Draft:Provincial autonomy (Republic of China)

Provincial autonomy, sometimes also as the Provincal Autonomy Movement, was a political system reform proposal put forward by politicians and local power military personnel during the period when the Beiyang government ruled in the early years of the Republic of China. This series of activities took place between 1920 and 1924, with a total of ten provinces participating at that time, further developing into the Provincial Constitution Movement (1920-1926). The provinces involved included: Guangdong, Guangxi, and Fujian, which were directly involved in the struggle between the North and the South; Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, and Shaanxi, which were located in the middle of the North-South conflict; Yunnan and Guizhou in the southwest, less affected by the North; and Zhejiang, which, despite being controlled by the Anhui clique after the war, still had close ties with the South. All of these regions had varying degrees of "autonomy" and "federated governance" actions.

Overview

During the 1920s, when the Provincal Autonomy Movement was taking place, the central government's control over local regions was at its lowest point. No political group was able to utilize effective administrative structures to concentrate political and economic resources to rebuild central authority, resulting in a significant fragmentation of political power. With neither the northern nor southern governments able to unify China and the central leading forces absent, provincial identity and a new sense of national identity began to serve as tools for integrating social resources. Consequently, the political focus shifted to the provincial level, elevating the status of provinces.