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Home , Diaolou, Fang Guan, Kaiping, Kashgar, Woken River

Perspectives

66 | July- August 2006 Varia

Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/860 DOI: 10.4000/chinaperspectives.860 ISSN: 1996-4617

Publisher Centre d'étude français sur la Chine contemporaine

Printed version Date of publication: 1 July 2006 ISSN: 2070-3449

Electronic reference China Perspectives, 66 | July- August 2006 [Online], Online since 25 April 2007, connection on 04 October 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/860 ; DOI : https://doi.org/ 10.4000/chinaperspectives.860

This text was automatically generated on 4 October 2020.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Society

The of (1842-1937) Buildings for dangerous times Patricia R.S. Batto

Displacement From the Three Gorges Region A discreet arrival in the economic capital of China Florence PADOVANI

Economy

Family Entrepreneurship and Succession A survey in province of Yue Lin

Law

Is Taiwan a Presidential System? Ondrej Kucera

History

China-Taiwan: Young People Confront Their History Samia Ferhat

Book reviews

Cao Jinqing, China Along the : Reflections on Rural Society New York, RoutledgeCurzon, 2005, 254 p. Claude Aubert

Shi Li and Hiroshi Sato, Jingji zhuanxing de daijia (Unemployment, Inequality, and Poverty in Urban China) , China Financial Economics Publishing House, 2004, 4+413 p. Ying Chu Ng

Mary Elizabeth Gallagher, Contagious Capitalism. Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005, 256 p. Jean-Louis Rocca

China Perspectives, 66 | July- August 2006 2

Hodong Kim, Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese , 1864-1877 Stanford, California University Press, 2004, 295 p. Alexandre Papas

Fung Chi Ming, Reluctant Heroes. Rickshaw Pullers in and Canton, 1874-1954 Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 2005, 220 p. Xavier Paulès

Hervé Barbier, Les Canonnières françaises du Yang-tsé : de à (1900-1921) Paris, Les Indes Savantes, 2004, 286 p. Alain Roux

China Perspectives, 66 | July- August 2006 3

Society

China Perspectives, 66 | July- August 2006 4

The Diaolou of Kaiping (1842-1937) Buildings for dangerous times

Patricia R.S. Batto

EDITOR'S NOTE

Translated from the French original by Jonathan Hall I would particularly like to thank Annie Au-Yeung for her valuable help in preparing this article.

1 To the west of the Delta, in villages nestling amid green bamboo and banana groves and surrounded by a patchwork of rice paddies, stand a number of incongruous dark towers bristling with battlements, fearsome fortresses full of arrow slits, and even the occasional elegant turret above an ornate mansion. All these buildings, in the middle of the Chinese countryside, look like faint reflections of a distant West. How did they end up on the banks of the Kaiping rice paddies?

2 Kaiping is situated in south-western and, according to official figures, has 1,833 of these buildings or diaolou1, most of which were built in the early twentieth century. But the local authorities have only listed those in a good state of repair, hoping to get some of them included among the Unesco world heritage sites2. Though long neglected, they are now a major asset in promoting tourism and a factor in the competition between Chinese cities to attract visitors. Their value is enhanced by the fact that the visitors being targeted are (Huaqiao) who have been the objects of solicitation by Beijing since China’s opening in 1979.

3 Kaiping, along with the other neighbouring xian (sub-prefectures or districts), Taishan, Xinhui and Enping3, was one of the centres of in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to south-east Asia and North America (the United States and Canada). The xian was set up in 1649, under the , with Cangcheng as its district capital. In 1952, the government of the xian was installed in the township of Sanbu, and in 1993 Kaiping became a municipality (shi). There were 680,000 inhabitants in Kaiping in 2003 for an area of 1,659 square kilometres, of whom 240,000 belonged to

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the itself (the township of Sanbu), and the others among the remaining 17 townships and 2,800 villages and hamlets4.

4 In this article I will be concerned with the peculiarities of the diaolou architecture, in terms of both the materials and the techniques used in their construction. To my knowledge, there is no work in any Western language specific to the diaolou, even though these strange buildings are mentioned in passing by some works on the region5. Publications in Chinese are all recent, and fairly scarce6, so many questions about the diaolou remain unanswered. In order to explain the purpose of these buildings, I have made a selection from among the fifty or so accounts published in a collection by the Kaiping municipality in 20017. I have made the selection on the basis of their representative character of the political and socio-economic conditions in the region before 1937, thus helping us to understand why the diaolou were built and flourished within this geographically limited area in the early years of the twentieth century. I have also relied on local monographs, including the most recent published in 2002 and one previous compiled in 1932, before the Communist Party came to power8. Gaps in my information were filled through interviews with local officials during my stays in Kaiping in 2005 and 2006, when I visited many villages, particularly those containing the diaolou mentioned in my selected accounts. The geographical situation 5 Western Guangdong consists of broken terrain, and Kaiping is surrounded by hills to the north, west and south9. However, at a time when most transport and communications were by river, Kaiping was better endowed than certain neighbouring xian, since its land was traversed by the Tan River linking Kaiping to the town of , and to the whole of the beyond. Only a third of its land is arable10, and most of that stretches along the Tan River and its tributaries. From the late eighteenth century onwards, demographic pressure increased enormously, and despite a twice-yearly rice harvest the land could no longer sustain the whole population11.

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The Distribution of Dialou in Kaiping Municipality

The lineage system 6 On the eve of the agrarian reforms following the Communist victory in 1949, 42.6% of the cultivated land in Kaiping was communally owned12. At that time, the social system depended on lineal descent13. Based on the principle of male descent, the clan lineages included people of very different social standing—rich and poor, weak and powerful— all claiming descent from a common ancestor, to whom homage was regularly paid. In Kaiping, the lineages were locally based, linking the principle of common descent to that of a shared locality. The members of the same lineage lived in the same geographic area, which allowed both the collective celebration of ancestral cults and the establishment of social and economic ties. Most of the villages and hamlets in Kaiping are based around a single lineage, and their male inhabitants all have the same surname14. The social and economic importance of the lineages is backed by their ownership of property, particularly the lands held in the name of the ancestral temples.

7 The lineage structure also compensates for the weakness of the local administration. In general, the villagers have little direct contact with the state, and consider its representatives as predators, since their main role consists in levying taxes and organising conscriptions. The military garrisons in the xian are there to check any anti- government revolts, rather than to protect the life and property of individuals. The historical context 8 The inhabitants of Kaiping built the diaolou in their villages during a time of chaos. Just like the medieval castles in and other such fortresses, they had a defensive purpose. In 1842, following the first Opium War the Treaty of Nanking ended ’s monopoly on trade between China and the West, opened up five ports including Shanghai, and ceded Hong Kong to the British. From 1851 to 1864 the Taiping

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rebellion set southern China ablaze, leading to the deaths of 30-40 million people. Guangdong province was ravaged from 1854 to 1856, firstly by the revolt of the Red Turbans who besieged Guangzhou at the end of July 1854, and then by the subsequent repression15. Following that, war broke out between the Punti and the Hakka peoples from 1856 to 1867, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths16. The Chinese Republic took over from the Empire in 1911, but the general situation remained precarious; between 1916 and 1926 the country was torn apart by the struggles between the warlords.

9 In the years between the end of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, the Kaiping region was very unstable17. According to written local monograph accounts, between 1912 and 1930 there were reports of more than a hundred murders, over a thousand abductions, and 71 major robberies, in addition to the countless thefts of buffalo and other goods. Cangcheng, the capital of the xian surrounded by ramparts was taken by assault on three separate occasions by bandits, who kidnapped the sub-prefect during one of their attacks. In addition, between 1912 and 1926, eight schools were attacked, leading to the abduction of over a hundred pupils and teachers. The origin of the diaolou and their various types

10 The building of the diaolou started very early in Kaiping. The 1932 monograph from the xian mentions the Fengfulou (“Respectful gift to my father”) erected at the beginning of the Qing dynasty18. It relates that during the Kangxi era (1662-1723), Xu Longsuo, a native of the village of Longtian, near the township of Yueshan, distinguished himself by his aptitude for study at the school in the local capital, Cangcheng. He took the official examinations but was not successful, so he became a merchant. His father chose the daughter of one of his friends to be his son’s wife, and she gave birth to a son. On reaching the age of fifty, Xu Longsuo retired from his now flourishing business which he handed over to his son. One evening, his wife did not come home. They learned that she had been abducted upon receiving a ransom demand from her abductors. Her son sold their land and their most precious possessions, and sought the aid of their relatives and friends to raise the money. He was preparing to hand the money over when a young boy arrived, bearing a message from the abducted mother. “It is useless to ransom me”, said the message in effect, “I have decided to resist at the cost of my life. The money you have gathered should be used on a building to provide security for your father”. The young messenger’s mother had also been abducted, and was locked up with Xu Longsuo’s wife. The latter, knowing that her companion was about to be released upon payment of the ransom, had entrusted her with sending the message. Then she killed herself by jumping off a cliff. In accordance with the final wish of his mother, her son had a four-storey granite building made, and named it “Respectful gift to my father”.

11 Of course, this tale of the deeds of both a virtuous wife and a son imbued with filial piety, is too exemplary in the Confucian spirit to be taken literally. Still, its inclusion by officials among the local monograph shows that banditry, abductions, local government laxity over public safety and the consequent measures for self-defence by the population, all go back to long before the Opium War.

12 Nowadays, the oldest extant diaolou in Kaiping is the Yinglonglou19 in the village of Sanmen (Chikan township). It was built by the Guan lineage during the Jiajing era of the Ming dynasty (1522-1566). It is a massive extended fortress in marked contrast with the diaolou constructions of a later date, which are mostly high towers. The Yinglonglou is a

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rectangular building made of large red bricks, with a turret on each corner. Its walls are 93 centimetres thick, covering an area of 152 square metres, and its beams and floors are of wood. It was renovated in 1919, and during this final stage, it was rebuilt with grey bricks (qingzhuan) and stood at 11.4 metres in height, including a ground floor and two upper storeys. The roofs were completely rebuilt, and the original wooden doors and shutters were replaced with iron ones.

13 The materials used for the construction of the diaolou play a determining role in their architectural design. Several types can be found20, depending on whether they are made of stones, rammed earth, grey brick, or cement and steel. The use of stones and rammed earth is characteristic of the oldest type, even though these materials might well be used later, mainly for reasons of economy. The use of reinforced concrete comes at a later date, since it requires cement and steel, which are imported and therefore expensive materials.

14 The stone diaolou. These buildings are generally straightforward towers consisting of one or two storeys. The walls are about thirty centimetres thick. About ten of them are still extant in the hills north-west of Kaiping, near the Dasha township.

15 The rammed earth diaolou (nilou). This category includes buildings made of crude bricks (adobe) as well as those actually made of pounded clay or rammed earth. In building the former, sun-dried pounded earth bricks were used. The walls were often coated on the outside with a layer of chalk mixed with sand or a layer of cement, for waterproofing and weather resistance. In the latter case, the basic material was earth mixed according to a formula with fine sand, chalk, and unrefined sugar or glutinous rice, which were pounded between two large wooden planks. This kind of construction took a lot of time to complete. To make it more viscous, the earth was soaked for a long time, sometimes for up to a year, during which it had to be stirred constantly to prevent it hardening. The other ingredients were only added when it was about to be used. Walls of rammed earth measuring thirty to forty centimetres thick have a strength comparable to reinforced concrete. These diaolou usually have three storeys, but they may have up to five if they are built using solid materials, such as steel girders. There are about a hundred extant examples, mostly near the townships of Chishui and Longsheng.

16 The grey brick diaolou (qingzhuan lou). Grey bricks were commonly used at the end of the Qing dynasty, and had great aesthetic appeal21. The walls of the diaolou built in brick were forty to fifty centimetres thick because brick is not as strong as rammed earth but is well suited to the humid climate of the region. Some diaolou are built entirely of grey brick, while others have grey brick on the outside and rammed earth on the inside22.

17 Like the diaolou built of stones or rammed earth, the grey brick ones generally have two or three storeys, but their design is less simple. They have towers, or “swallow’s nests” (yanzi wo) jutting out sideways on their roof, and they are more ornate. Out of the 1,833 diaolou in the municipal inventory, 249 are made of grey brick. They are very numerous in the Yueshan region, north-west of Kaiping. The beams, floors, and staircases of all the above three types were usually of wood, so nearly all have suffered damage, and often only the empty walls remain23.

18 The reinforced concrete diaolou (gangjin shuini lou). These are the most widespread, the most ornate, and the best preserved. Out of the 1,833 recorded by the municipality, 1,474 (80%) are made of concrete. They were built in the closing years of the Empire and under the Nationalist regime before the Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945), with a

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major wave of building from 1920 to 1930. The construction materials were Portland Cement24, sand, gravel25, and steel. The walls are only forty centimetres thick but, owing to the materials used and the progress in building techniques, these diaolou are taller than the preceding three kinds, often having four or five storeys. The tallest of them, the Ruishilou has nine storeys. As in the case of the other types, the doors, window bars, and shutters are made of iron. However, the beams, floors and staircases are no longer made of wood, but of steel and concrete26.

19 The reinforced concrete diaolou have a more complex layout. Their windows allow increased air and light, being more numerous and larger than those of the preceding type, some of which have only arrow slits as openings. Also, the window embrasures and lintels are highly decorated. The biggest change is in the upper sections of these buildings, which are overhanging and more ornate. This is a development which provides for better defence while also improving the aesthetic appearance. At the top of the building, the turrets known as “swallow’s nests” overlooking its sides, or the covered galleries running all the way round, usually have openings in the floor. These allow the defenders to be right above any potential assailants, while remaining protected from them. The material used was a determining factor in this new architectural form. Reinforced concrete allows for the construction of unsupported extensions, cupola roofs, domes, and other rounded shapes.

20 The steel and cement, imported from the outset along with the technology for building in concrete, were brought back from abroad by the emigrants from Kaiping. Overseas emigration also changed local people’s aesthetic tastes, giving rise to a peculiar combination of Chinese and Western architectural features, such as the typical domes, Greek columns, and decorative elements like acanthus leaves. Most extant examples are made of reinforced concrete, and they date back to the end of the Empire and the early days of the Republic, because before the inhabitants of Kaiping emigrated, only a handful of rich people could build what they wanted27. It was overseas emigration, coinciding historically with the invention of reinforced concrete, which made the building of the diaolou possible. Emigration as a determining factor 21 Kaiping is one of Guangdong province’s qiaoxiang, a place of overseas emigration, in which the money remitted from abroad is a major economic resource28. According to the statistics for 1957, the Huaqiao who had returned to the country after working abroad together with their dependents amounted to over 10% of the population of Kaiping29.

22 From the end of the eighteenth century, the inhabitants of Kaiping began to migrate to other parts of China, driven by demographic pressures. By the late nineteenth century they were emigrating overseas, mainly to Southeast Asia, North America (the United States and Canada), and Australia30. The first waves of emigration to North America were spread out between 1849 and 1880. At first the emigrants took part in the California Gold Rush, and were called jinshanke (kam-shaan hak in , i.e. “guests of the gold mountain”)31. Later they took part in building the railways of North America, in the USA from 1860 to 1880, and in Canada from 1880 to 1884. At the same time, the Western powers were beginning to exploit the plantations and mines of Southeast Asia, for which they recruited mainly Chinese labourers32. According to the local monographs33, the first emigrants from Kaiping included people fleeing the Red

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Turban revolt (1854-1856), followed by Red Turbans fleeing from the subsequent repression.

23 In July 1854, some members of the Kaiping secret societies (Tiandihui or Triads), aided by 1,000 men from the secret societies of Heshan, seized Cangcheng, the capital of the xian. The sub-prefect and his adjutants committed suicide, and their families were hanged. The Red Turbans opened the town granaries and distributed the grain. When the authorities managed to regain control, 400 people were executed, mostly by drowning in baskets thrown into the Tan River.

24 To put an end to the Red Turbans, the local elite had raised armed militias. But when the revolt was repressed, traditional hostilities between the Punti and the Hakka flared up again, with increased force since both camps were now fully armed. There began a murderous ten-year conflict, which the Punti finally won. The Hakka were obliged to flee from their land, which passed into the hands of the Punti, and it remained part of the communally owned land up to 1949. The conflict between the Punti and the Hakka also added to overseas emigration. In addition to those who emigrated voluntarily were those captured by the opposing camp, to be sold as coolies, just like some of the people abducted by bandits.

25 But most of those emigrating from Kaiping did so for economic reasons. Emigration was not uniformly spread throughout the territory of the xian. It mostly affected those lineages settled in the densely populated areas, like the middle and lower reaches of the Tan River, particularly the Zhang, the Xie, the Zhou, the Fang, the Guan, and the . The emigrants often came from the same village—since emigration operated through family contacts—and therefore had the same surname34. Once they were abroad, those that were not recruited for the railways, mines or plantations either worked in laundries or restaurants or else opened small shops or stalls. Mostly, their ambition was to return to their village after making their fortune, get married and have sons, buy some land and build a house on it, and then set up a shop in a neighbouring township. As many countries were quick to enact discriminatory anti- Chinese legislation, forbidding the arrival of fresh immigrants—preventing families from re-uniting—and denying citizenship to those already there, many emigrants opted to return home rather than remain in such a hostile environment35. When they returned home, they often enjoyed a high degree of social prestige.

26 When they first set out, the vast majority of the emigrants were young men under twenty years old. At that time, marriages in China were arranged by the parents who usually found them a wife back home. Sometimes the future husband was consulted, but he only attended the marriage ceremony if he had the means to return36. The emigrants’ wives took care of their parents-in-law, in accordance with tradition, but they also had to do agricultural tasks, including the most burdensome, since the men were absent. They lived like widows, leading a solitary existence. Their husbands only came back every eight, ten or even fifteen years. The infrequent births marking these occasional returns led to a situation where brothers belonged to different generations. Another consequence was the frequent practice of adopting boys37. Both situations led to quarrels, particularly in the sharing of inheritances38. Wealth and luck 27 Estimates of the proportion of the minority of emigrants who did grow rich vary widely, from 5% to 20%39. In the early twentieth century, among these families it was considered proper to display a degree of Westernisation40. Western-style clothes were

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worn (not locally woven ones) as were leather shoes (not cloth ones). Meals were served with knives and forks (not chopsticks). Marriages were celebrated with great pomp; daughters were richly endowed, and the bride price for daughters-in-law was high. Certain Anglicisms entered the local dialect: gei (ji in Mandarin) was “cake”, suoli (shuli in Mandarin) was “sorry”, feixi (feishi in Mandarin) was “face”, etc. Returning emigrants smoked imported cigarettes, took to opium, and frequented gambling and pleasure houses. The richest built Western-style villas (yanglou) were in the new villages, which were often situated alongside their former family village.

28 The diaolou in Kaiping are not uniformly distributed (See map). They are concentrated around the townships of Tangkou, Baihe, Chikan, Xiangang and . They are most numerous around the centres of emigration, since the financial support of the emigrants was essential to their existence. In the early twentieth century, Chikan, Changsha, and Shuikou were the principal market towns of the xian, controlled by Cangcheng. According to the 1932 monograph, the township of Chikan, divided between two lineages, the Guan and the Situ, was the most prosperous41. The mail and remittances sent from abroad by the emigrants arrived in townships where there were institutions like post offices and banks. The remittances were generally addressed to shops, whose owners were known to the banks and able to handle the orders. These traders then forwarded the money and the letters to their recipients, charging a small fee. Since the villagers often only came to the towns on market days, the town’s traders served as a link between the villages—particularly those belonging to their own lineage —and the outer world.

29 The emigrants were regularly asked for economic support for their village or their lineage’s activities. Money from emigrants anxious to ensure the security of their families left back home, was used to build the diaolou. Some of these were built by a single family, providing its members with living quarters (julou). Buildings of this sort were equipped with amenities such as a kitchen and toilets. Others were built by several families, or by all the families of a village who contributed to it (zhonglou). In this type, each family would normally be given a small room, to store their most precious belongings and to use as a refuge in case of danger42. Finally, some diaolou were built on the joint initiative of several neighbouring villages, which usually belonged to the same lineage. These served as watchtowers (genglou) and were mostly situated outside the villages, on top of a small promontory or in some other strategic location. One quarter of the 1,833 diaolou on the municipal register are buildings which were constructed by a village community, and if the watch towers are added, the number of communal buildings rises to over a third. The diaolou displayed the riches of a village, and its degree of social cohesion in the case of communally owned ones; they gave the village some prestige. By this means, villages and lineages showed their power, hoping to avoid confrontation or provocative challenges from neighbours within the overall situation of fierce rivalry over scarce resources.

30 When the money required for building a diaolou was gathered, a feast day was chosen for laying the foundations, which consisted of enormous wooden stakes driven into the ground with huge hammers43. Next, a large bamboo shelter was raised over the wooden stakes, to cover the whole area of the future building and to protect it against the weather. The construction was entrusted to teams of twenty or thirty people, under the direction of master masons (nishuijiang) who were usually native to the region. Most of the time, there was no architect, in the proper sense. Sometimes the diaolou were built

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according to plans drawn up by the landowner or inspired by images, such as postcards, brought back from abroad; on other occasions, the overseers (nishuijiang) just followed the instructions they were given. Naming the diaolou 31 A very important element of these buildings was their name, written in calligraphy high up on the main façade when it was completed44. As in the case of the inscriptions on the ancestral temples, whenever possible a well known calligrapher was approached in order to confirm its prestige. The Ruishilou, which was the highest diaolou in Kaiping, situated in the village of Jinjiangli near the township of Xiangang, was built by Bixiu, a rich merchant who, together with his two sons, owned a medicine shop and a bank (qianzhuang) in Hong Kong. He wished to provide protection for his parents and wife in the village, and spent HK$30,000 on building it, in a process which took three years, from 1921 to 1923. The plans were drawn up by one of his nephews. The calligraphy proclaiming its name on the sixth storey was a present from the abbot of the Six Banyans Temple in Guangzhou, who was a celebrated calligrapher and friend of Huang Bixiu45. Diaolou which were built by individuals, usually bore the first name or honorific title (hao) of the owner. For example, Huang Bixiu’s hao was Ruishi. The completion of the Ruishilou coincided with the 80th anniversaries of Huang’s mother and father, so he celebrated this auspicious event with a five-day banquet. The entire neighbourhood was invited and even people just passing through were invited to take part. These festivities cost him about HK$10,000.

32 In order to reinforce the riches and power of the village or lineage, the communally built diaolou were often named after the village, location, or lineage chief. Otherwise they might be given a title reflecting the qualities attributed to the building (for example: ju’anlou, or tranquil dwelling). By tradition, once a diaolou was completed, its name was either sculpted out of lime, or moulded out of lime and then attached. Alongside the characters there were usually a number of motifs to bring good luck. There are very few diaolou without a name. But there is one to be found in the village of Xihe, near the township of Baihe, which is the subject of the following story46. In the 1920s and 1930s, many of the inhabitants of Baihe left to find work in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Cuba. One young man, Fang , set out for the United States together with some relatives before he was twenty. He worked in laundries and restaurants, sending money back regularly to support his parents and pay for the education of his two younger brothers. In 1931, he reached the age of 20, which meant that he must become established and get married. His parents searched for a wife for him in his home region. They found a ravishing young girl called Meiyu and sent him her photograph. On seeing her picture, Fang Fuxin was very happy and agreed to take her as his wife. But he was unable to return for the marriage ceremony in person, because travelling was expensive and inconvenient. He sent some money to enable his relatives and friends to gather for a banquet and celebrate the happy occasion. So Meiyu became Fuxin’s wife and moved in with her husband’s family.

33 Fang Fuxin’s family lived in a house consisting only of a shared living room with its ancestral altar, and two bedrooms. The first was occupied by his parents, and the second by the three brothers. After her marriage, Fuxin’s wife took over this second bedroom, and the two younger brothers moved into a space in the living room separated off by a wooden partition. But as the two brothers grew older, matchmakers appeared proposing some marriageable young women as wives. The problem of living

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space became urgent. So Fang Fuxin then sent all his savings, asking his father to build a house with them. Diaolou were fashionable in Kaiping, and someone had already built one at the back of the village. Fang Xiuwen, Fuxin’s father, chose a site behind the village, and in six months a diaolou of two and a half storeys was completed. According to custom, the father asked the master masons to inscribe its name on the façade. He decided to call it Xiuwenlou, using his own name.

34 Meiyu was happy to see it finished, but was far from happy to see it named after her father-in-law. She believed that, as it was her husband’s money which had enabled it to be built, it ought to be called Fuxinlou after her husband. She was afraid that using her father-in-law’s name might mean that he had built it, so the diaolou would belong to the whole family. Also, her two brothers-in-law could move in, and they might even start a dispute with her to claim ownership. She complained to her father-in-law, but the discussion turned into a quarrel. From Fang Xiuwen’s point of view, the money for the building was sent by a son whom he had raised, so it was normal for him to put his own name on it. Since it gave him prestige and was a matter of face, he refused to change its name. His wife, Fuxin’s two brothers, and the village elders all took his side. But Meiyu did not give up so easily. The next day she went up inside the diaolou and threw down the three characters of its name. When this was reported to her father-in-law, he wanted to restore his loss of face and got the master masons to return to put the three characters back. But Meiyu refused to let them in, thus making her father-in-law’s loss of face complete. The quarrel grew more poisonous, and no-one managed to dissuade Meiyu. Finally she moved into the diaolou alone.

35 Both camps appealed to Fang Fuxin, over in the United States. In the end he raised enough money to construct a grey-brick residence, while Meiyu continued to live alone in the diaolou. Finally, thanks to the mediation of relatives and other people in the village, the two sides seem to have become reconciled. But to this day the building is known as the “diaolou without characters” (Wuzilou). The importance of Hong Kong 36 The money from the emigrants—including those from Kaiping—was remitted via Hong Kong, the place through which both men and merchandise passed as they moved between China and the rest of the world47. The case of Guan Huade gives a concrete example of how this took place. He had left Kaiping for Canada under the Qing dynasty, and at the age of 38 he returned to get married. Two years later, he left again for Canada, where he opened a small shop which sold medicines and other merchandise. In 1924, now aged 58, he returned to Kaiping and opened a medicine shop in the township of Chikan, where he handled letters and money orders from emigrants abroad. He was also the owner of a lodging house in Hong Kong, managed by one of his sons. It received departing emigrants, and overseas Chinese from Canada and the United States returning to visit their families in China. Guan lineage members living overseas often entrusted money orders, and even currency, to people returning to China, requesting them to deposit them at the lodging house. From Hong Kong, this mail and money was transferred to the medicine shop in Chikan by a nephew of Guan Haide as he shuttled between the two places. He was one of the many marine couriers (xunyangma, or shuike)48 of the time. Many of the finest buildings in Kaiping—for example the villas and the diaolou in Xiacun near Chikan, the Ruishilou near Xiangang, and the Rishenglou in Chishui—were constructed by local bankers, which goes to show—should anyone doubt

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it—that even then financial dealing offered a more reliable road to riches than working as a coolie.

37 One of the sources of Western aesthetic influence on the diaolou appears to have been the colonial buildings in Hong Kong, through which the emigrants had to pass on their outward and inward journeys, and more generally, those of the as a whole, from Scottish mansions to Mogul . Other elements were picked up by the emigrants in the various countries where they worked. There were probably some sorts of catalogue, particularly for decorative features, because certain motifs recur from one diaolou to another, such as window frame adornments. But until now, no design plan or catalogue has been discovered. All such publications seem to have been destroyed during the (1966-1976)49. A certain Western flavour would have been spread by them, some of which moreover were certainly sent back from abroad by the emigrants. During the Cultural Revolution, which marked a high point in the rejection of the West, members of emigrant families were often labelled “spies”, “traitors”, and “counter-revolutionaries”. But relations between the emigrants’ families and the Communist authorities had worsened well before then, for they were already bad in the aftermath of the Agrarian Reform of the early 1950s. So it is quite conceivable that only a handful not destroyed earlier actually remained to be destroyed under the Cultural Revolution50. The reform policies and the opening up in 1979 mark a turning point. From then on, the authorities took a benevolent approach towards emigrants and their families, even going so far as to court their favour. Building for defence against a sea of troubles 38 Paradoxically, the money from the emigrants used to organise the defence of the villages, also attracted bandits. According to a local saying, “walking behind every emigrant, there are three bandits”51. The acts of banditry aimed at emigrants thought to be rich were looting and kidnapping. Ironically, if a family did not settle the ransom demand, the bandits could always sell their hostages to recruiting agents for labour overseas. The hostage-taking from the college in Chikan 39 In December 1922, over two hundred bandits from Tutang, near Magang, attacked the Chikan secondary school52. Some of them seem to have entered the town unnoticed in the morning and spent the day gorging themselves. At night, they slipped into the school dormitory and kidnapped twenty-three pupils as well as the headmaster, after which they set out for their hideout with their hostages. They were hoping for substantial ransoms, since the school’s teachers and pupils were believed to be from rich families53. The trail link between Chikan and Tutan passes close to Yingcun, a village from which several inhabitants had emigrated to the United States. The latter had paid for a diaolou, the Hongyilou, to protect their families. At nightfall, men and women, old and young alike, used to take refuge there to sleep, only returning to their houses at dawn. The emigrants from Yingcun had also provided their diaolou with some useful equipment brought back from the United States, namely an electric generator, a searchlight, alarms, guns and ammunition. Every night men would keep watch from the top of the building, because bandits preferred to attack at night. The absence of electricity and street lighting meant that the villages were immersed in darkness.

