Following the Marco Polo Bridge incident of July 7,1937, China went to war with Japan. Earlier a second GMD–CCP united front had been formed after the Xi'an incident of the previous December. On July 15, Chiang Kai-shek convened a conference at Lushan, a mountain resort in Jiangxi province, attended by delegates from the MPGs, nonpartisans, and other leading lights of the community, with the exception of the Communists; Chiang held separate talks with them. The conference sent a clear signal to the nation that the government was prepared to accommodate the opposition parties and to hear their views on the question of war. Because resistance to the Japanese demanded national unity, all political parties and groups accepted the government's authority and the necessity of a strong state.

The outbreak of war imposed constraints on Chinese party politics, forcing all the parties concerned to seek temporary compromises. Wartime politics, played out in the People's Political Council (PPC), showed how the opposition parties tried to work with the government in a quasi-representative national body. The first of its kind in China's history, the PPC, created in accordance with Article 12 of the government's 1938 Program of Armed Resistance and National Reconstruction, 2 was intended to be a special wartime institution, charged with advising the government on the questions of war and reconstruction. It brought together representatives from all political parties and groups, the provinces, and eminent figures from the wide community – the best talent the country had to offer.

The search for a way out (chulu) of China's predicament had been a profound concern of Chinese intellectuals in the twentieth century. How could China be saved from the twin incubus of foreign imperialism and internal disorder? Where was she headed? Even if it could be mapped out where the destination was, how was she going to get there? Different options were canvassed. Some took what Lin Yu-sheng calls the cultural–intellectualistic approach, assigning primacy to intellectual and cultural reform as a first step toward the creation of a new political order. Others adopted an approach that placed a premium on political engagement, stressing the possibility of simultaneous political reform and cultural change. For the liberal intellectuals of the Nationalist period, democratic and constitutional change offered the best hope for a peaceful and modern China. They advocated democracy (minzhu) and constitutionalism throughout the period, only to find that the road to democracy was blocked. After 1949, “people's democracy” under the People's Republic was a far cry from what they had fought for.

This book is about the thoughts and actions of some particular groups of Chinese intellectuals and political activists who pursued democracy as they understood it by opposing the single-party system under Nationalist rule.

Civil opposition in the Nationalist period is best understood in a dual context: the repression of one-party rule and the imperatives of national salvation. It was the manifestation of a continued quest for democracy and a response to a national crisis brought about by a combination of internal and external problems. This chapter is concerned with the domestic context. It will examine first the dictatorial nature of the Nationalist regime and then Sun Yat-sen's conception of political tutelage, his democratic thought, the legacy of his doctrine, and finally Chiang Kai-shek's personal dictatorship and his constitutional designs that drew much criticism from the opposition elite.

THE NATURE OF THE NANJING REGIME

The GMD came to power in 1928 after completing the Northern Expedition, the success of which was more political than military. The new Nanjing regime, however, was unable to free itself from the influence of the military that had brought it into existence. By 1931, Nanjing controlled less than one-third of China, its writ being restricted to a constellation of provinces in the lower Yangzi River – Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, and Fujian in varying degrees plus the financial center of Shanghai. In the first couple of years, Nanjing had to deal with the regional forces that had proclaimed their nominal allegiance – notably the Guangxi Clique led by Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, and Li Jisen; Feng Yuxiang in the northwestern region of Gansu, Shaanxi, and Henan; and Yan Xishan in Shanxi.

