 1971. In November 1970, Syrian
General Hafez al-Assad overthrew the extreme left-
installed a political alliance between the party old guard and the gentry (ulama), but set

is in many ways similar to this. In the sense that it expelled from Peking the Kuomintang
young turks and re-installed the mandarin literati, though within the institutions of a
constitutional republic and in alliance with a rising class of technocrats, to promote a vast

which is what Robert O. Paxton uses to describe Vichy France and Marshal
79

Pétain - most class-

based of Peiyang-era regimes, and was designed to allow a autocratic republic of gentry
landlords to evolve into a modern bourgeois dictatorship.
To be granted a seat in the Provisional Senate, one would have needed to have a
university degree or its equivalent, or pay in tax Mex $100 or more, or have real estate of
-yuan, this was
equivalent to creating a new aristocracy. 80 The Provisional Senate was therefore the
epitome of an extreme elitism, and was equivalent to a House of Peers. The number of
provincial deputies decreased from 220 (out of 274) in the 1912 Senate (the actual
elected total being 263) to 110 (out of 168) in the Provisional Senate. Yet seats for the
clearly corporatist c Caucus [ ] increased from 8 to 30,
-ranking bureaucrats, the rich, Manchu and Muslim aristocrats,
educators, and academics possessing a degree and who had worked for three years or
81 Given that no

elections were held in the South, and the total number of senators was only 140, the
Central Academic Caucus constituted 21% of the Provisional Senate, when literacy was
only around 20%. Property requirements for voters were also vastly increased, with the

79 Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944. New York: Knopf, 1972
80 « » , 2007. 112-113
81 113.
LEUNG Anfu Era 37

electoral law passed in late 1917 for the New Parliament stipulating that voters must be
males above 25 years of age, having resided in the constituency for two years or more,
paying taxes of Mex $4 or more, or have real estate of Mex $500 or more, in addition to
having graduated from primary school or its equivalent. In that sense, only the propertied
and the educated would have any political right.82 As a result, in Kirin Province, [ ]
where the percentage of voters was highest, it stood at a mere 0.166%; in Kansu Province,
[ ] where it was lowest, it was a pitiful 0.01%. -

class through the use, rather than rejection of, constitutional republican institutions.83
many provincial commanders and local elites.84
The next step was to co-opt them permanently

economic institutions of a given country

85was naturally taken up. Given how the gentry had discovered the merits of investing in

modern industry and commerce during the wartime economic boom (which quickly
necessitated, in 1917, the creation of a corporatist organ for industrial and commercial
future
arrangement would have to take into consideration the transitional nature of the gentry.
In late-1917, the cabinet proposed a Ordinance
which would have seen the Senate reformed into a chamber of economic, ethnic and
socio-cultural corporations, resembling the Irish and Estonian Senates after their 1930s
reforms. This has its origins in January 1917, when Parliament was in dispute over the
draft constitution; some at the time thought it odd that the Kuomintang-dominated
Senate behaved more radically than the House of Representatives. Liang, noting such
opinion, suggested that the Senate should be formed of functional constituencies and
government representatives, in a fashion not unlike the colonial Hong Kong legislature
The Parliament Organisation Ordinance should be amended, for the composition
of the Senate is hardly distinguishable from the House of Representatives, and this
must be changed. Every nation is divided into conservatives and progressives, and
only when they are balanced would peace ensue between them; and only when all
classes and all forces are incorporated into Parliament could the legislature be
consolidated, or else inevitably lead to extra-parliamentary conflict which would
not be in the interests of the nation. Now we must seek a method of adjustment,
although unfortunately there are few good ones available despite several attempts
at devising one. A comparatively practicable method is to have two categories of
the first category
including the academic sector, the legal sector, the industry and commerce sector,
the education sector, and large taxpayers, who would produce mutually-elected
deputies; the second category would include former presidents, high-ranking
officers of the army and navy, State Council members, and Provincial Governors.
As such the Senators could represent the conservatives, and when both factions

82 115-6
83 « » 2011 176
84 1917-08-04.
85 Jean Malherbe, (Lausanne, 1940), 13-14; Quoted in Schmitter,
LEUNG Anfu Era 38

could fight it out within Parliament, there shall be no cause for extraordinary
circumstances.86
The Provisional Senate held its opening ceremony on November 10th 1917, and Tuan
spoke on behalf of the State Council, pointing out that the preceding political chaos had
been due to unsatisfactory legislation on elections and parliamentary organization, and
that the task of th
was a clear manifestation of his eclectic thinking, using traditional knowledge to support
modern aims. For example, to boost morale, he argued on the basis of the that
matters progressed in a zig-zag fashion and that setbacks necessarily happen. Next he
switched to using mechanical political discourse, popular since the French Revolution
his
artillery training in this case statics and the laws of motion he encouraged the senators
to legislate in the direction of seeking an equilibrium between political forces, especially
between the branches of power which should complement rather than to check and
balance each other, and thus to determine the proper of forward motion for
government 87

Soon a mechanism was set up whereby the Provisional Senate set up a nine-man
Review Committee to give recommendations on the amendments, according to which the
State Council Legislation Bureau would draft the bill, to be then submitted to the

with Tuan nd November, followed by other Progressive cabinet

members on 30th. (See Section C4) Chief of Staff Wang Shih-chen became Premier, and he
appointed as Justice Minister Chian Yung [ ] (Dept of Law & Economics, Waseda
Higher Normal), a member of the late-Imperial Institute of Legislative Reform [
] whom along with Chang Shih-chao, W. W. Yen and a host of Peiyang officials would be
central to revolutionary law-making in the early PRC. On 28th November the Senate
Review Committee decided on bicameralism after a two-hour debate. 88 Legislation
Bureau Chief Fang Shu, [ ] (LLB, Waseda) a legal specialist who had contributed to
late-Imperial reforms and would in 1960 be appointed to CRICH, was responsible for
drafting the .[ ] On
13 December the State Council voted to send the Bill to the Provisional Senate, where
th

three Legislation Bureau counsellors acted as government representatives to explain the

