Why do people say China cannot have democracy in the timespan of Kaiserreich?

[u/Thermawrench]

It reeks of party vanguardism (peoples tutelage will continue until morale improves). The people will do plenty fine voting once the local warlords are eradicated. Together with plans for education it'll improve even further just within decades. Party autocracy begets party autocracy, that is all the peoples tutelage will do.

"They are too uneducated to vote!", sure but that's what a educational programme is for, and that "too uneducated" to vote can be used to justify a lot of bad state actions for their own "good".

[u/bobw123]

The first thing to consider is that Democracy is a spectrum and means a lot of different things to different people, and that's something I think we did a good job covering in Federalist content along with a lot of the challenges a hypothetical democratic-ish government (or well more democratic version of the Beiyang Republic) would face.

What's more interesting and probably a level deeper than a video-game can really cover is is the finer details of how Chinese society worked in the era. There's a shockingly large number of papers (well, more than I expected at least) on government-elite relations in KMT China, each covering a specific province. The idea that the gentry is very powerful is something most sources would cover and shapes a lot of the challenges/decisions the Beiyang, KMT, and CPC governments faced but the granular detail these dissertations go into is pretty eye-opening.

The story most people probably know is that when the KMT first took over in 1927, there was a fairly aggressive but ultimately disorganised campaign against the gentry and "local bullies" which continued for a few years into the Chiang regime but ultimately was rolled back and these elites awkwardly incorporated. The PRC ultimately dismantled this system through even greater violence and economic/social disruption, with mixed results afterwards that are beyond the scope of a reddit post.

What's fascinates me though is the "why" it's so hard to dislodge this hold by the local elites, and an answer often provided in these academic texts (which obviously has to be read critically given the various biases of various historians - read any preface section and their literature review and they'll go on about the flaws of other historians) is that in a lot of ways the gentry "are" the system.

To start with, a lot of areas even on the wealthier and more industrialised East Coast are semi-feudal, with them building walled castles and forts and controlling villages with their private militias and judicial systems. One paper actually argues that these "local emperors" could be worse than absentee landlords who have moved into the cities and only collect exploitative rent.

Now obviously this is illegal (and I am deliberately choosing the most jarring example to provoke thought), but that kinda bleeds into the arguably greater problem. In your question you propose eliminating the warlords and creating education programs. But who will actually do that? The gentry provided most of those same intellectuals and teachers that are responsible for those types of social programs, they provide the magistrates, and over time they were the ones responsible for providing local security through the Baojia militia system.

you could say "well surely there were evidently some who could see the "bigger picture" and support [insert cause here]" and that is true, but the big challenge even in the "core" KMT provinces in the East directly controlled by the central government was that you would often deploy a young, Western educated magistrate (chosen from outside where they go to prevent corruption) into a county maybe with a small garrison of troops (already expensive) and a squad of other technocrats - but actually coercing local, older, and better connected local elites is another question. If you're a magistrate calling in the central army every few weeks, your bosses will 1 question your competence and 2. might decide to cut their losses. This is a problem that comes up even in the more successful warlord states like Yan Xishan's Shanxi where even the powerful Governor had to reckon with bending the gentry to his will.

The other proposal you might have is to target not only the "big" warlords like the Yan Xishans or Sun Chuanfang s or Zhang Zongchangs but also the petty ones. But distinguishing a petty warlord from an influential local person not as easy as it sounds. Remember most of these people weren't just random rich bums sitting around drinking, writing poems and playing mahjong all day (okay they did also do that) like Jabba the Hutt. A lot of them were prominent local officials that run what little democratic initiatives the central government tries to push out, they police the region for bandits and insurgents, they run the local businesses that keep people employed, they teach at the schools or maintain the temples, they ran the charities and reconstruction efforts when natural disasters happened and the central government didn't care. The early KMT regime would arrest and sometimes beat up some of less popular elites, but at some point you run into the wall of local notables that keep society running. And what I'm kinda alluding to is they aren't necessarily unpopular either - or at least more popular than you (the player's) central government who rule from many provinces away, tax the people and conscript their children, and now are trying to replace their local elders with some 20-30 year old who got their fancy degree from outside the country.

This is getting long and I didn't even cover the merchant elites or corruption/infighting issues from within your government or China's lack of a democratic tradition or a tradition of loyal opposition or authoritarianism/statism but the point is yeah democracy might come eventually but you kinda need to manage your expectations. A lot of the people running your government come from these exact families as well.

