1947 Political Consultative Conference

The 1947 Political Consultative Conference or the 1947 PCC, was a meeting of the major political parties in the Republic of China in Chongqing, pursuant to the Twelve Points of the June 23rd Armistice which concluded hostilities in the Chinese Civil War. The Political Consultative Assembly convened from July 15th to August 6th 1947, and created the Common Program of the United Front, which called for the First National Census for the Republic of China (1947) and canvassed the Chinese Constituent Assembly election, 1948. The 1947 PCC also implemented the Three Reforms, which were vital for the postwar recovery and stabilization.

Participating Parties

Kuomintang

The Chinese Nationalist Party or the Kuomintang (KMT) under Director-General and President Sun Fo participated in the agreements, along with a delegation representing the left-wing (Soong Ching-ling or Madame Sun Yat-sen), the right-wing (Lin Sen) and others (Chen Cheng). The KMT was adamant about not abrogating the 1947 Constitution out of hand, and hoped to play a major role in the new government of China as they had with the previous regime.

Revolutionary Committee for Constitutional Protection

The Revolutionary Committee for Constitutional Protection, which had control of the capital Nanjing as well as other major cities nearby following the 1947 Chinese Revolution, sent President Zhang Lan to represent its government. His was the only multi-party delegation, with members from the China Democratic League's constituent parties, as well as the Chinese Youth Party and the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party.

Communist Party of China

The Communist Party of China (CCP) had been carrying out an insurgency against the ROC government for more than a decade with their primary strongholds in the northern provinces and a peasant base. They had also participated in the last Political Consultative Conference in 1946 with the KMT. Mao Zedong secretly viewed the conference as a lead-up to winnowing legitimately competitive parties after forming a pseudo-democratic coalition, as had happened in the Eastern bloc. Stalin personally sent a telegram to Mao advising that they cooperate to form a “national revolutionary-democratic coalition”, and eschew the Soviet example of a single-party government. They hoped to eliminate the ROC Constitution, which was adopted in ostensible violation of the 1946 PCC.

Common Program

The Common Program of the United Front was passed by the Political Consultative Assembly with near unanimity on August 6th, which acted as the de facto constitution for the next couple years, some of which still remains law in the Republic of China today.

Northern Armistice Area

The parties at first could not agree upon a name for the Communist-controlled northern areas of the nation, as the CPC's initial proposals seemed to suggest sovereignty or political independence for that region e.g. the Chinese Soviet Republic or the People's Republic of China. Designations such as the Manchurian Area or just Manchuria were also rejected, both because it reminded too strongly of the Manchukuo puppet state and for the fact that the People's Liberation Army jurisdiction did not encompass all of that region.

The “Northern Armistice Area” was thus agreed upon as a neutral geographical descriptor. The Basic Policies for the Northern Armistice Region reaffirmed the jurisdiction of the People's Liberation Army and the Communist Party of China. In addition to the terms negotiated in the June 23rd Armistice, the CPC agreed not to produce its own currency or counterfeit the official Yuan. It would also accept (unarmed) ROC officials and extradite criminals from outside of the region when necessary.

First National Census and the Constituent Assembly Election

The First National Census for the Republic of China was conducted as soon as the PCC concluded its work, from 1947 to 1948 in all of the provinces, areas and direct-controlled municipalities in the Republic of China, with the supervision of officials approved by the assembly. The Constituent Assembly elections were agreed to be held after the census was concluded, after which Provincial Governments were to create Prefectures.

Every Province would have at least five Prefectures, but if they had a population greater than 3,000,000, there was to be a Prefecture for each additional 1,000,000 people. The Political Consultative Assembly would then be convened in a second session of the 1947 PCC to approve these divisions. This second session approved 570 Prefectures and 12 direct-controlled Municipalities on October 27, 1948 with only minor revisions.

Each Prefecture would elect one delegate to the Chinese Constituent Assembly on the basis of First Past the Post (FPTP), while the direct-controlled Municipalities would elect them by Party Block Vote (PBV). Only parties attending the PCC would be afforded a place on the ballot, and would have absolute authority in approving candidates. A two-thirds majority of the assembly would be necessary to approve any Constitutional articles.

The Three Reforms

The “Three Reforms” were first formulated and presented by the "Chongqing Troika" in a resolution passed by the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee immediately after the 1947 Chinese Revolution. Turning these pledges for change into actionable initiatives was perhaps the most crucial work done in the PCC to strengthen the internal stability of the Republic of China.

New Bank Reform

The first reform was the "New Bank Reform": the Political Consultative Assembly officially recognized the Chinese People's Central Bank (CPCB), created by the RCCP on June 4th 1947, as the sole national financial institution able to legally produce official currency. The new Chinese yuan through its fixed convertibility with the United States Dollar would put an end to the hyperinflation that had plagued the economy since the Second Sino-Japanese War. The issue of military spending was not touched upon, and the separate budgets of the RCCP and the KMT government in Chongqing continued.

Stronger Defense Reform

Broad changes were to implemented for the army according to the "Stronger Defense Reform". Military conduct was to be in line with Mao Zedong's the Three Rules of Discipline and Eight Points for Attention, which called for greater respect for civilians than had previously been typical for the ROC. A single, national payroll was also to be implemented for all soldiers aside from those in the PLA, ending the practice of sending the money through a warlord middleman. However, for fear of destabilizing a fragile domestic and military situation, the warlords were put on the national government’s payroll by other means and their effective control was not challenged in practice.

Land-to-the-Tiller Reform

The third and final reform was the "Land-to-the-Tiller Reform", a formula first articulated by Sun Yat-sen and to be carried out by the newly created and independent Commission on Rural Reconstruction, with Chen Cheng as Chairman and Y.C. James Yen as Vice Chairman. Chairman Chen, the current 1st Chief of the General Staff of the ROC Armed Forces and Commander in Chief of the ROC Navy, had previously carried out a moderate land reform program when he was Governor of Hupeh. From March to July 1948, after an extensive survey of rural conditions, he helped negotiate new contracts between the landlords and the tenants so that rent would be higher than 37.5% on the total yield of main crop. Public land with fertile soil was also sold to tenant farmers, among other reforms to urban and private farmland.

Vice Chairman Y.C. James Yen was a Yale and Princeton graduate who earlier worked to implement literacy and agricultural reforms in the countryside as a member of the Rural Reconstruction Movement, a principal interest group in the China Democratic League. He lobbied the U.S. Congress to fund the Commission in the China Aid Act of 1948, giving it greater autonomy from the government. It also provided its staff with above-average pay scales for more effective work. In harmony with Chairman Chen's policies, rent was reduced, tenant security was guaranteed, and new agricultural cooperatives were formed. Irrigation and flood control, rural credit systems, and improvements to livestock were all pursued, as well as auxiliary policies such as healthcare, birth control and literacy programs for the peasants.

Adoption and Implementation

The Communist Party of China refused to sign off on any of the Three Reforms in full, believing them to be insufficiently radical. They were thus written as recommendations separate from the Common Program, and not directly implemented by the Political Consultative Assembly. Instead they were supervised by President Sun Fo, the man with the “iron neck”, because as the son of Sun Yat-sen, he made an unappealing target for the landlords and warlords who would take issue with the Three Reforms.