The National Government of China

1929 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 441-449
Author(s):  
Harold S. Quigley

The government at Nanking set up in April, 1927, by the Kuomintang (Nationalist party), in promulgating an “organic act” on October 4, 1928, took the title “national government.” On the seventeenth anniversary of the outbreak of the Republican revolution, October 10, 1928, the system of government provided for by the act was inaugurated. The act was drafted by the law codification bureau at Nanking and revised by a committee composed of Wang Chung-hui, deputy judge of the Permanent Court of International Justice, Hu Han-min, and Tai Chi-t'ao.Since November, 1924, when, upon the ousting of President T'sao K'un, the “permanent” constitution adopted a year before was suspended, China has been without a fundamental instrument of government. The four intervening years, like the eight which preceded them, have been filled with interregional warfare. At Peking a provisional president, Tuan Ch'i-jui, was followed by a dictator, Chang Tso-lin. Elsewhere, regional capitals exercised the actual powers of government. From Canton in May, 1926, was initiated a campaign to bring all China under Kuomintang authority. The success of the campaign enabled the Nationalists to establish a government which received recognition by the United States on July 25, 1928, and has since been recognized by every state having important relations with the country. Japan has extended recognition of the government as de facto only.

1992 ◽  
Vol 32 (290) ◽  
pp. 446-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Valencia Villa

Over the years the Americas have made significant contributions to the development of international humanitarian law. These include three nineteenth-century texts which constitute the earliest modern foundations of the law of armed conflict. The first is a treaty, signed on 26 November 1820 by the liberator Simón Bolívar and the peacemaker Pablo Morillo, which applied the rules of international conflict to a civil war. The second is a Spanish-American work entitled Principios de Derecho de Genres (Principles of the Law of Nations), which was published in 1832 by Andrés Bello. This work dealt systematically with the various aspects and consequences of war. The third is a legal instrument, signed on 24 April 1863 by United States President Abraham Lincoln, which codified the first body of law on internal conflict under the heading “Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field” (General Orders No. 100). This instrument, known as the Lieber Code, was adopted as the new code of conduct for the armies of the Union during the American Civil War.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Shane

The orderly and effective operation of our national system of government was intended to depend to an exceptional degree upon certain norms of cooperation among its competing branches. The strength of those norms is essential to securing the primary political asset that our government design was intended to help realize: an especially robust form of democratic legitimacy. From this standpoint, it is constitutionally worrisome that norms critical to inter-branch cooperation are coming under heedless assault. To illustrate the problem, this article revisits four critical episodes that have involved destabilizing and antidemocratic initiatives, each undertaken by a branch of the national government while in the control of the current, very conservative generation of Republican party leadership: the Iran-Contra affair, the government shutdown of 1995, the impeachment of President Clinton, and the Senate stonewalling of President Clinton's judicial nominations. The repeated willingness of the Republican Party's most conservative elements to engage in such initiatives is not rooted in political conservatism per se. It reflects rather the narrowing social and ideological base of the Republican Party, and is consistent with a contempt for democratic pluralism that characterizes the constitutional outlook of leading Republican legal theorists. Unless matters are improved, the United States may otherwise be headed towards a new political equilibrium that does considerable violence to America's modern practice of democratic legitimacy.


1973 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. J. Sharpe

In his celebrated study of American democracy written in 1888, Lord Bryce reserved his most condemnatory reflections for city government and in a muchquoted passage asserted: ‘There is no denying that the government of cities is the one conspicuous failure of the United States. The deficiencies of the National government tell but little for evil on the welfare of the people. The faults of the State governments are insignificant compared with the extravagance, corruption and mismanagement which mark the administration of most of the great cities'sangeetha.


Worldview ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 4-7
Author(s):  
Ross K. Baker

In 1913, when Woodrow Wilson was assuming the duties of President of the United States, Joseph Stalin was in exile in Siberia and Lenin in Galicia. When Union and Confederate veterans were meeting to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and Henry Ford was about to set up the first modern assembly line, the newly established Union of South Africa promulgated the Natives Land Act. A world preoccupied with the decay of great empires and apprehensive about the onset of world conflict was only dimly aware of this law enacted in a distant corner of a remote continent. The law prescribed the apportionment of territory of the Union into areas of exclusive settlement by whites and blacks.


Subject Public-private partnerships. Significance Amid attempts to secure new investment from Canada and the United States, the government is wrestling with political difficulties surrounding the future of public-private partnerships (PPPs). These have been magnified in recent months by the bad publicity arising from the Odebrecht bribery scandals. Establishing a politically acceptable balance between attracting investors and ensuring the transparency of public works contracts is proving increasingly important. Impacts The problem of corruption in sub-national government will cloud the operations of PPPs. There will be a need for stronger and more independent regulation of PPP projects. The localised reach of the Works for Taxes programme will limit its scope in dealing with wider objectives.


