Oppose Unification (October 10,1920)
By now it is quite clear that Chinese affairs cannot be run well by unification. China
is not totally without people who are concerned about national affairs, nor are these
people who are concerned about national affairs totally without knowledge and ability.
The reason that things have not been managed well is that China is very large and
seriously lacks a foundation and grass-roots organizations. Buildings constructed upon
islets of sand will collapse even before they are completed. The twenty-four dynasties
of China may be regarded as twenty-four buildings built on islets of sand, every one of
which collapsed precisely because not one of them had a foundation. The four-thousandyear-old China is merely an empty frame. All the activities of its many politicians and
all the scholarship of its many scholars have been just sketches painted on this empty
frame. Every dynasty had a few dozen or a hundred or so years of peace that was based
on one condition alone, massive killings and bloodshed. As the population declined and
the killings ceased, peace came, but it had no genuine foundation. Thus, our ancient
and civilized country with its four thousand years of history has never really been a
country at all. The country is merely an empty frame with absolutely nothing inside.
It might be said that there were people, but the people were scattered. It is a pity that
“a sheet of loose sand” does indeed describe them!199 The Chinese people have lived and
died for four thousand years, but what have they done? They are totally disorganized;
there is no organized society to be seen, nor is there any local organization. Would
it make much difference whether or not there were Chinese people within this piece
of territory, China? Does it matter much to the human race that there are Chinese?
The ultimate cause of this misfortune lies in the two characters Zhongguo,200 and the
unification of this China. The only remedy now is to dismantle China and oppose
unification.
197 I.e., to the military governor.
198 Tan Yankai. See note 9 to Mao’s letter of July 25,1916, to Xiao Zisheng.
199 This characterization of the Chinese is commonly identified with Sun Yatsen, and Mao’s quotation
marks no doubt implied a reference to him. The best-known source is in the opening passage of the
lectures on the Three People’s Principles, delivered in their present form only in 1924, but the metaphor
had already been used earlier by Sun.
200 Zhongguo, the Chinese name for China, means, of course, “the central country,” and it is this
notion which Mao is attacking.

The Chinese do not have scientific minds. They do not know the relationship between analysis and synthesis, that big organisms are necessarily composed of small
cells, and that an organization necessarily consists of individual members.
Most Chinese have a kind of empty vanity for wearing big hats. When something
happens, they just stare straight ahead, seeing only generalities. They do not feel
comfortable unless they can put on a big hat. The present peace talks are like this.
Some people carry “peace talks” in both hands and run around from north to south
and from south to north. They frown when there is no hope and laugh when there is
a glimmer of hope. I am utterly opposed to the peace talks. I believe that the peace
talks represent an extremely great danger. My reasons involve neither Duan Qirui’s
argument for unification, nor the legal theories of Zhang Taiyan201 and Sun Hongyi.202
I just believe that the only means to build a genuine China in the future is to break
up the present phony China. At the very least, the South and the North should not be
unified again, and it would be better yet if each province enjoyed self-determination
and self-rule.
Many people already realize that self-determination and self-rule in each province
is the only way to rebuild a genuine China. This is an unexpected outcome of the war
between the North and the South. Although only a few provinces, Hunan, Guangdong,
Jiangsu, and Hubei, have taken the initiative, the trend will inevitably become a torrent
in which all the provinces of the country will join. This will be an extremely gratifying
phenomenon. There are two issues to be discussed now: One concerns the internal
matter of self-rule in each province, i.e., how to promote the establishment of provincial
self-rule. The other concerns the external matter of provincial self-rule, i.e., how to
reduce the effect of the obstacles to provincial self-rule or prevent their development.
With regard to the former issue, I have two points to make. (1) The use of military
force to drive away the old forces, as in the two provinces of Hunan and Guangdong, should be considered a form of revolution. The revolutionary governments of
the two provinces should convene “people’s constitutional conventions” in each of the
two provinces to draft a “Hunan constitution” and a “Guangdong constitution.” Then,
a new Hunan and a new Guangdong should be set up in accordance with their constitutions. The people of these two provinces must work the hardest. Their constitutions
should adopt a spirit of thorough reform based on the criterion of developing the special characteristics of the two respective provinces as fully as possible. (2) Provinces
such as Hubei and Jiangsu cannot take revolutionary action. They will have to begin
201 Taiyan is the hao of Zhang Binglin. (See the detailed note to Mao’s letter of December 9, 1916.) A
noted classical scholar and veteran revolutionary, Zhang had adopted a relatively conservative position
at the time of the May Fourth movement. In 1920, however, he promoted federalism and the idea that
each province should draw up its own formal constitution and not recognize the Provisional Constitution
of the Beijing government.
202 Sun Hongyi (1870–1936), zi Bolan, born in Tianjin, was a former aide to Yuan Shikai, and cabinet
minister in the Duan Qirui government. He was heavily involved in the organization of the committee
to discuss the constitution and believed in “local government by the local people.”

with a Hubeian ruling Hubei and a Jiangsuan ruling Jiangsu (as governors). When military power returns to the natives of their respective provinces, then they can proceed
to organize local self-rule. The above two methods may be adapted according to the
particular situations. The former method may be set up as a model of selfrule for all
provinces that in actuality will have the characteristics of a “country” and may implement a form of “full self-rule,” and therefore is the most promising method. As for the
latter method, although for the time being it can realize only “semi-self-rule,” this form
of self-rule may then be used as the basis for instituting a movement to abolish the
military governorship. As soon as the military governorship is abolished, full self-rule
will quickly follow. Although this method may be a little more peaceful and not as
exciting, it is also fine to adopt this method as an adaptation to the circumstances.
Regarding how to remove the obstacle to provincial self-rule, it is my opinion that
the obstacle is not the military governor, but the demand by many people for “unification.” I believe that, at the very least, the North and the South should be independent
of each other. This is crucial to promoting provincial self-rule. If unification is realized,
a new national assembly will be formed to draft a constitution, and provincial self-rule
will be more or less restricted by this constitution (even though the central government will never be run properly), as has happened to Hunan and Guangdong, and the
provinces will certainly not be able to give full play to their own special characteristics.
In addition, talented people will head for the central government, and the localities
will inevitably lament the lack of talent. Yet a bigger disadvantage is the fact that if a
central government is established, the attention of the whole country will be focused
on the central government again, and the old Chinese malady of looking up and not
down, of dealing in empty abstractions rather than with concrete realities, will show
itself again. And provincial self-rule will again be considered a trivial issue. I feel that
the present political situation in China resembles that at the end of the Qing dynasty.
In the light of this, we Chinese should not expect it to improve, but rather to get worse
and worse. I think that at present the situation has not reached the worst extreme, that
we cannot use our strength to accelerate its deterioration, but should not do anything
to alleviate the deterioration. It is better for us to ignore it. We should not mention
the peace talks again, or support the argument of resolving national affairs by a national assembly. If we do support a national assembly, we should promote Mr. Zhang
Dongsun’s203 idea of using the national assembly to solve the affairs of the provinces.
Mr. Hu Shi has proposed not talking about politics for twenty years. Now, I propose
not talking about the politics of the central government for twenty years. The people of
every province should focus all their attention on their respective provinces and adopt
a provincial Monroe Doctrine, namely, that every province close its doors and ignore
203 Zhang Dongsun (1886–1973), zi Shengxin, was at this time working as a journalist in Shanghai. He
later became one of China’s foremost philosophers, particularly well known for his teaching of Western
philosophy.