40 That night in December 1922 there was a storm. Suddenly, the men on watch on the Hongyilou saw faint outlines moving furtively in the night. They turned on the searchlight and set off the alarm. The wailing of the alarm bellowing out over the night,

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and the searchlight beam sweeping the countryside before locating its object, took the bandits completely by surprise. They panicked, while from the top of the diaolou, the sentries opened fire. They managed to make out the difference between the hostages and their captors because, to protect themselves from the rain, the bandits were wearing waterproof capes made of palm leaves (suoyi) and broad bamboo hats (limao)54. Several bandits were wounded, while others took to their heels. The hostages took advantage of the situation to flee as well. The men from the diaolou and the village militia who had been alerted, took off in pursuit of the bandits. They captured 12 of them, including a leader, and saved 17 pupils and the headmaster. The whole affair attracted great attention, and led to the building of many diaolou, including diaolou schools with classrooms and dormitories to protect teachers and pupils55.

41 At first, the villagers only had crude weapons in their diaolou for defence against possible assailants. These included large stones and other projectiles, quicklime, and water with caustic soda which, when the enemy were in range, they squirted through hoses, aiming for their eyes. To frighten off the bandits, they sometimes used firecrackers, but in some places they had guns, and even home-made cannon which they stuffed with gunpowder and bits and pieces like damaged ploughshares. Gradually, thanks to the emigrants, the weaponry became more sophisticated, and some villages had a veritable arsenal of artillery. Traditionally, at the approach of danger, the alarm was raised in the villages with bells and gongs, but these were now replaced with imported sirens. In addition, searchlights connected to a generator gave the villagers a certain advantage, since they could clearly see their attackers while the latter were blinded. Finally, every village traditionally had a team of paid night watchmen (gengfu), to guard the crops in addition to wider duties like preventing theft, maintaining order and guarding against bandits. Now, thanks to the money from the emigrants, some villages and lineages maintained self-defence organisations that were virtually militia units, sometimes even trained or led by martial arts experts or army officers.

42 But although the implementation of all these measures may have protected this or that village, it did not put an end to the banditry which infested the area. The inhabitants of Kaiping divided the bandits into three different sorts. Firstly, there were the water- borne pirates (). The main effect of the presence of the British navy in Chinese coastal waters after the First Opium War had been to push the pirates back up the rivers towards the interior, while the rivers themselves were the scene for smuggling opium and salt. Secondly, there were the open-country bandits ( , tukou) who either sheltered in the forests and hills or lived in villages. The latter were peasants by day and bandits by night. Thirdly, there were mobile gangs from neighbouring xian who made raids into Kaiping (liukou).

43 The bandits hiding in the hills were demobbed soldiers, former coolies, peddlers, itinerant artisans, unemployed boatmen, banished villagers, and poor peasants, in short anyone who had not managed to find another means of subsistence. These town and country outcasts were also typical members of the secret societies. While bandit gangs often included demobbed soldiers in their midst, conversely it was also common to find former bandits serving in the army or working as mercenaries. In actual fact, the dividing line between soldier and bandit was extremely permeable. With a slight shift in established power relations, an armed band could become either a legal militia or an illegal one, that is to say, a gang of bandits.

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44 Good examples of this are the cases of Wu Shen and Hu Nan, two famous bandit chiefs from Kaiping. According to local recorded accounts, both were originally leaders of the minjun (people’s army units) at the time of the Empire. These peasant militias operating without a unified command were at the forefront of anti-Qing activities under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen’s partisans56. When the uprising on October 10th 1911 in Wuchang () was successful, these minjun came out into the open. A month after the Wuchang uprising, Wu Shen attacked the capital of Kaiping, Cangcheng, causing the sub-prefect to flee to Hong Kong. So it was Wu Shen who caused the Empire to fall in Kaiping. Following this, the provincial authorities gave him charge of the military affairs of the xian. But shortly afterwards, the authorities considered that the mission of the minjun to overthrow the Qing empire was accomplished, and ordered them to be dissolved. Another militia force was set up (mintuan, or “people’s regiment”), one of whose tasks was to dismantle the minjun and arrest their leaders. Any minjun unit which resisted became thereby a bandit gang. A few years later, at the time of the Warlords, when the army occupied Kaiping, it recruited the leading bandits of the xian, including Hu Nan, to maintain order, which immediately improved the security situation. But in 1920, the Guangxi army was pushed back by the Guangdong army under the command of Chen Jiongming57. Hu Nan, and others like him who had been co-opted by the Guangxi forces, resumed their former activities, and again began attacking villages, stealing, and kidnapping. The security situation worsened again. Hu Nan fell back to Tutang, and it was he and his men who, among others, were responsible for the attack on the secondary school in Chikan in 1922. The case of the burnt village 45 The new villages inhabited by the families of emigrants were among the favourite targets for the bandits, who attacked at night. Sometimes, in order to mark the selected house, an accomplice would leave a lighted joss stick in the incense burner which is attached to the front doors of houses. The reddish glow would guide the attackers in the dark, while the inhabitants, woken by their dogs and hunkered down in their houses, would listen in impotent terror to the looters coming and going through the village alley ways. In June 1928, according to the local monograph dated 1932, there was a bandit attack on the village of Qilongma. They kidnapped 20 people belonging to the Fang lineage, killed over ten people, and set fire to 23 houses58. There follows a detailed account of the punitive expedition against the bandit hideout. Money was gathered, and a delegation was sent from Kaiping to the town of Jiangmen to ask the Kuomintang to send troops against the bandits. Five companies of soldiers were dispatched. The expedition ended with the death of over eighty bandits, and five of their hostages, a further ten being freed. The Nationalist army recovered two horses, over fifty rifles, and two machine guns, but five soldiers were killed and 32 wounded. This account, written in 1932, is obviously not very critical of the Kuomintang.

46 The version put out under the Communist regime is somewhat different59. The village of Qilongma was inhabited mostly by emigrants’ families belong to the Fang and the Guan lineages. The Fang were in the majority; out of 28 houses and three diaolou, only four houses and one diaolou belonged to the Guan. But originally, Qilongma was part of the Guan lineage’s territory. In 1927, some Fang lineage members from the village of Shangtang who had returned after emigrating, together with some of their relatives, organised a committee to build a new village. To do so, they bought some land from the Wu and from the Guan living near the aforementioned Qilongma. The landowner, Guan

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Heqin received a pay-off of over sixty thousand yuan for this transaction, on the basis that he would guarantee the safety of the Fang during the construction process. Another important member of the Guan lineage, Guan Jiyun nicknamed “king of the xiang” came to hear about it. He had been excluded from the deal and had earned nothing from it, which put him on bad terms with the Fang in Qilongma.

47 Now, in the village of Qilongma, there were two Guan lineage members. One, called Guan Chaoxiang, had returned from the United States, and the other, Guan Ronggeng, had relatives abroad, and both were also on bad terms with the Fang. Guan Jiyun, the “king of the xiang”, took advantage of this situation. He called upon his followers to burn down a small building belonging to them, making sure that they would think that the arsonists were the Fang. The hostility of the Guan began to worry the Fang. Some of them living in Qilongma returned temporarily to their old village, and the others hid during the day so as to avoid the Guan, taking refuge at night in their diaolou. In an attempt to calm the rising tension, four different lineages—the Fang, the Zhou, the Li, and the Xie from the outskirts of Tangkou—sent representatives to see Guan Jiyun. The Fang were prepared to pay him several thousand ounces of silver60. But he considered the sum too small and refused it. Not only that, he did a deal with bandits to seize the goods belonging to the Fang in Qilongma.

48 During this attack on the village, one of the Fang barricaded himself in his house with his mother and pregnant wife, and resisted with his rifle in his hand. The bandits locked the door with a bolt on the outside and set fire to the house. The three inside were burned alive. After sacking the village, the bandits burned another two diaolou and 22 houses belonging to the Fang. They also captured another 21 people, held them at their hideout and demand ransoms.

49 The Fang lineage resolved to seek justice, and gathered some money together. The Nationalist authorities, “just for show” (yanren ermu) according to this account, sent five companies of soldiers against the bandit hideout. The bandits used their hostages as human shields, and five of the Fang were killed. At the same time an appeal for justice in the courts was launched. The Kuomintang dragged out the business for more than eight months and, according to the reckoning in this version, they profited by extorting over two million yuan from both parties—the Guan, and the Fang from Chikan and Tangkou. Finally, in February 1929, the verdict was pronounced. Guan Chaoxiang from Qilongma, after having spent on his defence more than sixty thousand dollars earned in the United States, was shot. But Guan Jiyun, the “king of the xiang”, was not even bothered by the judicial authorities.

50 Attacking emigrants’ villages was a routine affair for the Kaiping bandits. But in this particular case, they were acting as mercenaries in a vendetta (xiedou) between two rival lineages. Such conflicts, which are the outcome of long-standing rivalries between two villages or lineages, may be over material assets (usually water or land), but they can also be over “symbolic” matters, such as geomancy (fengshui) and its rules about the position of family graves in particular, because these are believed to guarantee future prosperity61. The Qilongma affair escalated so far that the authorities were called in. The self-interestedness behind their intervention was later denounced in the second of the above versions of the events, although this must be treated with caution since it is imbued with Communist anti-Kuomintang propaganda. The Qilongma affair also reveals the limits to the solidarity within the lineages themselves, for it is an example of how the xiedou were often unleashed by the rich and powerful for their own motives.

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In this instance, a leading lineage member had no hesitation in sacrificing lives, including that of a fellow lineage member, in pursuit of personal gain. The communal pestle affair 51 In the rivalries between villages and lineages, the diaolou served as a display of power and as a guard against attacks from neighbours. This is illustrated by the story of a diaolou built opposite the village of Shengliang (Sanbu township) to shelter a stone pestle. In this case, the conflict centred on an item of purely “symbolic value”. In the 1920s, at harvest time, the peasants would bring the rice sheaves back to the village to be dried. After the threshing, they used a bamboo grinder to remove the inedible husk from the grain62. Next, with the use of a pestle, they polished the rice by removing the outer covering to whiten it. If the grains were then soaked in water and pounded again with a pestle, they broke into pieces which, on being passed through increasingly fine sieves, yielded a flour which could be used to make cakes. Traditionally, these cakes were made and savoured at the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) and on other important feast days, when they were also presented as offerings to the ancestors. Usually, every family had a grinder and a pestle, and the same cakes were made for ceremonies when an aged member died. But there was a rule that on such occasions you could not pound the rice in your own home.

52 In 1928, a venerable old gentleman died on New Year’s Day. The family had to pound the rice to make the traditional cakes and, as they were not able to do it at home, they had to ask their neighbours to let them use their pestle. But on New Year’s Day, people were very reluctant to mix the auspicious with the inauspicious. The deceased’s family implored in vain. However much they begged, no-one was willing to lend their pestle. Finally, the family remembered that the neighbouring village of Tangbian had a pestle for common use by its inhabitants. They approached the village chieftain, who was very understanding and allowed them to use it. So they quickly took the soaked rice to the neighbouring village, pounded it, and were able to go ahead with the funeral rites.

53 This affair aroused much emotion among the elderly in Shengliang. They worried about what would happen if no-one was willing to lend their pestle when they died. Would they be condemned to the wandering existence of hungry ghosts? The elderly villagers called a meeting, whose outcome was the decision that their village should also acquire a communal pestle. They chose a site at the top of Taoniu Hill opposite the village, and waited for a feast day to build a crude bricks (adobe) shelter for the pestle. Some elderly people died and the pestle was used to make the requisite rice flour. Two years passed.

54 But then in a neighbouring village, a powerful man claimed that the stone pestle and its shelter were bringing him bad luck. He owed the prosperity of his businesses, which made him the richest man in the area, to the protection of his ancestors, and their tomb was built into the Taoniu hillside. The pestle and its shelter on the hilltop, he said, were weighing on the head of his ancestors, bringing him a lot of bad luck.

55 One day, he gathered some village youths together, shouting and raging that before the Shengliang people had set up their pestle and shelter, everyone’s life was free of troubles, but that since then their village had been seriously affected. He incited the young men to go and have it out with the inhabitants of Shengliang, to insist that they demolish the shelter, and pay damages. Several of the youths were fired up by his call, armed themselves with tools, and set off for Shengliang.

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56 A conflict between the two villages could have been sparked at any moment. But someone warned the local authorities, who quickly assembled a few men to intervene and attempt a reconciliation and prevent a full-scale xiedou. News of the affair quickly reached the higher authorities. They sent an official who engaged in a process of patient reconciliation and managed to calm flaring tempers. Finally, the authorities agreed to the inhabitants of Shengliang building a shelter, but they argued that the present one was crude and unsafe, and asked them to demolish it and build another.

57 In 1931, the villagers demolished the old crude bricks shelter. They asked for gifts in money or labour from all their relatives, especially from the emigrants, to build a new one. The first storey of the new shelter was rapidly built. But it was a time of disorder, and the contributions from abroad did not arrive, so building was delayed for two years. In 1933, the money was collected, and the initial plan was altered so that the shelter for the pestle became a three-storey diaolou. As a proof of their riches and social cohesion, the Shengliang villagers felt that it would discourage any future incursions from their neighbours, since the new shelter was without doubt more than capable of withstanding them if they should happen to think of trying again.

58 The villages and lineages of Kaiping took their defence into their own hands because the authorities were unable to safeguard people’s property and lives. The diaolou played an important role. They served as a defence not only against the bandits throughout the xian, but also against any outsider, who might be the inhabitant of a neighbouring village or a member of a nearby lineage. The diaolou were typical products of traditional Chinese society, at a time of general public insecurity. They allowed the power and prestige of a village or lineage to be asserted and publicly displayed, so as to forestall any external provocation or attack. Just like the xiedou, they were signs of the isolationism of the Kaiping villagers. With the coming of Communist China in 1949, the establishment of a strong central power and an overall administrative system which even reached down to village levels and dismantled the lineage structures, the diaolou no longer served any purpose and were mostly abandoned63. Nowadays, it is extremely rare to find any that are inhabited. Those which have not been completely deserted are used to raise chickens or as storage barns for keeping implements, fertiliser, straw etc.

59 The emigrants’ influence is visible in the buildings erected in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Kaiping, where the diaolou combine Chinese and Western features. Unlike the Western-style building in the foreign concessions in the large cities, the diaolou were built in the countryside, in villages and on the initiative of the peasants themselves. Contrary to normal expectations, thanks to emigration we can see a certain “cosmopolitanism” among the peasants in Kaiping, showing that it was not just the well-off educated classes in China who were open to Western influences. This is one way of thinking about the diaolou, and such views have gained credence since the open-door policy of 1979 and the consequent return to respectability of the overseas Chinese. After all, the diaolou are the epitome of overseas Chinese culture, embodied in stone.

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ENDNOTES

1. According to Ricci’s Dictionary, diao means a “house made of stone”, and diaolou is a military term which could be translated as a watchtower or fort with more than one storey (sheltering a small troop to guard a frontier). 2. According to interviews with Zhang Jianwen, a Kaiping official in charge of the municipal council office working to have the diaolou included on the Unesco list of world heritage sites. In early 2006, the council organised an exhibition in a hotel in the town and provided some figures to justify their bid. Before its inclusion on the list in 1997, the town of () had an income from tourism amounting to 180,000 yuan; in 1998, this rose to 5 million yuan, and in 2000, to 10 million yuan. Another example was provided by the village of (), which was included on the list in 2000: in 2001, the sale of entry tickets alone brought in 11 million yuan. For the importance given to tourism, and the issues involved, see also Katiana Le Mentec, “The Three Gorges Dam Project–Religious Practices and Heritage Conservation”, China Perspectives, No. 65, May-June 2006, pp. 2-13. 3. There are also some remaining diaolou in Taishan and Xinhui. The four xian, or (sze yap in Cantonese) of Kaiping, Taishan, Xinhui and belong to the same sub- culture. Sometimes a fifth xian, Heshan, is included. 4. Kaiping xianzhi, Beijing, Zhonghua shuju, 2002. 5. See, for example, Hua Linshan and Isabelle Thireau, Enquête sociologique sur la Chine, 1911-1949, Paris, PUF, 1996. This work deals with the xian of Taishan (adjoining Kaiping), as does Yuen-fong Woon’s The Excluded Wife, Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998. As the diaolou are part of the architecture of the qiaoxiang, photographs can be found in such works as Lynn Pan (ed.) The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas, Richmond, Curzon Press, 1999. 6. Zhang Guoxiong, Kaiping diaolou, Guangzhou, Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 2005, 101 p. Some are mainly photographic collections, like Lao fangzi: Kaiping diaolou yu minju, , meishu, chubanshe, 2002, or Zhang Jiangwen, Qian diao wangguo Kaiping (A Land of Diaolou-Kaiping City), Hong Kong, Hong Kong Yinhe Publishing House, 2002. 7. Kaiping qiaoxiang wenhua congshu bianweihui (ed.), Diaolou cangsang, Guangzhou, Huacheng chubanshe, 2001, 179 p. 8. Kaiping xianzhi, 2002, op. cit., Kaiping xianzhi 1932, Hong Kong, Minsheng yinshuju, 1933, 9 Vols., 45+2 juan. The local administration published official annals for the xian of Kaiping (Kaiping xianzhi) under the Empire in 1673, 1715 and 1823, under the Nationalists in 1932, and then under the PRC in 1958. 1909 also saw the publication of a Kaiping xiangtu zhi. 9. The highest point, Mount Tianlu, reaches 1,250 metres. 10. Kaiping xianzhi, 2002, p. 194. 11. It is thought that between the mid-seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, the population of China tripled (from around 120-140 million to some 420 million). 12. Kaiping xianzhi, 2002, op. cit., p. 321. 13. For the clan structure based on lineage, see Hua Linshan and Isabelle Thireau, op. cit., pp. 5-12. 14. The principal clans, which might include up to 30,000 people at the beginning of the twentieth century, were the Zhang, the Guan, the Situ, the Tan, and the Zhou.

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15. Frederic Wakeman Jr., “Les sociétés secrètes du Guangdong 1800-1856” in Jean Chesneaux (ed.), Mouvements populaires et sociétés secrètes en Chine aux XlXe et XXe siècles, Paris, François Maspéro, 1970, pp. 90-116. 16. The Hakka (kejia) came from northern China to Guangdong during the Southern Sung (1127-1280) and Yuan dynasties. The Punti (bendi, “locals”) also came from the north, reaching Guangdong before the Hakka. 17. Kaiping xianzhi, 1933, op.cit., juan 22 and juan 23. These data are also to be found in the 2002 edition of the monograph. 18. Kaiping xianzhi, 1933, op.cit., juan 44, p. 3. The Fengfulou appears to be the first diaolou mentioned in an official document. 19. At first it was called Yalonglou. Another diaolou was built by the Guan shortly before the Yalonglou in a village neighbouring Sanmen, and was destroyed in 1962: Diaolou cangsang, op. cit., pp. 157-159; Lao fangzi: Kaiping diaolou yu minju, op. cit., p. 8. 20. Kaiping xian wenwu zhi (Annals of the cultural heritage of the xian of Kaiping), Kaiping, Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 1989, 121-124. 21. Grey bricks are made in exactly the same way as red ones but, whereas the red ones are taken out of the kiln and left to cool slowly, grey bricks are doused with water in the kiln while still extremely hot: Lin Huicheng, Chuantong jianzhe shouce, , Yishujia chubanshe, 1989; Jiang Xiaoping, Zhongguo chuantong jianzhu yishu, Chongqing, Xinan shifan daxue chubanshe, 1989; Zhang Yuhuan, Zhongguo gu jianzhu baiwen, Beijing, Zhongguo dang’an chubanshe, 2000. 22. There are also diaolou built with two grey brick walls, an inner and an outer, with a layer of reinforced concrete between them. 23. The iron window sills and frames still exist, as do the bars on the windows and doors, except where the iron was melted down in the small rural furnaces during the Great Leap Forward. 24. Portland Cement was perfected in 1824 by a Briton, Joseph Aspdin. He patented his invention under the Portland trademark, which he considered good for advertising since, according to him, his material resembled a highly prized stone for building which came from the quarries on the Portland peninsula, or “Island”, in Dorset. 25. Sometimes instead of gravel, pounded beach pebbles (eluanshi) were used, in which case the diaolou were built of hunningtu. 26. Wood was nevertheless sometimes used to save money. 27. There can be no doubt that more of the diaolou built of stone or brick were demolished than those made of reinforced concrete, since their materials could be re- used, unlike reinforced concrete. 28. In the case of a qiaoxiang, the money from its emigrants represents at least a half of its resources, according to the definition provided by Lynn Pan (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas, Richmond, Curzon Press, 1999, p. 27. 29. Before the Second World War, between 8.5 and 9 million Chinese – largely from Guangdong and – are believed to have been living outside China, mostly in South-east Asia, ibid., pp. 27 and 58. 30. The same applies to the inhabitants of the neighbouring xian, Taishan, Xinhui, and Enping. About half of the Chinese who emigrated to the United States between 1911 and 1949 come from the siyi. 31. The Chinese for San Francisco is Jiujinshan, “Old Gold Mountain”. The California gold rush was followed by the one in Australia (1851), and Canada (Fraser Valley, 1858).

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32. The Convention of Peking, on October 18th 1860, ended the Second Opium War (1856-1860) between the Anglo-French forces and China. Among other provisions, it allowed British ships to transport Chinese labourers to the Americas, where they were to replace the freed African slaves. 33. Kaiping xianzhi, 2002, pp. 3-4. 34. There were three ways of emigrating. In the first, which was rare, the emigrant paid for his own passage. The second means was that of contract or indentured migration (qiyue huagong, known popularly in Guangdong as the “piglets trade”, mai zhuzai). It was through this system of indentured labour that coolies were recruited for the plantations of Southeast Asia or the Americas (Cuba, the British West Indies, Peru, etc.). The third way was through sponsoring: the emigrant’s passage money was loaned in advance by a sponsor (who could be a kinsman)—usually a Chinese already living in the country of entry—and he repaid the loan with interest after his arrival. The main embarkation ports were (Amoy), Macao, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and (Swatow). 35. Chinese immigration to the United States was unrestricted from 1848 to 1882, after which a succession of laws forbade entry to new labourers, and prevented those already present from becoming citizens. Immigration to Canada was unrestricted from 1858 to 1884, but after 1885 the same restrictions were applied, because there too railway construction had ended. In Australia, Chinese immigration was forbidden in 1901 and naturalisation in 1903. In all three countries, the laws on Chinese immigration were revised after the Second World War, during which the Chinese had fought on the allied side against the Japanese. 36. See Yuen-fong Woon, The Excluded Wife, op. cit., pp. 50-51, which deals largely with the xian of Taishan, adjacent to Kaiping. The husband was represented by a cockerel, as was customary when a young man betrothed as a child died before the marriage ceremony. 37. In the first half of the twentieth century, as Hua Linshan and Isabelle Thireau’s study shows, emigration led to more than half the male children in the village of Ping’an, in the neighbouring xian of Taishan, being adopted (op. cit., pp. 26-28). 38. “The use of money earned by emigrants roused numerous controversies and caused family conflicts, because the emigrants often addressed the money orders to the head of the family, namely their father. The land and other assets bought with these contributions belonged nominally to the latter, and were then divided up among the sons, which also gave rise to contention. Similarly, the death of a close relative abroad, and the way his assets were dealt with by the other emigrant relatives, sometimes led to disputes”, ibid. pp. 227-228. 39. According to Yuen-fong Woon, one emigrant out of every five or six returned to China with enough money to build a house and live in a “new village”: Yuen-fong Woon, Social Organization in South China, 1911-1949: The Case of the Kuan Lineage in K’ai-p’ing County, Ann Arbor (Michigan), The University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1984, p. 141. According to other figures, 80% of the emigrants were impoverished, 15% managed to get by, and 5% returned very rich. The latter became either merchants or landowners, ibidem. Other figures put the proportion of emigrants who came back rich at 10%, ibid., p. 145. 40. Kaiping xianzhi, 1933, op. cit., juan 5, pp. 18-19. 41. Kaiping xianzhi, 1933, op. cit., juan 12, p. 6.

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42. The communal diaolou could turn out to be less secure than the family ones, as is shown by a theft worthy of Gaston Leroux’s Mystère de la Chambre jaune, reported in the chronicle for 1937. A large sum of money was stolen without any sign of forced entry, either through the main entrance to the diaolou or through the door to the room containing the safe. The matter became widely known, because the victim put an advertisement in many newspapers and bulletins read by emigrants. 43. Usually made of Chinese pine. 44. The diaolou were built before 1949, so their names are read from right to left. 45. Diaolou cansang, op. cit., pp. 151-153. 46. Diaolou cansang, op. cit., pp. 144-146. 47. The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong from December 1941 to August 1945 blocked off the remittances from abroad. This was a disaster for the area of the four xian and led to hundreds of thousands dying of starvation. 48. Zhang Guoxiong, Chikan guzhen, , jiaoyu chubanshe, 2004, p. 59. 49. Interview with Zhang Jianwen, who was in charge of getting the diaolou accepted as world heritage sites. 50. Lynn Pan (ed.), op. cit., p. 30. 51. Yi ge jiaoyin san ge zei. 52. Kaiping xianzhi, 1933, op. cit., juan 22, p. 1; Kaiping xianzhi, 2002, op. cit., p. 40; Diaolou cangsang, op. cit., pp. 20-22. 53. On November 9th 1911, twenty-eight pupils from the school in Lougang, near Changsha, were kidnapped and freed for a ransom of 30,000 yuan: Kaiping xianzhi, 1933, op. cit., juan 22, p. 3; Kaiping xianzhi, 2002, op. cit., p. 38 (this edition states that it happened in 1912 instead of 1911). 54. Diaolou cansang, op. cit., pp. 20-22. 55. One of the best known diaolou schools was the Baoshulou, in the village of Tanxi, near the township of Tangkou. It was built in 1921, in Byzantine style, and was fronted by a Xie ancestral temple: Zhang Jianwen, Qian diao wangguo Kaiping, op. cit., p. 12. 56. The xian monograph of 1932 identifies the seven major minjun and their places of operation, plus an organisation set up by the triad leaders in the town of Chikan. 57. The troops under Chen Jiongming (1878-1933) entered Guangdong from in Fujian province. Two years later, Chen broke with Sun Yat-sen and drove him out of Guangzhou. 58. Kaiping xianzhi, 1933, op. cit., juan 23, p. 6. 59. Diaolou cansang, op. cit., pp. 6-7. 60. The Fang were willing to pay him “tea money” (chaqian). This normally means “a tip”, but that would be to underestimate its size in this case. 61. See Lucien Bianco, Jacqueries et Révolution dans la Chine du XXe siècle, Paris, Editions de la Martinière, 2005, pp. 91-98 and pp. 321-350. The wide-ranging means employed in the xiedou of 1948 in Xinhui (a xian adjoining Kaiping, and one of the siyi), as reported on pages 332-333, can perhaps be explained in terms of monetary support from emigrants. See also Lucien Bianco, Peasants without the Party, Armonk, N.Y., London, M.E. Sharpe, 2001. 62. Nowadays, the rice is threshed out in the fields. A machine, whether driven by hand, pedals or a motor, turns a large drum onto which metal loops or teeth are attached. The sheaves are held by hand, so as to press the heads against the rotating drum and separate the grain. The chaff is left to dry in the sun and the rice grains are dried along the roadside or on the terraced roofs in the villages.

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63. The diaolou were still in use during the Sino-Japanese war. The villagers used them against the Japanese soldiers who, unlike the bandits, attacked by day. Even if certain penalties exacted by the Japanese army and their Chinese collaborators did indeed resemble those of the bandits, the fact that the peasants made this connection is very revealing about their mentality in those days. In the same period, some of the diaolou were used as strongholds by the Japanese troops and by the Nationalists. They were also used by the Chinese Communist party for clandestine meetings, for it was easy to keep a watch against unwelcome visits.

ABSTRACTS

Situated in western Guangdong province, the xian of Kaiping was one of the centres of Chinese emigration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This article is concerned with the diaolou built there at the end of the Empire and in the early years of the Republic. These fortified buildings were built with money from emigrants, trying to protect their village at a time when public order was very uncertain. They are notable for their combination of Chinese and Western architectural features.