-en, [ ] (Tokyo Imperial)
a late-Imperial Ministry of Law director [ ] and in 1949 appointed to NPPCC;
Chung Keng-yen, [ ] (Tokyo Imperial) and Cheng Shu-teh [ ] 89

The , which was closely patterned on established the

principle that the upper chamber would be more temperate than the lower chamber, by

the British legalist James Bryce, best known for his works on the US political system, that

86 1917-01-15
87 1917-11-11, 2.
88 1917-11-03 1917-11-29
89 1917-12-14 1917-12-19
LEUNG Anfu Era 39

most unicameralist countries revert eventually back to bicameralism.90 The Note appears
to have quoted at length a textbook first published in 1908 entitled [
] written by [ ] Assistant Professor of Law at Kyoto Imperial
University, 91 especially on vocational representation and bicameralism under
constitutional monarchy. The Note holds that France had tried and failed unicameralism
thrice since 1791, and that this was only practical in small entities such as Greece, Serbia,
Luxembourg and certain Swiss and German states. Since China was not a federal country
like Germany or the US, it did not have to replicate its political design, creating a situation

chamb deemed that a bicameral arrangement will be a brake on the

radicalism of the lower chamber, which would then reduce conflict between the executive
and the legislature. Thus,
chamber representing the common folk, and the upper chamber representing special

Chinese Caucus.92 The Bill proceeded to propose in an unprecedented fashion (save for
deputies of large taxpayers, which existed in the late- -
parliament)
Ranking
(9%) would be Academic Representatives, 16 (12%) would be chosen by Manchu,
Mongolian and Muslim aristocrats, and 4 (3%) each elected by those with state honours,
by Overseas Chinese, and by an electoral college held in Lhasa, formed of the Dalai and
Panchen Lamas and high-ranking officers of the Lhasa government, the precondition
being that they understood Chinese and thus participate in parliamentary discussions. 93
The Enterprise Representatives [ ] would be elected by the economic sector

These deputies will be produced by enterprise bodies in agriculture, industry and

commerce. This is designed with reference to various countries such as Prussia
having Reichstag deputies recommended by Junkers, and deputies in the Japanese
and Italian Parliaments representing large taxpayers. Large landlords of course
include large taxpayers from the agricultural and forestry sectors. Thus all sectors,
agriculture, industry, commerce and mining could be included. In our case we are
different from these systems in that they provide for overall representation whilst
we propose representation specific to each constituent group. Since the start of the
20th Century, we have entered an epoch of economic representation. Politics in any
country are always influenced by the power of economic bodies. Thus modern
academics like Schäffle [ ] have advocated vocational representation as the

90 and it is a mystery
as to who this is. It could refer to the turn-of-the-century US legalist John Chipman Gray, but he was
not known to have made any judgments on the merits of bicameralism. However, many Japanese legal
American Commonwealth, which argued that most US states
which tried unicameralism later found it to be brash, dictatorial and corrupt, and mostly reverted to
unicameralism. This appears to have led to a misquoting, whereby a corruption of Bryce, led
. It would be impossible to know precisely what happened. I am greatly indebted, on
this and the research about Albert Schäffle, to the help of Egas Moniz Bandeira and Simon Lee, who
helped me with interpreting the German legal works. The Japanese legalist Hozumi Yatsuka, a major
influence on China, quoted the works of Bryce, for example in « »
1913 523 « » 1930 112-113.
91 « » 1908 380-381.
92 1917-12-16, 3.
93 ( ) 1917-12-17, 3.
LEUNG Anfu Era 40

way of electing parliamentary deputies. Such vocations may be economic entities or

otherwise, and amongst economic entities he has specified peasants, industrialists
and businessmen, handicrafts workers, and labourers. This matches the spirit of our
enterprise representatives being produced by agricultural, industrial and business
bodies the rationale for including 57 enterprise representatives in the Senate, and
unless it is as numerous as that, given the breadth of Chinese territory, with some
26 provinces and special administrative regions, distribution will be difficult. 94
The intention of this Bill to introduce corporatist representation, and considered even the
issue of representation for labourers, in the context of stemming extra-parliamentary

Liang were planning at the time. (See again Section C4). Albert Schäffle, a German legalist
and sociologist quoted in the Explanatory Note, was a State Socialist who was vocal in his
opposition against Marxism and Communism. In the 1880s he had participated in the
drafting of social legislation under Bismarck, 95 and was the author of
,96
Schäffle had participated in the 1848 revolution, and had been influenced by Statist
economic theorist Friedrich List,97 becoming an ardent supporter of state intervention.
He also understood early on that a democratically-controlled collectivised economy, as
championed by leftist elements in the German Social Democratic Party at the time, was
unrealistic, and believed in the role of private initiative and property. He did not explicitly
oppose a centralised, planned economy, and believed that wholly impossible
unless the most carefully graduated authority were vested in the corporate governing
organs, authority which should extend from the lowest to the highest and most central
parts of the productive system and in that he was prophetic. Schäffle, who died in 1903,
predicted with remarkable accuracy that in the year 2000, the mainstream economic
model would not be the paradise where the government had taken over commerce and
industry, and where there would be no classes, no parties and no wars, as Edward
Bellamy had written in his novel which was also an influence on
-
economy regulated by the state
de resistance, was clearly influenced by Bluntschli
and projected organicism onto the realm of economic analysis, seeing as one living
creature the national economy the book apparently received praise from Max Weber.98

eyes of Schäffle would need to balance various interests and bring the various parts of
the organism into harmony. Neither large-scale nationalisation nor universal suffrage, as
demanded at the time by the Social Democrats, would therefore be advisable. Universal
suffrage in particular over-emphasises the individual, creating imbalance. Schäffle
pointed out that education, church, art and science jor branches of the national

