ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author analyses power relations and political process in Ming China, Qing China, and Republican China. He encompasses the rise and consolidation of the Ming and Qing autocracies, the recurrent challenges posed to Ming and Qing rulers by decentralized processes of power and resource appropriation, and the mounting processes of systemic breakdown and crisis of the mid- and late nineteenth century. He extend this view of power dynamics in late imperial China with an analysis of the unsuccessful Nationalist attempt to reestablish central power, the rise of Chinese communism, and the revolutionary restructuring of power set in motion by the victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949. Processes of power concentration versus power devolution drove power restructuring in late imperial China, Republican China, and revolutionary China. In this chapter, these processes are understood as three-way struggles among central rulers, various elite configurations, and nonprivileged groups to control, appropriate, and redistribute power and resources.