Following the failure of the Political Consultative Conference, China soon plunged into an all-out civil war. It was a hopeless situation for all those who pleaded for peace and democracy. To vent their anger and frustration, they could take to the streets, demonstrating against civil war, hunger, and the government, and in so doing risk arrests and their lives. Other than that, there was not much they could do. Yet in the intellectual marketplace of ideas, there remained a liberal forum at the center of which were the independent, nonparticipatory elite plus some MPG thinkers who had withdrawn from political engagement. Standing on the sideline, claiming impartiality, disclaiming selfinterests, pondering the future of China, and wondering where Chinese liberalism was headed, these liberal elements were a diffuse and unorganized coterie of university professors and intellectuals fighting a battle already lost. Theirs was the last voice, a swan song, or perhaps a requiem. Maintaining their faith in liberalism, they still spoke, desperately, of the continued necessity of a middle force representing the will of the people. Finding themselves at a crossroads, they could not help but wonder where they were going. The tragedy was that, as they faced the prospect of a final CCP victory and pondered what it meant for them, the road to democracy was closed long before they realized.

Earlier works on the civil war period have shown that the Nationalist government drove the liberals to the communist camp rather than the CCP winning them over.

Human rights are claims upon society that every individual should have, including the right to be free – both “free from” and “free to.” They are thought to be inalienable, that is, they cannot be waived, transferred, or traded away, because they are implied in one's humanity. “Human rights,” writes Louis Henkin, “enjoy at least a prima facie, presumptive inviolability, bowing only to important societal interests, in limited circumstances, for limited times and purposes, and by limited means.” They must, therefore, be protected against malevolence, corruption, and transgressions by the state. The contemporary view is that a liberal democratic system by far affords the best protection, and democratic social conditions are the most reliable vehicle for achieving happiness for the greatest majority. Conversely, constant violations of human rights by a repressive regime provide a cause for liberal opposition and political change. Democracy and human rights are not the same things, but the nexus between them is a significant one. Today, Westerners talking about democracy link it with human rights, calling governments that ban street demonstrations and censor newspapers undemocratic.

Writing on human rights in the People's Republic of China (PRC), Merle Goldman notes that concern for human rights is “neither alien to China nor merely a Western import” and that its roots “are deep in Chinese history and tradition.”

Civil opposition has been studied in this book in the context of a continued search for Chinese democracy during a period when China was dominated by the politics of violence, war, and revolution. We have probed the thoughts and actions of China's “liberal democrats” who represented a minor but significant tradition of liberal opposition in juxtaposition against the mainstream authoritarian tradition of political culture represented by the GMD and the CCP. We have also documented the prodemocracy movement that unfolded amid mounting pressures from Japanese aggression that culminated in an eight-year war. Its starting point was a challenge to the political system characterized by political tutelage, one-party rule, official corruption, and political repression. The Nationalist regime was not merely a military dictatorship but also a personal dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek. Yet it was a weak dictatorship, a weak garrison state, exercising ineffective control of the country, a fact that aided and abetted the growth of civil opposition.

Beginning in 1929 in protest against human rights violations, the opposition agenda was set for the next twenty years. Of course, civil opposition was not entirely concerned with democracy. To many, democracy simply meant unrelenting opposition to the government and everything it did. But the opposition found a cause dating back to the May Fourth period; this source was anchored in the belief that power could be won and conflict resolved without resorting to violence. In the process, civil opposition, identified with enlightenment (qimeng), became part of the movement for national salvation (jiuwang).

Just one year into the First People's Political Council (PPC), the MPGs, frustrated at the renewed tension between the two major parties, were caught in the cross fire in a limited civil war. But, instead of ducking for cover, they took upon themselves a dual role as a mediator and a motor in the movement for democratic and constitutional change. Mediation was a difficult mission, but it was important for them because only reconciliation through negotiations could bring about China's unification, provide a framework for pluralist politics, and thereby ensure their own survival in the postwar period. Portraying themselves as a third force in Chinese politics, the MPGs' mission was to explore the possibility of a third road that was neither Nationalist nor Communist.

Earlier writers have employed the third force paradigm in a variety of ways. James Seymour has characterized the MPGs as “small middle parties” composed of middle-of-the-road intellectuals who sought to be “a liberalizing influence” but who were impotent through a lack of military power. Roger Jeans defines the third force in terms of opposition to both the Nationalists and the Communists, stressing the MPGs' attempts to offer political alternatives and their being caught in the cross fire between the major combatants. For Thomas Curran, the third force was “a loose coalition of intellectuals, educators, businessmen, and professional politicians dedicated to the introduction of democratic reforms and the maintenance of national unity in the interest of fighting the Japanese.”