94 1917-12-16, 3.
95
155 2020 (3) 311.
96 Albert Eberhard Friedrich Schäffle. The Theory and Policy of Labour Protection. London: Swan
Sonnenschein & Co., 1893.
97 Albert Eberhard Friedrich Schäffle, Aus meinem Leben (Berlin, 1905), 1. Bd, S. 43.
98
Journal of Institutional Economics (2007), 3:1, 113-120.
LEUNG Anfu Era 41

indeed the sources of productivity according to Friedrich List) were

unrepresented in constitutions; in proper socialism however, both functional and local
representation would be necessary. 99 Bluntschli had also complained earlier on about
universal suffrage providing incomprehensive representation, 100 and this would have
been an influence on Schäffle, who argued that half of any legislature (or two-thirds, even
three-fifths) should comprise of Berufskörperschaft ; only
such bodies make up the socio-economic organic fabric, and only when they were
represented, 101 This was known as the

which first suggested the

taken up by the 1917 Explanatory Note 102

These principles appear to have been immediately defeated. In contrast to the

Explanation Note, the Bill stipulated not a system like the future Fascist Italy whereby
legally-prescribed vocational corporations produced deputies, but one large electoral
college for eligible voters from all sectors electing Enterprise Representatives in effect

have also included labourers and handicraft workers. The Explanatory Note made instead
reference to the property requirements of the Belgian and Swedish upper chambers
Voter and candidacy requirements for Enterprise Representatives are subdivided
into three categories the first being those who own land for agricultural or
forestry purposes of a value of Mex $10,000 or above; the second being those who
run agricultural and forestry enterprises with a capital or land of a value of Mex
$10,000 or above; the third being those who have industrial, commercial or
mining capital of Mex $10,000 or above; and those who stand in run-off elections
must have a capital of Mex $50,000 or more.103
The new non-economic sectors included the Academic Electoral College designed on the
basis of Spanish, Italian and Peruvian practice, and was much stricter in its provisions
than what became the Central Academic Caucus of the 1918 Senate. One would have
needed to be university teaching staff for two years or more (or three years, if one did not

meant were publications or patents.104 -ranking Officials of the

99 Albert Schäffle, Bau und Leben des socialen Körpers, 2. Auflage, 2. Band: Specielle Sociologie
(Tübingen, 1896), 585; Deutsche Kern- und Zeitfragen, Berlin: Ernst Hofman & Co., 1894, 146. It

who in turn took it from the early promoter of social policies and the first to suggest social insurance,
the French economist Jean-Charles-Léonard Sismonde de Sismondi, in his Études sur les
constitutions des peuples libres. Sismondi is said to have presaged the German Social Policy School,
in other words State Socialists. Johann Kaspar Bluntschli, Allgemeine Staatsrecht, 6. Auflage
(Stuttgart, 1885), 2. Buch, 4. Kapitel, S. 58-59; Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Sismondi, Jean Charles
Leonard de". Encyclopædia Britannica. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 159
100 Bluntschli, Allgemeine Staatsrecht, 58.
101 Schäffle, Deutsche Kern- und Zeitfragen, 133.
102

during this period. « » 1908 465-468 « » 1935 330-

335 S Georg von Görne
chamber where representatives of agriculture, industry, commerce and finance would be given 200
seats, and would take up seats in the rough ratio of 4:4:1:1, according to their national income.
103 1917-12-18, 6.
104 1917-12-18, 6.
LEUNG Anfu Era 42

parliament, and partially satisfied some calls in 1916-

[ ]; this is whilst the actual points of reference were Hungary and Italy, and proposed
-
to be produced from electoral colleges at the central and local levels for offcials appointed
by the two levels of government. Yet the candidates could not be officials in active duty,
and this meant that the system was reserved for retired officials, or that it was meant to
105 All this suggests that the December 1917

was a complete manifestation of the conservative

vision of the late-Imperial Constitutional Monarchist movement under Liang, as revised
for the Republican era the belief in a hierarchical society and the need for an aristocracy,
and thus the need for a House of Peers idealistically made up of conservative, experienced

march towards a Corporatist Developmental State, and was in every way a milestone for
intellectual history. Had the system survived into the 1920s, it could have been the very
point of embarkation of the proto-Fascistisation of the Anfu Regime. It already resembled,
in its 1917 form, the Irish Senate from 1936 to the present ; and with minor modifications
it could have turned into an Italian or Estonian-styled legislature. In fact, the idea of

al Groups.106
Yet the Bill immediately suffered a miscarriage. On December 18th the Provisional

immediately discerned. Hu Chun, [ ] (LLB, Berlin) immediately pointed out after the

;107 he was not subsequently chosen to be a member of the

1918 Parliament. On December 23rd the Provisional Senate decided that the new Senate
would still be elected from Provincial Assemblies and local or other electoral colleges.108
This provided the Anfu and Research Cliques with greater political certainty, given their
existing hold on many Provincial Assemblies. The two parties continued to confront each
other over the method for electing Senator, where both suggested different corporatist
solutions. The Research Clique argued that the 1912 election law, of direct election from
the Provincial Assemblies, where it was sure of its dominance, should be maintained. The
Anfu instead proposed local election colleges by-passing existing Provincial Assemblies.
The Research Clique knew that it occupied only a small number of seats in the Provisional
Senate, and that its motions would never be passed, and so changed tact and began to
the beginning of its anti-Anfu media
wars that would reach a peak during the May Fourth Movement whilst the Anfu bribed
its way through the weaker elements of the Research Clique, and struck the names of the
paper writers from the internal list of supported candidates for the 1918 election.109

105 1917-12-16, 3-4.