INDEX

Subjects: societe

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Displacement From the Three Gorges Region A discreet arrival in the economic capital of China

Florence PADOVANI

1 “Contemporary population movements have, to a large extend, been a question of water”, according to Nancy Green1. In fact, the vocabulary that describes population movements by referring to ebbs and flows, tides, currents and waves can be literally applied to those persons displaced from the Three Gorges2 region. Their fate is bound up with water. Living as they did near the or one of its tributaries, the river played a vital role, since it provided them with the water indispensable for daily life and irrigation. It also connected the villages; indeed, as the road network has developed only since the late 1990s, many villages still remain accessible only by boat or on foot along the hillside tracks. Few people now live from fishing, but some still work on the boats that ply the river, and life is organised around it.

2 Residents primarily affected by the rising waters have been those who had previously benefited the most from the advantages linked to the river, particularly those who worked the most fertile lands and who supplemented their income with a small business carried out around the wharf area. Since the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, a huge reservoir has slowly been formed and the water level has been rising inexorably3. In the process, peasant farmers have been expropriated from their land step by step and with their families they have been relocated according to a plan drawn up by different administrative offices.

3 The State Council laid down the guidelines of expropriation, which were subsequently passed on Chongqing municipality as well as Hubei province. The local functionaries were then charged with applying the national directives in the prefectures and townships. The administrative machinery leaves little room for initiative. Yet, the cadres who have to deal with the reality on the ground are often faced with unsolvable dilemmas between the claims of displaced persons and orders from above. They are generally the target of discontent, being accused—rightly or wrongly—of corruption, inefficiency and bad management4.

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4 This article presents the situation of the 7,500 migrants who arrived in three successive waves in Shanghai and for whom this city is a mythical place, an unhoped-for chance to turn the drudgery of their daily existence into an easier life. Yet while cadres sang the praises of Shanghai to the peasants who knew it only from television, very few out of the some two million displaced persons there are happy5. Even if there is a discrepancy between the dreamed-of life in Shanghai and its reality, they deem themselves to be fortunate. Some of their neighbours or relatives left for other provinces like , Guangdong or where the conditions on offer are far from satisfactory. Quite a few of them have returned to the Three Gorges region, unable to get used to their new environment, which is not the case for those resettled in Shanghai.

5 Several factors contributed to the choice of this research project. On the one hand, that Shanghai was the city to receive these people from the countryside is interesting, for the gap between the glamorous economic capital and the displaced persons arriving from a poor area. On the other hand, the Chinese government has presented Chongming Island, offshore from Shanghai, as a model, an example of a successfully displaced population. Finally, as the three stages of migration were completed by July 2004, some evaluation of them can be made.

6 For this research, we carried out a study in each of the ten villages where migrants from the Three Gorges region have been resettled. Non-directive interviews were done with some twenty families with whom we had several meetings over the course of three years. Moreover, we went into their home villages and interviewed the members of the families who stayed behind. We also met with certain cadres from Chongming who had overseen the selection and subsequent arrival of the migrants. Additionally, we made use of research completed by Chinese colleagues. As the subject matter is deemed sensitive, much statistical data is inaccessible to foreigners. Thus, we can use only what data is reported, which explains the limited amount of statistics we have been able to refer to.

7 This article presents the socio-political effects of forced migration to Shanghai by considering the example of a small number of displaced persons. We begin with a description of their initial situation by looking at where they come from and how they were selected. We then examine where they have been settled and how they are adapting to their new environment. From the mountains of the Three Gorges region to the plains of Shanghai 8 After a week going down the Yangtze by boat, three successive groups of peasant farmers from the municipality of Chongqing reached Shanghai. The first wave arrived in August 2000, the second in July 2001 and the last in July 2004. As the maximum level of the dam has not yet been reached6, remaining families will be displaced at a later date, although none of them will be sent to Shanghai. For the Shanghai authorities, the city’s intake of migrants from the Three Gorges region was complete in July 2004.

9 The new arrivals are from Wanzhou and Yunyang two adjoining prefectures from the municipality of Chongqing7. Although neighbours geographically, they have very different levels of economic development. These differences are to be found in the manner in which the displaced behaved after their resettlement. Since the late nineteenth century Wanzhou has been an important port on the Yangtze between and Chongqing. This prefecture quickly developed industrial and commercial activities related to the river. It forms part of the development zones (kaifa qu), and in this capacity benefits from financial facilities8. Its total area is 3,457 square kilometres.

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Before displacement, Wanzhou had a population of about 1.6 million, 217,000 of whom have been resettled either on lands above the flood limit or outside the prefecture. Of the population 75% work in primary industry. The prefecture covers mountainous terrain, the highest point being 1,762 metres. Each year there are victims of numerous landslides that occur in the rainy season.

10 Yunyang had a population of 1.25 million residents prior to the forced migrations. About 120,000 have had to resettle on land above the new watermark, or else leave the prefecture. The overall area of this prefecture is 3,640 square kilometres, two-thirds of which are made up of hills or small mountains (the highest point being 1,809 metres). The prefecture is regarded by the Chinese authorities as being below the poverty line9. 90% of Yunyang’s workforce is involved in primary industry. The prefecture is all the more affected in that several of the Yangtze’s tributaries contribute to the flooding of the best agricultural lands. Finally, Yunyang, already suffering from a lack of arable land, is an annual casualty of the landslides that occur during the rainy season. These are due in part to the clearing of new land on the higher ground. Faced with the increasing rapid development of the dam, some people who had to move to higher ground have been resettled outside the prefecture10. In Yunyang, as in Wanzhou, the severity of the landslides is alarming. Furthermore, a new administrative category has been created to take account of this situation, that of the “persons displaced owing to landslides” (huapo yimin). The residents affected remain where they are while the bureaucrats make a decision11. They are regarded as a sub-category of migrants from the Three Gorges region. However, as no budget has been allocated, they can only wait for the municipality to receive the necessary funds from the central government.

11 The difference between the two prefectures is due to the fact that Wanzhou was throughout its history able to establish itself as a point of contact between the two main trading towns of Chongqing and Wuhan that lie on the middle stretch of the Yangtze. Accordingly, it is at the heart of an important communication network (with new motorways, an airport and port activities). By developing economic and administrative activities, it has been able to modernise, unlike Yunyang.

12 In spite of some important disparities in development between the two prefectures, the populations they have sent to Shanghai are very similar: all of these people used to work the land, which was one of the selection criteria used by the municipality of Shanghai12. According to the cadres interviewed13, these families had to be able to adapt quickly to their new environment.

13 The Shanghai cadres came to the areas to carry out studies in order to make a final decision. In this regard, the residence certificate (hukou) is of vital importance. Admittedly, it is commonly accepted that this piece of paper no longer has the power it had up until the mid-1980s. However, in cases as important as a change of permanent place of abode, it remains indispensable. Indeed, it is on the basis of this document that the selection was made.

14 The population selected by the municipality of Shanghai satisfied four criteria14: families15 having fewer than three children; people without a police record; families whose house and fields were both flooded; the mentally or physically impaired, as well as old people, provided that there are three adults in the prime of life (and holding an agricultural residence licence) capable of providing for their needs.

15 While one may be surprised by the first criterion in a country advocating the one-child family, the second and third criteria do not pose any major problem. This is not the

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case with the final point: many elderly and handicapped people have found themselves in impossible situations. Mr Chen, who comes from a village in the prefecture of Wanzhou, moved into a new home in Jiading, a rural district to the north of Shanghai. He lives with his wife, daughter and mother. His brother-in-law is mentally impaired, and he had to choose between bringing either him or his mother. Thinking that he could easily put the situation in order once he had settled in Shanghai, he entrusted his brother-in-law to the care of neighbours (distant relatives). Since his arrival in Jiading in July 2004, he has not stopped making overtures to the various administrations in Shanghai as well as in Wanzhou and even Peking, but all without success.

16 Mr Tan, who had a leg amputated during the Cultural Revolution following an accident, continued to cultivate the family hillside plot of land. In 1994, before the residents of his village were informed that they would be affected by the rise in the water level, Mr Tan changed hukou. At that time, as land was in short supply in his village, officials offered to give 10,000 yuan in compensation to anyone who gave up their land to the community. This enabled a redistribution of land in favour of the poorest families. By accepting this transaction, Mr Tan moved into a different administrative category. He is no longer regarded as a peasant farmer, and he now has a non-agricultural licence (fei nongye hukou). Some village residents who found themselves in the same situation have been able to buy back their agricultural worker’s certificate by reimbursing the administration, allowing them to leave for Shanghai. Mr Tan has not managed to find the money needed. The remaining family land (his wife’s and son’s shares), as well as his house, will be flooded by the end of 2006. His wife and son—a migrant worker in (Guangdong province)—both have an agricultural licence, but this was not enough for the doors of Shanghai to open for them.

17 Another example is that of Mr Wang, aged 50. He has stayed single, no doubt because, without any land, he was too poor to find a wife. His house was destroyed and he has received some small compensation, but there is no question of him dreaming of settling in Shanghai. He is therefore employed as an agricultural worker in a family which provides him with board and lodging.

18 A counter example is to be found in the villages along the river where one can see houses clearly above the limit of the rising waters which are in ruin. These once belonged to villagers who managed, thanks to their connections with the officials in charge of the migrations, to be enrolled on the list of those leaving for Shanghai. Those who have remained point to the houses with a certain bitterness, advising that here once lived the cousin of a high-ranking official from Wanzhou, there the brother-in-law of a director, etc. People talk in veiled terms of corruption and injustice, but the whole operation is now finished, and Shanghai no longer accepts migrants from the Three Gorges region.

19 There are thus many “non-standard” administrative cases that the local officials will have to deal with before the next rise in the water level. As far as Shanghai is concerned, nothing has been left to chance and the arrival of migrants has been well orchestrated. Promoting the “model of successful migration” 20 Shanghai is one of the eleven provinces16 required by the central government to receive displaced persons from the Three Gorges region. Although the representatives from Shanghai voted against the dam project17, the local authorities had little choice but to accept it once it was adopted.

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21 Between 2000 and 2004, the new arrivals, whether from Wanzhou or Yunyang, were split among seven rural districts—Songjiang, Jiading, Nanhui, Fengxian, Jinshan, Qingpu and the island of Chongming—all very far from Shanghai’s mythical downtown areas. It takes at least two hours by public transport to get from any of them to the Bund. For those living in Chongming, buses crossing the island are few and far between and the boats across the Huangpu are expensive.

22 A quarter of the migrants were relocated in Chongming: 639 people in 2000, 540 in 2001 and 300 in 2004, divided equally between those from Wanzhou and Yunyang. The other districts only accepted a single wave each but always with a certain percentage of the two groups. Analysing the situation in Chongming enables an appreciation of the process of adaptation over the course of the past five years. Furthermore, as the island has been decreed “a model of successful migration”, it is all the more interesting to see how it works.

23 Chongming is an island situated in the mouth of the . Its area doubled during the course of the past half-century under the effect of the reclaiming of land from the water and the accumulation of alluvial deposits carried by the river. Today, at 1,200 square kilometres, it represents one-fifth of the area covered by Shanghai. It has a population of about 725,000, but a large part of this is non “resident”. Young people, while keeping the benefit of a residence certificate in Chongming, have gone to the city centre in search of work18. Chongming has been declared a “green zone” by the government bent on protecting the island’s ecology (it has, for example, a reserve for migrating birds). The residents of Shanghai readily come to spend a weekend in Chongming, regarded as one of the lungs of the city19. As there is little industry, the air is less polluted there than in the city centre. Agriculture and fishing are the main activities20. As in quite a number of agricultural regions in China, many young people have gone to the urban zones to look for better-paid work. They have rented out their land to economic migrants who have come mainly from the provinces of and Anhui, or have simply abandoned them. When the forced migrants arrived from Chongqing, they received fields that were attributed to them after a redistribution of land. It was therefore indispensable that the displaced people were peasant farmers. Thus two types of migrants are to be found side by side in Chongming alongside a sparse and rather indifferent local population.

24 If Chongming has been set up as a model, it is because officials were able to impose drastic selection criteria and because they have made commitments to the displaced populations. At the time of negotiations between the officials from Shanghai and representatives of the populations of Wanzhou and Yunyang, the former undertook several commitments:

25 Each holder of a hukou21 will benefit from a mu of land (1/15th of a hectare).

26 Families will be distributed in groups of two or three among the various villages of the island. They will not be settled more than three kilometres from a school or clinic.

27 Residences will all be standardised, single-storey. Only the size (150m2, 180m2 and 200m2) will differ in relation to the number of occupants, five being the maximum. The cost per square metre is between 285 and 550 yuan.

28 A private cement path will lead to the houses.

29 For school-aged children, the first two years are free and they will also receive a new bag for school.

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30 All displaced persons will benefit from free medical services up to 5,000 yuan.

31 Retired people will receive the same sum as the inhabitants of Chongming. Those aged 58 years or over will get 20 yuan per month, changing to 75 yuan at age 65. If they have worked in a factory or for the administration, their pension will continue to be managed by the office in charge of migrations in their home prefecture.

32 It is undeniable that six of the seven points constitute positive measures for the migrants. The size of the allotment of land is greater than what they had in their home village (on average six fen—10 fen make 1 mu). The proximity of the school and the clinic is also a great change. In the Three Gorges region, it is common for the village children to go to school on foot along small mountain tracks, which takes several hours. Thus, they lodge where the school is and attend classes for ten days at a time before returning home for a day and a half. Since the start of the 2006 school year, school fees have been reduced in the poor regions in the west of China22. The advantage offered by Chongming is therefore now equivalent to what parents would have had if they had stayed where they were. As to the clinic, there is one in the neighbouring townships, but it too is several hours’ walk from the villages. In case of any major problem, the hospital is located at the main administrative centre of the prefecture that can be reached by boat or bus, both of which operate one service daily. The private cement path is a real luxury in the countryside where the only access to the houses is via dirt tracks23. People from Chongming often have only a simple dirt track leading to their homes. The last point, relative to the partial provision of free medical services, is very important. Admittedly, the ceiling of 5,000 yuan is quickly reached in cases requiring hospitalisation, but this is at least a considerable improvement. In the Chinese countryside, there is no medical assistance and medical costs are the primary cause of debt. If the family is not rich enough or if the children cannot assume responsibility for the expenses, the peasant farmers cannot receive treatment.

33 All these points undeniably represent some progress for migrants, although the one regarding pensions does present a problem. It is the lack of employment outside the agricultural sector, however, that is the gravest cause for concern. As reported by Chongming bureaucrats, once the houses are built and the migrants settled in after a small welcome party, the file is closed and the operation finished. Here we reach the limit of the Shanghai model, while for the migrants themselves it is just the beginning. The break-up of the networks of sociability and marginalisation 34 In every migratory process, the period of adaptation is a tricky one. The displaced people from the Three Gorges region are experiencing this situation all the more acutely in that there is no possible turning back. Their lands have been flooded and their homes destroyed. Their integration is proving to be difficult for several reasons.

35 The allocation of a mu of land constitutes an important step forward, all the more in that unlike Chongming, the terrain is flat and there is therefore no problem for irrigation; nor are there any landslides sweeping everything away during the rainy season. The migrants have to work on new ways of cultivating the land and get used to a new climate, but according to the interviews this does not seem to them to be an insurmountable difficulty. On the other hand, they unanimously say that after allowing for what the family itself consumes, there is practically nothing left to sell, and in any case the vegetables sold at market do not bring in enough to provide for the family’s needs. Even if they have more land, the question is how they can live solely from their

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agricultural produce? Finally, everything seems to them much more expensive (for example, electricity, gas, water24).

36 Some families have been separated, with certain members remaining in the Three Gorges region and others leaving for various destinations. For the local officials, the fact of putting only a maximum of three families together allows for a better integration into the host society, but this is experienced as a hindrance to the networks of community aid that are so important25. People are isolated from each other and the whole thread of social life is destroyed. There is no longer any community life or religious rituals (especially important for those people from Yunyang26). We were struck during the 2006 New Year festivities in Chongming by the reduced number of guests and the lacklustre atmosphere. Similarly, the people remaining in the villages of Wanzhou complain about the break-up of community networks.

37 The standardised houses are also far from enjoying unanimous support, as indicated by the fact that the migrants make alterations everywhere, such as an extension to the house for the kitchen27 or another wing for family… This work is undertaken without official approval, but so far no fines have been levied. Everyone laments the size of their home, which is much smaller than what they had before, and the poor quality of the construction materials. In fact, as they did not receive any direct compensation, they have no rights with regard to the layout of their new environment. The money was given as a single amount to the Chongming officials who had the houses built. A number of migrants complain that officials have taken their cut in the process. When the amount was insufficient, the migrants had to borrow money from the bank (interest free, however). They will pay this off when they can, but there is no mortgage, either on the house or the land.

38 While the private pathway marks an improvement, it was paid for by the migrants themselves. In cases where, on their arrival, there was no such access path, they fought to obtain one.

39 Free education for children lasts only two years. There have already been cases of children being taken out of school because the parents could not afford the fees. On the whole, these cases are rare for the families interviewed because in general the parents do their utmost for the education of their children. They are aware that, without a good standard of education, it will be difficult for the next generation to integrate.

40 As regards pensions, the problem concerns especially those who are waiting for a transfer from the Three Gorges region. Such transfers are notified by mail and some people have to bide their time for several months before they receive their meagre pension. This is the case for Mr Tan and his wife who are reduced to collecting cardboard boxes and plastic wrappings at the end of each day for resale according to their weight. Mr Tan is 80 years old and, like all migrants, including his wife, he has received a mu of land. His wife (75 years old) works the land and leaves in the morning with her husband to make a tour of the neighbouring townships. Mr Tan worked for the administration in his home township for several years; upon retirement, he opened a small shop near the harbour. This provided not a negligible supplement to his income. Now that he is settled in Chongming, his pension does not reach him on a regular basis and he does not have adequate funds to set up a new business. Finding work on the island is no easy matter for migrants who do not understand the local dialect, are isolated and in whose fate the local bureaucrats show no interest. For these marginalised people, joining the workforce is very difficult.

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The question of employment 41 A job, first and foremost, allows the material survival of the family. It is also an important factor of integration. The responsibility assumed by the various administrations is only one element of the process, as the displaced person is in a passive situation with respect to the institutions deciding for him or her. On the other hand, in the workforce the displaced person must be active, interact with the local population and earn a certain social recognition. Relations are a matter of reciprocity between equals.

42 In this, the situation is very different between Chongming and Jiading. Jiading’s economy is diversified, unlike that of Chongming which is still defined by agriculture. In contrast to the difficulty in leaving Chongming Island, in Jiading access roads and means of transportation are well developed. Chongming has few industries and the local population itself has trouble finding employment. Moreover, voluntary migrants from Sichuan and Anhui already fill the jobs that the displaced people could have aimed for, working on the very few construction sites that there are, cultivating the fields of local peasant farmers that they rent, or doing jobs in the small ports…There is, moreover, very little in the way of an informal economy in Chongming.

43 The contrast is striking with Jiading where no displaced person is cultivating the land. Migrants there have also received one mu each, but they have rented it out to peasant farmers from outside, often from Sichuan or Anhui. They have just kept a small vegetable garden for the production of and vegetables that are not grown in Shanghai. The bureaucrats in Jiading have offered work to all the displaced persons. This often means a tiring and uninteresting job, such as construction site labourer, night watchman in a factory, or packer in a warehouse, but those interviewed seem happy enough to have a job at all and a regular salary.

44 Mr Tan, aged 45, is a night watchman, a job he found by himself. Officials had offered him work as a packer, but it was too exhausting for him, so he chose to change. He and his wife, who does shift work on the production line of a factory, have been able to put aside some savings. Adding to this the small rent that they receive from the agricultural workers, they decided to increase the size of their house by building a dormitory for their workers and two independent rooms for the couples. Mr Tan did not ask for permission to undertake these extension works. The rooms are rented out for 120 yuan a month and beds in the dorm for 80 yuan. Mr Tan declares himself to be happy with his situation which is much better than that from before.

45 Mr Tan’s success, like that of his neighbours, is drawing a new influx of migrants from their home village. The majority of these are young men who also come to try their luck in Shanghai. Having a family in the area is of great assistance in finding work. Thus, in October 2005, a young cousin of Mr Tan had just arrived, but steps had already been taken for him, too, to be hired as a night watchman. Of course, the cousin will not be able to obtain a residence permit and so will remain in a precarious situation, but that does not seem to bother him. At 22 years of age, he has already made a tour of China and has decided to try his luck in Jiading, since his uncle is there and he has free accommodation, but he already knows that he will not be staying. According to him, Guangdong province, in particular Dongguan, holds more worthwhile possibilities as well as much more attractive salaries.

46 The situation is very different in Chongming. There is no question there of displaced persons renting out their fields and finding a job on the island. They are up against stiff

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competition for jobs in their fields of competence with migrants from Sichuan and Anhui who have been settled there for several years. The fact of having a new hukou and being considered by the administration as residents of Shanghai gives them no advantages in finding work. Nor can they gain access to jobs requiring a minimum of higher education in college. Finally, they all complain about communication problems: as each person speaks a different dialect, mutual comprehension is no easy matter28. So, the only way of earning enough to support the family is for one member to leave and find a job off the island. According to the local bureaucrats, the majority of young men aged between 17 and 30 left within the first year. In the homes we visited, we found in particular elderly people, children and couples over the age of 40, a similar situation to that in the rest of rural China. Couples say that once they turn 40 they are too old to compete with the younger ones for jobs requiring physical strength. They can thus be seen wandering about during the day without any particular aim. Those who leave do not look for work in Shanghai, but rather return to the cities where they had previously been employed. For them, being resident in the Three Gorges region or in Chongming does not make much of a difference, since in either case they have to go and earn their living outside in order to support the other members of their family.

47 Displaced persons run into difficulties in a very competitive environment because they do not have a better level of education that could work in their favour. If we compare the level of the inhabitants of Chongming with that of the migrants, there appear great similarities (Table 1). Many of those from the Three Gorges region have an educational level that is quite low―42.3% have at best finished primary school, as against 32.6 % for the residents of Chongming. In general this concerns those aged over 40. Young people today tend to stay longer in the education system, although the majority do not go beyond secondary, whatever their origin, the figure being 37.4% for migrants from the Three Gorges region and 38.1% for the locals. In fact, they quit studying as soon as it is no longer compulsory. Those who go on to high school are a little more numerous in Chongming, 13.4%, as against 4.6% in the Three Gorges region. The educational level of migrants does not therefore make them competitive in the local job market. On the other hand, those who live in Jiading and who have a comparable level of education are advantaged by the fact that they can take jobs that the locals do not want, keeping for themselves positions which require a higher level of education. Moreover, Jiading is one of those districts undergoing rapid development and many industries are being set up there, with the result that competition for jobs is much less severe.

1.Level of Education in Chongming

48 The level of education has a visible impact on the work people do, as shown by Table 2 which draws a comparison between jobs done before and after migration. We can see a reduction in the number of people working in the non-agricultural sector (from 228 to 171), with a parallel clear increase in the number of those with agricultural jobs (154 before and 222 after). People employed in non-agricultural activities had either already

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left their home villages to earn their living outside, or become involved in the informal economy, thanks to mutual assistance networks that no longer exist.

2.Activities of Migrants from the Three Gorges Region before and after their Arrival in Chongming

Some successful cases—the experience of a previous migration 49 The first thing that migrants arriving in Chongming ask for is a job. Thus, Mr Wang, aged 50, is very insistent. He has worked hard all his life, either in the fields or the factories of Guangdong province. Now settled in Chongming, he is having trouble supporting his family, his wife and his grandson, as his son and daughter-in-law have left. “The government made the decisions, so there isn’t much that can be done about it. We didn’t choose to leave, but there was no other solution. However, the government now has to take care of us, that’s only right. If they [the authorities in Peking] knew what’s happening here, they would help us”29. Mr Wang and the other migrants are asking the local authorities to help them find work. They blame them for considering the whole the matter finished once they were unloaded from the boat, without any follow-up to see how they were. They just had to rely on themselves and the goodwill of their neighbours, who often compensate for what was lacking, for example by helping them adapt to their new cultural environment.

50 Those who have managed to integrate into their new environment are the ones who had a small amount of capital or who were able to borrow enough money to set up their own businesses. Mr and Mrs Huang, for example, opened a small butcher’s shop. Neither of them had any experience of this line of work, both worked in the main administrative centre of the prefecture of Wanzhou. She was a waitress in a restaurant before setting up her own canteen, while he worked on construction sites before helping his wife. On arriving in Chongming, they opened a small restaurant but without success, so they tried their luck as butchers and their perseverance was rewarded. Another successful example is the case of Mr Zhang who was an interior decorator for more than seven years in , a Special Economic Zone located on the border with Macao. He had his own business, but had to sell it and go back to his village to be a part of the group of migrants sent to Chongming. He immediately noticed that interior decoration was not a lucrative market, as the island does not have enough potential clients for this type of business. He therefore chose to start a piggery and today owns about fifty. In answer to the question whether he misses his business in Zhuhai, he says that life is different, and he has fewer worries as a boss. He can now live rather comfortably from the piggeries. Furthermore, his close family—his father, his two brothers and a sister—have joined him in Chongming. His son has gone to work in Zhuhai and he and his wife raise their grandson.

51 We could cite other examples of couples who are successfully integrating by finding work, thanks to their own initiative. On the other hand, those who have a wait-and-see attitude have trouble surviving. Everyone we interviewed had had a more or less long experience as an economic migrant which enabled them to take advantage of the experience they had gained outside the village. Those who had never left their village

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have much more trouble getting used to the new situation. They are often afraid to take the initiative and rely on the good will of the local bureaucrats.

52 In spite of these difficulties, they all consider it a chance for them to be in Shanghai. Parents put their hopes in the education of their children. As often happens in the case of immigrants, the second generation carries the expectations of the first, and school is the most important factor for successful integration. While the young people interviewed say that they remain a group apart and more easily take part in the activities of other migrant children, they are nonetheless adapting to the new pace of learning. They also complain that some teachers use the local dialect and not Mandarin, which puts them at a disadvantage. Their teachers consider their level of education to be lower than that of the children from Chongming, but that does not present any major obstacle to following the classes. Their weak point is English because they began to learn it only in early high school, whereas in Chongming children start in primary. They all have catch-up classes at weekends. At home, they continue to use the Chongqing dialect, but at school they speak Mandarin riddled with expressions in Chongming dialect. While the situation remains difficult for the parents, there is reason to believe that within a short time the children will be integrated into their new environment.

53 The three waves of migrants to Shanghai from the Three Gorges came about, admittedly, through a decision over which the individuals concerned had no control, but it also received their tacit consent. On the one hand, the central government did not leave them any choice as to the destination, but on the other, the mirage of economic development in Shanghai could only be an attraction. Going to settle in Shanghai was much more enticing than a new life in a poor province. Those who left for Shanghai therefore consider themselves the privileged ones. While the situation on their arrival was very different from the one they had imagined, some have had better fortune than others.

54 One of the fundamental principles adopted by the Chinese government, following the recommendations of the World Bank30, is that displaced people have to obtain a higher standard of living than the one they formerly had. Such resettlements must allow those concerned, often living in very humble circumstances, to escape poverty. For the migrants moved to Shanghai, the results are mixed. On Chongming Island what has been achieved remains below declared expectations. The island that was so lavishly promoted by the authorities turned out to be an environment that is unfavourable to the new arrivals.

55 In many respects, their material situation has improved. They have running water, electricity, a bathroom and toilets. They also have ready access to health services and education. Nonetheless, all these elements are not sufficient to create an environment that is conducive to their integration31. Several non-material factors are holding back harmonious integration, such as the break-up of mutual assistance networks, the problems in communication with locals and the difficulty of finding a non-agricultural job. The Chongming migrants are for the most part still going through the adaptation phase. On the other hand, those who were relocated to other rural districts such as Jiading have seen their income increase and their economic situation improve. We can talk today of assimilation as far as the Jiading migrants are concerned, with access to employment being the main factor in this integration.

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56 Chongming represents for the authorities a model, as both the preparation for and the actual process of the relocation of those concerned have been carried out smoothly. The quota fixed by the central government has been filled and everyone settled in Shanghai has been given land, so one could say that the contract has been fulfilled. The fact that the operation is regarded as a success makes one think that the resettlements in other areas have taken place under very bad conditions. Once the action of the local administration is carried out, it is up to the migrants to be inventive and find new ways of providing for their needs. As in the case of the resettlements of people previously undertaken, there is no post-migration follow-up. Yet, this is surely the most traumatic phase for those people finding themselves in an unfamiliar environment. Not only did they not have any possibility to say what they thought before the authorities took a decision concerning them, but they are also without any means to have their voices heard after the fact. The situations highlighted in this article may admittedly appear limited with regard to the two million people who have been displaced in the wake of the Three Gorges Dam project, but it does give some insight into the constraints and the issues at hand, as well as the hopes raised by the resettlements. In any event, it clearly appears that, irrespective of the conditions on offer, Shanghai exerts an extremely strong pull on all migrants and gives rise to hopes for the future of the younger generation.