After the outbreak of the Mukden incident, China's troubles had only just begun. Before the year 1931 was over, Japan had secured control of part of Manchuria. Then, on the night of January 26, 1932, Japanese naval forces, not to be outshone by the Kantong Army in Mukden, launched an attack on Shanghai. Four days later, the Nationalist government decided to remove its capital to Luoyang, where it remained until December. Early in February, Haerbin was captured by Japanese forces, after which the state of Manzhouguo (Manchukoku in Japanese) was formally set up on March 3, with its capital in Changchun (Jilin). Meanwhile, Chinese troops were forced to abandon Wusong near Shanghai, despite the stiff resistance of the Chinese Nineteenth Route Army and the Fifth Army Corps.

The onset of Japanese aggression brought about a “national emergency” (guonan), which again highlighted the issue of jiuwang. Of course, national salvation entailed resistance to the Japanese. The question was when to take up arms. Following the Mukden incident, the Nationalist government neither resisted the Kantong Army nor entered into any negotiations with Tokyo, choosing to turn to the League of Nations for help. Not wanting to fight the Japanese at this stage, Chiang Kai-shek pursued a policy of “first pacification, then resistance.” Apart from his determination to eliminate the Communists first, Chiang was ill prepared for war against the Japanese army, which inspired awe and fear in him.

The passion of enlightenment intellectuals in defending democracy was not diminished by the Japanese threat. “China was once again ready to listen to educated young men and women who sought to combine national salvation with a deeper commitment to intellectual emancipation,” writes Vera Schwarcz. “As in the May Fourth movement at Beida [Beijing University], a vocal minority arose to do battle with cultural conservatives, both those inside and outside the Guomindang.” Prodemocracy writers were a vocal minority who rose to do battle with the dictatorial regime in the intellectual marketplace of ideas, convinced that democracy was relevant to the national emergency, the foreign threat being no justification for dictatorship, new or old.

Writing on the democracy versus dictatorship debate of 1933–1934, Lloyd Eastman commented that the debate was “mundane, a trifle stodgy” and that democracy's defense was “faltering” and “poor.” “The advocates of democracy seldom articulated a comprehensive defense of their position and instead sniped at the shortcomings of the [GMD's] system of party rule.” Particularly unimpressed with Hu Shi's kindergarten politics argument, Eastman was adamant that Chinese democrats lacked “a sophisticated understanding of the true character of liberal democracy.” He overlooked the fact that the great debate went beyond 1934 and the pages of Duli pinglun to become a wider democracy discourse.

In august 1945, the Chinese won the war but did not win the peace. National salvation was partially, and only partially, achieved. No sooner had the Japanese surrendered than the threat of a renewed civil war loomed large. Reflecting the mood of the intellectual community, civil opposition took on the slogan “peace, democracy, unification, and reconstruction.” The order of these words was significant. First, there must be peace – only then could there be democracy – then, democracy, and only then could there be unification, or national unity. And only with peace, democracy, and unity could there be reconstruction. This was similar to the CCP's slogan “peace, democracy, and unity,” portraying the government as an obstacle to peace. For its part, the government insisted on unity, or unification, prior to democracy, meaning that the Communists must give up their armed opposition first. As for the masses, after a devastating eight-year war, the last thing they wanted was civil war.

This chapter is largely a narrative. The facts are laid out here to add to the themes of this book. The Political Consultative Conference (PCC) and the subsequent peace efforts of the third force illustrate the theme of peace, democracy, unification, and reconstruction. The PCC, especially, sheds lights on the way in which civil opposition conducted itself as it attempted to translate its ideas into policies.