106 The Irish Senate, since its 1937 reform, has been composed in a corporatist fashion and resembles
in fact what the Chinese Senate could have been. It includes 43 vocational representatives, 11 for
agriculture, 9 for commerce and industry, 7 for public administration, 6 for universities, and so on.
Like Konstantin Päts in Estonia, Eamon de Val Quadragesimo anno
Pope Pius XI, drafted with the involvement of Oswald von Nell-Breuning, who had studied under the
German State Socialist Adolph Wagner.
107 1917-12-19, 6.
108 1917-12-25, 6.
109 1998.
LEUNG Anfu Era 43

Eventually a compromised was reached and the method of local electoral colleges
was adopted, on the understanding that the Kuomintang elements which remained in the
Provincial Assemblies would need to be eliminated from the process.110 In the elections
of May-June 1918, the Anfu Club took a total of 330 seats in both chambers; the allied
New Communications Clique another 20 seats; the Old Communications Clique, which
was at the time on good terms with Anfu, 50 seats; whilst the Research Clique took only
20 seats.111 Electoral irregularities were widespread. Numbers in voter registers were
often inflated, and on election day, beggars and even children turned up to vote. The
Research Clique spent huge sums of money aiming at becoming the governing majority,
but was sti -
the political system.112 Yet one must also see that this election achieved what Liang set
s
Engels would have called them) for the deputies of the gentry and the military which lent
them support. The legislators voted in were almost all from lists predetermined by local
commanders or even Hsu Shu-cheng at the Army Ministry and his Anfu headquarters.113
These lists were not made up of random, unrepresentative names; the men chosen
were often the equivalent of Japanese local leaders, or . Japanese Prime Minister
Konoe Fumimaro [ ] tried in 1940 to disband existing parties and construct a
single-party wartime corporatist state under the Imperial Rule Assistance Association,
[ ] but his project was defeated partly by his attempts to circumvent the
and foster a new corpus of local cadres. 114 In this sense, Hsu Shu-
-competitive nomination much more
successful. On March 24 1918, Hsu telegrammed Anhwei commander Ni Ssu-
th

of the three generals who led troops to crush Chang Hsun, asking him to make sure that
pro- 115 and sent Anfu

staff armed with huge sums of money to the provinces to control election results. The

110 « » 96-100.
111 118.
112 « » 116
113 1918 6 7 )
( )

( )

« » 1963 205-206
« (1916-1920)» 229-230.
114 Gordon Mark Berger, Parties Out of Power in Japan: 1931-1941. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1977.
115 -03-24 « » 1963 64.
LEUNG Anfu Era 44
116

To this, one might ask why Tuan and Hsu did not scrap elections altogether, and appoint
another Parliament as they had done in 1917. One recent theory has it that authoritarian
states including the Soviet Union also hold elections, not only to preserve a façade of
constitutionality, but also as one mechanism to maintain the scarcity of places in the
the group that would benefit from being in government. This would
make such identity be it membership of a party, government or parliament a valuable
commodity, and something to be held onto precariously; it could also be terminated
a -election could be
withdrawn, or he could be shunted aside in a controlled campaign, and replaced by
117 Indeed, this was how the Research Clique was

largely eliminated, and the same could be done for unruly Anfu elements.
Of course the Anfu Parliament did much more than rig elections. Also accused of
vote buying, the Central Academic Caucus actually carefully vetted its voters and asked
for certification of their qualifications, not forgetting in the process eliminating potential
radicals. The qualifications held included the French Army Cavalry School, the Belgian
École des mines de Mons, Cornell University and in China, the Peking, Peiyang and Shansi
Universities.118 Industrialist Chen Chi-hua [ ] sponsored a banquet where the Anfu
member and former Minister to Belgium Wu Tsung-lien [ ] and the Chairman of the
Chekiang Education Association Sun Tseng-ta [ ] were invited to make speeches.119
Voting enthusiasm was so high in Kirin, glass window panes and doors were crushed. In
other regions voters invented a new form of protest, of deliberately casting flawed ballots.
In a way not dissimilar to voters in the final decades of the Soviet Union, who wrote their
dissatisfactions on the ballots, Anfu-era voters with their sense of humour wrote the
names of prostitutes, dead politicians like Yuan Shih-

Quan, on the other hand, believes the socio-economic characteristics and more mature

The utilitarianist politics of the Anfu Parliament was rather similar to the early
English Parliament. In more than half a century after the Glorious Revolution, the
English gentry was still a large social force, and took up two-thirds of Parliament.
They were the real captains of the political ship that was the British Isles, and were

parliamentarians, in terms of their background, had an average age of 43.5, some

7 years older than the average in the First (1912) Parliament. It is usually thought
that politicians like legislators are more fully fledged around the age of 45, being
both energetic and emotionally mature. In terms of education background, a total
of 22.9% of Anfu parliamentarians possessed traditional civil service examination
qualifications. This was higher than the First Parliament. Some of these gentry
who had traditional qualifications were voted in, because revolutionaries were
excluded from the Anfu Parliament elections. In terms of professional experience,
basically the majority were bureaucrats, educators or commercial professionals.