57 Translated from the French original by Peter Brown

NOTES

1. Nancy Green, Repenser les migrations (Rethinking Migrations), Paris, PUF, 2002, p. 1. 2. For a study of the dam’s history, see Thierry Sanjuan and Rémi Berreau, “Le barrage des Trois Gorges – entre pouvoir d’Etat, gigantisme technique et incidences régionales” (The Three Gorges Dam – between State power, large scale technological projects and regional impact), Hérodote, No. 102, 2001, pp. 19-56, and Florence Padovani, “Les effets sociopolitiques des migrations forcées en Chine liées aux grands travaux hydrauliques – l’exemple du barrage des Trois Gorges” (The socio-political effects of forced migrations in China related to major hydraulic works projects – the example of the Three Gorges Dam), Les Etudes du CERI, No. 103, April 2004. 3. The maximum level will only be reached in 2008, which means that the last people to be displaced will be evacuated more than thirteen years after the first wave of forced migration, which took place on May 28th 1995. 4. This makes them all the more worried when a foreign researcher arrives in their district to undertake a study. 5. The official figure, which has been upwardly revised several times since the start of works in 1992, is one million. See, for example, the official website in English of the Three Gorges region (www.3g.gov.cn/english/index.asp). International NGOs, like Probe International, put forward the figure of two million (www.threegorgesprobe.org). It will be impossible to know the exact figure as long as the migration process is not complete.

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6. There is a four-stage plan for migrations related to the gradual rise of the water level: 1993-1997, 1998-2003, 2004-2006 and 2007-2009. According to the declarations of some national leaders, the final stage should be less significant, and the whole operation should be completed by 2008. 7. Since March 1997, Chongqing has been separated from the province of Sichuan and raised to the rank of autonomous municipality, to be like Peking, and Shanghai. However, it is over-sized, since it covers an area of 82,000 sq. km and has 32.5 million inhabitants. By way of comparison, Peking has an area of 16,800 sq. km for a population of 13.8 million, Tianjin 11,300 sq. km for 10.4 million inhabitants and Shanghai 6,340 sq. km for a population of 13.2 million. 8. In order to attract Chinese and foreign firms, the government of Wanzhou offers tax exemptions, loans at preferential rates, land, etc. 9. Less than 635 yuan a year. By comparison, the World Bank norm is 7.5 US dollars a day. 10. In 2001, a regulation was adopted on the Three Gorges dam, article 25 of which stipulates that it is formally forbidden to settle or cultivate lands on gradients of 25% or more (Changjiang sanxia gongcheng jianshe tiaoli). This has forced the local leaders to organise the displacement outside of the prefecture of a greater number of people than anticipated, but without any increase in budget. 11. According to the people interviewed in the area, the phenomenon is growing and the ground seems to have become more unstable on account of the rising waters. 12. To my knowledge, the government of Shanghai is the only one to have been able to introduce such drastic selection criteria. 13. Interviews with the Chongqing cadres in charge of the migrations (May 2005). 14. Liu Zhongqi, Xie Jie, Qiu Jue, Li Zhenya, ‘Sanxia nongcun waiqian yimin de shiyin yu ronghe – dui Shanghai Chongming Sanxia yimin de ruogan diaocha yu sicao’ (Adaptation and assimilation of peasant farmers displaced from the Three Gorges region – study and analysis of a certain number of migrants from the Three Gorges region settled in Chongqing), Xibei renkou, No. 6, 2004, pp. 16-19. 15. We are talking here of the nuclear family, that is, a couple and their children. A family in the broader sense (several generations or clan) is not taken into account by the officials, a fact that undermines the networks of mutual assistance among families. 16. This concerns the provinces of Hubei, Sichuan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Shandong, , , Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong. 17. In April 1992, at the Fifth Plenary Session of the Seventh Congress, the project for the construction of the Three Gorges dam was adopted by 1,767 votes in favour, with 177 against and 644 abstentions. 18. Many taxi drivers (especially from the Dazhong company) come from Chongming. 19. The island is also known by people in Shanghai for its “May 5th schools” where certain young people were sent for re-education during the Cultural Revolution. One can still see dilapidated buildings in which agricultural workers from other provinces are currently living. 20. It is planned that the agricultural part of the World Fair, to be held in Shanghai in 2010, will be organised on Chongming Island. 21. That is, only adults receive land, minors are not concerned. 22. School fees are the full responsibility of the government. As the children are housed on the spot, the related expenses are constant. This is a considerable outlay for poor families.

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23. This is a foolproof means for the investigator to locate the homes of displaced persons. 24. In the villages of Wanzhou, the cooking is done in a great oven heated by wood that is collected from the nearby hills. As for water, either there is a well or people get it from the river; in both cases it is free. 25. According to Mr Wang, in charge of displaced people in the north-west of the island, the bureaucrats also wanted to avoid families staying together and making demands, as has happened in some other provinces. Having already had this experience, the bureaucrats wanted to have the migrants blend in as much as possible with the rest of the population. 26. See the article by Katiana Le Mentec, “The Three Gorges Dam Project. Religious Practices and Heritage Conservation”, China Perspectives, No. 65, May-June 2006, pp. 2-13. 27. The kitchen must be a separate space. What, in the beginning, had been conceived by the authorities as a kitchen was converted into a bedroom or store room and an annex, even a makeshift one, was often built next to the house. 28. The migrants from the Three Gorges region speak a dialect close to Sichuanese, whereas the inhabitants of Chongming use a form of Shanghainese. They both try to understand each other by using Mandarin, but with very strong accents communication and understanding is difficult. 29. Interview in Chongming, February 2005. 30. See Michael M. Cernea, “Risks, Safeguards, and Reconstruction: A Model For Population Displacement and Resettlement”, in Michael M. Cernea and Christopher McDowell (eds.), Risks and Reconstruction: Experiences of Resettlers and Refugees, Washington, D.C., The World Bank, 2000, pp. 11-55. 31. Integration into a new community implies a deliberate policy on the part of the government. Adaptation is the response of the migrant, and integration is achieved through social life, particularly through work. The final stage in this process can be integration, which involves relations with the locals on an equal footing.

RÉSUMÉS

The Three Gorges dam project has caused the displacement of many people. Among them, three identified groups have arrived in Shanghai. Originally from rural areas in the municipality of Chongqing, they have all been settled on the outskirts of the city, where they have been given a home and land. This article considers those who have arrived on Chongming Island. It highlights, through their situation, the problems that these forced migrants are having to face, and the limits of the government’s planning when many new plans for relocating people, both in urban and rural areas, are being developed in China.

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Economy

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Family Entrepreneurship and Succession A survey in province of Zhejiang

Yue Lin

1 In The Visible Hand, Alfred D. Chandler reviews the evolution of the organisation and management of production and distribution in the United States since the industrial revolution1. He maintains that the modern company, as a complex organisation, has taken the place of market mechanisms in the co-ordinating of economic activity and allocating resources. To Chandler, the theoretician of management capitalism, the visible hand of the managers has replaced the invisible hand of market forces, and the modern company is characterised by the establishment of a hierarchy of salaried cadres who are responsible for supervising and co-ordinating the work of the units that are under their command. Many have reached the conclusion that the company based on family capital and managed by its director-owners is an outdated form. Yet, over the last twenty years, this supposition has been widely called into question by other writers, who recognise the key role played by family businesses in the developed economies. Much research2 shows the adaptability of this form of organisation. In mainland China, interest in family businesses was first aroused by the success of the big Chinese family companies which are characteristic of the countries of Southeast Asia3, and then by the growth of the Chinese private sector, the majority of whose companies are of the family type4.

2 Family business is not characterised by either legal forms or specific size. Some writers choose either the criterion of ownership5, or that of management control6, in order to describe a business as being a family one or not; other definitions are based on both ownership and control7. Recently a dynamic approach8 has defined the family business, whether it be a simple family workshop or a big publicly quoted company, in terms of the real control exercised by the founding family. This does not necessarily imply majority control of the capital or the lack of recourse to managers from outside the family. Its distinctive trait is that no other group of shareholders carries greater weight than the family shareholders, and that the appointment of the head of the company depends exclusively on the dominant shareholders.

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3 Beyond the question of definition, it is generally agreed that a family business is characterised by the superimposition of a system of enterprise and of a family system in one and the same entity which is both economic and social. The tangling of family and entrepreneurial dynamics calls into question the hypothesis of a homo economicus whose sole objective is the maximisation of his own individual interest. The double identity of the entrepreneur binds his economic activities tightly to the family interests. In matters of succession, a decision is never taken as the result of purely economic calculation, nor is it simply a problem of the passing on of the family inheritance. In order to better grasp the balance of power in a family business, analysis must be based on research in the field, with the objective of interpreting as faithfully as possible the reality as it is perceived by the individuals themselves. In the context of a China in transition where the power of the state mingles with individual motivations, this method makes it possible both to avoid mistakes that would lead to oversimplifying complexities and to shed light on the rich variety of the real lives of individuals and organisations9.

4 The aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding of the present situation of Chinese family businesses, through a focus on the question of succession. In the first part, we introduce a business that has experienced two consecutive succession processes over the last few years. From this we teased out questions which are examined in the second part, in the light of information gathered from 17 family businesses in the province of Zhejiang. The particular case of the Zhengyuan company 5 The story of the Zhengyuan company is closely tied to that of its founder, You Xiaohui, formerly the director of a state enterprise (the electronic ceramics factory in Jiaxin) and secretary of the enterprise's Party Committee. In April 1993, at the age of 61, he retired and began a second career in . He borrowed 80,000 yuan and became a sales representative for a locality and enterprise at . In 1994, he set up his own company, Zhengyuan, with an initial investment of 100,000 yuan, which produced a component for mobile telephones. The company was registered at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry as a collective enterprise10. From the outset, despite this official status, Zhengyuan was de facto a private company owned and managed by the You family. All the management jobs were held by members of the family or by close friends. In 1996, Zhengyuan relinquished its status as a collective enterprise and became a public limited company (youxian zeren gongsi) with private capital. In 1999, in accordance with company law11, Zhengyuan was restructured and established a board of directors and a supervisory board. In 2000, it became a shareholding company (gufen youxian gongsi). In 2001, Zhengyuan opened its capital to four institutional shareholders, to the tune of 19.5 million yuan, and then prepared its application for a listing on the stock market. In 2002, the company had total capital of 120 million yuan, an annual turnover of 78 million and profits of 11 million. It employs close to a thousand employees. The founder's family 6 You Xiaohui set up his company at the age of 61 and gave up direct management of it four years later. When asked about his ambitions for Zhengyuan, his first wish was that the company maintain its technological lead over its competitors, develop itself sustainably and contribute to local development. These ambitions are evidence that, apart from the creation of personal and family wealth, self-realisation12 is a major

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factor in his entrepreneurial motivation. You Xiaohui is one of those private entrepreneurs who previously had been cadres in state enterprises. He belongs to the professional elites who made a good living before, and who set up private companies in the same sector as that in which they were employed by the state. They are differentiated from entrepreneurs driven by poverty13, because of their relatively high incomes14. Their professional experience sets them apart from the administrative elites who went into business in order to capitalise on their power at the time of the transition from the planned system to the market system15. You Xiaohui thus belongs to the group of private entrepreneurs who most closely resemble the Schumpeterian entrepreneur16. They often have a long-term strategy which gives priority to the growth of the company.

7 You Xiaohui has three children: You Yuan (43), his elder son, You Qi (41), his younger son, and his daughter, You Qian (34). You Yuan, who graduated from university in 1982, initially looked after the maintenance of the equipment in a state enterprise, the electric controls factory in Jiaxin. In 1993, he left the company to go into his own electronic equipment business. In 1994, he joined Zhengyuan and became responsible for product design. The same year, You Qi came into the family business with the job of supervising the establishment of the factory. You Qian, who previously worked in a public bank, recently resigned in order to join Zhengyuan. At the time of our research, You Xiaohui was president of the supervisory board, You Yuan and You Qi were respectively president and vice-president of the board of directors, and You Qian was preparing the enterprise's listing on the stock market. Two transfers of power 8 Over the course of the last ten years, Zhengyuan has experienced two consecutive succession processes. The first chief executive officer of Zhengyuan was You Xiaohui. The job of president of the board at that time was held by his wife. From 1998 onwards, You Xiaohui began the transfer of power to the second generation, appointing his elder son, You Yuan, chief executive officer, and taking over the job of president of the board from his wife. The succession process was completed in 1999 when You Xiaohui resigned the presidency of the board, which he entrusted to You Yuan. This initial succession was carried out by the founder You Xiaohui, who decided to give up the direct management because of his age and the inadequacy of his knowledge in the face of rapid technological developments.

9 The second succession was made necessary by the company's expansion strategy. In 2001, after the modification of the company's legal status, when it became a shareholding company, its development led it to take on “risk capital” to the tune of 19.5 million yuan, and to prepare a request for a listing on the stock market. In order to comply with the criteria of the Chinese Securities Regulation Commission (Zhongguo zhengquan jiandu guanli weiyuanhui)17, the company decided to separate the positions held by You Yuan. In order to do this it recruited an outside professional manager, Mr. Cai, who became chief executive officer.

10 The first transfer of power was a result of the retirement of the head of the company because of his age. If we consider that the main task of a family running a family business is to produce managers with the necessary competencies (knowledge and experience), the interval between two transfers of power within the family will be at least twenty-five years in the case of a nuclear family. This interval can be shorter in the case of an extended family, which has the possibility of absorbing sons-in-law or

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cousins into the company. Thus the structure of the family (the number of children, the availability and motivation of potential successors, etc) influences the frequency of successions.

11 Factors external to the company also come into the calculation. The technological environment demands the renewal of competencies in order to adapt to sectoral evolution. The evolution of the capital structure can expose the company to new shareholders. These factors can contribute to the renewal of the leadership of the company, even if they do not contribute directly to the appointment of the successor.

12 Even after the arrival of a chief executive officer who was not part of the family circle, the You family, at the time of our interview with You Xiaohui, still held 53% of the shares, while four financial institutions held 34%, and the other directors 13%. The management team is currently made up of 11 people, of whom three are members of the You family (You Xiaohui and his two sons). Three are former company cadres who now oversee general business, finance and technology. As well as the chief executive officer, three deputy directors have been recruited from outside the company, and an advisory post has been entrusted to a former state employee, who was previously the head of the provincial commission for foreign economic and commercial relations (see Graph 1). Although this evolution has led to a decrease in the control of the founding family, the You family still holds a majority of the capital.

1. Present Organisation of the ZHengyuan Company

What are the criteria for choosing a successor ? 13 A natural succession linked to the age of individuals is at variance with a succession brought about by the development of the company. The choice of the founder's eldest son differs from the recruitment of a professional from outside the family. Is such a development evidence of a radical change in the criteria used by You Xiaohui in the choice of his successor18 ? During our interview You Xiaohui described the desired career profile in the following terms: a competent person with professional experience and a wide network of social contacts. When we asked him to assess the advantages and disadvantages of different modes of selecting a successor (see Table 2), he expressed the opinion that the introduction into the company of a professional manager favoured the strengthening of management and innovation potential; the disadvantage was a lack of knowledge of the moral virtues and the real competence of the person concerned. However if the favoured successor was already a company cadre, You Xiaohui would be more certain, thanks to direct knowledge of the competence and moral qualities of the person; the danger was of provoking conflict and slowing

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innovation. To him, choosing a relation was a guarantee of loyalty and easy communication.

14 The essential problem of a succession is the assessment of the credibility of the successor, who is asked to provide management competence, but also certain moral values and action taken in accordance with the family interest. The way in which these qualities is assessed is therefore important. In the case of Zhengyuan, You Xiaohui, the founder, first chose his eldest son, You Yuan. A university graduate, initially responsible for product development, he participated in the foundation of the company. His competence is recognised by his family and by the employees. As You Xiaohui sees it, You Yuan is the answer to his expectations: he has the ability to commit himself, loyalty to the family's interests and mastery of the necessary technical and management knowledge. The family connection is not the ultimate reason for You Xiaohui's choice, but it allowed him to observe him closely, to assess him and even to train him. In this sense, the presence of an ideal successor within the family is the reason rather than the result of You Xiaohui's decision to turn over power only four years after the establishment of the company.

15 While the first succession was a strategic move undertaken by the founder, the second succession was prompted by outside forces. In the wake of its change of status in 2000, Zhengyuan took on board new investors from outside. The decision to seek a listing on the stock market led You Yuan to separate the two posts he held, even though this separation was not mandatory. This unexpected development did not allow You Xiaohui easily to observe, assess or train a new successor within the family. The need to designate a successor once again arose at a time when there was no potentially competent person available within the family. You Xiaohui thus found himself in a dilemma19: the designation of an incompetent relative threatens the survival of the company, while the recruitment of a manager outside the family increases the risk of disappropriation, especially in the absence of a legal system capable of settling potential conflicts. In the end, You Xiaohui chose Cai, who had worked for several years in Hong Kong and was previously the director of a state enterprise in Shenzhen. The two men had met in 2000, in the course of business negotiations, and became friends. In 2002, Cai resigned from his company for personal reasons. You Xiaohui then invited him to work at Zhengyuan. Despite other offers from big companies, Cai accepted You's invitation because of their friendly relationship. Cai's professional experience in the sector testified to his competence, which was also confirmed by You Xiaohui's direct observation in their formal and informal relationship. However, just as descendance did not guarantee that You Yuan would automatically become the successor, Cai's professional competence was not enough to convince You Xiaohui to place administrative power in outside hands. Mutual trust, the result of a close personal relationship, played an important role in controlling the risk of disappropriation and allowed You to resolve the dilemma of his succession. The second succession, although carried through outside the family, is still intuitu personae.

16 Thus professional competence and personal qualities are complementary. While confidence in a person's ability to correctly manage the family patrimony can be established on the basis of indirect information such as reputation, qualifications and professional experience, information on personal qualities is more difficult to obtain. Moreover, the uncertainty produced by the imbalance in the available information is increased when the legal system is unable to punish opportunistic behaviour

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effectively. In this sense, the trust born of personal relationships largely determines the choice of a successor. But the importance given to personal relationships does not mean that an entrepreneur will have blind faith in his children and an absolute distrust of strangers. Trust is a subjective judgement, but it is not immune to reason. The criteria used by You Xiaohui first to choose You Yuan and then Cai are of three kinds: competence, moral qualities and a promise to act according to the family interest. Yuo Yuan's only advantage in comparison with Cai is that he had an intimate relationship with his father since birth, while Cai had to build a relationship with You Xiaohui in order to establish mutual trust. Trust, based on a long relationship, is also a sign of the dynamic nature of a family enterprise which can bring in people from outside the family.

2. You Xiaohui’s Perspective on the Choice of a Successor

17 In China, the development of the private sector goes back less than twenty years, most businesses are family ones and are always run by their founders. The two successions observed in the case of the Zhengyuan company prompted us to formulate the following questions:

18 Is the recruitment of talent from outside the family merely an illusion in the case of China ?

19 Will the growth of companies lead to the opening up of their capital and what effect will this have on the succession process ?

20 Is the taking into consideration by a family entrepreneur of the loyalty, the spirit of commitment and the professional competence of his successor a widespread phenomenon ?

21 Is it absolutely necessary for a manager recruited from outside the family to establish personal relationships with the executives of the company which recruits him ?

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The survey 22 In order to find answers to these questions, and in collaboration with the Centre for Research into Family Enterprise at the University of Zhejiang20, we conducted a survey of a sample of 17 family businesses, between June and September 2005. These businesses share the following characteristics: their capital is private; they are large companies21 determined to professionalise their executive team; the head of the company is around fifty or sixty years old, so that succession is not far off; they are manufacturing companies.

23 During the survey, we made two unexpected discoveries. We had initially believed that a number of private companies, after over twenty years of growth, were in the process of transferring power from one generation to another or had already experienced a transfer of power. In reality, for a majority of private companies, succession is not an essential preoccupation because of the youth of both the entrepreneur and the company22. Among the seventeen companies, only two had had a change of principal manager, nine had not been confronted with the question of succession, and six did not give any answers. Thus our survey, which had anticipated the observation of practices, reveals only opinions on the question of succession. Secondly, we initially sought to meet with twenty large private companies in the same sector in , but the preponderance of small and medium-size private companies only made it possible for us to identify 13 companies in the area, to which we later added four companies situated in the environs of (two in Jiaxin, two in Tonglu).

24 These 17 companies are family businesses in the strict sense because of the dominant presence of the founding family in their capital: 44.18% of the shares belong to the chief executive officers and 41.94% of the shares are held by other members of the founding family (see Table 3). The chief executive officer is the majority shareholder in nine cases, while the other members of the founding family hold the majority of the capital in the other eight companies. As the chief executive officer is, most often, also the head of the family, the founding families control these companies.

3. Shareholding

25 From the management point of view, executive functions are carried out by the founders (in 40.5% of cases) and their children (13.8%), for a total of 54.3% of positions (see Table 4). Family control at executive level is evident, even if it does not preclude the arrival of outside talent (25% of executives are professional managers recruited

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from outside). The data collected on the capital, the turnover and the number of employees shows that these are large companies (see Table 5).

4. Excecutive

5. Size of Companies in our Survey

The reasons for succession 26 At the time of our survey, the majority of family businesses were still under the control of their founder. 88.2% of the founders were aged between 40 and 50. The transfer of power between generations is therefore not yet a major preoccupation. However, 82.4% of the founders (14 out of 17) admitted that they have already begun to look for their successors. When asked for their reasons, only nine companies expressed an answer (see Table 6).

6. The reasons for succession

27 The main reason is linked to the founder himself. The physical decline due to age (28.9%) is the major reason, while a recognition of the limitations of his competence in the face of technical evolution ranks second (28.3%)23. Some also refer to the external environment in a situation where growth no longer allows the founder, despite his

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competence, to control his company alone. A lack of management capability within the company obliges him to consider a transfer of power (5.9%). Lastly, outside investors may demand a change of leadership, but the influence they exert remains limited (5.9%). The reason may lie in the closed nature of the capital: the family businesses in this survey mainly rely on self-financing (90%) or on bank loans (69.4%) for finance24. Whatever the reasons for this25, the closed nature of the capital of these companies and the very limited impact of outside investors on the choice of chief executive, lead us to believe that the Zhengyuan company is a very particular case. Its decision to seek a stock market listing must be seen as an evolution in the personal preferences of certain members of the family. In other words, the choice of certain family businesses to become bigger and more “modern”, with the help of the financial markets, is more the result of particular personal decisions than a law of the development of family businesses26.

28 Thus, the physical decline of the founder and the evolution in the technical environment are the two main factors that lead to succession taking place, while the direct pressure exerted by outside investors is marginal. The role played by the second generation at this stage of the succession must also be noted. To the question “Do your children wish to work and progress in your company?”, 76.5% of the founders give a positive reply, but none of them envisage giving up their power only because of their children's desire to participate more in the business. The criteria for choosing a successor 29 Although the children's desire to share power with their parents does not automatically allow them to succeed to the job of chief executive, 88.2% of founders want their children to be able to work in the company. This apparent contradiction demonstrates the complexity of the criteria that apply in the choice of a successor. In order to identify them, three categories of qualities were listed in the questionnaire. We asked the founders to list them in declining order of importance, and then calculated their respective levels of importance (see Table 7)27.

30 Loyalty (50.4%), leadership ability (50%) and the spirit of commitment (43.8%) are the most appreciated qualities. Experience (26.1%) and university training ((19.5%) are also deemed important. Also mentioned is the network of professional contacts (15.8%). If one compares the level of importance of the three categories, “character traits” come first (28.8%), “abilities” follow (at 17.5%), while “other qualities” come last (2.6%). In the choice of a successor, moral qualities and technical competence are the two main criteria taken into account by the founders. However, morality seems more important than competence in the eyes of the majority of founders28.

31 The importance given to loyalty and competence is differentiated according to the kind of responsibility taken on. Where the post of chief executive, the most important in day-to-day management, is concerned, opportunistic behaviour is the most harmful to the interests of the family. Where the manager's loyalty and spirit of commitment are the most important criteria, the selection of a successor always remains subjective, despite the objective aspect of the selection procedure which is partly based on an assessment of competence through university training and acquired experience. Similar assessments are made in other parts of the world. Both in developed countries, such as Canada, and developing countries, such as India, loyalty and the spirit of commitment are deemed to be the most important qualities by company heads29.

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7. Qualities demanded of a successor

32 Thus the challenge facing a chief executive is to assess credibility and to measure the moral risks ex poste. In contemporary China, institutional trust30 is deemed to be insufficient because of the low power of constraint of the institutional framework. Trust intuitu personae and relationship trust31 are the two main forms of trust which the Chinese establish in economic and social life. When formal structures do not make it possible to produce “calculable trust” resulting from a rational calculation, which consists of accurately predicting the behaviour of others through the constraints of the situation, trust “only begins, can only be measured and is only consistent in lasting social relationships”32. “The social connection network is the organising principle in Chinese companies”33.

33 Trust is a continuous process that evolves along with the behaviour of the players, the stakes, their power and the emergence of new rationalities34. The complexity of the information obtained by an employer is thus a function of personal relationships. Resorting to members of the family during the development phase of a company is thus the result of a “stronger trust between family members than between commercial partners”35. The founder of an enterprise has at his disposal more information about the members of his family than about the employees he has already recruited, and, even more so, than about someone from outside.

34 Table 8 examines the advantages and disadvantages of choosing a successor by taking into account the degree of “proximity”. Family entrepreneurs share a common vision of the various means of recruitment. They believe that the main advantage of recruiting a professional manager is that it favours innovation, while the main disadvantage lies in the uncertainty about the person’s loyalty and honesty. Internal promotion and recruiting a family member for succession favour the continuity of the company culture, making it possible for the founder to reduce the risk of recruiting a

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person with weaker moral values than hoped for. However, internal recruitment may slow innovation and the reforms necessary in order to adapt to technical evolution. The loyalty of relations is recognised by most founders as being the highest (61.3%).

8.Advantages and Disadvantages of the Ways of Selecting a Successor

35 Consequently, the ideal successor in the eyes of a founder is a relation who is both motivated and competent. This is borne out by our observation, since the majority of those questioned during our survey explicitly stated that the best solution is to pass power on to the descendants who have already proved their professional competence and their spirit of commitment. Problems arise when the ideal candidate is unavailable and when professional competence is the key to the success of the company. The means on which the founders rely in order to check the moral aspect of candidates, if the designated successor is not a relation, are not clear. Nevertheless, our hypothesis according to which personal relationships constitute an informal way of checking the reliability of a successor, is partially justified by the results of the surveys carried out by other researchers. Li Guoqing has shown that 45% of chief executives are either relations (42%) or friends (3%) of the chief executive, 25% are cadres recruited internally, while only 16% are directly recruited on the job market36.

36 Beyond the case of the Zhengyuan company, the survey carried out reveals that in Chinese family businesses, the reasons for succession, the criteria of selection of the successor and the order of preference among the various candidates all conform with practices in other parts of the world. In the course of the development of their enterprise, the founders do not hesitate to entrust functional jobs to competent third parties who are not members of the family circle. However, it is to be expected that the succession to the job of chief executive officer will usually be the result of the natural retirement of the head of the company. Anxious to preserve his patrimony, an entrepreneur in China, as elsewhere, while taking into account technical competence

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and management abilities, assesses above all the honesty and loyalty of his potential successor. Trust, in the widest sense of the word, is a decisive factor. Consequently, the entrepreneur prefers to designate a competent member of his family.

37 It is when such a successor is not available at the time of succession that the particularity of China's case becomes more marked; this is not linked to cultural specificities, but to the institutional context37. The underdeveloped state of institutions and the destruction of traditional social organisation38 limit the role of institutional trust in economic co-operation. In contemporary China, trust is usually produced by personal relationships. Social networks are brought into action in order to control the risks in the face of uncertainty39. The case of the Zhengyuan company and the opinions we have gathered show the entrepreneur resorting to his network of relationships when his successor is being chosen. Depending on the degree of intimacy of the relationship, he first seeks a candidate among “the members of his family” then among “those close to him”, and may finally resort to “strangers”. The wide-ranging definition of zijiren, which includes all those deemed reliable and sharing common values, makes it possible for a family business to escape the dilemma of succession and to develop even if there is a lack of available professional managers. The survey did not make it possible to answer all the questions arising from the case of the Zhengyuan company. Our sample was limited, and could not determine how representative it is of the majority of private companies, which in reality are small in size. Moreover, the question of succession remains open. Further surveys will provide wider knowledge and understanding of this area of business in China.