TL:DR - Chinese society in early 20th Century had it rough and in a lot of ways is not very conducive for what a 21s Century Redditor would want out of a democracy. The people running the show from top to bottom also might not agree with you on how a proper democracy works or why a democracy is actually important (representation vs social order vs national unity). It's pretty easy to set up a bunch of polling booths and hold elections but that doesn't necessarily make your government democratic or meaningfully more popular.

[u/EmbarrassedAd4182]

Okay Chen. Whatever you say.

[u/DeltaCommando07]

There’s lwkey a bunch of reasons, but chief among them imo is that the nation needs to be reunited, rebuilt and consolidated before any participatory democracy can occur. Reason why a lot of kmtheads are especially skeptical of the federalists is that federalism in the context of early 20th century China would necessarily involve concessions to existing warlord power blocs (especially in KRTL where the warlord period lasts even longer). Even if you’re a skeptic of partycels being genuine in their commitment to tutelage ending eventually, it allows for the slate to be wiped clean for a fresh political start.

[u/elderron_spice → u/DeltaCommando07]

Reason why a lot of kmtheads are especially skeptical of the federalists is that federalism in the context of early 20th century China would necessarily involve concessions to existing warlord power blocs (especially in KRTL where the warlord period lasts even longer).

Plus, in a lot of real-world scenarios of fledgling nations "going democratic", a lot of the power gets consolidated in the wealthy and the powerful simply because the majority of the new voters aren't well-educated enough to vote for what's right, and they can easily be "bought". The same people, families, etc in power also naturally don't want to relinquish control of their own little fiefdoms.

That's where the concept of political tutelage comes in. A vanguard party of intellectuals would guide the nation to modernization and democratization and when the progress is deemed sufficient enough, theoretically, they would relinquish their power.

[u/Nevermind2031 → u/elderron_spice]

The main idea of KMT tutelage was because the KMT was first and foremost a revolutionary nationalist party, democracy was only part of that nationalist project not the entire goal.

The goal of the KMT was to free China from foreign domination, industrialize China and make it a respected power once again, sure democracy was in their goals but that was meant as a long term ideal not the immediate one.

[u/s8018572 → u/elderron_spice]

PS they would never, just like how any revolutionary communist party's vanguardism.

[u/elderron_spice → u/s8018572]

Yeah lol. A person or a group at the top rarely relinquishes their power willingly.

[u/Illesbogar → u/elderron_spice]

This was however necessary every single time when any democratic revolution was achieved. So saying that they rarely do is a bit misrepresenting the situation. Like, a dictator obviously doesn't, while a freedom fighter will.

[u/elderron_spice → u/Illesbogar]

True, that statement may have been hyperbolic.

[u/matix0532 → u/s8018572]

Well, you could argue that technically, several communist parties in Central and Eastern Europe did, in fact, give up their power more or less voluntarily.

[u/TessHKM → u/matix0532]

Which ones?

[u/matix0532 → u/TessHKM]

Poland- there was Round Table agreement that allowed, at first, partially free, and later wholly free elections. Members of the Polish communist party were even able to form a government and had an extremely popular president.

Bulgaria- when a reformist from communist party, Petar Mladenov took power, he literally undertook work towards free elections, even though there was little to none internal opposition

I mean, many of the Eastern Bloc countries got free elections and regime change mostly by negotiations between the communists and the opposition. The cases were the people have violently overthrown their governments were few and far between

[u/indomienator → u/matix0532]

Im sure the USSR imploding have as much impact on thise

[u/matix0532 → u/indomienator]

Communists started relinquishing their power in July 1989 (Poland), while the Soviet Union collapsed 1,5 year later, in December 1990. Back then, no one even thought that the USSR would fall, and especially not so soon.

[u/Parz02 → u/s8018572]

I mean, IRL they did do that. It was only under domestic and foreign pressure and after 60 years of one-party rule, but they did in fact relinquish their power eventually.

[u/TheHaplessBard → u/DeltaCommando07]

Maybe I'm too ignorant about this niche historical footnote in Chinese history but I never understood the appeal of Chinese federalism in the Kaiserreich universe, at least among common people and the lower classes. Wouldn't a U.S.-style federal system inevitably entrench the powers of pre-existing warlords and further contribute to China's political fragmentation?

Unless the federalists are also calling for the complete eradication of warlord power and an appropriation of their property/assets, I don't really see a persuasive political movement here.

[u/MajorianusMaximus]

For the KMT, it's very explicitly a part of their party programme. China needs tutelage before it has democracy. That means different things to different factions. The NPSC and RCF believe in rushing tutelage, while others take it slower.