116 « » 135
117 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita et al, The Logic of Political Survival. Boston: MIT Press, 2003, 54-55.
118 5 6 169-173
119 1918-05-23 3 137
LEUNG Anfu Era 45

98 of them had been members of the late-

Parliament, and had experience of parliamentary
Parliament had a relatively conservative political stance, and most people were
content with the status quo, opposing any radical change against it.120
The Anfu Parliament thus eliminated the generational conflicts in the 1912 Parliament.
Only two fist fights happened in the August 1918- February 1919 session, and there were
no aborted meetings due to the failure to meet the quorum all of which stood in stark
contrast compared to the 1912 Parliament. Due to the strict discipline of the Anfu Club
which, as we have seen, already studied matters and reached decisions before they were
submitted to Parliament, legislative efficiency was at an unprecedented high. According
to the , in the 30 sessions held during 1918-19, no less than 19 completed
the items on the agenda of the day, and the other 11 completed most of the items despite
having to prolong the meeting. 59 bills were discussed, 30 of them in relation to the
executive and the legal code, 15 related to foreign relations, and 11 related to economics

legislation, the Civilian Official and Diplomat Examination Ordinance, and the Prefectural
Self-Government Ordinance.121 Such efficacy was the result of concerted efforts. House
of Representatives Speaker Wang I- [ ] declared at the closing of the session in
February 1919
seen strict adherence to discipline, consistent from start to end, and no repeat of the
122 - totally
succeeded, only that the beneficiary became the Anfu Club.

st

In January 1919, the Anfu Parliament resolved to abolish the super-parliamentary

Parliament Constituent Committee. The new draft was completed in September, and was
one that embodied a more complete system of cabinet responsibility, as well as providing
This

120 « » « » 2010 1 46.

121 43.
122 « » (1 6 ). : 1919 143-4 43
LEUNG Anfu Era 46

draft, which was never implemented due to internal strife and possibly because it would
have given President Hsu Shih-chang the many powers meant for once President-hopeful
-
r to the post-1954 NPC Standing Committee. The President could
therefore directly declare a state of emergency, and grant amnesties circumventing the
Supreme Court. He could also influence legal interpretation by appointing two members
of the constitutional review body the Chief Ombudsman [ ] and the Chief Auditor.
The Anfu Draft also appeared to have absorbed the lessons of the battles of 1917, and
created de facto ministers without portfolio, capped at two-thirds of the number of
ministers, appointed by the President like other ministers. Yan Quan argues that the Anfu
draft bore Franco-British influences.123 It could also be said that it bore some features of
the Semi-Presidential system that was eventually featured in the 1925 Draft Constitution,
which Tuan also presided over, although the most important principle of the system,
being universal suffrage for the President, was not featured in the Anfu Draft.

P
The Anfu Parliament was also concerned about national sovereignty, for example
when three senators including Anfu Councillor Wei Ssu-chiung [ ] raised the issue

requesting the government to adopt a hard line when negotiating with Japan a strategy

also proposed an ambitious strategy, deeming that there was sufficient reason to take
there
in
Shantung which was eventually returned to China in 1929.124 Yan argues that the Anfu
Parliament, initially controlled by the military, began to gain a mind of its own once it was
settled in power, and proceeded to reduce the military budget by 20% in 1919. It also

123 « : 1913-1923» 2007 68-69.

124 ( ) «
» ( 1 4 ) 1918 102-103 «
» 43.
LEUNG Anfu Era 47

impeached Premier Chien Nung-hsun [ ] for being overly accommodating to the

South during the 1919 Peace Talks. The accomplishments of State Corporatism can also
be found in the much smoother
-chang and Hsu Shu-cheng, power
transitioned in 1919 for the first and last time peacefully between two Chinese Presidents,
before Chiang Ching-kuo assumed power in Taiwan in 1978.
The design
-opting all political factions save
for the Progressives (Research Clique), and the Chihli Faction military leaders, who hated
Tua . This was both the main strength and the fatal weakness of the
Anfu System. The factions that were co-opted were not random associations of politicians,
which congregated only because of personal reasons, as Andrew Nathan suggested, but
were interest groups differentiated according to their functions and properties. The Anfu
Club Charter, which has usually been assumed to have been lost or never to have existed,
actually e major
issues arise, the Chairman, or Councillors, or 20 or more club members, can request an
125 The Club Council, the de facto central committee,

meetings twice a month, but an extraordinary meeting can be convened by the President
126 Councillors

came in two categories parliamentary and extra-parliamentary, the second having one-
third of the number of seats of the first.127 Every five legislators chose one Parliamentary
Councillor (PC), and the Parliamentary Councillors then elected the Extra-Parliamentary
Councillors. (EPC) It would seem that although inner-party democracy was proclaimed,
the PCs did no more than to approve a pre-determined list of EPCs. A glance at the EPCs
also shows them to be representatives of different factions, of which the most important
were the Old Communications Clique, [ ] which controlled the railways and their
associated financial institutions such as
in 1916; and the New Communications Clique, [ ] which took over the reins of such
departments when Yuan and his proteges fell from power. (See Section C3)

-i (1879- -tsun (1875-1967)

125 « » 4
126 22
127 3
LEUNG Anfu Era 48

A glance at the qualifications of the leading members of the Club Council and the
EPCs reveal that the overwhelming majority had been trained in modern administration
or had studied abroad, mostly in Japan. Council President and Vice President of the Senate
Tien Ying-huang [ ] whilst being a traditional bureaucrat, had passed the late-

[ ] His deputy Wang Yin-chuan, [ ] Vice Council President and

the first Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Anfu Parliament, had graduated

-
merged into the Progressive Party. Anfu PCs included Fu Ting-i, principal of the Hunan

Minister of Finance and Salt Commissioner, controlling the major sources of government
funds; after 1949 he was appointed to CPPCC, NPC and CRICH, and also served as member
of the Executive Council Culture and Education Committee. [ ]

The EPCs included Anhwei Clique military strongman Hsu Shu-cheng and Tuan
Chi-kuei, [ ] both graduates of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy, and Wu Ping-
hsiang, [ ] Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who had served in the late-Imperial
-hao [
] (Peking Grand Academy ; appointed after 1949 advisor to Shanghai

Kuo-cheng [ ] (Transport Academy, now Jiaotung University); and Chief Justice of

the Supreme Court and Higher Tribunal for Prisoners of War Magistrate Yao Chen [ ]
(Waseda). The Old Communications Clique was represented by railway technocrat Tseng
Yu-tsün [ ] (appointed to CRICH after 1949); another member of the clique, Yeh
Kung-cho, [ ] served as Deputy Minister of Communications.