38 Translated from the French original by Michael Black

NOTES

1. Alfred D. Chandler, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1977. 2. A search of the bibliographical data base ABI-PROQUEST using the key words “family businesses” shows an increase in the number of articles published: 33 articles prior to 1989, 110 between 1990 and 1999, and 195 articles during the period 2000 to 2003. 3. The work of the historian Wong Siu-lun is ground-breaking. Cf. in particular Wong Siu-lun, “The Chinese Family Firm: A Model”, The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 36, No. 1, 1985, pp. 58-72. 4. “1997 nian quanguo siying qiye chouyang diaocha shuju ji fenxi” (Analysis and Data of Research into Private Companies Nationwide in 1997), in Zhang Houyi (ed.), Zhongguo siying qiye fazhan baogao 1978-1998 (Report on the Development of Private Companies in China, 1978-1998), Beijing, Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 1999, pp. 131-168; “Woguo siying qiye guanli yu kongzhi moshi fenxi ji qi wanshan duice” (Analysis of the Governance and the Means of Control of Chinese Private Companies), in Zhang Houyi (ed.), Zhongguo siying

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qiye fazhan baogao 1999 (Report on the Development of Private Companies in China, 1999), Beijing, Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2000, pp. 122-148; “Siying qiye zhili jiegou wenjuan diaocha de shuju yu fenxi” (Analysis and Data of the Questionnaire on the Governance Structure of Private Companies), in Zhang Houyi (ed.), Zhongguo siying qiye fazhan baogao 2001 (Report on the Development of Private Companies in China, 2001), Beijing, Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2002, pp. 166-193. The four volumes of Zhongguo siying qiye fazhan baogao bring together studies carried out over the last ten years of the capital and governance structure of Chinese private companies. This research shows that in the companies surveyed, over 80% of the capital belongs to the entrepreneur and to his family, that 60% of entrepreneurs are owner- operators, and that 55% of chief executive officers are relatives or close friends of the entrepreneur. See also Gan De’an, Zhongguo jiazu qiye yanjiu, Beijing, Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2002. 5. Louis B. Barnes and Simon A. Hershon, “Transferring Power in the Family Business”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 54, July-August 1976, pp. 105-114. ; I. Lansberg, S. Perrow, and S. Rogolsky, “Family Business as an Emerging Field”, Family Business Review, Vol. 1, 1988, pp. 1-8. 6. Wendy. C. Handler, “Methodological Issues and Considerations in Studying Family Businesses”, Family Business Review, Vol. 2, pp. 257-276. 7. C. E. Aronoff, J. L. Ward, Family Business Sourcebook, Detroit, MI, Omnigraphics, 1990. 8. J.H. Chua, J.J. Chrisman, P. Sharma, “Defining the Family Business by Behavior”, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Vol. 23, 1999, pp. 19-39 ; Ye Yinhua, “Jiazu konggu jituan, hexin qiye yu baochou hudong zhi yanjiu” (Research on Family-controlled Groups, Companies and Remuneration), Guanli pinglun, Vol. 18, No. 2, 1999. 9. For another survey of family business in China, cf. Gilles Guiheux, “The Revival of Family Capitalism”, China Perspectives, No. 58, March-April 2005, pp. 22-31. The perspective is one of the production of a discourse of justification. 10. This was often the case during the first years of reform. Private capital companies were registered as public capital companies (and were described as “wearing a red hat”, dai hongmaozi) for reasons both political (recognition by the authorities) and financial (access to loans from state banks). Cf. Gilles Guiheux, “The Incomplete Crystallisation of the Private Sector”, China Perspectives, No. 42, July-August 2002, pp. 24-35. 11. This was the gongsifa in 1993, which was applied only to companies (limited liability companies and limited companies) and made mandatory the establishment of a general assembly, a board of directors and a supervisory board. 12. Schumpeter sees this as being the principal driving force of entrepreneurs. 13. See the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, a research programme which distinguishes between two kinds of entrepreneur. The “opportunity pull entrepreneur” is motivated by hopes of maximum profit and a desire to take advantage of opportunities; setting up a business is the result of personal preference. The “poverty push entrepreneur” is motivated by the lack of any alternative; setting up a business is an imperative, not a free choice.

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14. Andrew G. Walder shows that during the first decade of the reforms, the “privatisation” of the economy was marked by the rise of family workshops. It was individuals without any entrepreneurial experience who were most drawn to private enterprise, because that was where they found the fastest way to accumulate personal resources. The heads of publicly-owned companies did not enter the private sector until the first privatisations of public companies, in the second decade. Andrew G. Walder, “Privatization and Elite Mobility: Rural China 1979-1996”, working paper, Asia/Pacific Research Center, Stanford University, Stanford, 2002. 15. The professional elite contrasts with the administrative elite. The latter were more tempted than the professional elite to enter the private sphere during the first stage of reform, when administrative power and personal contacts were more important for entrepreneurial success. The professional elite, however, were more inclined to set up their own businesses when technologies became more advanced and the market mechanisms were already established. See Lu Zheng, “Entry into the Emerging Private Sector. An Institutional Analysis of Entrepreneurship in Urban China”, working paper, Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, 2004. 16. Schumpeter distinguishes three forms of motivation in the entrepreneur: the dream and the desire to found a private kingdom, the will to win, and the joy of creating a new economic form. Joseph Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development, Piscataway, NJ, Transaction Publishers, 1982. 17. On January 9th 2002, the Securities Regulation Commission imposed the first norms for the governance of listed companies (Shangshi gongsi zhili zhunze, norms of governance of listed companies). The separation of the functions of president of the board of directors from that of chief executive officer was not obligatory. Nevertheless, the modified version published in the Zhongguo zhengquan on January 10th 2002 asked all the listed companies to comply with the principle according to which “the president of the board of directors and the chief executive officer must not be the same person”. 18. As head of the family, You Xiaohui maintained a very important influence in the question of succession. It was he, and not You Yuan, president of the board of directors, who proposed Cai as his second successor. 19. Lee K.S., Lim G.H., Lim W.S., “Family Business Succession: Appropriation Risk and Choice of Successor”, The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 28, No. 4, 2003, pp. 657-666. 20. My most sincere thanks go to Professor Chen Lin and to Mrs Ying for welcoming me into their team and sharing information with me. 21.Cf. http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjbz/qyhxbz/t20030528_80450.htm. According to these criteria, all companies which employ more than 300 people, and for which the annual turnover is in excess of 30 million yuan, or the assets exceed 40 million yuan are considered to be medium or large companies. On the problems of classifying private companies in China, cf. Thierry Pairault, “La renaissance des PME chinoises” [The Renaissance of Chinese SMEs], Actes des Neuvièmes Journées scientifiques du réseau Entrepreneuriat de l'AUF, Cluj- Napoca, 1er-4 juin 2005.

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22. According to a survey carried out in 1999 by the Federation of Industry and Commerce of Zhejiang province, private companies established after 1990 amount to 67.1% of the total, and those established between 1980 and 1989 to 30%. The average age of the entrepreneur was 41. Entrepreneurs aged between 30 and 39 amount to 40.9% of the total, those aged between 40 and 49 to 35.5%. Xie Liping (ed.), Zhejiang siying jingji yanjiu (Research on The Private Economy of Zhejiang), Hangzhou, Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 2000, p. 92 and p. 201. 23. Only 11.8% of founders have received higher education, and fewer than 50% have secondary education qualifications. 24. The series of reports on private companies published under the direction of Zhang Houyi and the Zhongguo siying jingji nianjian 1997-1999 (Annual of the Chinese Private Economy 1997-1999, Beijing, Huawen chubanshe, 2000) shows that individual investment and self-financing amounted to over 90% of financing during the 1990S. 25. Mike Burkart, Fausto Panunzi and Andrei Shleifer, “Family Firms”, The Journal of Finance, Vol. 58, 2003, pp. 2167-2202; J.S. Ang, W.L. James and T. Floyd, “Evidence of the Lack of Separation Between Business and Personal Risks Among Small Businesses”, Journal of Small Business Finance, Vol. 4 (2/3), 1995, pp. 197–210. 26. Miguel Ángel Gallo, Josep Tàpies et Kristin Cappuyns, “Comparison of Family and Nonfamily Business: Financial Logic and Personal Preferences”, Family Business Review, Vol. 17, 2004, pp. 303-318. 27. The level of importance was calculated to assess not only the dispersion but also the preference of respondents vis-à-vis the variables being tested. We asked respondents to choose the reasons which made them think about succession and to list them in declining order of importance. We gave each reason a mark which corresponds to its rank in the listing. We then calculated the average mark of each reason and determined the level of importance according to the formula: real average mark/reference mark. The reference mark depends on the number of variables being tested. Since these were qualitative variables, we supposed that all the variables had the same level of importance for all the respondents. The calculation of the “level of importance” in the other Tables follows the same logic. 28. These results closely resemble those of a survey carried out in 1995. Cf. Chu Xiaoping, Jiazu qiye de chengzhang yu shehui ziben de ronghe, Beijing, Jingji kexue chubanshe, 2004, p. 75. 29. J.J. Chrisman, J.H. Chuae and P. Sharma, “Important Attributes of Successors in Family Businesses: An Exploratory Study”, Family Business Review, Vol. 11, 1998, pp. 19-34; P. Sharma and A. Srinivas Rao, “Successor Attributes in Indian and Canadian Family Firms: A Comparative Study”, Family Business Review, Vol. 13, 2000, pp. 313-330. 30. As defined by Williamson (“Calculativeness, Trust, and Economic Organization”, Journal of Law & Economics, Vol. 36, April 1993, pp. 453-486), “institutional trust” refers to the social and organisational context in which contracts are made. “Personal trust” is defined as the trust which comes into play in non-commercial relationships, which is to say, family, friendship or love relationships. The quasi-uncalculating nature of personal trust is deemed

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to be particularly connected to the costs associated with the destruction of the “atmosphere”. 31. Zucker (“Production of Trust: Institutional Sources of Economic Structure”, in B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (eds.), Research In Organizational Behavior, Greenwich, CT, JAI Press, 1986) distinguishes three forms of trust according to their mode of production: trust intuitu personae, which draws on the particular characteristics of individuals; relationship trust, as a particular belief in the actions or the result of actions undertaken by others, which is based on past or anticipated exchanges, depending on reputation; and institutional trust, which is linked to a formal structure which guarantees the specific attributes of an individual or of an organisation. 32. Wong Siu-lun, “Chinese Entrepreneurs and Business Trust”, in Gary G. Hamilton, Asian Business Networks, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1996, pp. 13-24. 33. Kao Cheng-shu, “Personal Trust in The Large Businesses in Taiwan: A Traditional Foundation for Contemporary Economic Activities”, in Gary G. Hamilton, op. cit., pp. 61-69. 34. Peng Siqing, “Xinren de jianli jizhi: guanxi yunzuo yu fazhi shouduan” (Trust Mechanisms: Personal Relationships and the Law), Shehui xue yanjiu, No. 2, 1999, pp. 53-66. 35. Sun Wenbin and Wong Siu-lun, “Bufen jiazu qiye de diaocha yu fenxi”, in Zhang Houyi (ed.), Zhongguo siying qiye fazhan baogao 2002 (Report on the Development of Private Companies in China 2002), Beijing, Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2003, p. 138. 36. Li Guoqing, “Siying qiye zhili jiegou wenjuan diaocha de shuju yu fenxi” (Analysis and Data of the Questionnaire on the Governance Structure of Private Companies), in Zhang Houyi (ed.), 2002, op. cit., pp. 166-193. 37. Francis Fukuyama, Trust : The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, New York, Free Press, 1995. 38. Collectivisation, followed by the Cultural Revolution and recent urbanisation have to large extent destroyed the initial order of rural society, which entrusted the elders of a village with the power of arbitration. 39. Here we refer to Fei Xiaotong, according to whom Chinese society is based on social networks. Fei uses two metaphors to compare Western society with Chinese society: “Western society is like a haystack, while Chinese society is made up of waves in the form of concentric circles, as when one throws a stone into water”. Each individual is at the centre of a circle, and weaves his own network in an extensive fashion, from family members to close friends, to professional colleagues. Fei Xiaotong, Xiangtu Zhongguo, Beijing, Sanlian shudian, 1985 (first published in 1948).

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RÉSUMÉS

In mainland China, the family, as the basic social unit, has recently regained its importance in economic activity. Starting from the particular case of a family business located in Zhejiang province, this article reviews the practices that prevail in the succession of the management of companies. Following this case study, a questionnaire was drawn up and submitted to 17 family businesses. The criteria applied by the entrepreneur in the choice of his/her successor, the order of preference among the candidates, and the methods of controlling the risks involved are revealed and analysed.

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Law

China Perspectives, 66 | July- August 2006 58

Is Taiwan a Presidential System?

Ondrej Kucera

1 The Taiwanese government underwent substantial change in the 1990s. A majority of political scientists and some politicians classify or claim its system to now be semi- presidential2. However there are some competing interpretations that claim it to be either “of a parliamentarian kind”3, “being presidential”4 or “moving towards a presidential type”5. Some political scientists claim that the classification of political systems is not trichotomic (parliamentarian, semi-presidential, presidential) but only dichotomic, and in such a case Taiwan also has to be classified or interpreted as either a presidential or parliamentarian system6. Maurice Duverger, the father of the concept of a semi-presidential government, asserts that a semi-presidential system is not a synthesis of a presidential system and a parliamentary system, but rather a system which—depending on whether the President has majority support in the legislature— reverts either to a parliamentary or to a presidential form of government7.

2 We will try to answer three questions in this article: Is it always possible to “classify”8 a given government as one particular type or another, or is it sufficient to “interpret9 the nature” of that government? How could the government of Taiwan be classified? What, if any, are the consequences of such classification? Presidential and parliamentary systems 3 Robert Elgie was the first to argue that there are three methods for classification of semi-presidential systems in the literature: “The first type of definition is one that considers only the actual powers of political actors, or, to put it another way, the relational properties of democratic regime types... The second type of definition is one that combines formal constitutional arrangements with actual powers, or, more accurately, dispositional and relational properties...... a third type of definition derived from the dispositional properties of regime types alone” 10 [this definition is thus based only on the analysis of formal constitutional arrangements].

4 The combination of dispositional and relational properties is used in the definition of Maurice Duverger: “The concept of semi-presidential form of government....is defined ...by the content of Constitution. A political regime is considered as semi-presidential if the Constitution which established it combines three elements: (1) the President of the Republic is elected by universal suffrage; (2) he possesses quite considerable powers; (3)

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he has opposite him, however, a Prime Minister and ministers who possess executive and governmental power and can stay in office only if the Parliament does not show opposition to them...”11.

5 This definition was considerably modified by Giovanni Sartori12. Sartori puts the emphasis of this definition on the power relationship between President and Prime Minister (four of the five criteria), but it still focuses on the Constitution. Patrick O’Neil defines a semi-presidential regime as one where the executive power is divided between the President and the Prime Minister, but where the President has quite substantial powers13. From this type of definition we have to class the respective governments by looking at the respective powers of the head of state and head of government. The direct election of the President is irrelevant for this definition14. This definition is concerned only with the real power characteristics of the respective system (also referred to as relational properties).

6 Robert Elgie in his general work on the classification of regime types15 and also in a work focusing specifically on semi-presidential regimes16 affirms that “classifications of regime types should be derived either from the dispositional properties of regimes or from their relational properties but not from both together” 17. He also claims that “it is better to classify regime types on the basis of their dispositional properties rather than their relational properties because they can be objectively derived from the Constitution, and therefore create conditions for a more scientific analysis...”18. His proposed definition of semi-presidential regime based only on dispositional properties of the regime has only three criteria: a popularly elected President; a fixed term for the President; the President exists alongside the Prime Minister and a cabinet responsible to Parliament 19. Constitutional regimes and political systems 7 The Constitution can only have “potential” relational properties, which are actually implemented (in various different ways and to different degrees) into the political system. In his discussion of relational properties, Elgie, as other authors, mix the potential relational properties and their actual realisation. They mix the power positions of players prescribed by the Constitution and the actual power positions in the system.

8 The French constitutional scientist Olivier Duhamel emphasises the need to distinguish the definition criteria based on constitutional structure and the ones based on the behaviour of government (and its key players). He considers the first set of criteria to define the constitutional regime of the particular country and the second set of criteria to define the particular country’s political system20. We agree with the above-stated methodological position, a variation of which has recently been articulated by Thomas Sedelius: “It seems more appropriate to argue ...that semi-presidential systems exhibit various forms of political practices within the same constitutional framework”21.

9 It is strictly necessary to distinguish between the analysis of a constitutional regime and a political system. Two theories can be used for describing characteristics of political systems: Arend Lijphart’s theory of consensual government and Guillermo O’Donnel’s theory of delegative democracy. Lijphart defines political systems on the continuum from majoritarian to consensual22. The majoritarian political system corresponds more with the presidential regime, or as Thomas Poguntke puts it —“majoritarian democracies have a higher potential for presidential tendencies...”23.

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10 The theory of Guillermo O’Donnell, which was derived from the analysis of real functioning of South American presidential democracies24, deals with the real behaviour of a President in a presidential system of government, and it defines one side of another typological continuum, which is the delegative democracy in opposition to “classical” representative democracy.

11 We divide the definition of the Taiwanese system of government into the definition of its constitutional regime and into the characterisation of its political system. Only the constitutional regime can be defined and therefore the trichotomic classification of regimes is applicable only to the first part of the definition. The political system can be merely described or characterised, and therefore only the tendencies towards presidentialisation of a respective non-presidential constitutional regime (parliamentary, semi-presidential) can be observed. Taiwanese constitutional regime 12 The President is directly (popularly) elected according to the Article 2, paragraph 1 of Additional articles to the Constitution of the Republic of China (AA). He is, according to Article 2, paragraph 6 of AA, elected for a fixed term of four years. Article 3, paragraph 1 of AA creates the Prime Minister (president of Executive Yuan) and cabinet (Executive Yuan). Both are responsible to Parliament (Legislative Yuan) according to Article 3, paragraph 2. The Legislative Yuan has the specific right to vote on a call of no confidence, which would remove the Prime Minister and cabinet. All the dispositional properties of the definition of semi-presidential constitutional regime are therefore met.

13 The President has only one power that he can exercise on his own: the power to appoint and remove Prime Ministers. The rest of the important President’s decisions are either countersigned by the Prime Minister or the Legislative Yuan. It therefore necessitates the player’s co-operation25. The President has, according to the Article 2, paragraph 3 of AA, the power “to issue emergency decrees and take all the necessary measures to avert imminent danger affecting the security of the state or of the people or to cope with any serious financial or economic crisis” 26. He therefore has potential extraordinary powers. “In case of disputes between two or more Yuan other than those concerning which there are relevant provisions in this Constitution, the President may call a meeting of the presidents of the Yuan concerned for consultation with a view to reaching a solution”27. Again the Constitution prescribes him the power to initiate arbitration between the key players. The possibility of recall of the elected official28 and the exercise of the right of referendum29 are features of direct democracy prescribed by the Constitution that exist in the political reality of today’s Taiwan. The Constitution, however, also stipulates in Article 136 that the people have the right of initiative, but this has in no way affected the political reality, nor is there even a mechanism to exercise this right. It appears that the relational properties present in the Republic of China Constitution also prescribe for Taiwan a semi-presidential constitutional regime. Majoritarian government on Taiwan 14 The KMT government was, until the 2000 presidential elections, clearly a one-party cabinet as a result of the KMT legislative majority, and also concurrently holding the presidency. Shelley Rigger predicted in 2000 that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s Chen Shui-bian’s victory would force him to form a coalition government that would have to include members of KMT as well as independents30. The prediction proved to be true concerning the new Executive Yuan’s composition, however this

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cross-party membership wasn’t the result of coalition agreement, but members of the opposition parties (mainly KMT) entered the government on an individual basis. The situation was considered by President Chen to be temporary and he personally vowed to create a genuine coalition with the opposition parties after the 2001 Parliamentary elections31. However the Cabinet created after the parliamentary elections in 2001 was again composed mainly of politicians loyal to President. The new Prime Minister Yu Shyi-kun has been a long-time co-worker with the President, having been a secretary to the Presidential office, so the Cabinet has become more of a President’s secretariat and the number of DPP party members increased.

15 After the parliamentary elections of 2004, with the appointment of the Chen’s long- standing DPP rival Frank Hsieh to the position of Prime Minister, the number of DPP members has increased again32 and the Cabinet has become a more independent body. The attempts to include some opposition KMT politicians in the Cabinet on an official basis (specifically the offer of the vice-premier position to the KMT) have been blocked by the conditions the KMT put forward. These conditions could have signalled a push towards a two-party coalition Cabinet, but were rejected by the DPP. Never during his time in office has President Chen made a concrete offer or has entered into formal consultations to create a coalition-government33. There were rumours in December 2005 in Taiwan that Chen was talking again about creating a coalition government,34 but none of them proved to be true.

16 Until 2000 the system was clearly dominated by executive power. It was a logical outgrowth of the situation where the presidency and the ruling party chairmanship were dominated by one person (as in the case of the Chiangs and Lee Teng-hui). The situation was changed by the 2000 presidential elections and Parliament has acquired a more important role. The executive branch has retained the agenda-setting power, but Parliament has begun to learn how to be a veto player (especially after Ma Ying-jeou’s accession to the KMT party chairmanship).

17 Chen Shui-bian acquired the chairmanship of the DPP in his move to retain domination of executive power (emulating the previous KMT situation), and the party has become a platform for communication of the President’s executive policies (he stepped down after losing the 2004 parliamentary elections). However the inability of the President to overpower the legislature and to implement his issues through legislation has resulted in legislative “gridlock”. “The Law Governing Legislator’s Exercise of Power” enacted on January 25th 1999 and revised on January 25th 200235 could alleviate the gridlock. This law has provided for the possibility of partisan negotiations in the legislature, when consensus over a Bill cannot be reached. However, this method is criticised because it lacks transparency of decision36. On the other hand the Legislative Yuan is asserting its will by its ability to cut the government’s budget, thus strengthening its own position37.

18 Wu Shan-yu argues that after his initial uncertainty, Chen Shui-bian has slowly learned how to assert himself over the Legislative Yuan and he is gradually moving towards being the dominant one in the relationship38. He was seen to be a reactive President in the first year of his presidency39, but later demonstrated his ability to influence policy- making even without a legislative majority. He skilfully uses direct appeals to the public, thus setting a precedent for future Presidents to emulate40. The best example of a policy victory can be seen in Chen’s proposal for referendum legislation. Due to public pressure, Parliament has supported a watered down version of a referendum, allowing

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Chen to score a policy victory41. Chen is trying hard to maximise his powers by emulating his KMT predecessors. The condition of the domination of executive power is therefore met, even with an apparent tendency towards losing this dominance, especially in 2005 (when opposition leaders made trips to the mainland), while opposition uses its tools and learns how to be effective.

19 The effective number of political parties on Taiwan42 (1995 – 2.54; 1998 – 2.46) has shot up at the 2001 parliamentary elections (3.45) and declined a bit in the elections of 2004 (3.26). The emergence of pan-blue and pan-green camps in the 2001 election has kept the Taiwanese party system close to real bipartism. The recent constitutional change43 will probably lead the party system towards bipartism by its own inertia, as is already happening by the transfer of MPs from the PFP to the KMT.

20 There is very strong network of independent local factions on Taiwan, held together by ties of blood, kinship, marriage and personal relationships44. This system therefore strongly deters the creation of the centralist, government-created system of interest groups. It was estimated in 2000 that about 60% of legislators represented local factions45. The thesis that Taiwan enjoys a plurality of interest groups is also supported by Ya-Chung Chuang, who claims that on Taiwan, there has gradually emerged a network of grassroots social movements46, and by Ming-sho Ho who claims that “the DPP government opened new policy channels. Social movement activists were given the chance to work within existing government institutions, [and] once they secured government positions, these activists were able to produce some procedural changes as favored by social movements”47.

21 The Taiwanese political system can be characterised by strong majoritarian tendencies, which reflect Taiwan’s authoritarian past, and these were sustained after the beginning of democratisation due to the prevailing presidential government during Lee’s era, even while already having established a semi-presidential constitutional regime. The type of democratisation on Taiwan―the ruling elite engineered type, which retained the elite in power long after successful regime transition―has therefore retained part of the previous authoritarian regime’s political culture―the majoritarian behaviour. These tendencies were only mildly moderated after the 2000 presidential elections by Taiwan’s constitutional regime and voting system. Delegative democracy on Taiwan 22 Delegative democracy influences the functioning of the government, and especially the move towards personalised (presidentialised) government, while having a semi- presidential constitutional regime can be viewed as less behaving the way prescribed by the Constitution and so less representing the election results.

23 Before the 2000 government split, it was not really necessary for the Presidents to assert themselves as “supra party” because they commanded a clear majority. President Chen, lacking this majority, claimed in his first inaugural speech, in 2000, that he would attempt “to establish a supra-party government”.... On coming to office he called for the creation of “a government for all the people”. He also called for the creation of a “cross-party alliance for national stability” during the legislative election of 200148. His tactics of directly appealing to the public49 can also be viewed as trying to circumvent the prescribed constitutional method of governing.

24 Only under Chen Shui-bian did the government begin to describe the legislature as a major stumbling block hindering reform initiatives through tardiness in dealing with

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government bills50. Hermann Halbeisen also argues that Chen’s supra-party approach... “has to be seen as a conscious attempt to split the political opposition, thereby eliciting hostile reactions of both the KMT and the PFP”.

25 The President has been traditionally the keystone of politics for the reasons of concurrent chairmanship of the previously predominant party―the KMT. After the constitutional revision of the appointment of the Prime Minister (it no longer requires the consent of the Legislative Yuan), in popular understanding the President of the Republic became Taiwan’s chief executive. Premier Lien Chan once described himself as “the secretary of the President”51. Yu Shyi-kun―former chief of staff of the presidential office behaved as the “chief of staff” even as Prime Minister.

26 Revising the DPP party charter and making the incumbent President automatically the chairman of the DPP has also strengthened the position of the President in the political process. However this characteristic has changed since the 2004 parliamentary elections. President Chen stepped down from his position of party chairman, and the DPP party situation now appears to be reverting more to the consensual politics of three key players (President, Prime Minister, party chairman) and is becoming more representative.

27 The tradition of isolating himself from existing political institutions and the tradition of circumventing them had already begun with Lee Teng-hui at the beginning of his presidency due to Lee’s lack of support in existing political institutions, even in his own party. The first successful circumventing action was Lee’s call for a National Affairs Conference of leaders across the political spectrum, which was used to break the “gridlock” within the KMT over political reform52. Another instance of such behaviour was the convention of the National Development Council, which was held in December 1996 with participants from the government and the public sector. The Council reached consensus on constitutional reform which is currently being implemented (as of 2005)53. By both these extra-governmental bodies Lee created extra-constitutional institutions used for promoting his personal policies. In his second term of office in particular Lee’s strong leadership became more arbitrary and resulted in massive corruption and a confrontational style which helped to fracture the KMT54, including pushing aside his designated successor, former Taiwan governor James Soong, and personally promoting his own premier, Lien Chan. The KMT would not have nominated him had it not been for Lee’s personal push55. He thus created by his behaviour a negative institutional legacy undercutting the new presidency under Chen56.

28 In the beginning of his first term Chen surrounded himself with about thirty aides known as “Boy scouts”, and with them tried rather unsuccessfully to set his own agenda. In the first year of his presidency he isolated himself even within his own party57. The convening of the National Economic Development Advisory Conference (first proposed in a televised speech on May 18th 2001) provided a vehicle for Chen to push his own policies and, as Halbeisen claims, “it was the first time Chen had shown that he had both understood his position of weakness and also how, with that position, to still get what he wanted”58.

29 Taiwan exhibits a clear drift toward the situation where the real decision-making power in the system is “delegated” to the President. It is also conforming to Poguntke’s definition of presidentialisation of governments. Aftermath of the 2004 parliamentary elections

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30 Chen Shui-bian apologised to DPP supporters right after the elections (in which, shortly after narrowly winning re-election under dubious conditions, he did not achieve a parliamentary majority), saying that he would take the voter’s verdict as an invitation for serious self-examination…He said that he would make it a priority to find ways to co-operate with the opposition and implement policies for the good of nation59 (see box). This consensual rhetoric was proved by subsequent events to be hollow words and the developments of spring 2006 has offered no hope for the Taiwanese political system to become consensual. President Chen's New Year's Day Address 31 The choice of the people [in the 2004 elections] sent a clear message: The governing party must rule with humility while the opposition parties are rational in providing oversight. Taiwan's society does not need bifurcation between the blue and green camps, nor does it need ongoing confrontation between the governing and opposition parties. The governing and opposition parties each have their own roles to play. Fair competition, co-operation rather than confrontation, checks and balances, and solidarity rather than infighting―these are now the ardent expectations of the people of Taiwan. I myself identify very strongly with the voice of the people, and fully grasp where my duties and responsibilities as President lie...I would like to hereby advocate openly that Taiwan must head towards a new era of consultation and dialogue.

