Divisive Elites: State Penetration and Local Autonomy in Mei County, Guangdong Province, 1900s-1930s DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Wenjuan Bi Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2015 Dissertation Committee: Christopher A. Reed, Advisor Patricia Sieber Ying Zhang Copyright by Wenjuan Bi 2015 Abstract This dissertation focuses on the rise of a group of new elites in Mei County, northeastern Guangdong, and their conflict with the local traditional gentry caused by the Chinese state’s new attempt to strengthen and modernize itself from the late Qing to the Republican periods (roughly from the 1900s to the 1930s). From the 1900s, the Chinese state, facing a series of internal and external threats, rather than prioritizing a stable social system, sought to achieve economic growth and national strength as soon as possible. Since the weak government had no ability to plunder external resources to support the expensive reform agendas, the government turned to more aggressive approaches to extract resources from local society. The state’s attempt to strengthen itself by extracting local resources, however, created sharp conflict between the central government and traditional autonomous communities. It also led to the estrangement of the traditional gentry, who, having consolidated their dominance over local society by controlling lineages and militias, were not enthusiastic about collaborating with the state to promote reform. In order to conscript resources to support the state’s reform agendas and to weaken the local gentry’s control of local resources, the late Qing government promoted a new group of elites with commercial backgrounds and Western knowledge who could better serve the state’s goal of mobilization. The new elites, most of whom had accumulated wealth but had not established cultural authority, vigorously sponsored the reforms in an ii attempt to enhance their status in local society. The new elites continued their collaboration with the government when the post-Qing regimes respected their agency. However, as the reform agenda became increasingly aggressive under the Nationalist Party’s rule, and after the new elites gained control of the political platforms and accumulated their own cultural capital, they, like the traditional gentry, tended to defend their vested interests by monopolizing local reform projects. The new elites thus passed beyond the control of the central government too. Drawing on previously untapped country archives, and through an in-depth study of how the various state-strengthening agendas were implemented in rural Mei County, this dissertation reveals a continuous theme in Chinese modern politics: the modernizing state, in order to enlist local support for national goal, closely collaborated with a minority of local population who were willing to serve the state’s goal while sparing no effort to eliminate any power holder who was concerned about local interests. Different from previous studies which either stress the weakness or the obedience of local communities, this dissertation argues that despite the state’s effort at penetrating, local elites, including both the traditional gentry and new elites, well defended their sectional interests and undermined the state’s attempt of extortion based on their control of various local organizations. By studying how local leaders foiled the state’s attempt to extend authority in local society, this dissertation provides a bottom-up perspective to understand why China’s modern regimes became increasingly authoritarian. As shown here, the state’s inclination to eliminate local power holders and establish direct control of local society, which reached a climax under the Communist rule after 1949, rather than iii being merely the result of the state’s choice of political ideologies, was more a response to deep-rooted local autonomy and pervasive resistance to state-penetration efforts. iv Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to Xiangyu. v Acknowledgments I would not have had the chance to spend my last nine years working on a topic – China’s state-society relationship – that has intrigued me since I was an undergraduate student if I had not been admitted as a Ph.D student by the History Department of The Ohio State University. Professors Cynthia Brokaw and Christopher A. Reed not only gave me this opportunity but also provided me with numerous forms of assistance during my study here. Professor Brokaw introduced me to the world of academia in America. Before I came to OSU, I had rarely read academic works or written an essay in English. She taught me how to read books and write essays efficiently. In my second year at OSU, she took me to the Annual Conference of the Association for Asian Studies and taught me how to present myself in an academic conference. Though she left OSU for career reasons, I am deeply grateful to her for her guidance and assistance in my early years in the U.S. Professor Reed is a sharp and inspiring scholar. I enjoyed all the heated discussions in his classes and benefited greatly from his strict requirement in writing. Without his straightforward and sincere critiques, my writing could not have achieved its current shape. His detailed and informative comments on my dissertation not only helped me correct historical errors, but also enlightened me on how to clearly present and organize my arguments. As my primary advisor, Professor Reed has also exerted great effort in helping me building my career. He has always been willing to share with me his knowledge about vi academia and his personal experience as a teacher in various academic settings. Most importantly, he has always given me generous encouragment when I made progress in writing. His approval kept me hanging on in the writing stage of this dissertation, especially when I was buried in my materials and doubted my ability to finish this project. I will be forever greateful to him for his constant encouragement and support. I am also grateful for guidance and support from my other two committee members, Professors Patricia Sieber and Ying Zhang. Professor Sieber, though being an expert on Chinese literature, has broad interests in different disciplines. Her understanding of the most up-to-date topics and questions in different fields broadens my views on my current project. My interest in the connections among the people in south China and Southeast Asia is owed to her introduction to the issue of transnational cultural exchange. A warm person, she always sends students the most supportive words when we encounter difficulty or are assailed by self-doubt. Professor Ying Zhang arrived at OSU when I began my dissertation writing. Her class on the Chinese gentry broadened my view of Confucianism and Confucian scholars. Her comments on my dissertation prospectus also helped me sharpen the thesis of this dissertation. Without my talks with her, I would not have been able to push myself to think about the broader implications of this project. Other professors in Department of History in OSU, though not sitting on my committee, have also provided generous support in the past years. Professor Philip Brown, stressing that he could not forget those hard days when he just arrived in Japan, always provided extra care and patience to foreign students. Professor Judy Wu introduced the vii classic works on women’s history, a field that has long interested me and on which I plan to work in the future. I have also benefited greatly from my friends and colleagues at OSU: Yan Xu, Di Luo, John Knight, Austin Dean, Man He, Mengjun Li, and Qiong Yang. They not only offered inspiring ideas during and after classes, but also provided the companionship which helped me survive this long and lonely journey. I also want to mention that I was fortunate to have begun my study in history at Sun Yat-sen University, where professors such as Liu Zhiwei, Chen Chunsheng, Cheng Meibao, Huang Guoxin, and Wen Chunlai taught me the basic skills of the historian, such as how to read classic Chinese texts, how to combine methods of institutional study and cultural research, and how to collect materials through field work. Those interesting field trips clinched my decision to pursue an academic career in history. When I started this project on Mei County, they also provided countless support, such as writing me recommendation letters and introducing me to the local notables in northeastern Guangdong. In Meizhou, the scholars and students of the Hakka Research Center in Jiaying University, such as Xiao Wenping and Zhou Jianxin, and the officials in the Mei County Archives, such as Cai Meisheng, were all of great help. Their knowledge of the area was indispensable to my research. They provided clues about how to collect information about the pratogonists in my dissertation and accompanied me to local villages personally. I cannot name the many people who provided introductions when I visited the villages in Mei County. Without their assistance, I would not have been able to finish this project. viii Finally, my deepest appreciation goes to my husband Xiangyu Yang. He is a scientist who always pays a close attention to the logic of any argument and writing. In the past several years, my dissertation has become the major topic of conversation during our dinners. Xiangyu could always pick out the logical flaws in my argument and pushed me to reorganize my writing. These discussions enabled me to understand the historical figures from the perspective of themselves, rather than making judgments based on my personal preference or hindsight reasoning. If I show both sympathy and suspicion to most figures in my dissertation, it should be ascribed to those dinner discussions. So this dissertation is dedicated to Xiangyu.