The New Communications Clique was made up of men who had been educated in
Japan as legalists, and appointed to the late-Imperial political reform planning agency and
facility for training new bureaucrats, the humbly-named Constitutional Compilation
Bureau. They were new intellectuals who worked under huge constraints from people of
a different ethnicity to reform the Empire, and possessed an ultra-realistic worldview
that permanently prepared them for setbacks, as well as being pro-Japanese almost as a
conditional reflex. They were represented by Minister of Finance Tsao Ju-lin [ ]
(Tokyo Vocational School, now Waseda); finance bureaucrat and diplomat
Lu Tsung-yu [ ] (Waseda); railway administrator Ting Shih-yuan [ ] (Shanghai
St. Johns University) who had also studied law in Britain and sent on a tour of France; and
state banker Wu Ting-chang, [ ] (Tokyo Higher Commercial School, now
Hitotsubashi University) who had been President of the Government Mint.128
Historically Wu was also close to Liang Shih-i, head of the Old Communications
Clique,129 at a time when it was in a collaborative relationship with Anfu during the 1918
elections, with Anfu trading seats in Parliament for the financial support of the former.130
To strengthen ties, Tuan and Hsu invited Liang Shih-i to assume the presidency of the

128 « » 23-24
129 » 1918-12-11.
130 « » 133
LEUNG Anfu Era 49

Senate, and when Liang made his acceptance conditional to the abandonment of the
military unification policy, Tuan and Hsu tried to offer that position to other members of
the clique including former Agriculture and Commerce Minister Chou Tzu-chi [ ]
(Columbia) and former Interior Minister and Peking Mayor Chu Chi-chien, [ ]
unbeknownst that both were in a tactical alliance with Liang. Eventually Liang had to be
consulted on national policy, but disagreements ensued, and later resigned from the
Presidency of the Senate.131 Thus the attempt to co-opt the Old Communications Clique
remained only half-successful. It is also worth mentioning that Anfu had some ethnic
minority participation, including eight Mongolians, two Tibetans, and one Turkic Muslim
amongst the ranks of its legislators, and some had important roles to play, such as Ko-hsi-
ko-tu, a Mongolian MP seen as a leader of the radical wing of the Anfu Club, and who was
responsible for enforcing party discipline, such as when he went to Tientsin to force
legislators to return to Peking to vote Hsu Shu-cheng as President in September 1918.132

Director 5 Directors Counsellors

1. Council President Vice Presidents
Tien Ying-huang Wu Wen-han Wang Yin-chuan
83 Councillors (including 11 Extra-Parliamentary Councillors)
2. P Investigation Committee President Li Sheng-to
Sub-Committees Internal Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Legal
Financial, Industrial, Communications, Education, Military
3. C
Senator Section 4 Executives
Congressmen Section 8 Executives
4. divisions
i. Secretariat (Liang Hung-chi)
Correspondence Publications Press Translation
ii. Liaison Section (Tseng Yu-tsün)
Parliamentary Extra-Parliamentary Extraordinary Diplomatic
iii. Accounting Section (Wang Chih-lung)
Planning Payments Auditing
iv. Administrative Section (Liu En-ko)
Anfu Headquarters Tai- -hu Club
v. Recreational Section (Hsiung Cheng-chi )
Public Speaking and Debating Books & Gardening
Music, Poetry & Chess Boxing, Archery & Ball Games
Seals, Gems, Calligraphy & Painting
P : Chairman Executive Commissioner and Executives
Council President Staff

up in 1916-17 by Hsu Shu-cheng as a pro-military parliamentary group. Yet this was at

the time a p
been disgraced by the failure of partisan politics in 1912-

131 236-237.
132 « » 2012 233-236.
LEUNG Anfu Era 50

the French Revolution. This in turn was adopted by Japanese political parties, for example
when in 1889 the Popular Party and Bureaucratic Party merged to become the Universal
Club, [ ]

[ ]
about itself, and Clause 22 of the Charter stipulates that anyone who had contravened the
orders of the headquarters or had committed criminal offences would be expelled after a
vote in the Club Congress.133 Of course certain behaviours in the Club would be difficult
to comprehend today given a century of Leninist influence on party organization in any
part of the world; for example some sources insist that the Anfu headquarters had been
uets and summon ,134 and had recreational facilities. By
extension therefore, it was argued that Anfu was never a serious political organization.
But it from a Marxist tradition
would imagine. Early political parties both in the west and Japan often doubled as elite
social clubs, or had been evolved from them. This was particularly the case with French
political parties before the Third Republic and for a short time after its establishment,
which had begun life mostly as salons or elite clubs for politicians and intellectuals, and
to bring courtesans there was a matter of course if not sometimes a necessity.135 During
their foray into parliamentary politics, these clubs soon began to discover the importance
of public speaking and debate training, and the fact that Anfu had a special panel in its
Recreational Section for that purpose, led by the aforementioned Waseda law graduate
Huang Yun-

Y (1885-1935) -hao (1882-1968) -yuen (1879-1945) -chang (1884-1950)

As for its political manifesto, especially economic policy, Anfu remained hesitant

national unity, consolidating republicanism, exercising constitutionalism, and protecting

an indistinct platform that offended no one, and which contained only values that could
no longer be disputed after the fall of Chang Hsun (republicanism, constitutionalism and
unification) or which scarcely required debate (statism). This was a strategy appropriate

133 « » 4
134 These prostitutes were summoned as company in social events, and Hung Yin-sheng has written
extensively of this. The accusation comes from « » 222.
135 For studies of these salons and elite clubs, see Jean Joana, Pratiques politiques des députés français
au XIXe siècle: du dilettante au spécialiste.
LEUNG Anfu Era 51

for the 1918 elections, but which would become anathema after May Fourth. The internal
organization of Anfu displayed influences from Japanese political parties, and indeed
terms such as Liaison ( ) appears to have been taken directly from them.
[
] of which the sub-committees Industrial, Communications, Military and so on