32 During the election, there might have been a Pan-Green and Pan-Blue divide; but, with the election now behind us, there should only be "one country and a unified people" here in Taiwan...60 Taiwan President Names New Premier 33 Taiwan's President on Tuesday named a skilful negotiator from his party as the new premier, while pledging reconciliation between his government and the opposition alliance, as well as rival China. "We will search all possibilities for reconciliation, Chen said. We must give up partisan interests and ideological divides.61 Premier Hopes for Political Reconciliation in 2005 34 Hsieh called his cabinet a "reconciliation cabinet," in contrast to his predecessor's "combat cabinet". 62 The New Chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party 35 High-ranking officials from the pan-blue and pan-green camp were stepping over each other in their effort to demonstrate their newfound respect for "political reconciliation" at a ceremony held yesterday morning at the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) headquarters, in which Su Tseng-chang became the new chairman of the DPP.63 10-point agreement signed 36 Marking a milestone in inter-party co-operation, President Chen Shui-bian and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong held a historic meeting yesterday where they reached a consensus to acknowledge and respect the current definition of Taiwan's status, create a legal basis for cross-Strait peace, and reiterated their support for the Republic of China.

37 After the meeting at the Taipei Guest House yesterday morning, Chen and Soong signed a joint 10-point agreement on cross-Strait relations, national defence and ethnic reconciliation. The consensus was hailed as the beginning of dialogue and discussion between the governing and opposition camps...

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38 Chen's accord with Soong includes substantive and major commitments. For one, Chen openly pledged that he would not push for changing the title of the country during the remainder of his term, and that any constitutional reform would require consensus between the governing and opposition parties.64 The parliamentary gridlock, “constitutional” transfer of powers and the recall motion 39 The situation in the spring of 2006 became quite the reverse of the DPP’s proclaimed attempts for consolidating government. After losing in the 2005 local elections the DPP was pushed back onto the defensive and as a result the prime ministerial post changed yet again. Frank Hsieh was replaced by Su Tseng-chang. The DPP tried to gain ground by abolishing the National Unification Council and National Unification Guidelines in February 2006, angering the pan blue camp, being a move that could be viewed as aimed towards an independent Taiwan. The situation in Parliament became tense, and after a series of corruption scandals that pointed to the top-most echelons of the DPP, also implicating the President’s son-in-law and the President’s wife, the PFP and the KMT began to consider the recall of the president. Amidst the recall discussions Chen publicly handed some constitutional powers to the Premier.

40 The state of gridlock in the Legislature can best be described by citing from the article published in Taipei Times on June 1st 2006, page 8: “Unsurprisingly [emphasis added], the Legislative Yuan ended its spring session in chaos, failing to pass a number of critical bills that seriously affect the livelihoods of ordinary people and the national interest. Amendments to the Statute Governing the Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area failed for a third time after physical confrontation between the governing and opposition parties. The pan-greens stopped the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) from putting the amendment to a vote on the legislative floor. The pan-blues, in return, blocked all of the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) proposals, and the legislature went into its summer recess on Tuesday amid pandemonium”.

41 The number of bills passed through the Legislative Yuan is constantly dropping. Seventy-five were passed in the last session, down from eighty-six passed during the previous session. Almost no important bills were passed during this spring session 2006, leaving many very important bills on hold65.

42 President Chen resolved on 31st of May 2006 that from now on all Cabinet-related matters would be in the hands of the premier. The President also said that he would respect Su's nominations for Cabinet personnel. Chen said that although as a member of the DPP he had an obligation to make a contribution to the party, he would no longer participate in DPP internal affairs, nor campaign on behalf of party members running for public office.

43 He has been publicly declaring what has become apparent. His loss of real power. It is however difficult to say if it is legitimate to transfer his powers into the hands of Prime Minister only or if this is just another exercise in rhetoric as the head of the KMT said: “It's absurd to cede presidential powers. It is a dereliction of duty if the President delegates the powers granted to him by the Constitution... As for powers that the President was not given constitutionally, there is nothing for him to give up or to delegate. If there are any, then they were invented by the President himself”66.

44 The former DPP Premier Frank Hsieh has probably unintentionally confirmed the notion of Chen overstepping his constitutional powers when he said that “letting

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things return to the constitutional system is a good thing. I hope Taiwanese society can gradually get back on a normal track...”67.

45 The final touch to the stubborn, majoritarian stance of opposing camps came into play during the last days of May 2006 when a proposal to recall President Chen Shui-bian was submitted to the legislature by pan-blue lawmakers on May 30th 200668. The motion was signed by 72 legislators, more than the required one-quarter of the 221- seat legislature. However President Chen Shui-bian survived the first-ever presidential recall vote on June 27th, when the 119 votes for the measure fell far short of the two- thirds majority needed to approve it. The recall motion had again created or, it is better to say, sustained, confrontation between the two major party alliances.

46 The events of spring 2006 clearly show the delegative feature of Taiwan’s political system. The President feels he can make decisions about constitutional powers himself. His handing-down of presidential powers to the Prime Minister can be seen as a strong example of a President ignoring the Constitution. Either he exercised extra- constitutional powers before his move and, as is being claimed by DPP, he has now restored constitutional behaviour; or he moved his constitutional powers to the Prime Minister and is therefore behaving unconstitutionally now. Because if the President feels that he has lost the ability to exercise the powers prescribed to him by the Constitution he has the only constitutional solution―resign from office and let the vice-president do his job. That is, as a matter of fact, the reason for the existence of the vice-president’s office—that he/she can step into the place of an inept President without having to go through new elections.

47 The majoritarian features in Taiwanese politics are being enhanced. Legislative gridlock is deepened by the inability to pass any relevant bills. The transfer of powers to the Prime Minister was aimed at strengthening executive power amid the bribery scandal touching the President and the recall motion has also strengthened the bipartisan features of Taiwan’s political system, because the pan-blue and pan-green camps were set against each other during the campaign surrounding the motion process.

48 Taiwanese politics are working under a semi-presidential constitutional regime. It is possible to conclude that the Taiwanese political system was during Chen’s first presidency moving towards the presidential system as he claimed69. However it was not because of the changing constitutional arrangement or changing institutional design of the system, but more due to the real behaviour of the key players in the political arena —President Chen himself working hard to fulfil his own predictions. After the heated election year of 2004, the players in the arena that year appeared tired of fighting without ever reaching the desired majoritarian (Caesarian) outcome. Therefore, seemingly forced by circumstances, President Chen began, with his New Year’s address in 2005, an attempt to consolidate the government’s functioning by moving towards a more consensual and representative style of governing. He stepped down from the position of DPP party chairman, and thus gave more space to a consensual and representative style of governing in his own ruling (but not majority) party. Naming Frank Hsieh, one of his own rivals in the party, Prime Minister, was a prime example, the election of Su Tseng-chang as DPP party chairman was another.

49 On the other hand Taiwanese politics exhibits deeply anchored traits of majoritarian behaviour. Hsieh didn’t succeed in including a rival party (KMT) vice-premier into his Cabinet, and the rapprochement between the DPP and KMT did not proceed. Ma Ying-

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jeou after his accession to the post of KMT chairman has begun to use tactics of “scorched earth” in the Legislative Yuan, thus blocking most DPP proposals. This majoritarian tactic, an embedded trait of Taiwanese politics which draws on deep historical and structural roots, can be seen as a means of achieving the desired consensual outcome―coalition government (on the side of the KMT). The historical roots―the authoritarian past—are already mentioned above; the structural roots of the situation consist of two main features—the SNTV voting system and from the transition to democracy rift in society. The role of the SNTV voting system can be viewed as very negative, because it puts even candidates from the same party into competition with each other70. Politics is thus getting too personalised at all levels and as such influences the players’ behaviour. For example neither Lien nor Soong was present at Chen Shui- bian’s inauguration ceremony71. Taiwan’s transition to democracy has also revealed the persistent cleavage between earlier and post-1945 immigrants and this cleavage is used in elections to sharpen the differences and polarise society. Even as the SNTV voting system is becoming obsolete, it leaves behind the legacy of deeply divided factional local politics which will take a long time to improve.

50 Taiwan is exhibiting only few minor signs of moving towards a more consensual or more representative government, even though such a movement would be its only possibility under the present constitutional regime for achieving democratic government functionality. The political system is unused to compromise and consensus, and views any yielding of ideals towards the pursuit of a common goal as a betrayal or weakness. The consensual approach as seen in the aftermath of the 2004 parliamentary elections will probably remain only a rhetorical figure of the past and another weapon in the majoritarian political game.

51 An easier solution from the arsenal of constitutional engineering―considering the deeply embedded majoritarian characteristics of Taiwanese politics—would be to change the design of the ROC Constitution. The recent change in voting system is claimed to solve the situation by simplifying the elections while the predicted outcome will tend to create bipartism and ease the creation of a one-party Executive government. This result is however based on one presumed outcome—the alignment of presidential and parliamentary elections. However some political commentators and even Chen himself72 claim that the result of the 2004 parliamentary elections showed the will of the electorate for reconciliation and compromise. It is therefore not unlikely that the voters in their desire for preserving the contemporary status quo on the most important Taiwan issue of division—independence versus unification with the PRC73— would split their votes, thus creating the same situation which blocks Taiwan’s legislative process today.

52 The solution to this problem which would keep the majoritarian political system and which would eliminate the delegative features of it as a parliamentary constitutional regime coupled with a simple majority voting system in one member districts74. The simple majority voting system would in all probability produce a majority party in government and this party would be able to nominate the Prime Minister as the head of the Executive branch of government, responsible to Parliament. Only such a solution could solve the problem of legislative “gridlock” in the long term. It is also possible that the parties in the bipartisan system would have to reach for the centrist voter to win, thus easing the tension of the current divide. It is much easier to adjust the

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Constitution to fit the prevailing political culture then to try to change Taiwanese politics.

NOTES

1. This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the Second Conference of European Association of Taiwanese Studies at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany on 1st -2nd April 2005. 2. E.g. Yu-Shan Wu, “Appointing the Prime Minister under Incongruence: Taiwan in Comparison with France and ”, Taiwan Journal of Democracy, Vol. 1, No. 1, July 2005, pp. 103-104; Hermann Halbeisen, “Taiwan’s Domestic Politics since the Presidential Elections 2000”, Duisburg Working Papers on East Asian Studies, No. 53, 2003, p. 7; Robert Elgie, “Semi-Presidentialism in Europe”, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 14; Horst Bahro et al., “Duverger’s concept: Semi-presidential government revisited”, European Journal of Political Research, No. 34, 1998, pp. 201-224. 3. John Fuh-sheng Hsieh, “Continuity and Change in Taiwan’s Electoral Politics”, in Hsieh, John Fuh-sheng and David Newman (eds.), How Asia Votes. New York, London, Chatham House, 2002, p. 33. 4. Philip Paolino, “Democratization, divided government and the 2001 Taiwanese Legislative Yuan elections”, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. 40, No. 1-2, February– April 2005, p. 125(23), Expanded Academic ASAP (Internet edition, November 2005). 5. Chen Shui-bian, Shiji shou hang yi zhengdang lunti wubai tian de chensi,Taipei, Yuanshen, 2001. 6. Arend Lijphart, “Trichotomy or dichotomy?”, European Journal of Political Research, No. 31, 1997, pp. 127-128. Richard Moulin, Le Présidentialisme et la classification des régimes politique, Paris, Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, 1978, p. 39. 7. Maurice Duverger, “A New Political System Model: Semi-Presidential Government”, European Journal of Political Research, No. 8, 1980, p. 186. 8. Classifying should be based on objective criteria unbiased by the subjective opinion of authors. 9. Interpreting is based on subjective criteria and the subjective view of individual authors. 10. Robert Elgie, “Semi-Presidentialism: Concepts, Consequences and Contesting Explanations”, Political Studies Review, Vol. 2, 2004, pp. 316-317. 11. Maurice Duverger, op. cit., p. 166. Duverger also addresses the apparent differences in the power of the President in governments classified as semi-presidential. He claims that the difference in the power of the President in semi-presidential systems depend on the position of the head of state in relation to any parliamentary majority. If he is that party leader, he becomes very powerful. But if he is not the head of his party, he often becomes a figurehead. If he is outside the majority, whether as an opponent or as a neutral figure, his powers then correspond to those outlined in the Constitution (Maurice Duverger, op. cit., p. 186)

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12. Giovanni Sartori, Comparative Constitutional Engineering. An Inquiry into Structures, Incentives and Outcomes, Basingstoke and London, Macmillan, 1997. Sartori himself uses the term semi-presidential system instead of Duverger’s “form of government” His definition is as follows: (1) The Head of State (President) must be popularly elected for a fixed term; (2) the President shares executive power with a prime minister; (3) the President is independent from the Cabinet and legislature, although he cannot rule by himself; (4) the prime minister is formally independent from the President, but is dependent on the legislature; (5) the dual authority structure of the Executive enables flexible transfer of real executive power depending on circumstances. 13.Patrick O’Neil, “Presidential Power in Post-Communist Europe: The Hungarian Case in Comparative Perspective”, Journal of Communist Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3, September 1993, p. 197. 14. Robert Elgie, “Semi-Presidentialism: Concepts, Consequences and Contesting Explanations”, Political Studies Review, Vol. 2, 2004, p. 316. 15. Robert Elgie, “The Classification of Democratic Regime Types: Conceptual Ambiguity and Contestable Assumptions”, European Journal of Political Research, No. 33, 1998, pp. 219-238. 16. Robert Elgie, “Semi-Presidentialism...”, pp. 316-317. 17. Robert Elgie, “The Classification of Democratic Regime Types...”, p. 235. 18. Ibid.. 19. Robert Elgie, “Semi-Presidentialism...”, p. 317. 20. Olivier Duhamel, “Remarques sur la notion du régime semi-présidentiel”, in Dominique Colas and Claude Emeri (eds.), Droit, institutions et systèmes politiques: Mélanges en hommage à Maurice Duverger, Paris, PUF, 1987, p. 585. 21. Thomas Sedelius, “Semi-Presidentialism in Post-Communist Countries”, Paper presented at the XIIIth Nordic Political Science Association (NOPSA) Conference in Aalborg, August 15th-17th 2002, p. 16. 22. Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1999. 23. Thomas Poguntke, “The Presidentialization of Parliamentary Democracies: A Contradiction in Terms?” Paper presented at the ECPR Workshop “The Presidentialization of Parliamentary Democracies?”, Copenhagen, April 2000, p. 13. 24. Guillermo O’Donnel, “Democracia Delegativa?”, Novos Estudios CEBRAP, No. 31, October 1991. 25. Article 2, paragraph 2 of Additional Articles to ROC Constitution (sixth revision). 26. Article 44 of ROC Constitution. 27. Ibid. 28. Op. cit., Article 133. 29. Op. cit., Article 136. 30. Shelley Rigger, “Taiwan Rides the Democracy Dragon”, The Washington Quarterly, February 23rd 2000, p. 107 (Internet edition, November 13th 2005). 31. Matthew Forney, Barry Hillenbrand, Don Shapiro, Jennifer Wang, “Taiwan Little Big Man.(President Chen Shui-bian)(World)”, Time, May 28th 2001, Expanded Academic ASAP (Internet Edition, November 13th 2005). 32. Yu-Shan Wu, op. cit. 33. Hermann Halbeisen, op. cit., p. 8. 34. Ko Shu-ling, “President faces though time in the legislature – analysts”, The Taipei Times, December 11th 2005, p. 3 (Internet edition).

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35. http://db.lawbank.com.tw 36. Christian Göbel, “Towards a Consolidated Democracy? Informal and Formal Institutions in Taiwan’s Political Process”, Paper prepared for the Conference Group on Taiwan Studies at the APSA Meeting 2001, San Francisco, August 30th – September 2nd, p. 17. 37. “Budget cuts decried by the Cabinet”, The Taipei Times, January 22nd 2005, p. 3. 38. Yu-Shan Wu, op. cit. 39. Matthew Forney et al., op. cit. 40. Philip Paolino, op. cit., p. 125. 41. Pat Gao, “The Second Round”, Taiwan Review, No. 3, Vol. 54, March 2004, p. 24. 42. The method of measuring the effective number of political parties comes from M. Laakso and R. Taagepera, “Effective Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to Western Europe”, Comparative Political Studies 12 (1), 1979. 43. The more important changes are: cutting the number of MPs from 225 to 113; prolonging the terms of office from three to four years and aligning the parliamentary elections with the presidential ones; changing the SNTV voting system into the “single- district two votes” system; half of the national constituency going to women; 73 single- member districts, 6 aboriginal mandates, 34 for national constituency and overseas Chinese (Hwang 2005: 14-15) 44. Christian Göbel, op. cit., p. 5. 45. Ibid., p. 6. 46. Chuang Ya-Chung, “Democracy in Action: The Making of Social Movement Webs in Taiwan”, Critique of Anthropology, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 235-255. 47. Ming-sho Ho, “Taiwan’s State and Social Movements Under the DPP Government, 2000–2004”, Journal of East Asian Studies 5 (2005), pp. 401–425. 48. Hermann Halbeisen, op. cit., pp. 2-7. 49. Philip Paolino, op. cit., p. 125. 50. Hermann Halbeisen, op. cit., p. 11. 51. Hermann Halbeisen, op. cit., p. 9. 52. Bruce J. Dickson and Chien-min Chao (eds), Assessing the Lee Teng-hui Legacy in Taiwan’s Politics: Democratic Consolidation and External Relations, NY, M.E. Sharpe, 2002, Introduction. 53. Jim Hwang, “Out with the Old. Taiwan is modifying its electoral system and restructuring the Legislative Yuan”, Taiwan Review, Vol. 55, No. 3, March 2005, p. 14. 54. Bruce J. Dickson and Chien-min Chao (eds), op. cit. 55. Shelley Rigger, “Taiwan Rides the Democracy Dragon”, The Washington Quarterly, February 23rd 2000, p. 107 (Internet Edition, November 13th 2005). 56. Bruce J. Dickson and Chien-min Chao (eds), op. cit. 57. Matthew Forney et al., op. cit. 58. Hermann Halbeisen, op. cit., p. 4. 59. “The Democratic Way”, Taiwan Review, No. 2, 2005, editorial, p. 1. 60. Presidential office news release, January 1st 2005 (Internet edition). 61. Associated Press, January 25th 2005 (Internet edition). 62. The China Post, February 12th 2005 (Internet edition). 63. Jewel Huang, The Taipei Times, February 16th 2005, p. 1 (Internet edition). 64. Caroline Hong and Huang Tai-lin, The Taipei Times, February 25th 2005, p. 1; March 6th 2005, p. 8. (Internet edition).

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65. On hold are budget bills pertaining to public infrastructure; flood-control projects; investment projects by state-owned enterprises and unfreezing around NT$200 billion in revenue meant for the central government; review of the state public prosecutor- general nominee; approval of Control Yuan members and the arms-procurement plan; the draft labour insurance supervisory commission organic law; amendments to the Organic Law of the Executive Yuan that are to pave the way for government restructuring and administrative efficiency; the special budget for flood-prevention projects and many others. 66. Mo -chih and Shih Hsiu-chuan, “Ma takes aim at Chen power shift”, The Taipei Times, June 2nd 2006, p. 1 (Internet edition). 67. Jewel Huang, “DPP will back Cabinet, Yu says”, The Taipei Times, June 2nd 2006, p. 3 (Internet edition). 68. A motion to recall the President needs the signatures of at least one-quarter of the Legislative Yuan's members—55—as well as the consent of two-thirds of all legislative members, pending final approval by half of the nation's eligible voters. 69. Chen Shui-bian, op. cit.; 70. Oscar Chung, “After the Tally. The legislative elections changed little as the opposition held onto a thin majority”, Taiwan Review, Vol. 55, No. 3, March 2005, p. 8. 71. Pat Gao, op. cit., p. 23. 72. Presidential office news release, January 1st 2005 (Internet edition). 73. The opinion polls for the years 1998-2003 show the support for the status quo at around 75 to 85 %. Taiwan Yearbook 2004, Taiwan, GIO, 2004. 74. The proposed change of constitutional regime to reflect the parliamentary regime is not recommended for the reason that Allen Houng, convener of the Constitutional Reform Alliance, proposes―that a parliamentary system creates more political stability because government decisions are jointly made by all political parties. (Ko Shu-ling, “ Constitutional reform still on the agenda, official says”, The Taipei Times, June 1st 2006, p. 3 (Internet edition). But, quite the opposite, the parliamentary constitutional regime with an ideal (bipartisan) majoritarian political system can give more political stability precisely because government decisions do not have to be made jointly by all political parties. In a bipartisan system one party always has a majority and from that majority comes the head of the Executive branch of government. Great Britain is a working example of such a constitutional regime with such a political system.

RÉSUMÉS

This article considers definitions of semi-presidential systems, distinguishing prescriptive criteria (constitutional regime) and descriptive criteria (political system). Applying prescriptive criteria to the Taiwanese situation, it concludes that the Taiwanese Constitution prescribes a semi-presidential regime. The article then analyses the descriptive features of Taiwan’s political system. The conclusions are enhanced by a close analysis of the situation in the aftermath of Taiwan’s 2004 parliamentary elections and also from the events in the spring of 2006 (the delegation of constitutional powers and recall motion). Taiwan’s political system exhibits both

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very strong majoritarian and delegative tendencies, the main reasons for the lack of functionality under the present constitutional regime. That the political system is resistant to change means, for this article, that the only possibility for democratic government functionality for Taiwan is a change of constitutional regime to one that is parliamentary1.

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History

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China-Taiwan: Young People Confront Their History

Samia Ferhat

1 Relations between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan are often considered particularly delicate, not to say conflicting. Generally speaking, the observer’s attention is focused on the factors that separate the two sides and threaten to bring them to armed conflict. Yet, in light of the increasingly significant development of their trading, academic and cultural relations, it seems useful also to study all that helps to bring the two sides together, and thus to throw light on points of contact between them.

2 While the present dispute dates back now over fifty years, and while no political resolution has so far been identified, links between the two societies have been formed. In general, a political settlement is required first, before two human collectivities that have been divided by war can be reunited. But where these cross-Strait relations are concerned, a contrary dynamic seems to have been established; and that allows us to adopt a more positive view of developments ahead.

3 To speak of reconciliation between the People’s Republic and Taiwan may seem premature, even unrealistic. Yet, this prospect has been raised several times over by political leaders in Taipei as in Peking. And Chinese and Taiwanese engineers— dreamers, of course—have gone so far as to imagine building a tunnel that would link the island to the mainland, a project they judge technically feasible1. What an ideal vision this is, in terms of peace and reconciliation! It would be a real umbilical cord, joining at last these two countries, these two peoples, across five decades of open hostility.

4 In this state of mind, and in the conviction that peace rests upon a change of mentality and is built on the basis of a pacific and open perception of other people, I have embarked upon a survey of Chinese and Taiwanese youth. So far, 40 people have taken part: 30 in France and ten in mainland China. Ten more interviews will be conducted in Taiwan. The participants, all university students, are aged between 23 and 33. Each is

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invited, following a preset questionnaire2, to speak about the same period of Chinese history: the four decades between 1910 and 19503.

5 While the development of economic and cultural links is favourable to a possible process of reconciliation, it seems that reconciliation also requires people to look back less harshly on the past and to accept a common account of those tragic events that have led to bitterness and war. Thus the questions have been framed to bring the participants to draw upon a generality of data arising both from their historical knowledge and also from a collective and individual store of memory. My aim in approaching these young people, in addition to highlighting the dominant historical account in China and Taiwan, is to understand the perception that each group has of this moment of history and to identify how individuals represent it to themselves. How do they imagine the Others? How do they see themselves in sharing their stores of history and memory with the Others? Can they imagine a common future within an entirely peaceful social and political context? Two rival political entities ... 6 The end of the Second World War, with the capitulation of the Japanese armed forces and their withdrawal from the territories of mainland China and Taiwan, allowed the renewal of hostilities between Chinese Communists and Nationalists. The two sides found it impossible to reach a compromise settlement. They confronted each other as two antagonistic political entities: the People’s Republic of China, based in Peking, and the Republic of China, based in Taipei. Both governments claimed to be the legitimate representatives of the Chinese people in their totality.

7 International recognition was awarded first of all to the Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek. In the wake of decolonisation, there was a change in the international context; the process of normalising relations between Washington and Peking began; and both led in 1971 to a reversal of the situation. Indeed, Peking became a permanent member of the UN Security Council and was accorded, by most states, that political recognition that had hitherto been denied.

8 At the start of the 1990s, the Taiwanese President, Lee Teng-hui, abolished the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion that, for forty years, had in a symbolic sense been maintaining the people of Taiwan and the Penghu Archipelago in a state of civil war and provided a basis for Peking’s mission to recapture it. This development has allowed the beginnings of a policy of rapprochement with China, reflected in unofficial meetings between two private bodies entrusted with handling technical or commercial questions connected with cross-Strait exchanges. Acting for Taiwan was the Strait Exchange Foundation and for China the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait.

9 In Taiwan, the ending of martial law was coupled with democratisation, which, by allowing pluralism, has also made possible the emergence of a new political discourse, strongly territorialist, articulated by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Independence rapidly came to the forefront of its claims. This was to lead to a break with the constitutional framework of the Republic of China and the proclamation of the Republic of Taiwan. Links with mainland China (including historical and cultural ties) were minimised, thus removing all justification for reunification plans.

10 Yet, it was during the presidency of Chen Shui-bian, the DPP leader, that a new step towards exchanges with the mainland was taken in June 2000. The Three Mini Links (xiao santong) permitted trade, transport and postal exchanges between, on one side,

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the two closest islands of the Archipelago to the mainland, Kinmen and Matsu and, on the other, the province of Fujian: the links were to be direct, with no obligation to pass through Hong Kong or Macao. Further, they allowed Chinese nationals to visit the two islands for trading purposes and, for the first time, the rest of the Archipelago as tourists.

11 In January 2003, air communications were established. Charter flights were organised for the whole period of the Chinese New Year holiday, to allow Taiwanese businessmen settled on the mainland, and their families, to go back to Taiwan. Yet, citing security reasons, Taipei allowed only Taiwanese airlines to fly the route. In any case, this necessarily meant flying via Hong Kong or and terminating at Shanghai; no other destination was permitted.

12 In February 2005, charter flights were again made available to Taiwanese businessmen. The scope here was far more significant than in 2003. For one thing, authorisation for flights to Taiwan was now extended to mainland companies. And such flights could for the first time be direct, with no obligatory stopovers in Hong Kong or Macau. Destinations on the mainland could be Peking, Shanghai or Canton. In Taiwan they could be Taipei or Kaohsiung4. The success of these direct flights was so great that the authorities on both sides of the Strait expressed the wish to continue the experiment beyond the holiday period, beginning with cargo flights5.

13 Additionally, the spring 2005 visits to China by Lien Chan, then President of the Kuomintang (KMT), and James Soong, President of the People First Party (PFP), came to have a dynamic effect on the development of cross-Strait relations6. ... strides along the path to reconciliation? 14 President Chen Shui-bian has twice expressed a desire for reconciliation with mainland China. In May 2000, on the occasion of his inaugural address, he explained the new orientation that he aspired to give to cross-Strait relations. His pledge, known as the Four No’s and One Without (sibu yi meiyou)7, was conceived, he said, in an environment of goodwill, a state of mind on both sides of the Strait that was favourable to reconciliation and to the achievement of sustainable peace. In February 2005, when the defeat of the Democratic Progressive Party in the local elections pushed the government towards reaching a consensus with opposition leaders better disposed towards Peking, Chen appealed anew for progress towards cross-Strait reconciliation and co-operation8.

15 A few months later, a Chinese Communist Party theorist was to declare that the Party’s policy was that of reconciliation with Taiwan9.

16 Of course, one may doubt these politicians’ sincerity or, at the very least, remembering that their intentions are strictly political, one should not attach undue weight to their declarations. This will help to understand Chen’s apparent changes of heart. Several times over, he has challenged the policy of appeasement towards the mainland. In particular, on February 27th 2006, he went back on the commitment expressed in the Four No’s and One Without, announcing that the Council for National Unification would “cease to function” and that its Guidelines would “cease to apply”. Caught off balance, the United States had succeeded only in negotiating a softening of the terminology. The word “abolish” had not been used, in deference to Chinese sensitivities10. Chen’s initiative will undoubtedly give rise to new tensions with Peking as well as with those Taiwanese political groupings opposed to independence.

