(a) Period of Military Operations;
(b) Period of Political Tutelage;
(c) Period of Constitutional Government.
6. During the period of military operations the entire country should be subject to military rule. To hasten the unification of the country, the Government to be controlled by the Kuomintang should employ military force to conquer all opposition in the country and propagate the principles of the Party so that the people may be enlightened.
7. The period of political tutelage in a province should begin and military rule should cease as soon as order within the province is completely restored....
He then goes on to describe the method by which tutelage shall be applied, and when it should end. It should end, Sun declares, in each hsien (district; township) as the people of the hsien become self-governing, through learning and practice in the democratic techniques. As soon as all the hsien within a province are self-governing, the provincial government shall be released to democratic control.
23. When more than one half of the provinces in the country have reached the constitutional government stage, i. e. more [pg 212]than one half of the provinces have local self-government full established in all their districts, there shall be a National Congress to decide on the adoption and promulgation of the Constitution....
(Signed) Sun Wen
12th day, 4th month, 13th year of the Republic (April 12, 1924).[271]
Sun Yat-sen was emphatic about the necessity of a period of tutelage. The dismal farce of the first Republic in 1912, when the inexperience and apathy of the people, coupled with the venality of the militarists and politicians, very nearly discredited Chinese democracy, convinced Sun Yat-sen that effective self-government could be built up only as the citizens became ready for it. A considerable number of the disputes concerning the theory of self-government to be employed by the policy-making groups of the National (Kuomintang-controlled) Government have centered on the point of criteria for self-government. Even with the insertion of a transition stage, and with a [pg 213] certain amount of tutelage, difficulties are being encountered in the application of this theory of the introduction of constitutional government as soon as the people in a hsien are prepared for it. Other considerations, military or political, may make any venture beyond the secure confines of a benevolent Party despotism dangerous; and the efficacy of tutelage can always be questioned. The period of tutelage was set for 1930-1935; it is possible, however, that the three stages cannot be gone through as quickly as possible, since the Japanese invasions and the world economic depression exercised a thoroughly disturbing influence throughout the country.