A mixed picture

In 1924, with the support from the Soviet Union and cooperating with the newborn Communist Party, Sun Yat-sen reorganized the Guomindang (GMD or KMT) and formed a powerful army. ¹ Within four years, Sun's followers conducted a successful Northern Expedition that at least nominally unified most of China for the first time in a decade. During its two-decade rule, while continuing to be plagued by internal wars and external invasions, the GMD managed to establish a kind of central administration. It was based on Sun Yat-sen's theories of the Three Stages of Government (sanzheng), the Three People's Principles (sanmin zhuyi), and the Five-Power Constitution (wuquan xianfa). ² Although the later republic was in some ways more authoritarian than the early republic, it is not true that it had no complaint system worthy of the name. ³ In fact, the later republic with its capital at Nanjing (and in Chongqing during wartime) largely inherited the main complaint systems of the early republic. Indeed, some complainants in this period continued to see a certain improvement of their rights. The GMD made several revisions in its complaint systems that, at least in theory, provided complainants with more opportunities and less monetary cost to air their grievances. Data in archives of the central government (Nanjing), Shanghai, and Hubei province palpably indicate that many aggrieved people remained strong believers in embedded concepts such as “heavenly principles,” parental rulers/officials, minben/people as the root, and the relatively new republicanism. Many complainants in this period continued to have faith in the leader and rested their last hope for justice on generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, whom they regarded as “heaven's representative” and who himself expressed belief in the concept of minben. This inspired some to mount skipping complaints even though they continued to be illegal. The general picture of the complaint system in the later republic is nonetheless bleak. A combination of endless wars, the particization of the judiciary, the corruption of officials, and the internal problems of the complaint system often resulted in the frustration of efforts to get justice. In sum, the later republic presents a mixed picture of an improved formal structure and an impaired actual process in handling complaints against government abuses.