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17 Even so, these recurrent tensions have not so far prevented the emergence of an embryo form of civil society linking the peoples of the two territories. The Taiwanese mainland community has grown considerably. It is particularly extensive in the Shanghai region where people often refer to the existence of a “little Taiwan”11. Mixed marriages are frequent, particularly between Taiwanese men and mainland women. This human community which, in a sense, embodies the link between the two societies is a source of political pressure. Indeed, the direct flights that began in February 2005 owed a great deal to sustained pressure exerted by Taiwanese entrepreneurs living in China. The same can be said of the gradual relaxation of Taiwanese laws governing mixed marriages, to take into account the interests of mainland spouses. Such links are made easier by the fact that the two peoples share so much of their historical and cultural heritage. A shared history . . . 18 The Civil War and the splitting up of the territories are still at the forefront of memory in mainland China. Recollections are passed on to the younger generation in the stories told by elder generations. In Taiwan, outside the mainlanders’ families, these events belong in imagined memory, part of the history of the national community within the context of the state’s particular destiny, in this instance that of the Republic of China. And through novels or films, and coloured by patriotic feeling, the memory takes shape; and it has been able to impart emotional and affective substance to the official history. For young Chinese people, looking back over these moments of history does nothing to disturb the feeling of national belonging; but the issue for the Taiwanese proves far more sensitive. Looking back over the history of the Republic of China, with reawakened memories of the break with the mainland, amounts to a bewildering exposure to a complex and now strongly politicised identity.

19 The question of the connection with China springs unavoidably to the minds of young people in Taiwan, bringing in its train a series of questions. What share of loyalty is owed to the land of one’s birth, or to one’s country of origin? Where do people stand in regard to this moment of history, when in Taipei the question of independence has become, with the passing of the years, a question of honour, and of pride in the national community? And then, what should they make of those chevaleresque epics about warring kingdoms? Of the military and political greatness of the Qin Dynasty? Of the cultural influence of the ? Of the humiliation represented by the Opium Wars? Of dignity regained on the day the Republic of China was formed, or of the feeling on hearing its national anthem today? Of the words they pronounce, or the they draw? Questioning the collective, family or individual career must, in the depths of the memories aroused, affect the perceptions that all young people make of their own identities and futures, within an unusually troubled political and geostrategic context. ... multifarious representation 20 Those taking part in the survey were born between 1972 and 1982; they are aged between 23 and 33. While all their families originate from mainland China, they have grown up with the policies of reform and openness launched in 1978 while benefiting, unlike their parents, from some measure of material comfort. Although they did not personally witness the political violence of the Maoist period, all but the youngest can look back to the Tian’anmen events of June 4th 1989. The questionnaire does not address the years following the formation of the People’s Republic of China. Yet,

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recalling family experience inevitably draws these young people into a critical analysis of contemporary political history. Those participants questioned in Paris are usually more restrained in their views, the drawbacks of the Maoist period being moderated by pragmatic considerations linked to the sociopolitical context of the time and minimised in light of the subsequent economic success of the Deng Xiaoping era. By contrast, the people questioned in China have, curiously, far less positive attitudes. Some have no hesitation in condemning the vagaries of Maoism, especially during the Cultural Revolution, and they often regret the absence of freedom of expression or of worship in present-day China. This difference in viewpoint may certainly be explained by geographic distance. It is as though the annoyances and the disappointments of everyday life in a foreign land has bolstered, among the students settled in France, feelings of loyalty and patriotic attachment to their country of origin12.

21 Of the Taiwanese participants, the oldest were born well before martial law was lifted. They received a traditional education tending to emphasise the feeling of belonging to the Chinese nation. Some can remember that their school textbooks still spoke of the recapture of the mainland as an ideal to be achieved13. It was often at home that they learned that such discourse was somewhat fanciful. As young adults they witnessed the coming to power of Lee Teng-hui. Attracted by the prospects of openness that the new political leadership allowed them to glimpse, they mostly joined the emancipation movements of the 1990s, and were then caught up in the turmoil of questioning―of their nationalism, of their identity―that was to follow. The younger ones, who were barely five years old at the time when martial law was lifted, grew up in a society marked by the division created between Taiwanese identity and Chinese identity. At the time when Chen Shui-bian was embarking on his first presidential term, they were just coming out of adolescence. Yet, their perspectives on the history of the split and on the question of relations with China are apparently more distanced, less emotionally involved, than those of their elders. When it comes to the young people living in France, their lives abroad seem also to have affected the feelings connecting them to the country of their birth14. Several of them remarked, indeed, that while they saw themselves before leaving Taiwan as having both Chinese and Taiwanese identity, their experience of living in France (for reasons that I shall mention later on) had brought them to favour a strictly Taiwanese identity for the future.

22 Faced with this moment of history, the participants will spontaneously favour several events that, for them, are the most meaningful: the formation of the Republic of China, the War of Resistance against Japan, and the Civil War. They will also refer back with pride to some dynasties of ancient China. Lastly, they will speak of those Others, living on the mainland or in Taiwan, other people whom often they have met but who remain, however, unfamiliar. The Republic of China 23 The participants are agreed on one point: they acknowledge the as one of the most significant events of the period. Yet, the understanding they have formed of this moment of history differs somewhat from person to person.

24 For the Chinese, the 1911 Revolution, which brought about the creation of the Republic of China, put an end to the humiliation undergone at the hands of Western countries. They had taken advantage of the weakness of the Qing Dynasty to occupy significant areas of the country during the latter half of the nineteenth century and had acquired, by a series of military victories over the Chinese, extensive privileges. Thus, many will

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recall with strong feelings the derisive phrase once used for their country, the “Sick Man of East Asia”15. These young people see the Republic of China as having given back dignity and hope to the Chinese people. They see the new Republic, which had brought to an end the dynastic system, as promising political and social development that would steadily bring their country towards modernity―then envisaged as a Western achievement.

25 This feeling of national humiliation is also mentioned by the Taiwanese, though with markedly less bitterness. It seems that they prefer to dwell on the intellectual, political and cultural renewal that the Republic of China ushered in. Though they also consider that it brought new hope for China, they are less concerned with washing away the humiliations inflicted by the West than with building a powerful and prosperous country.

26 The overwhelmingly positive perception that they have of the 1911 Revolution brings all of them to pick out Sun Yat-sen, among all the political figures of the time, as the man they consider as “Father of the Nation” (WW, guofu). The nation itself they are unanimous in seeing as linked, at that time, to the institutions and the political context of the Republic of China. Similarly, they are as one in regretting the failure of the state and the society that it had set out to create. They attribute this project, often quite exclusively, to the efforts of Sun Yat-sen. They consider it to have been aborted in 1925, the year of his death. The Republic of China that once included the whole of the Chinese nation and extended across the whole of its territory is, in their eyes, non- existent today. Of course, there is still a political entity called the “Republic of China”, which everyone agrees is situated in Taiwan; but, as they describe it, it appears devoid of its original national substance. It no longer corresponds to the Chinese nation in the human and territorial dimension of the times. In the same way, it no longer seems really associated in their minds with the idealised personality of Sun Yat-sen, but rather with the power struggle that broke out on his death within the Kuomintang, as well as with the Civil War and the territorial break-up that followed it. Nevertheless, it is still historically significant and, for the Taiwanese, has retained a cultural meaning that influences most of them deeply.

27 Indeed, unlike the People’s Republic, which Maoism has distanced from the canons of the Chinese cultural tradition, the Republic of China, eager to affirm its legitimacy in representing and perpetuating the essence of the nation, has set a special value on them. The policy of emphasising Chinese culture that was adopted in the early 1950s in Taiwan also helped to spread the traditions. These cultural values, implanted from the early years of schooling, are a source of pride to the Taiwanese students. For this reason they all regret the simplified form of writing that has been introduced on the mainland, with the mutilation it has inflicted on Chinese characters. They are also surprised by a certain coarseness of language, which they generally put down to the influence of Maoist rhetoric. When it comes to interpersonal relationships, these seem to be lacking in the gentleness and subtlety appropriate to the standards of conduct prescribed by the Confucian heritage16. They ascribe the destruction of these moral values (which they often call meide (WW) or “absolute virtue”) to the period of the Cultural Revolution.

28 Thus, all of them are agreed on one conclusion, that the political project of the Republic of China was a failure, ending in the break-up of 1949. Nevertheless, it seems that this break-up is perceived differently by the Chinese and the Taiwanese. The Chinese

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particularly deplore the splitting up of the nation, which they see in terms of its human and territorial consequences: they say China has been brutally despoiled of one of its provinces. Whereas for the Taiwanese, the break-up is hardly seen at all in nationalist terms, but rather in terms of history and morality. It is as though they felt themselves entrusted with a system of values and a destiny that the mainland Chinese have abandoned.

29 For the Taiwanese, the Republic of China is now strictly limited to the territory and the people of Taiwan―even though, as I have pointed out, it is still invested with a historical and cultural dimension transcending these geographical limits. Nevertheless, state symbols always appeal strongly to young people’s emotions: they say they are moved to hear the national anthem, and to see their flag being raised. And they would like such symbols to be more visible, particularly during sports contests at the international level where Taiwanese athletes are competing. As things are, to avert the anger of Peking, the Taiwanese teams are saluted under the colours of an “Olympic Flag”, to the strains of an “Olympic Anthem”, specially prepared for such occasions.

30 Yet, and this is where ambiguousness creeps in, most would prefer to see the name Taiwan printed on their passports, not the Republic of China. As they point out, the mention of China can cause confusion in the minds of foreign hosts who, mistaking them for citizens of the People’s Republic of China, can judge them by a set of not always favourable prejudices17. Similarly, they are often inclined to claim an exclusively Taiwanese identity, to the detriment of the attachment they feel for the historical and cultural dimension of the Republic of China. Indeed, to acknowledge citizenship of the Republic of China amounts, for some of them, to validating the nationalist discourse that they have heard in the mouths of their Chinese fellow-students18. Thus, many will say they have joined the pro-independence movement, in order to show that the solution of unification with China is far from being achieved. In fact, putting a distance between themselves and the Chinese world is the equivalent, for some, to claiming a right, that of deciding Taiwan’s future. It would seem as though the strength of the nationalist sentiments encountered among Chinese students, often asserted in unsolicited speeches about the future reunification of Taiwan with China, inclines these young Taiwanese to favour symbolic referents that they know the Chinese students do not share. So they insist on belonging to a strictly Taiwanese community, the corollary of a national identity strictly limited to the frontiers of the island. Their approach is to favour that which distinguishes them from the Others and consequently to minimise the influence of the common heritage associated with Chinese civilisation. This acceptance/rejection dynamic in relation to the Chinese heritage seems to have especial force for those settled abroad, where the confrontation with the Others is more destabilising, more weakening. Many participants tell me that they have never felt themselves so Taiwanese as they do since they arrived in France and started meeting Chinese students19. The War of Resistance Against Japan 31 The War of Resistance Against Japan is the second of the historical events of the period 1910-1949 picked out by the participants. Curiously, what they consider historically important is neither the invasion of China by Japan nor the defeat of Japan at the end of the Second World War, but rather the success of the War of Resistance (kangri zhanzheng shengli).

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32 All our participants express the same feelings on this subject: the shame of being invaded, anger and sadness over the atrocities committed by the Japanese soldiers, particularly in Nanking in 1937, pride in the alliance between nationalist and communist troops in the struggle against the occupying forces and the joy of victory. Taiwanese and mainland Chinese, both sides refer explicitly to the feeling of national pride over this outcome. The Taiwanese appeal to what they call their “nationalist heart” (minzuxin)20 to fuse with this moment of history and make it completely theirs. At this point in the questionnaire, it is as though the China/Taiwan distinction was no longer real in their minds. The majority of the Taiwanese, whether they be islanders or mainlanders, identify wholly with the protagonists in this historical episode. Yet, at that time, Taiwan was a Japanese colony and its inhabitants, subjects of the Japanese Emperor, were having to fight alongside the Japanese troops21. Also, the explanations they offer for the defeat of the Japanese are invariably couched in the language of nationalism. In particular, they insist that it is impossible for any invaders, whoever they may be, to defeat a united people determined to drive them out. The Pacific campaign waged by the Americans and the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not systematically mentioned or, if they are, not until much later in their replies.

33 This community of feeling is also found in their evaluation of the Civil War. The struggle between the Nationalists and the Communists 34 Among the events of the period 1910-1950, this one, for the students, is the most regretted. Some, both Taiwanese and Chinese, describe the war as “fratricidal” (da ziji ren). Mostly their accounts of it are lucid, though not necessarily faithful to official interpretations. Thus, according to them, the war came about because the political leaders of the time, and Chiang Kai-shek, found it impossible to reach a negotiated solution. For that they would have to have made concessions, and to have relinquished some of their prerogatives and a portion of their power. However, the young people attribute responsibilities differently. The Chinese interviewed in France more commonly condemn Chiang Kai-shek’s ambition; whereas some of those who spoke to me in China did not hesitate to mention the conception, in their view exaggeratedly monopolistic, that Mao adopted of the exercise of power. The Taiwanese see the question more objectively and impute the struggle to the overweening ambition of both men. Mostly they emphasise the cynicism of politicians, and the misfortunes that this can lead to. By contrast, they venerate the figure of Sun Yat-sen: in their imagination, as in Chinese notions as well, he appears untainted by any political manoeuvring and truly devoted to the good of the nation.

35 Regrets surface more precisely regarding the situation following the Civil War. For the Chinese, it led to the break with Taiwan and so, as I have already pointed out, to the splitting up of the nation in human and territorial terms. They see this state of affairs as regrettable and, in particular, as difficult to resolve. While they are mostly favourable to reunification, they reject any prospect of war; yet, they are agreed in judging that it could happen. They stress also that human and material losses would be considerable on both sides, but that China, unlike Taiwan, benefits from territorial and demographic power that would enable it to absorb the shock.

36 Among the Taiwanese, the analysis is again particularly ambiguous. Admittedly, the Civil War is seen to have led to the break of 1949, but also and above all as having plunged China, because of the Communist victory, into a new and particularly harmful

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political and social organisation. They are sorry that the country subsequently fell behind in economic development; and they deplore the political violence and the damage inflicted upon the cultural tradition. They think that China, without the tragedy of war and the errors of Maoism, would have become a world power to which perhaps, though this is not openly expressed, they might have felt proud to belong. This nostalgia for a powerful, prosperous and respected China can be sensed also in their overall view of its history. Deep respect for ancient history 37 The period of China’s history that our participants have least pleasure in dwelling upon is precisely that concerned in the questionnaire. It makes them sad, disappointed, regretful. On the other hand, they are happy to talk about ancient history with particular admiration for the Qin and Tang Dynasties. While they acclaim in the Tang Dynasty its cultural and artistic influence, they point to the political genius of the man who founded the Qin Dynasty, Emperor Qin Shihuang. They praise his achievements and, especially, the unification of the territory and the system of writing. Though they do not shut their eyes to the authoritarian and violent way in which he exercised power, they justify it by the greatness of what was achieved.

38 This judgement may seem surprising, especially in light of the criticisms made of present-day political leaders, and of the reservations that the Taiwanese invariably express about the reunification project. Its meaning must be sought, however, in the very particular perception that these students have of what a political leader’s mission should be in relation to the national future.

39 As may be seen from the first results of the survey, these Chinese and Taiwanese students have in common a number of notions about the proposed moment of history. Thus, it is right that we should end by asking how they perceive each other. Who are the Others? 40 First of all, they are undeniably capable of imagining the Others and how they feel, even without having ever met them. They are particularly aware of the possibility that all of them, depending on their origins, may have reached different conclusions about the past. They ascribe this to the fact that the teaching of history in their respective societies will have been strongly influenced by politics. They can easily imagine the prejudices that young people of their generation may foster; and they recognise, most of them, that they themselves will have been conditioned by a biased political discourse. Many of them, giving me the details of such propaganda, were keen to stress how insulting were its references to the designated enemy, concluding that it was better not to repeat them.

41 For those studying abroad, the opportunities for encountering the Others are quite frequent. The students often find themselves in the same educational institutions, and also sometimes they share the same accommodation. It is not unusual for them to find things in common; and friendships are all the easier to make if both sides carefully avoid delicate questions. While they may discuss the political situation in China or Taiwan, they will prefer not to dwell on possible solutions to the cross-Strait relationship, without being sure of holding the same, shared convictions.

42 Yet, if there is no intention of becoming friends, each side may be less tolerant of the other’s susceptibilities. As I said earlier, several of the Taiwanese had been offended by what they considered the arrogance of their Chinese fellow-students, an arrogance reflected in a heightened nationalism that was immovably set upon the reunification of

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Taiwan to China. In situations of this kind, the Others then appear in all their otherness.

43 Some of the Taiwanese, indeed, deny any membership of a community that would also include the Chinese22. They expand on this assertion by pointing out all that separates the peoples on opposite sides of the Strait: their language, the way they are, the way they behave... While they recognise that they too speak Mandarin, they emphasise nevertheless those features of their Mandarin that make it distinct from that spoken on the mainland. On top of that, as I have described before, they mention a whole range of values associated with the Chinese cultural tradition that they say they cannot discern in their Chinese fellow-students. So much so that they feel a distance, an inability to form any personal relationships with them. In general, they use the term gehe (WW), which may be translated as “barrier”.

44 Curiously, these are the same arguments that most of the young Chinese use to show how both sides do belong to the “same family”. They consider that both sides have in common their language, culture, civilisation; above all, they consider that a blood relationship has been handed down to them across the generations. And yet, the same people will not hesitate, when they are pressed a little further about their territorial origins, to differentiate themselves from the people of some other province, whose dialect, way of life, temperament seem to them so different... Thus, while those from Peking acknowledge themselves also to be Han23, they feel no less different from the people of Shanghai or from Canton! And the Cantonese are themselves quick to mention all those features that distinguish them from other Chinese people. So what can we say about the national minorities? They are presented as unquestionably Chinese, even though not Han, but also displaying cultural features that, often, make them seem somewhat strange or, at least, put them outside what I call the “circle of intimacy”.

45 Following the same logic, the Taiwanese who consider Taiwan as the only human community to which they belong, and who feel themselves absolutely foreign to mainland society, will themselves hasten to make distinctions according to the plurality of communal loyalties present across the island. Thus, mainlanders are not necessarily part of that circle of intimacy; they often find close relationships easier with people of Taiwanese origin. Yet, all of these people are considered as Han and, above all, as Taiwanese.

46 If these young people are not yet ready to feel themselves part of the “same family”, can they look ahead into a peaceful future, both political and social, in which the Others would have a full place? How do they envisage their future? 47 All of them deny any prospect of war, even though they do not consider it to be totally impossible. They are satisfied by the present state of things. Yet, some young Chinese people point out that dragging out the present situation is likely with time to make any settlement of the Taiwan question all the more difficult to resolve. Thus, they hope that reunification will soon be achieved while avoiding, within the limits of the possible, any recourse to armed force. While the Taiwanese can be annoyed by the nationalism of some Chinese people, their lack of enthusiasm for the reunification project never fails to amaze the Chinese―who cannot understand the reluctance of the Taiwanese and are saddened, even offended, by it. Indeed, they have full confidence in China’s future, and

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they consider the return of Taiwan as an additional asset to the country, by which its people on both sides could benefit.

48 The Taiwanese, however, are troubled about their future and that of their island. Most of them are pained by the domestic political wrangling in Taiwan. In particular they condemn the politicians for manipulating people’s community loyalties. Most of them consider that the radical pro-independence campaigners propound arguments that take no account of Taiwan’s security or of the reality of Peking’s superior military might.

49 They often feel themselves torn between policies insisting upon Taiwan’s cultural individuality, and cultural referents that are mainly Chinese. They find it difficult to see themselves within one basic identity; and the confidence that they find among most of their Chinese counterparts only intensifies their unease. Unification is envisaged, but exclusively in the long term. They would like, beforehand, to be assured of an equal level of economic development in both territories, and of the establishment of a democratic system on the mainland.

50 All of them, on both sides, wish that they knew each other better; and they condemn their respective societies for not making more information available. The Chinese, especially, would like to visit Taiwan more easily. They appear very curious about this land and its people: they would wish to welcome them, like the prodigal son, to the blossoming openness and development that, for several years now, has been transforming China.

51 Translated from the French original by Philip Liddell

NOTES

1. “China, Taiwan experts discuss cross-Strait tunnel”, Newswrap programme on Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) audio website, November 8th 2005. 2. Until the survey is complete it will not be possible to report the content of the questionnaire; this must wait until a future piece of work. The present article reports the preliminary results of those interviews already conducted. 3. To simplify, we may pick out within this period the following events: 1) The Wuchang uprising on October 10th 1911, later known as the Xinhai Revolution, which led to the formation of the Republic of China in Nanking in January 1912, its government initially presided over by Sun Yat-sen; 2) The Northern Expedition begun in 1926 by the Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek, aimed at recruiting or subjugating the warlords; 3) The start of the Japanese Occupation, in Manchuria 1931; 4) The development of political activity by the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist government’s intensified repression of the Communists (1927-1937); 5) The war of resistance against Japan waged simultaneously by Nationalist forces and the People’s Liberation Army led by Mao Zedong (1937-1945). The Civil War, between Nationalists and Communists, from 1945 to 1949. It ended with the formation of the

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People’s Republic of China, in Peking, on October 1st 1949 and with the withdrawal of the Nationalists to Taipei. 4. “Cross-Strait Relations are Improving Again”, The Economist, February 3rd 2005. 5. “Taiwan open to talk on cross-Strait – two-way, non-stop – cargo flights”, Central News Agency website, Taipei, February 18th 2005. 6. However, these two visits caught the governing DPP unawares, and to some extent marginalised the government’s role in the dynamic of relations between the two sides. 7. The Four No’s: independence would not be declared, the name of the state would not be changed (from Republic of China to Republic of Taiwan or to Taiwan), the concept of “two states” would not be included in the Constitution and, lastly, there would be no referendum on Taiwanese independence. The One Without was that Chen promised not to abolish the National Unification Council or the National Unification guidelines. “Taiwan-China Relations”, in Taiwan Yearbook, Government Information Office, Taipei, 2004, p. 5. 8. “Taiwan President hopes for cross-Strait peace”, Central News Agency website, Taipei, February 11th 2005. “ chengxing, liang an jian shuguang” (The circulation of charters, a glimmer of hope for both sides) Zhongguo shibao, February 17th 2005. 9. “Chinese theorist says Party seeks reconciliation with Taiwan”, website, November 3rd 2005. 10. “Hu Jintao pi zhongzhi guotong gangling shi yanzhong tiaoxin” (Hu Jintao criticises the cessation in the application of the Guidelines for National Unification as a serious provocation), Zhongguo shibao, February 28th 2006. 11. See Gilles Guiheux, “Taiwanais en Chine: une émigration à rebours?”, Politique Internationale, 104, Summer 2004, pp. 375-386. 12. Time and again, they refer to their “patriotic heart” (WWW, aiguo xin) which means, literally, “the heart that loves the nation”. This expression is never used by the Taiwanese. 13. For the processes of socialisation in East Asia, see Edward Vickers and Alisa Jones, History, Education and Identity in East Asia, New York, Routledge, 2005. 14. As the survey in Taiwan has not yet been conducted, it is not possible for the time being to make any comparison with the young people who have not left the country. 15. They say that the origin of this phrase was the sickly appearance of the Chinese consumers of opium. As they rightly point out, the trade in the drug arose from the activities of foreign powers in China. 16. They generally refer to the lunli (WW), which is the comprehensive set of principles governing social duties. 17. The Taiwanese visitor to France is often advised to stress that he or she is from Taiwan, rather than from the Republic of China. If we are to believe the Taiwanese students, it seems that officials in the public services, particularly those in the prefectures, are quick to assume a connection between anyone “Chinese” and the illegal immigrants from the People’s Republic. It is often enough to say that one is from Taiwan for the welcome suddenly to become more friendly and relaxed. I don’t know how many people have actually had this experience because, in the interviews, the young people relating it invariably begin with “I am told that . . .” Nevertheless, it is a familiar story, and one that most of the participants have told me. Whether these representations associated with the mainland Chinese have their origin in observed facts, or whether they have been quite simply invented, they are today firmly lodged in the minds of these Taiwanese students.

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18. As though, for them, anything “Chinese” necessarily refers to the People’s Republic. 19. This tendency, seemingly in the majority, is nevertheless not unanimous. Some Taiwanese participants are quick to acknowledge an identity that is Chinese first; and they do not seem to suffer unduly from the nationalism of their Chinese fellow- students. This point will have to be studied more closely at a later date. Here I am offering only the outlines of the subject. 20. A distinction needs to be made here between the “patriotic heart” cited by the Chinese and the “nationalist heart” referred to by the Taiwanese. In the first case, the young people are speaking of the feelings of loyalty and attachment that bind them to their country, the People’s Republic of China. In the second, the Taiwanese give expression to their belonging to the Chinese nation in the historical and cultural senses. One might speak more simply of Chinese civilisation if descent, that is, blood relationship, was not also so essentially valued and did not play such an important part in this feeling of belonging. 21. We should mention that some Taiwanese fighters went to the mainland to join the united front of resistance to Japan. 22. This community is referred to in terms of family: they do not acknowledge the Chinese people’s membership of the same family. The phrase used is often: “We are not a family (WWWWWWW, women bu shi yijia ren).” 23. The Han are the ethnic group from which Chinese civilisation is said to have sprung. Today it is one of the five main ethnic groups that make up the Chinese nation.

RÉSUMÉS

This article reports on the first results of a survey of the new generation of Chinese and Taiwanese youth. The aim is to throw light on how these young people see their national history and, in particular, the 1949 split that divided the Chinese community between two armies, and later into two separate political entities. Reaching beyond the official historical account, our interest here is in the young people’s perceptions, and the points on which they agree or disagree. Acknowledged or not, a heritage of history and memory is shared between them: we seek to evaluate the part it plays in the political development of relations across the Taiwan Strait.

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Book reviews

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Cao Jinqing, China Along the Yellow River: Reflections on Rural Society New York, RoutledgeCurzon, 2005, 254 p.

Claude Aubert Translation : Philip Liddell

EDITOR'S NOTE

Translated from the French original by Philip Liddell

1 This book is a partial translation of a Chinese best-seller published in September 20001. It was one of the first in a series of books on rural China. They were very successful, and rightly so (one of the last being the famous Report on the Chinese Peasants by Chen Guili and Chun Tao2).

2 Unlike that report, and more journalistic in tone, the study by Cao Jinqing, who is a sociologist and university professor in Shanghai, takes the form of a simple travel journal. He notes day by day, even hour by hour, his encounters and the comments made to him. His observations have not been filtered; everything he heard is faithfully set down; the study breathes a priceless authenticity.

3 The part selected for translation is Cao’s account of his second stay in , from September to November 1996. Taking advantage of friends and colleagues at the Party School, he carried out an unofficial survey that took him to Kaifeng, and on to the deprived regions of that province traversed by the Yellow River, , and . His observations reflect the situation in that relatively poor countryside of the provinces in the Chinese interior, mostly deprived of rural enterprises.

4 Even so, in this survey, we hardly hear at all from the peasants. When a roadside interview leads to complaints that make his accompanying officials uneasy, the writer backs off. So what is offered to readers is not so much an immersion in village life as a

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trip into the no less interesting world of the local bureaucracy, that of the districts (xian) and especially the townships where his contacts and sources were based.

5 The picture we are given of the countryside, as seen from the road, or deduced from the figures carefully noted down by the writer, is doubtless truthful and even accurate. The topography of the regions that he visited, the appearance of the villages, the farming activities (the sowing of winter wheat at that time of year) are scrupulously reported. And the diagnosis reached by our sociologist is set down alongside the familiar conclusions of his rural economist colleagues. In these over-populated villages (1/15 of a hectare, on average, is cultivated per head of population), the crops bring in just enough to pay for the seeds, feed the family and pay the taxes. Most of the available household is provided, in these circumstances, not by farming but by postal orders, sent home from migrant workers. And the writer has adopted a typological approach, in comparing the richness of villages and their inhabitants, based on the housing: adobe houses for the poorest, brick houses with tiled roofs for the average family, two-storey houses for the occasional nouveau riche. Cao takes particular care in noting building costs, in relation to peasant incomes: only households with non- farming incomes can afford a modern house: it represents the investment of an entire peasant lifetime.

6 The book is teeming with observations and anecdotes that will satisfy the ethnologist or the historian. Its main interest, however, lies elsewhere. Much of the text is made up of interviews that the writer conducted with a multitude of officials, ranging from Party secretaries at the village level to first secretaries at the xian level, by way of all levels of the administration and most of its offices. From this point of view the book is repetitive, each day offering new speakers usually speaking on the same subjects. But it is this very repetition that constitutes the charm of the exercise, each of these speakers adding their opinions, disclosing new aspects to problems that become gradually more familiar—and yet more complicated.

7 At the heart of the subjects treated and the problems raised lies the essential question of good governance in the Chinese countryside. This governance is in a sorry state, if we may judge by the situations of conflict that set the peasantry and local government at odds with each other. Behind all the grievances and the disputes, and posing the worst headaches for the officials is, of course, the peasants’ tax burden. The figures provided by the writer support other surveys highlighting the extent of the problem3. Housing and service charges are from three to four times higher than the officially permitted ceiling. And they can reach more than 20% of the peasants’ net income, sometimes draining away all their cash.

