Warlords at Work: Four Crucial Realms and Four Dynamics of State Building in Republican China, 1916–1937

Abstract:During the years 1916–1937, a time of critical political disunity for China, statebuilding efforts by central authorities were not the only ones that were significant and worthy of attention. The contributions of local power-holders (warlords) were also crucial. Contrary to the usual depiction of warlords as concerned only with their personal wealth and power, I argue that many had a strong concern for state building. Warlords' achievements were particularly significant in four realms: transportation infrastructure, education, economic planning, and statistics. Besides reappraising the warlords' contributions in these four realms, it is of equal importance to explain the remarkable convergence of state-building politics at the national scale. The four different realms under consideration are interesting not only for their intrinsic importance in state building but also because they are representative of four more general "dynamics" that explain such a convergence.