Investigation Committee (PIC) was an image of the Premier of the State Council,
whilst the chairmen and vice-chairmen of the sub-committees could be regarded
as the ministers and deputy ministers of state. Its research methods were even
more comprehensive than cabinet meetings, to the point where any matter that
was not deliberated by the PIC was thought to be the cause of quarrels and
disputes. Its source of support came from the Congress of Parliamentarians of
Both Chambers. Any important resolution would have to be passed by the

chambers of Parliament, Li Sheng-to, [ ] Tien Ying-huang, Wang I-

Liu En-ko, [ ] and the secretaries of both chambers Liang Hung-chi, [ ]
Wang Yin-chuan and Tsang Yin-sung, [ ] all belonged to the Anfu Club.136
Li Sheng-to, Chairman of the PIC, had been one of five ministers sent in 1905-6 by the
Imperial Government, in imitation of the Iwakura Mission, to some 14 western countries
-Committee Chairman Chang
Yuan- [ ] would be appointed as President of the Economic Investigation Bureau
in 1920. Some of the panels were run by professionals. Wu Tse-sheng, [ ] (Waseda)
Acting Executive-Designate [ ] of the Division, had been
a legislator since 1912, and was President of the [ ] in Peking.
Although this failed to save Anfu from the many public embarrassments it suffered, there
were signs that the Chinese government was beginning to have a modern press policy,
such as when the State Council beginning in March 1920 started to hold weekly news
conferences for foreign correspondents, following a precedent set by the Presidential
Palace.137 Translation Division Executive Ch en Huan-chang [ ] had earned his PhD
from Columbia University, and had written a work in English,
138 John Maynard Keynes had high praise for the

book in his December 1912 review, highlighting the fact that the work had a

, and dealt with the evolution of economic thought on matters such as

land ownership and statistics in the various dynasties of Imperial China. Keynes was
excited to know that Quantity Theory prices being proportional to the amount of issued
currency a
ancient Chinese officials, and recommended book to other economists.139

136 « » 17
137 1920-03-05
138 « » 2009.
139 - The Economic Principles of Confucius and his School. By CHEN HUAN-
The
Economic Journal, Vol. 22, No. 88 (Dec., 1912), 584-588.
LEUNG Anfu Era 52

Other Anfu executives achieved notoriety or legendary status. Wang Chih-lung, the
main Anfu benefactory w
Section Chief, and was the well-known General Manager of Yu-yuan Textiles Mill [
]
owners Tuan and many other Peiyang leaders. Tsang Yin-sung, Secretary of the House of
Representatives, was Planning Division Executive-Designate under Wang. The Liaison
Division not only was responsible for dealing with domestic and foreign politicians and

meant assembling intelligence. Its Diplomatic Division was led by Li Kuo-chieh, a Marquis
-
who served as Minister to Belgium during the 1911 Revolution and also worked in the
late-Imperial Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce. Executive Wei Ssu-chiung
however best known as the husband of the much sought-after and
political conscious former courtesan Sai Chin-hua, [ ] who was previously married
to a diplomat sent to Germany. She met Bismarck, spoke several European languages, and
had saved Wei in 1913 when he sought refuge from Yuan Shih- during the Second
Revolution. Pien Yin- [ ] also a Diplomatic Division Executive, had led the
Chinese delegation to the Panama World Exposition representing Tientsin industries and
businesses. In 1916 when the French authorities detained Chinese police and militarily
expanded their concession, Pien led the Tientsin Council for the Integrity of National
Rights and Territory to rally against the French, and sent a petition to Parliament on 15th
September which was too busy with internal squabbles.140 Thus
accomplished and experienced men were well-considered, which reflects the growing
a globally-informed community
in high-politics; their placement in Parliament via various means was a strategic act.

Li Sheng-to (1859-1937); Wu Tse-sheng (1884-?) -chang (1880-1933); Pien Yin- 866-1926)

Anfu was intent on establishing branches on both provincial and prefectural levels, and
drafted the corresponding provisions, but the plans appear to have never materialised.
the
formal establishment of a branch, and stated in its Charter that the Office Establishment
Commissioner would be elected by Anfu members in Peking. A formal branch would be

140 «
» 1-4.
LEUNG Anfu Era 53

set up when each Office reaches 100 members, it could be turned into a branch pending
approval by the Peking headquarters. The Chairman of each branch would be appointed

Commissioner [ ], Executives, Council President and Councillors) would be elected

from amongst its members, and they would then appoint the staff. [ ] The branches
would need to report to the headquarters (and prefectural branches to the provincial
headquarters) regularly on its affairs, the membership roll, the list of staff, resolutions
passed, its budget and expenses and other important matters.141 However in the end Anfu
appeared to have settled on commanding over satellite organisations at provincial level,
such as the Cheng-lu Club [ ] in the Chekiang Parliament, established with Mex
$2,000,000 of funds provided by the Peking headquarters. This fought against Liang She
[ ] set up by ex-Kuomintang members. The two were also divided on prefectural lines,
with Cheng-lu representing legislators from Taizhou, Wenzhou and Chuzhou in eastern
Chekiang, and Liang She representing west Chekiang. Yet the satellite organisations
appeared to have never reached the level of discipline seen in Peking. When the election
for the Chekiang Assembly President was held on October 22nd 1918, Juan Hsing-tsun, [
] the candidate supported by Cheng-lu, was observed to be distinctly lack-lustre in
his campaign, refusing to treat his supporter to banquets or to buy votes. As a result the
Wenzhou legislators defected and Chou Chi-ying, [ ] the Liang She candidate, was
elected instead; Chou would later come to regret that his own campaign had been dirtier
142 It was a rare defeat compared

, such as that of the Peking-Chihli Assembly.

