Destructive construction: Factional strife in the Central Police Academy in Republican China (1936-1949)

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the problems encountered during the establishment of the Central Police Academy (CPA) under the Nationalist regime from 1936 to 1949. While the authoritarian party-state unified the police academies by forceful means, this catalyzed the cleavage between the schools of police studies and resulted in power struggles over police education, intellectual thought, collectivity and even the national reform of police administration. More than narrating the progress of power consolidation, this study attempts to identify the problems underlying the factional strife and to reveal the interwoven pattern of these power struggles, exploring the confusion regarding what the police is, a question that troubled Chinese policemen from the mainland to Taiwan.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper explains the emergence of the factional strife from the beginning of the preliminary growth of the Police Academies in Nanking and Chekiang. It widely makes use of the official archives from Japan Center for Asian Historical Records and Historica Academia to show the dynamic situation in police education and administration. Rather, the official publications of the Police Academies and their affiliated associations reveal the hidden political agenda behind a unified framework as the party-state claimed. Moreover, official gazettes, memorials and newspapers are also used to strengthen the core argument of this study.

Findings

This paper examines the impact of the factional strife between the police leaders Dai Li and Li Shizhen on the CPA from 1936 to 1949. It illustrates that the establishment of the CPA ostensibly unified the nationwide police force but triggered power struggles over the control of the police administration. More importantly, it also shows how the factions strove for larger shares of power under the supreme doctrines that Chiang Kai-shek and the party-state imposed.

Originality/value

The failure of police education to become powerful was a special case among other more typical institutions. The governors coercively merged the police academies and created robust conditions for growth under the shelter of state authority. The police force did not follow the same path of national monopoly as what recent studies found but drifted apart with its vested interests and incompatible beliefs. Hence, the greater the demand for centralized control by the state, the greater the tension of the factional strife.

Citation

Chan, K.-f. (2020), "Destructive construction: Factional strife in the Central Police Academy in Republican China (1936-1949)", Social Transformations in Chinese Societies, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 57-74. https://doi.org/10.1108/STICS-04-2019-0009