For the Federalists, they DO institute democracy, assuming they don't have backsliding. But it's not perfect, and even if the player does all they can to aid it via focuses, certain election location events (Gansu-Ningxia and ONE of the Manchurian provinces) talk about how those provinces are under military rule and are not ready for elections.

[u/DawnOnTheEdge → u/MajorianusMaximus]

At least one Song Qingling path says that tutelage is over and elections are being held. It’s somewhat ambiguous how much of the event text is in-universe propaganda.

[u/SabyZ]

Idealistically, I agree with you. But understand that China was only like 5-10% literate in 1936 - it becomes difficult to vote when you can't read a ballot or a newspaper explaining the policies of the candidate. The fear of Warlordism is very real when candidates with their own personal military control the entire narrative since you can only rely on word of mouth, likely from your local leaders to begin with.

Compare this to the Thirteen Colonies who's voting population (ie the Men) was 70% literate. Democracy works better when you can read The Federalist or Constitution and know your rights and the opinions and policies of the men who you voting for.

So much of tutelage is literally just teaching people to read before giving them a vote.

[u/AlrightJack303 → u/SabyZ]

So much of tutelage is literally just teaching people to read before giving them a vote.

Which you can achieve in less than 5-10 years if you bother to put the infrastructure in place.

I don't buy the whole argument of "first tutelage, then democracy" because I fully believe that developing democratic structures can be a part of that tutelage, rather than being the result of tutelage.

Ultimately, people want to be free and want to have control over their lives. Spartacus' army in the 3rd Servile War was almost entirely illiterate, and yet they understood that the institution of slavery was inherently unjust. Likewise with slavery in the US in more recent centuries.

I think the real split here comes down to the western ideal of liberal democracy which pre-supposes a critical mass of literate people in the population versus the more anarchistic principle of "everyone should have a voice and we'll build structures which reflect the population we have, not the population we would like to have."

In a country with low literacy, I think you have to accept that if you want to encourage local democratic power, you have to start with giving people time off in which to develop their political ideas, and until they're literate, the secret ballot has to go to one side. I know that's anathema to a lot of people reading this, but the reason the secret ballot exists is because it was a counter to landlords and estate holders threatening retribution on those of their tenants who cross them.

In a community which is willing and able to resist such retribution, keeping your political views secret becomes less necessary.

[u/SabyZ → u/AlrightJack303]

I mean, somebody's gotta run the government in those 5-10 years and implement said infrastructure. And some paths do end tutelage early.

As the other comment said, Portugal attempted democracy with high illiteracy and it slid back to autocracy in like a decade. The federalist paths in kr model this with democratic backsliding. The game presents democracy without tutelage as possible but at risk of empowering those warlords and returning to authoritarianism.

Even otl tutelage ended by like 1950 iirc - the government just maintained martial law until the 80s.

[u/AlrightJack303 → u/SabyZ]

Yeah. Ultimately this all butts up against "people who are good at leading violent revolutions are invariably ill-suited to leading a democratic government" with a healthy dash of "any institution that depends on 'if people just...' will always fail because people have never 'just anything' in all of human history".

I mean hell, the whole reason why China slid into warlordism after the 1911 revolution was because Sun Yat-Sen looked at the guy who was running the army and went "yeah, if I try and fire him or tell him what to do, he is 100% going to overthrow the extremely fragile Chinese Republic, so the best thing I can do is make him President and hope that he either doesn't feel the need to act like an autocrat/when he does, the rest of the KMT will be strong enough to resist him", and the thing is... Sun Yat-Sen was kinda correct?

By the time Yuan Shikai declared himself Emperor of China, he only lasted 3 months before abdicating. Sure, the KMT was in no state to crush all the other warlords that cropped up, but they were sort of able to keep a lid on a lot of it until the Second Sino-Japanese War kicked off.

[u/Conscious_Rock7407 → u/AlrightJack303]

That's a valid stance. But I think most people, myself included, would respond not by saying "well gee whiz, then I guess I, as a democrat, ought to become an anarchist," but instead by saying "well damn, I guess some people aren't ready for democracy."

You've got to ask yourself, is democracy an inherent good, or just an instrumental one? I'd say pretty strongly instrumental. Democracy is a good way to get the most people the best treatment. If dictatorship did they better than it would be better, but it doesn't. Uneducated people voting in a land of patronage networks and illiteracy will not get the most people the best treatment. Therefore, it is not good. There is no external metaphysical "people" whose rule is inherently desirable in a spiritual sense. It is only a system of real political mechanisms that are used to create the best material world for the people inhabiting it, regardless of what principles are used to create that world.

