Hakka - Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization. Like other Chinese, the Hakka have organized communities along kinship lines and ties to a common native place. Alliances based on shared dialect or ethnic identity are also important. Other groups sometimes view the Hakka as being exclusive or "clannish," but they view themselves as being unified and cooperative. Two international Hakka organizations, the Tsung Tsin (Congzheng) Association and the United Hakka Association (Kexi Datonghui), were organized by Hakka intellectuals and elite in the early 1920s in order to promote Hakka ethnic solidarity and foster a public understanding of Hakka culture. In 1921, over 1,000 delegates representing Hakka associations worldwide attended a conference in Canton to protest the Shanghai publication of The Geography of the World, which described the Hakka as non-Chinese. Today these international Hakka voluntary organizations have branches reaching from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore to the United States, Canada, and beyond.

Political Organization. Although Hakka political organization is not easily distinguished from that of the larger society in which they are situated, the Hakka have long played an important role in Chinese politics, despite their economic disadvantages. During the Qing dynasty, the Hakka fared well in the imperial examinations and ascended into the imperial bureaucracy. Today they are disproportionately well represented in the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC). While they comprise close to 4 percent of the population of the PRC, they represent a far greater proportion of government leaders. Among the most well-known Hakka political figures are Deng Xiaoping; Zhu De, the military commander during the Long March; Marshal Ye Jiangying, leader of the Peoples Liberation Army; and former Communist Party Secretary Hu Yaobang. Outside of the PRC, Hakka leaders include Taiwan's President Lee Teng-hui; Singapore's President Lee Kwan Yew; Burma's Prime Minister Ne Win; and the governor-general of Trinidad and Tobago, Sir Solomon Hochoy. Some sources also assert that Dr. Sun Yatsen was Hakka.

Social Control. Like other Chinese, Hakka have been subject to the larger forces of the Chinese government bureaucracy and state control; on the local level, senior males had the most formal authority before 1949. Social pressure, strict traditional rules of obedience, and filial piety also help to minimize conflict.

Conflict. Today, as in the past, village leaders in rural communities often resolve conflicts on the local level. During the nineteenth century, conflicts often grew into longterm violent feuds. Longer-lasting feuds between Hakka villages, between Hakka lineages, or between the Hakka and the Yue were often over land or property, theft, marriage agreements, or other personal conflicts. The theft of a water buffalo and a broken marriage agreement between a Yue man and a Hakka woman were contributing events that helped escalate Hakka-Yue conflicts into large-scale armed conflicts during the 1850s. Conflicts between Hakka Christian converts and non-Christian Chinese were also common during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.