Li Kuo-chieh (1881-1939) ; Wei Ssu-chiung (1873-1921) and Sai Chin-hua; Wang Yin-chuan (1878-1939)

The lack of press coverage on the proceedings of the Anfu Club Council meetings and the
lack of any documentation whatsoever on the functioning of its sections, panels and sub-
committees makes it very difficult to analyse the efficacy of Anfu operations. Yet it should
be evident by now that the Anfu Club bore the hallmarks of a modern political party, and
although it was not the first to exist in China, it was the first modern party to be actually
dominating government. It is also the intention of this manuscript to insist that we should
be careful to not judge it on the basis of a Leninist Party, but to parliamentary caucuses.
Any progress towards being a Leninist organisation was a plus, and that would partly
explain the rapid expansion of Anfu Club abilities by 1920, when it attempted to direct,

141 « » 6-9
142 « » 2005 225-228
LEUNG Anfu Era 54

on its own, an economic lift-off.

popular in China and which has centrally figured in the work of Andrew Nathan

non-hierarchical forms
of organisation, with ambiguous loci of power did not work in early twentieth-
century China. The politicians were uncomfortable in such settings and, when
thrust into them, arranged themselves in the congenial form of factions, which
provided some sense of hierarchy and stable affiliation
political culture framed largely in the traditional society knew just enough about
constitutions to believe that they were easy to operate and efficacious in supplying
stable government. The early republicans hoped to avoid conflict by gathering
consensus around a constitutional process. But the process mandated by any
republican constitution is precisely a process of conflict. Not unnaturally,
143

for it described the events of 1916-

17 much better than the three Anfu years, which was the bulk of the period he covered in
lusion serves only to confuse.
Pluralism did not fail in early Republican China because politicians had a love for
authoritarianism and being uncomfortable without it, had to form factions; rather,
factions were the staple of pluralism, a process which some legislators found liberating,
especially when it allowed them to challenge and attack the establishment for the first
time in years without fear of reprisals. It also facilitated various regional interests,
notably the southwest, -i and Tsen Chun-hsuan were proxies. Yet
Pluralism failed because it became a shambles, giving rise to all sorts of rent-seeking in
1917, and it was evident even then, to a country eager to enter into a war and to resolve
all of its international problems at once, that it provided no basis on which
urgent problems could be solved problems which better-off liberal democracies could
procrastinate dealing with. World War One and the initial success of National Unity
governments across the west, compressing pluralist politics and phasing in monopolistic
government, was to Anfu-era politicians the best evidence there was that having a unified
and unambiguous focus of loyalty would deliver a much better deal for China. Pluralism
simply presented no convincing case and did not create the conditions for its own success.
the
last in which the legitimate political voice belonged to a narrowly- 144

This is plainly wrong and indeed a baffling statement to make. Rather than being a cluster
of imperial mandarins who had minimal knowledge of constitutionalism, many Anfu-era
politicians as we have seen, had studied law in Japan or even in the west, and were highly
informed on legal and constitutional matters. The days in which a dazed Yuan Shih-
asked the diplomat
The pluralism that these men witnessed in Japan was of course a limited one, and the
system that they most looked up to, Imperial Germany, was no better at tolerating dissent.
Thus, the miraculous act of looking so outward for resources for political design a sign
of the deep internationalisation amongst political circles at the time and something that

143 Nathan, Peking Politics, 224.

144 Ibid.
LEUNG Anfu Era 55

a decade earlier might have been unimaginable led them in the direction of creating a
monopolistic party regime145 the mandarin
literati to re-
country. That it subsequently had to resort to the most corrupt means to make sure the
monopoly would be maintained was a matter of course, but also a tragedy and irony.
official Anfu Parliament was a mutation of western
parliamentary politics, and betrayed the principles of a democratic republic. This shows
that the parliamentary system, appropriate for western capitalist politics, economics and
historical circumstances, was unworkable in China dominated by feudalistic production
methods, feudalistic thinking, and the warlord- 146 Such views

are simply what Lenin would have called an .147 One cannot insist
enough that the Anfu Parliament, far from being a feudalistic product, was a product of
high modernity, envisioned by - , inspired by the discipline
and efficacy of wartime states. That it represented the declining gentry did not conceal
the fact that Liang had w
being a class of entrepreneurs, as the December 1917 senate reform would have helped
induce. In this sense Liang, born of a gentry family that had declined in its fortunes and
was mired in poverty, and perhaps just as prejudiced and
blinkered by his self-made success guarding piously the system of electoral property
requirements, telling the people that if they wished to enjoy political representation, they
should work hard, save up and enrich themselves .
It also seems in parliamentary politics were progressive as
long as they functioned in the bourgeois west. That would in fact be a double standard
that somehow the -
was any worse than what they would have called
the time. It is also a fact that corporatist constitutionalism became the key to the
successful operation and indeed survival of many western republics. Taking into account
how Schmitter also argues that State Corporatist also included the planning of the use of
resources, and the expansion of bureaucratic institutions, a condemnation of Anfu vote-
buying should not conceal the fact that it was a successful, modern political operation that
was meant to deliver a State Corporatist system one where the industrialising gentry
would have a stable environment in which to invest, and to receive technical support
from technocrats, model factories, state farms, and government guarantees of interest in
the first years of investment, and would in fact reliant on the planned investment of Social
Overhead Capital. Such could only have been guaranteed under the conditions of a global
war by a military-supported single party regime, which sheltered these gentry elements
from the challenge of a young generation of Kuomintang revolutionaries. And much as
matters alienate themselves in the course of motion, the regime came eventually to harm

1918. Yet no successful attempt was made in Parliament to raise taxes for the gentry,
even when war spending far exceeded expectations. This alone explains the nature of the
Anfu regime a conservative-revolutionary regime, and an Old Guard in a New Order.

145 Linz 252.

146 238.
147
embarras de richesses )