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'Chinese federalism' refers to political theories which argue that the People's Republic of China central government does or should devolve large amounts of power to local entities.
The Revive China Society, founded in November 1894 by Sun Yat-Sen, was among the first to suggest that a future Chinese Government should be established on federal lines, a feeling expressed in the organisation's oath - ''Expel the foreigners, revive China, and establish a unified government. (驅逐韃虜，恢復中華，建立合眾政府)''. This "unified government" is meant to mean one such as the United States of America.
In the Xinhai Revolution there were 14 provinces that proclaimed independence from the Qing dynasty and reunited as a Republican China. This is the reason that one semi-official translation of the Republican China's new name () was the 'United Provinces of China' before January 1912. The title of Sun Yat-sen in 1912 was the president of the Provisional Government of the 'United Provinces of China'[1]. With this history the Chinese scholars of federalism who joined Xinhai Revolution often use 'United Provinces' () to replace 'Federation' () or 'United States' () because the Chinese often think states meaning independence more than provinces, so they see federalism as the same as separatism.
Large proposals of scholars for a federal Chinese state were first advanced in the 1920s, but these proposals proved to be unpopular. These proposals often use 'Autonomy with the United Provinces' () for the name of their system. Hunan was the center of this movement. The young Mao Zedong claimed to build 'Republic of Hunan' in that period. But many intellectuals, including Sun Yat-sen, argued that these proposals would limit the ability of China to fight off external invasion and would legitimize the rule of warlords.
After Chinese Communist established the Chinese Soviet Republic in Jiangxi, they learned the union republics of Soviet Union and asked to build a soviet federal republic with the autonomous republics of Mongolia, Turkestan, Tibet, etc. In the period of Long March they built some small autonomous republics for Tibetans in Sichuan. But when they stayed in Shaanxi they changed their plan for other nationalities from autonomous republic to autonomous region. So they established autonomous region of Inner Mongolia in 1947.
When People's Republic of China was found in 1949, it was divided six semi-independent greater administrative areas. The central government was transferred from the People's Government of North China and just controlled North China and Inner Mongolia. Other greater administrative areas had more autonomy. These autonomy ends in 1954 totally.
More recently, some economists have argued that during the process of Chinese economic reform that the People's Republic has evolved into a de-facto federal state in which provinces have wide discretion to implement policy goals which are set by the PRC central government and in which provinces and localities actively compete with each other in order to advance economically.

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See also

External links

See also

★ Political divisions of China

★ Tiao-kuai

★ Federal Republic of China

★ United States of China

External links

★ Davis, Michael C. "The Case for Chinese Federalism"

★ Chen Jiongming and the Federalist Movement

★ Weingast, Barry R. "Federalism, Chinese Style: The Political Basis for Economic Success in China"^{.pdf version}

★ Democracy and Its Limits in Greater China