A golden age

The Qing dynasty confronted a major uprising on October 10, 1911, and was replaced by a new kind of state, the Republic of China on January 1, 1912. In contrast to the Qing and previous monarchs who might have claimed to rule on behalf of the people and to regard the people as the root of the state (minben), the republic (literally, joint rule, gonghe guo) would be based on the principle that the people were actually in charge of a people's state (minguo). In this view, the new state would certainly protect the rights of the people more effectively because it would be governed not just for but by the people. To cite but one of many examples, the republican governor of Jiangxi province, Li Liejun (1882–1946) claimed that sovereignty in a republican state lay with the people. ¹ Sun Yat-sen, the interim president of the newborn republic, attempted to link the inherited idea of the mandate of heaven and nature to the new state by declaring in his inaugural speech that the “heavenly endowed freedom (tianfu ziyou) had long been cherished by the Chinese.” ² In a later speech, Sun argued that in an empire there was only one emperor while in the republic all the Chinese people would be emperors. ³ In the interest of continuity and stability, the new government adopted most of the laws enacted in the late Qing. ⁴ It abolished torture, which it deemed a violation of the sacred human rights (renquan shensheng) and banned references to officials as “big masters” (dalaoye), a title at odds with their rightful function as public servants of the people. ⁵ In addition, the republica adopted many cultural and social reforms such as cutting queues, ending the ketou (kowtow), and giving up Chinese-style clothes, signaling radical changes to come. ⁶