1912 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-85
Author(s):  
James Brown Scott ◽  
George F. Seward

It is common knowledge that the United States was originally settled either by God-fearing men and women fleeing from persecution, or by political refugees who were unable to bring about reforms which they believed essential to good government and were unwilling to comply with the state of affaire existing in the Old World, or, finally, by those who, unfortunate at home, were desirous of bettering their condition in the New World. The Pilgrim and the Puritan, the Episcopalian and the Catholic, the Quaker, the Presbyterian and the Lutheran settled the Atlantic Coast. The roundhead and the cavalier, the rich and the poor and the inmate of the debtor’s prison found themselves side by side upon a plane of equality without the traditions and the conservatism of an older world. Whether the colony was composed of Puritans and manifested intolerance to the protestant brother of a different faith; whether the settlement remained loyal to the Church of England, as Virginia, or favored the Catholic, as Maryland, or freely accepted the law-abiding without questioning his religion, as the Quakers of Pennsylvania, the principle of religious toleration steadily gained ground, and by the time of the Revolution it may be said generally that religious differences ceased to influence men or their conduct toward each other, by virtue of a conception of liberty which embraced not merely the right to and protection of property but the freedom of thought, of speech and of public worship. The example of Virginia, which in 1786 established religious freedom by statute, profoundly influenced the Federal Government and the various States of the Union; for, by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, it is provided that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” and the States of the American Union have, in their various Constitutions, placed the same restriction upon their legislatures. The amendment of the Constitution and the like provisions in State Constitutions were not dictated by indifference or hostility to the principles of the Christian religion, but aimed to prevent not merely the establishment of any one form of religion, however widely spread, but to establish upon a firm footing the right before the law of every religious sect.


1927 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 529-536
Author(s):  
Frank O. Lowden

The tendency of all government is toward bureaucracy. The government official is inclined to exaggerate the importance of his office. He is constantly tempted to expand its scope. He is properly jealous of his authority. He looks askance upon the activities of other officials who seem to be trespassing upon his ground. In his construction of the law he is prone to insist upon the letter which killeth but to overlook the spirit which giveth life.I think that this tendency is inevitable. It is inseparable from zeal and pride, and these qualities are essential to successful administration. Where, however, the enterprise is a vast one, as in government, or as in a great business organization, these tendencies, if left uncontrolled, are likely to inflict serious injury upon the service. There will be constant friction among the various subdivisions of the particular department. At times the activities of one will neutralize the activities of the other. A set of arbitrary rules is likely to be evolved which will vex everyone who comes in contact with the particular bureau. The original purpose of the creation of the bureau is finally lost sight of, and it is likely to seem to those who direct it an end and not a means.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 470-470
Author(s):  
Student

After years of inertia there are now almost daily developments on the issue of compensating those injured by medical treatment. Probably the most important recent development has been the support expressed for no fault compensation by eminent lawyers at the annual bar conference . . . Around the world—and particularly in the United States—lawyers have been one of the main forces obstructing the introduction of such schemes. The support expressed for introducing such a no fault scheme by the chairman of the Law Commission and the judge who made the first£lm award in a case of medical negligence must thus greatly increase the pressure on the government to act.


Subject UK opposition to China. Significance Conservative Party MPs are becoming increasingly concerned with China. They have set up the China Research Group (CRG), a backbench group dedicated to highlighting what they see as the increasing threat China poses to the health, wealth and security not just of the United Kingdom but to the West as a whole. Impacts Parliament will vote to reject Huawei’s involvement in the building of UK 5G unless the government reduces Huawei’s role substantially. The United Kingdom will look to cooperate with other large democracies in finding alternatives to Huawei. The government’s growing opposition to Huawei will make it somewhat easier to strike a free trade deal with the United States.


2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-55
Author(s):  
Akio Tsuchida

AbstractAfter the outbreak of Sino-Japanese War in 1937, China sought support and sanctions against Japan from the international community, especially the United States. The government strategy encompassed both official diplomatic channels and non-state channels such as propaganda and private organizations. Drawing from materials in the United States and China, this article presents the evolution of China's "public diplomacy" toward the United States during the early years of the Sino-Japanese War. It argues: (1) China's "public diplomacy" was conducted through the International Department of Ministry of Information of the Chinese Nationalist Party under the direct control of Chiang Kai-shek. (2) Resident agents of China played an indispensable role in forming the American Committee for Non-Participation in Japanese Aggression, a private organization supporting China's cause. (3) The Committee carried out intensive campaigns to bring about pro-China policies and to promote an embargo against Japan. (4) The Chinese government and its agents supported the Committee financially and organizationally until its disbandment in 1941. This article thus demonstrates that wartime China was attempting to compensate for its military weakness by manipulating American public opinion to achieve its own diplomatic goals.


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