8 The local officials concerned, mainly those in the townships, generally acknowledge the facts, but attempt to justify themselves: most of the charges are their responsibility (teachers’ pay and so on) whereas the profits from more lucrative activities are appropriated by the higher ranks in the bureaucracy. Cao takes his enquiry further, however: he tries to identify, by means of interwoven testimony, the logic that underlies the workings of the administration; and in so doing he questions the entire system of power in the countryside. It is an authoritarian system, one in which instructions handed down from higher authority take precedence over realities on the ground. The resulting aberrations are sometimes disastrous—forced cultivation of cotton, compulsory plantations of apple-trees—and they drive the peasants into destitution. It is an irresponsible system, one that the township officials either collude

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in or are powerless to alter, their own careers depending on the achievement of fixed targets. In short, as the writer says, it is a system in which power belongs to those in power, and not to the people.

9 Above all else, it is a system that opens the way to endemic corruption. The burdens born by the peasants are matched by the unwieldy size of the local bureaucracies: in country areas deprived of other resources, a career in local government is the only way of acquiring some affluence. And climbing the ladder is stiffly competitive. The small perks claimed by the officials (and not necessarily the most corrupt among them) weigh heavily on the peasants’ budgets: free meals for village officials, cars and accommodation for the higher ranks in township administration. Heavy expenditure on hospitality is the price paid for how the bureaucracy works. Inspection visits are endless in a system where rules and standards are ignored and must ceaselessly be supervised: to advance one’s career, one must provide fitting entertainment for the inspectors. It is hardly surprising that karaoke evenings or dances should be regular events in local government hotels. At the same time, the peasants are brutally fleeced, by a diverse range of fines (for exceeding birth quotas, for instance), which swells the coffers of some offices.

10 The writer provides for us an unvarnished picture of this world. A latter-day Candide in the land of the bureaucrats, he often queries his own findings, asking disingenuous questions about the reasons for, and possible solutions to, various problems. And his account is punctuated with reflections, even with the lectures that he is frequently asked to give, on the nature of power in China, or on the loss of ethical standards. The reader too is left to follow his own enquiries, at the end of some particularly painful stories.

11 Professor Cao does have his prejudices, however, which he shares with many city intellectuals. In his view, Chinese peasants are still backward, imprisoned within clan and family networks, accustomed to social relationships that are incompatible with the modern exigencies of the market. Villagers seek private solutions to problems arising from legal matters or caused by collective organisations: such solutions are based on plying personal acquaintances with gifts (or bribes). Thus, from this perspective, the peasants are as much the accomplices as the victims of the extortions that predatory bureaucrats subject them to. Which reflects rather leniently on the responsibilities of the monolithic Communist Party, which specifically stifles the least whim of any autonomous organisation within the peasantry that might prove capable of defending its interests. On this subject, the introduction contributed to the book by the anthropologist Rachel Murphy (noted for a remarkable study on the effect of migration on villages in Jiangxi4) sets things straight. She shows, supported by studies of village life, that the traditional forms of sociability are not necessarily any obstacle to modernity, and that they are often the basis for a spirit and a capacity for enterprise that are well understood in the Chinese world.

12 Almost ten years have passed since Professor Cao carried out his research. Has the situation in the countryside changed, has the behaviour of local administrations altered much during this decade? One might doubt that they have, on reading the evidence that has accumulated over that period. Yet, the Chinese government seems to have grappled with the “countryside problem” by introducing extensive reforms in recent years. Within local government, these are aimed at cutting back drastically on staffing numbers, or even at merging the administration of the smaller townships. Reform of

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rural taxation consisted at first of combining the various taxes and expenses into one single countryside tax. It had the explicit aim of abolishing this tax outright by 2006. Local government is to be compensated financially by direct grants from central and provincial government. Having read Cao’s book, one can only be sceptical, given the extraordinary challenge that these reforms must pose to the system. Is there not a risk that they will force bankrupt administrations into adopting illegal practices, simply in order to survive? That is precisely what a township Party secretary disclosed, in his interview with the writer. He said he was unable to apply the directives imposed by central government, such as limiting the charges on peasants to 5% of their incomes. And he admitted having been forced to break the law, “to arrest people, to confiscate their cattle, demolish their homes and a thousand other illegal things” simply to meet the township’s expenditure. For us to know more, we must hope that further studies will reveal the outcome of this fascinating story, the relationship between peasants and bureaucracy, as outlined in the present book.

NOTES

1. Cao Jinging, Huanghe bian de Zhongguo, yi ge xuezhe dui xiangcun shehui de guancha yu sikao, Shanghai, Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 2000, 772 p. 2. Chen Guili, Chun Tao, Zhongguo nongmin diaocha, Beijing, Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2004, 460 p. 3. Cf. The work by Li Changping in Hubei, in Wo xiang zongli shuo shihua, Beijing, Guangming ribao chubanshe, 2002, 366 p. 4. Rachel Murphy, How Migrant Labor is Changing Rural China, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, 286 p.

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Shi Li and Hiroshi Sato, Jingji zhuanxing de daijia (Unemployment, Inequality, and Poverty in Urban China) Beijing, China Financial Economics Publishing House, 2004, 4+413 p.

Ying Chu Ng

1 This book1 provides a wide range of discussion topics associated with the economic transition in urban China. The contributions of 13 scholars, both local and overseas, highlight various important issues faced by the Chinese economy during its latter course of economic transformation. The book can be catalogued into four major sections. It begins with a discussion of poverty in urban China followed by four essays dealing with unemployment issues. The third main component addresses issues related to worker compensation, earnings inequality and labour mobility. Essays about the contribution of human capital and social capital in the urban labour market form the last section.

2 Before any empirical testing on urban poverty, the first chapter by Jingbei Hu lays out the theoretical arguments for urban poverty relevant to the case of China in the post reform period. The rigorous discussion highlights the Chinese characteristics as compared to the experiences of other developing countries. Based on the foundation of Hu’s discussion, Jinjun Shi and Zhong Wei analyse the inter-relationship among unemployment, poverty and income inequality using the 1988, 1995 and 1999 Urban Household Income Survey (UHIS). In this second chapter, Shi and Wei begin with re- estimation of the unemployment rate. The estimation of the poverty rate and income inequality by types of household pictures the role unemployment has played in causing poverty and income inequality.

3 More in-depth discussion on the relationship between unemployment and poverty is provided in two chapters, one by Shi Li, and another by Shi Li and John Knight. Li defines the poverty line and describes the poverty structure for six provinces using the

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1999 UHIS, and demonstrates that the employment status of an individual was a key determinant in affecting the likelihood of an individual falling into poverty. Adopting a Logistic model and applying the 1999 data, Li and Knight examine the various factors in influencing the likelihood of falling into three types of poverty, namely permanent, temporary, and selective poverty. With a focus on the latter two, Li and Knight attempt to see how the consumption behaviour of individuals influences falling into poverty.

4 During the process of transformation, a unique form of unemployment emerged in urban China. Some workers, particularly those working for the state-owned enterprises, were laid-off, xiagang, but were still paid a part of their pre-laid-off earnings. Chapters four to eight concentrate on an analysis of these workers in urban China. To begin with, Appleton et al. identify the kinds of workers mostly likely to be xiagang workers using the 1999 UHIS. Adopting the Prentice-Gloeckler semi- parameteric model, they also examine the duration of unemployment of these workers. After presentation of the theoretical model on re-employment for the unemployed, John Knight and Shi Li (Chapter 6) describe the re-employment of the xiagang workers over the period of 1994-1999. Based on the computed duration of unemployment, the effect of the time of unemployment on the earnings of the re-employed is addressed.

5 Hiroshi Sato presents a different view, analysing unemployment and re-employment. He argues that three types of social capital (human capital, political capital and networking capital) interplay in determining the earnings of the workers and unemployment probability. Analyses were done for the full sample, and for samples by age group, education level, and membership (or not) of the Communist Party (CP), using the 1999 UHIS data. The last chapter, by Xin Meng, looks at the unemployed. Similar to the estimation model used by Li and Knight in an earlier chapter, Meng focuses on the types of consumption behaviour of the households. The permanent income hypothesis is tested.

6 The second chapter contributed by Meng addresses income inequality. Using the 1988, 1995 and 1999 UHIS, nine measures of income inequality persistently show that income inequality in China widened since the economic reforms. The three cross-sectional estimations identify family background as the key factor in causing income inequality in 1988, while the key factor turned out to be regional effect and economic reform for 1995 and 1999, respectively. The overtime decomposition of the Gini co-efficient suggests that the increase in income inequality between 1988 and 1995 was due to enterprise ownership. Between 1995 and 1998, the unemployment status of an individual and working for loss-making enterprises were the primary sources of increasing income inequality.

7 The chapter by John Knight and Shi Li is probably the first piece of work concerning the financial situation of the enterprises and its effect on workers’ wages using national data sets. Co-authoring with Shi Li, Yaohui Zhao presents an in-depth examination of the period 1988-1999 and the likelihood at that time of workers receiving in-kind payments. The study provides a clear picture of why in-kind payments declined over time. With the help of two additional household surveys, John Knight and Linda Yueh address the labour mobility of urban workers and rural workers with temporarily residence in cities. The analytical issues include the probability of job changes, the number of job changes (voluntary and involuntary in nature), and the wages of workers given the likelihood of mobility.

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8 The last four chapters of the book focus on the role of human capital and social capital in the labour market. John Knight and Linda Yueh use CP membership as a proxy for social capital, and found a positive effect of CP membership on workers’ wages. Linda Yueh further argues that females invested less in social capital as compared to their male counterparts. Based on his earlier chapter’s discussion on the three types of capital, Hiroshi Sato examines the mobility probability of both urban and rural workers, using the 1999 UHIS and the temporary work survey conducted in in 1997. The chapter also focuses on the effect on earnings of the three types of capital, and his analysis is further enriched by a discussion of the results of case studies of five Japanese enterprises. The book ends with a presentation of the rate of return to education for 1994 and 1999. Consistent with the literature, returns to education increased as the levels of education increased, although returns over time declined for all levels of education (Li and Ding).

9 In summary, the 16 essays make for a broader understanding of the functioning of the Chinese urban labour market and poverty issues in urban China. Against a rigorous analytical framework and estimation techniques, the questions concerned are properly addressed and tested. The long time-span of the data has made it possible to illustrate well the changes in the urban labour market and certain social issues, thus helping to deepen understanding of the effects of the economic reforms on the well-being of workers in urban China. Readers wanting a thorough understanding of the labour issues related to urban China will certainly appreciate this book.

NOTES

1. Also available in English: Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty in Urban China, New York, Routledge, 2006, 336 p.

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Mary Elizabeth Gallagher, Contagious Capitalism. Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005, 256 p.

Jean-Louis Rocca

NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR

Translated from the French original by Philip Liddell

1 Mary Gallagher’s book has twin objectives. On the one hand, it seeks to disclose the role of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the process of economic reform. On the other, it aims to challenge the thesis that economic liberalisation goes hand in hand with political democratisation. The first aim is convincingly realised. The writer asserts that foreign investors have begun by exercising competitive pressure on the regional authorities. In turn, the authorities have had to adopt reforms, particularly in terms of work legislation, to attract capital. The investors went on to build up a kind of laboratory of public policies, measures taken for the benefit of foreign investments being gradually extended to national enterprises. Lastly, they have brought about an ideological reformulation of the government, leading to the refocusing of attention on the “national property”. This emergent “state-led capitalist developmentalism” (Blecher) provides the tools necessary for making connections between capitalism and the interests of (national) society. Capitalism in the service of national... revolution.

2 The analysis is thorough and supported by numerous examples. The writer shows in particular how using foreign investment helps to bypass the urban bastion and prevent the formation of private enterprises of any significant size; she shows how officials’ attitudes have been changing since the start of the 1990s; and the mechanisms leading to deregulation of the labour market. Nevertheless, one may reproach the writer on

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two levels: firstly, for treating foreign investors as a uniform category. One might reasonably think that the consequences of investments by companies seeing China as a market would be quite different from those by companies seeing China merely as a workshop. Putting it another way, investment is not a simple flow. With it come ambitions and strategies that partly determine the future of Chinese enterprises. The second criticism is about how the writer treats certain elements. Thus, as is customary in much Anglo-Saxon research, the work is handled in a one-dimensional way. The writer sees the present situation of migrant workers to be the future for public sector workers, without seeing that we are dealing here with very different populations, linked to specific modes of exploitation and political conditions. Chapter Five explains how workers “use the law as a weapon” in their fight against the arbitrary power of the bosses. But it omits to point out that the workers involved are mainly migrants, or that city-dwellers are mainly doomed to unemployment or to reserved jobs. Similarly, the question of the contradictions within the “developmentalist ideology” leads the writer, quite amazingly, to compare the case of China to the managerial ideologies that prevail in market economies which, she says, are characterised by the “glorification of the individual and the assumption of meritocratic attainment of position”. The assertion ignores the historical variations and the national specificities of “managerial ideologies”.

3 In reality, these criticisms are not unconnected to the very weak heuristic value of the writer’s second thesis: the “necessary” contrast between economic liberalism and political authoritarianism. In both cases, a certain theoretical vagueness limits the reach of the analysis1. Firstly, the attack on the notion that economic liberalism equals democratisation is not new and has given birth to a plentiful amount of literature that can be traced as far back as Polanyi or Braudel. Must we challenge it still and for ever? Similarly, the fact that the development of capitalism leads to a “blurring of frontiers” is not new either2. There is nothing here that is specific to China.

4 In fact, the statement that no private entrepreneurial class exists creates more problems than it resolves. What exactly is a private entrepreneurial class: a force completely outside the state and the governing elite? An indispensable conduit to democratisation? It is difficult to imagine its shape, when we know that in capitalism of any kind the connections between the private sphere and the public sphere, between capitalist accumulation and the state, are complex and variable. In the end, Mary Gallagher is the victim of her own critique. Wishing to show that liberalism has not led to democracy in China, she then shows that it does in general. In substance, it is the absence of a private entrepreneurial class that would prevent China from attaining democracy.

NOTES

1. One can be surprised by statements of the type: “In China, where culture and business practices clashed quite frequently . . .”

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2. On this theme, see the introduction by Françoise Mengin and Jean-Louis Rocca (eds), Politics in China: Blurring Frontiers, New York, Palgrave, 2002.

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Hodong Kim, Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864-1877 Stanford, California University Press, 2004, 295 p.

Alexandre Papas

NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR

Translated from the French original by Jonathan Hall

1 Both in terms of its theme and its wealth of erudition, this book by the Korean historian, Hodong Kim, is an invaluable contribution to Central Asian studies, and a long-awaited worthy successor to the work of the late Joseph Fletcher. The Muslim rebellion in Eastern and the Emirate established by Ya’qûb Beg from 1864 to 1877 represent a break in the history of modern China. This was a break in territorial, commercial and political terms. The author makes use of a wide and varied range of sources, from Chinese administrative archives to Russian military reports, and from Japanese studies to Turkestani lithography. The latter are central to Kim’s documentary evidence because, coming from the very heart of the events, they provide us with a view of both the facts and their significance, which was very close to that of the historical protagonists themselves. Here is where this historian’s main concern lies, to reconstruct the Turkestani point of view at a time when Eastern Turkestan achieved a unity and independence that was recognised by foreign states. Whether this was indeed historically unprecedented, as the writer states on page xiv, is a delicate matter to which I will be alluding throughout the present review. In so doing, I will highlight the politico-religious issues involved.

2 The book is organised into six chapters, and it starts with a description of the social and political situation in the early 1860s (Chapter 1). Here he shows that, in addition to the series of rebellions shaking the whole of the north-western region, there were more structural reasons behind the weakening of the authority of the Qing empire, such as

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the lack of financial resources which increased abusive taxation and led to an extreme heightening of tensions. This explosive situation put the Chinese (Tungans) at the forefront of a violent insurrection, which then rapidly spread, reaching the towns of , Urumchi, Yarkand, , Khotan, and by the summer of 1864 (Chapter 2). In each case it would appear that the problem of leadership was posed. This is particularly interesting insofar as we seem to be dealing with conflicts over legitimacy and the exercise of power, not simply between Tungans and Turkic peoples, but more fundamentally between warlords, local nobility, and religious and/or Sufi authorities. Although the latter wielded scarcely any power, they nevertheless played an indispensable role as negotiators at the heart of the rebel factions or ethnic groups, and this points to a socio-political dimension to in the region which is essential for understanding its modern history. It was precisely this dimension which led a Kirghiz rebel to call upon the Naqshbandî Sufi Sheikh, Buzurg Khwâja, and his general Ya’qûb Beg, to leave their neighbouring Ferghana to support the insurrection in Yarkand. These were the political and religious realities of the holy war in China (ghazât dar mulk- i chin). Ya’qûb Beg himself appears as a paradoxical figure in several respects (Chapter 3). Shrouded in historical uncertainties and retrospective legends, this future Emir of Eastern Turkestan rose through the military hierarchy of the of Khoqand, starting with his regency in Âq Masjid and later Khojand before being sent to Kashgar by the ‘Âlim Qulî. Although this successful career was due to his undeniable strategic skills, plus certain advantageous circumstances which gave him military superiority (analysed in detail by Hodong Kim), we should note Ya’qûb Beg’s decisive move when he sidelined the two rivals Wâli Khân and Buzurg Khwâja, that is to say, the two holy Sufi authorities. Thanks to this, the general himself became the sole hero and unique standard bearer of the Islamic insurgency.

3 Chapter 4, devoted to the Muslim state founded by Ya’qûb Beg, is developed at greater length and is particularly enlightening. It shows that the Emirate was organised in a pyramidal structure with Ya’qûb Beg himself at the apex. But although he made himself the single judge and decision-maker in important matters, he was surrounded by court officials, including the mîrzâbashî (chancellors) who performed essential diplomatic and administrative functions (running taxation, the treasury, and the army). At a lower level, the territory was divided into several provinces (wilâyat). Each of these was under the control of a local governor (hâkim) appointed by Ya’qûb and placed in charge of administering the region’s finances and police. Despite this, the legal system was in the hands of a traditional Muslim judiciary, the qâdi, mufti, and ra’îs. A second major feature concerns the establishment of a professional army along strictly hierarchical lines. Here too this work provides abundant details. Finally the point to be remembered is the general spirit of the Emirate. It proclaimed itself an Islamic regime, guaranteeing religious morality and breaking with the previous Qing order, which was considered to be infidel. So sharî’a law was strictly applied; some Sufi orders seem to have suffered persecution while numerous religious sites (mainly mosques and holy mausoleums) were restored or newly built. Ya’qûb Beg’s attitudes bear witness to the Islamic orthodoxy that his rule sought to impose on everyone.

4 This strong Islamic orientation is also to be found in the Emirate’s foreign policy, as it is described in Chapter 5. Admittedly, the treaties made with Britain and Russia, i. e., with two out of the three major powers in the region, represent unprecedented diplomatic openings for Eastern Turkestan. But the latter’s perspectives were clearly more focussed on the Muslim world when in 1865 Sayyid Ya’qûb Khân, its emissary to

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Istanbul, capital of the Caliphate, requested political and military support from the Ottoman Empire for the Emirate of Kashgar, all in the name of Islam. He was to return again in 1873 to repeat this request to the Sultan ‘Abdülazîz, receiving satisfaction on that occasion. In addition to Ya’qûb Beg’s political ability, this also shows to what extent Islam in the frontier regions of China and Turkestan was an indispensable source of legitimacy, recognition, and in the end, material aid. An appeal was made to the idea of the unity of the Muslim world, representing a break in which China stood for the infidel in opposition to the lands of Islam. Although this ideal did not prevent the fall of the Kashgar Emirate and its reincorporation into the Qing empire after 1877 (Chapter 6), it is still important to grasp the historical significance of this moment of Eastern Turkestan’s unity and independence.

5 From a politico-religious point of view, these thirteen years are neither a unique moment nor a first occurrence. In fact there is a historical continuity. In a similar series of events between 1680 and 1694 the Sufi holy man Khwâja Âfâq, with the support of the Junggar , had overthrown Shaghatayid domination and set up a Sultanate in Kashgar (dâr al-sultanat-i kâshgar) based on the principles of Islam and . The fact that historians have become accustomed to seeing this as just an episode in the final period of Junggar does not alter the point that this was a period of independence and unity fully recognised by the neighbouring states (the , the Lamaist theocracy of , and the Qing Empire) as well as their Turkestani rivals. It was not by chance—indeed it was a highly meaningful move on his part—that Ya’qûb Beg, on the day after receiving Ottoman recognition, organised an investiture ceremony in the mausoleum of Khwâja Âfâq, a site of religious and political commemoration. Nor is it surprising to encounter the continuing religious tradition that led to Ya’qûb Beg being buried in the cemetery adjoining the mausoleum.

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Fung Chi Ming, Reluctant Heroes. Rickshaw Pullers in Hong Kong and Canton, 1874-1954 Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 2005, 220 p.

Xavier Paulès

NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR

Translated from the French original by Michael Black

1 This book, which is taken from the thesis presented by Fung Chi Ming at the University of Hong Kong in 1996, deals principally with the collective action of rickshaw pullers in Hong Kong and Canton. The period chosen begins with their first appearance in Hong Kong, in early 1874, to 1954, which was the year of the last major social movement among rickshaw pullers in the British colony (even though the rickshaws only disappeared during the course of the following decade). The case of Canton fits within the course of those eighty years: the first rickshaws appeared there only in 1906, and disappeared prematurely, when the communists decided to forbid them after taking control of the city in 1949.

2 The rickshaw represents, in both cities, a kind of transition in transport services. At the beginning of the century, the rickshaw was largely instrumental in the disappearence of the palanquin. But several decades later, after the Second World War, buses and taxis (as well as the bicycle rickshaw in the case of Canton), took the rickshaw's place.

3 The early chapters of the book show how it would be a gross distortion to understand the rickshaw pullers as only being a social group subject to the domination of entrepreneurs who rented them the tools of their trade. Solidarity networks based on geographic and family origins, as well as dialects, made the reality more complex. They created specific and reciprocal obligations between rickshaw hirers and pullers, but also, horizontally, produced a segmentation of the pullers into subgroups with

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sometimes violent rivalries in the day-to-day exercise of their trade. When it came to collective action, these networks were both an advantage, as a catalyst of feelings of identity and of solidarity, and a major obstacle to the mobilisation of the rickshaw pullers as a whole.

4 The fate of the rickshaw pullers was even less decided in terms of a confrontation with the entrepreneurs who hired out the vehicles, as the authorities in both Hong Kong and Canton also had their say. The author concludes that generally speaking the British authorities were relatively oblivious to the fate of the rickshaw pullers, except for concerns with public order and the flow of traffic. This indifference was partly compensated for by the concern of some missionaries with the poverty of the rickshaw pullers. In contrast, the Guomindang and above all the Chinese Communist Party showed themselves to be very interested in the rickshaw pullers, to the extent that their work was considered to be highly representative of an imperialist system which exploited the Chinese people. In Canton, the communists gradually succeeded, after 1922, in organising the rickshaw pullers under the impetus of leaders who did not hesitate to share in their living conditions in order to win their confidence. The two most important among them were Shen Qing (1903-1928) and the son of Chen Duxiu, Chen Yannian (1898-1927). Their efforts led to the creation, in February 1926, of a single union, the Guangzhou shouchefu gonghui (the Canton Rickshaw Pullers Union), organised into four sections, which corresponded to differences in geographic and dialectal origins. The involvement of the rickshaw pullers in the revolutionary struggle reached its peak during the bloody episode of the Canton Commune of December 1927, in which a large number of them participated in arms.

5 Fung Chi Ming shows well the extremely varied character of the collective action of the rickshaw pullers in both cities during the period. It is unfortunately impossible to go into detail in the limited space of this review. It is however to be regretted that the author waits until the penultimate chapter (p. 155) to provide what is one of the keys to the negotiations between the entrepreneurs and the rickshaw pullers: the practice of dingshoufei. This was the rickshaw puller's recognised right, when he wished to stop working with a hirer, to negotiate the payment of a transfer fee from the rickshaw puller who was to be his successor. Dingshoufei, by preventing the hirers from resorting to hiring new rickshaw pullers as substitutes for strikers, was thus a considerable advantage for the latter.

6 Reaching the end of the book, one has not learned much about the rickshaw pullers as individuals. The only detail provided concerns the geographic origins of the rickshaw pullers and an interesting description of their living and working conditions in Chapter 2. One is therefore left somewhat unsatisfied. The book amounts to only 180 pages, not including the appendices, and the gap could certainly have been filled as the sources for the task do exist. The Guangzhou nianjian from 1935, for example, published the statistics (age, family status, level of education) from a study of five thousand rickshaw pullers carried out in November 1933. This source is familiar to Fung Chi Ming, who quotes it in a footnote on p. 97. It would have been useful to make fuller use of it. The ten interviews carried out by the author in 1990-1991, while full of information, could certainly also have provided interesting facts about the question of the personal careers of rickshaw pullers, which is hardly touched on. One would like to know, in particular, if the job was merely a transitional occupation which they sought to abandon as soon as possible, or if the majority of them made it into a permanent

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career. This is far from insignificant when it comes to a better understanding of the difficulties of collective organisation.

7 The errors I found in particular concern Chapter 5, in which the reminders dealing with the political situation in Canton in the years between 1910 and 1920 do not distinguish themselves by their rigorousness. It must be said that this is a highly complex subject which does not lend itself at all easily to synthesis. Nevertheless, it was in 1913 and not 1915 that Long Jiguang took control of Guangdong province (p. 77). Moreover, the revolt of the militarists Liu Zhenhuan and Yang Ximin at the beginning of June 1925 was put down by troops loyal to the Guomindang during the same month, and not, as the author states, "at the end of the year" (p. 84). Also, contrary to what is stated on p. 31, the game of chance called fantan is not played with a dice.

8 Despite these criticisms, it must be emphasised that Reluctant Heroes is a solid and useful contribution to the social history of Hong Kong and of Canton, and that the author has carried off one of the challenges of his book, which was to link up in a pertinent fashion the history of two profoundly different cities. Lastly let us point out that this book is destined to be a milestone for another reason. It is the first of a series of monographs devoted to Hong Kong, whose publication is announced by the University of Hong Kong Press, thanks to the support of the Royal Asiatic Society.

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Hervé Barbier, Les Canonnières françaises du Yang-tsé : de Shanghai à Chongqing (1900-1921) Paris, Les Indes Savantes, 2004, 286 p.

Alain Roux

NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR

Translated from the French original by Philip Liddell

1 Since France’s diplomatic archives on the Far East were transferred to Nantes, a number of academic researchers have based their research on them. This in turn has generated half a dozen master’s degree dissertations, whose conclusions have been incorporated into the book directed by Jacques Weber, La France en Chine 1843-1943, published in Nantes (Ouest Edition) in 1997. Hervé Barbier’s book is more ambitious, coming within the scope of a thesis. To the Nantes sources he adds those he has found in the Service Historique de La Marine (the Naval Historical Service) in Vincennes and Toulon, as well as various personal archives. The result is a serious piece of work, with an index and photographic illustrations, but disappointing. The subject is, indeed, rather slight: a few decades of the history of a flotilla of three or four “soapboxes”, ill- adapted for ill-defined missions: thanks to the skills of their crews, they provided protection for the French flag between in Hubei and Suifu (now ) in Sichuan. Protecting the flag occasionally meant going to the aid of steamboats that were really Chinese but flying the French tricolour, which were used in the arms trade or for the traffic in opium. There are a few good pages describing life on board or in various ports of call for these matelots in faraway waters, evoking encounters between Breton sailors and missionaries speaking their language and sharing their homesickness—but such pages do not erase the sense of unease that reading this book left me with.

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2 Probably because of a few mistakes. I was unimpressed by the thinness of a bibliography that leaves out that essential work on the subject, the book by Lyman P. van Slyke, Yangtze: Nature, History and the River (Stanford, Ca., Stanford University Press, 1988). Perhaps, also, I was surprised by a hasty and biased historical account of the cruel bombardment of the city of Wanxian in Sichuan (p. 128) by two British gunboats on September 5th 1926. Their attack killed hundreds of innocent Chinese civilians, a paradigm for that infamous “gunboat diplomacy”.

3 Herein lies, without doubt, the weakness of the book: the writer takes an exclusive position alongside these sailors adopting, a century later, the prejudices and behaviour of their times. Thus, he is at the side of Lieutenant Hourst, commanding the Olry, which had just sailed through the terrible Yangtse gorges in August 1902: Hourst acted on the basis of a “completely exaggerated” (p. 73) missionary report in giving offence to the Viceroy of Sichuan. This officer was a typical adventurer of those colonial times, and was disowned by the Navy Minister Pelletan, who condemned that “semi-episcopal, semi-military tour”: the radical minister’s perfectly republican attitude was obviously displeasing to our author. Neither did he appreciate (p. 193) the indigenisation policy within the Catholic clergy in China, as pursued by Cardinal Constantini, whom he accuses of threatening France’s religious protectorate over Chinese Catholics. As you may see, this book is something of a time machine.

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