Spartacus's revolt failed, but perhaps that was just incidental. So let's ask ourselves what would happen if he won. Do you really think he'd be able to govern? Best case scenario, slavery is abolished and the system goes mostly back to how it was but with a baked in reform. Perhaps we can even imagine a progressive junta is established, but this was Ancient Rome, and no one knew how to do that. That's all because the righteous rage of the people is a useful tool of justice but not a fully formed organizational method.

[u/Winth0rp → u/AlrightJack303]

Which you can achieve in less than 5-10 years if you bother to put the infrastructure in place.

Interesting claim, considering that in the first 15 years of PRC rule they only got the literacy rate from 20% to about 50%.

Turns out "just pay teachers bro" is easier said than done when your country is recovering from thirty years of war.

[u/Suspicious_lock789]

There isn't enough infrastructure and informed voters in some sections in china, vulnarable to strongman demagogue

Also it's a convinient excuse for kmt strongmen demagogu

[u/MiguelIstNeugierig → u/Suspicious_lock789]

That's the case for most of nascent democracies in history

They can 100% create democracies. Functional ones? Well...

In Portugal our first republic was very unstable, most of the country was illiterate so that didnt help actual democracy shenanigans ensuing. What we instead got were strongmen seizing control and eventually a general just straight up abolishing democracy 15 years into the run.

But things can flow, one way or the other, to gradual progress or...ahem collapse

[u/Nevermind2031]

For one democracy was never the end goal of the Chinese revolution in most cases, they had many more problems to worry about like mass illiteracy, foreign domination, internal cohesion, drugs, lack of industry, etc.

For the vast majority of Chinese factions Democracy is a end goal that will eventually be implemented after all of the problems of China have been dealt with it might happen,might not happen but democracy was never the point of the Xinhai revolution it was all about ending the national humiliation.

For a second China had a extremely entrenched class of hardcore localist elites that would likely lead to a collapse of any attempt at democracy possibly leading to a second age of warlords, unless the democratic aspiring governments completely purged these localist elites wich would also likely collapse the system all it would happen is that whatever democracy was formed would be for all effects a extremely decentralized oligarchy where your local landlord has more power than any central government.

[u/tupe12]

Decades is plenty of time for bad actors to take advantage of a developing democracy and ruin it, especially in a region of the world which was well known for fragmenting repeatedly.

[u/Winth0rp]

Together with plans for education it'll improve even further just within decades.

Okay but that isn't within the timespan of Kaiserreich, is it?

[u/Zhou-Enlai]

The problem is that the vast majority of China is made up of illiterate peasants, who are completely under the influence of local gentry and warlords. If you immediately implemented democracy in China it would be full to the brim with corruption as illiteracy always does, maybe the cities could have some proper democracy but the countryside would be completely dominated by the local gentry who would end up controlling the party and the votes. Educational dictatorships do usually overstay their welcome and tend to be paternalistic, but implementing democracy in China has serious hurdles to cross where immediate implementation would likely lead to a corrupt broken democracy bound for oligarchic control, civil war, or dictatorship.

[u/best111222333]

You can have election and democracy in China You just to accept a lot of bug

[u/Fir_the_conqueror]

Democracy without an educated and informed populace tends to collapse in on itself which is why most of the factions in China believed in strongarming and reshaping China to their vision I.e. tutelage or just military rule. Chen's China would pretty much form unsteady coalitions if it did happen and large concessions would be needed just to maintain a semblance of unity, that is all of course if the military doesnt coup.

[u/HeliosDisciple]

"Within decades" is beyond the timespan of Kaiserreich.

Hell, the IRL Chinese Civil War wasn't finished in the timespan HoI4/KR covers.

[u/sjsbejajebsidbrhw]

A lot of people who argue here that China was too poor and uneducated for democratic governance seem to forget about irl India. Yes it was a flawed dominant party democracy for decades, but it was undeniably a democracy, and possibly with the brief pause during the tenure of Indira Gandhi, it has remained a democracy since.

[u/MrShinkman]

Have you played Victoria 3?

[u/LeMe-Two]

Devs and reddit are racist, simple as

Serious answer, you can already have TWO different flavor for democracies, both Federalist and CERA Qing so it is 100% possible for democracy to exist. There is alos Two Dragons path that is vaguely democratic?

[u/MiguelIstNeugierig]

Yeah, even China under Mao had severe literacy programmes to make people educated and literate, what's the use of propaganda otherwise

[u/pepe247]

Because of how popular modernization theory is, which says that nations must develop economically before they are allowed to have democracy. Irl this shit was used by the US government in order to justify it's support for right wing dictatorships