County magistrate

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The Yamen at Qingdao, early 20th century Bundesarchiv Bild 116-125-35, Tsingtau, Haupt-Yamen.jpg
The Yamen at Qingdao, early 20th century

The late Qing reforms of the early 20th century made basic changes. With the abolition of the centrally administered examination system, magistrates came to be selected by a local or ad hoc examinations, at least in theory, though recommendation and personal relations were more important in practice. [22] The law of avoidance remained in effect, though it too was no longer enforced rigorously, and the political chaos of the period was reflected in rapid turnover and shorter terms of office. One study found that most magistrates were appointed by the militarists who controlled the area. [23] In the years leading up to the founding of the Nationalist government in 1928, however, there was a noticeable improvement in the education and technical training of the magistrates, particularly in law and administration. The study also concluded that the civilian bureaucracy became more and more militarized. [24]

The County Organic Law, passed by the Nationalist government in 1928, defined the county as the basic level of government, and stipulated that the county magistrate, now called xianzhang, would be appointed by the provincial authorities. The county was supervised also by the Nationalist Party, which operated in parallel with the county government, an arrangement in accordance with the Party's Leninist structure. In addition, the new government organized a larger bureaucracy at the local level. [25]

During the Chinese Civil War, which lasted for several decades starting in 1927, the Chinese Communist Party built a bureaucratic base in many parts of China using the Soviet Union as a model. [26] After the civil war ended, the ROC retained the magistrate on Taiwan. They became the heads of the county after the central government streamlined all provinces which effectively downsized to non-self-governing bodies in 1998, and in 2019 all provincial governmental organs were formally abolished. [27] [28]

The People's Republic of China

After the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949, local government took far more control of village life than had ever been possible in Chinese history, but local officials still faced many of the same problems as county magistrates under the empire. One foreign scholar wrote from his observations in 2015 that "grass-roots level civil servants are still seen as paternalistic 'father mother officials,' who are expected to take care of the ordinary people, enjoy a high degree of authority, but at the same time an equally high degree of mistrust." [29]

Bao Zheng judges a court case in The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants, a prototype for gong'an fiction Judgebaoyinyangmixup.jpg
Bao Zheng judges a court case in The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants , a prototype for gong'an fiction
King Yan, the ruler of the Chinese Buddhist underworld, depicted as a local magistrate holding court Yanluo.JPG
King Yan, the ruler of the Chinese Buddhist underworld, depicted as a local magistrate holding court
A magistrate (right) portrayed as a comedic character in Peking Opera. Wang Zhaojun Peking Opera 4.jpg
A magistrate (right) portrayed as a comedic character in Peking Opera.

The magistrate was the hero in much popular fiction. The "detective story," for instance, in China took the form of the gong'an , or “court case,” in which the protagonist is not a private detective or police officer but the county magistrate, who is investigator, prosecutor, and judge. The magistrate solves a crime which has already been described to the reader, so that the suspense does not come not from discovering the criminal but from seeing how the magistrate solves the crime through clever stratagems. [30] Among these magistrate-detectives were the historical Tang dynasty official Di Renjie, who inspired a series of Judge Dee stories, and the Song dynasty official, Bao Zheng the hero of a set of stories and operas.

Since Chinese popular religion considered the world of life after death to closely resemble this one, the gods were part of a great bureaucracy which had the same structure as the imperial bureaucracy. The process of justice was pictured as being much the same in both worlds. The Magistrates of Hell presided over a court in much the way that the county magistrate did and their offices closely resembled the earthly ones. [31] The short story "Execution of Mayor Yin" by Chen Ruoxi (in which "xianzhang" is translated as "Mayor") describes the career of Mayor Yin from the early 1950s through the Cultural Revolution and dramatizes the dilemma of an official who is caught between the necessity of serving both his superiors and his constituents. [32]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 Watt (1972).
  2. Balazs (1965), p. 54.
  3. Spence (1990), p.  368.
  4. 1 2 3 Wilkinson (2012), p. 261–262.
  5. Ch'u (1962), pp.  14–15.
  6. Hsu Cho-yun, China A New Cultural History(New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 102, 104, 121.
  7. Qian (1982), p.  2, 14,.
  8. Ch'u (1962), pp.  6–7.
  9. Zhong (2003), p. 18–46.
  10. Kwong, Julia (2015), The Political Economy of Corruption in China, New York: Routledge, p.  60, 80
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Tanner (2010), p.  49–52.
  12. Mote (1999), p.  317.
  13. Hsiao (1967).
  14. Ch'u (1962), p.  130–131.
  15. Ch'u (1962), p. 131–134.
  16. Ch'u (1962), p.  139, 144.
  17. 1 2 Ch'u (1962), pp. 123–127.
  18. Ch'u (1962), p.  17.
  19. 1 2 Wakeman (1975), p.  29–31.
  20. Ch'u (1962).
  21. Rowe (2009), p.  49–52.
  22. Wou (1974), p. 217–221.
  23. Wou (1974), p. 227–231, 240.
  24. Wou (1974), p. 244–245.
  25. Zhong (2003), p. 34–36.
  26. Zhong (2003), p. 38–39.
  27. "Local governments". Office of the President Republic of China (Taiwan). Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  28. Sarah Shair-Rosenfield (November 2020). "Taiwan combined" (PDF). The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved 29 May 2021.
  29. Traditions of Local Government Archived 19 June 2016 at the Wayback Machine The Yamen Runner 25 September 2015
  30. Ropp, Paul S. (1990), "The Distinctive Art of Chinese Fiction", in Ropp, Paul S. (ed.), The Heritage of China: Contemporary Perspectives, Berkeley: University of California Press, ISBN   0-520-06441-0 , p. 317.
  31. The Ten Magistrates of the Underworld Realm "Living in the Chinese Cosmos," Asia for Educators (Columbia University)
  32. Goldman, Merle (1979). "The Execution of Mayor Yin and Other Stories from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. By Chen Jo-Hsi". Journal of Asian Studies. 38 (2): 371–373. doi:10.2307/2053453. JSTOR   2053453.

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References

Further reading

County magistrate
Yamen-sitzung.jpg
A magistrate holds court (late 19th century)