Traditional Chinese society is a society mainly characterized by the society of acquaintances.

Traditional Chinese society has gone through thousands of years of vicissitudes, and its social structure has always been in the midst of change and development. Among them, since the Warring States period, the Qin and Han Dynasties, and up to modern society, both the traditional political structure and economic structure as well as the traditional social structure have formed a structural pattern unique to Chinese civilization.

As far as the political structure of ancient Chinese society is concerned, whether it is a change of dynasties or social changes, or whether it is a division or unification, a high degree of centralization and monarchical autocracy are the main forms. At its core, local power was vested in the central government, and central power was vested in the monarch. The architect of this political structure was Han Fei in the Warring States period.

Han Fei believed that the operation and management of state power should be realized in such a way that "things are in the four directions, but the key is in the center; the saint executes the key, and the four directions come to follow", and the "saint" mentioned here is the monarch. The center for the local, such as "the body of the arm, the arm of the finger" command freely; the monarch for the whole country, it is "the world's affairs, no matter how small or large, are determined on".

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Take the management of localities and population as an example, "under the sky, there is no one who is not the king's land; rate the land, there is no one who is not the king's minister" is a deep-rooted concept, the central dynasty through the national unified household registration management, land tax management and a strict system of counting on the system, all the land and population are included in the direct control, the local government lacks autonomy. Local governments lacked autonomy and control, and were in fact only agents sent by the central government.

After the Song Dynasty, state and county governors were changed to "Zhi Zhou" and "Zhi Xian". "Zhi" is the agent, concurrently, these people's official position is the central government officials, is the identity of the central government officials concurrently local, such as the Qing official Bao Gong's first position is to the central government of the dynasty's "Dali assessor" and "Zhi The first position of the Qing official Bao Gong was the central dynasty's "Dali assessor" and "Zhi Jianchang County".

This is very different from the European Middle Ages. In medieval Europe, the king of each country and the central government were small and limited, and the local controllers were the lords who were formed by dividing the territory and had full authority over all affairs within the fiefdom, and the king had no right to inquire about the land and people within the fiefdom of the lords.

There was a popular maxim in Europe at that time that "my vassal's vassal is not my vassal", which was the opposite of the essence of the Chinese concept of "there is no one who is not the king's subject in the land of the land", which has been inherent since ancient times.

In connection with this, in ancient China's social management, the dynastic government is almost the only subject. In ancient China, all levels of government were fully capable of carrying out social management. From the central to the local level, there were well-established institutions and administrators covering almost all affairs. From matters of national economy and livelihood to justice, public order, religion, and indoctrination, they were all under the monolithic management system of the various levels of government.

For example, in the management of economic affairs, from agriculture to industry and commerce, the central dynasty had both large agricultural orders, large agricultural ministers, and agricultural envoys, as well as equalization officials, and the Ministry of Public Works, the Ministry of the Household, and the Ministry of the Shaofu, etc. At the county level, there were the Ministry of Public Works, the Ministry of the Household, and the Ministry of the Interior. At the county level, there were Gong Cao, Household Cao, and City Cao, etc. Even the market in the county town had a city ordinance and an equalization ordinance to manage the market order and prices.

Social spiritual and cultural life was also under one-dimensional management, advocating what rituals and customs, respecting what religions, and even honoring filial piety and martyrdom, and reconciling neighborly disputes were all under the government's control. Accordingly, in ancient China, there was no religious system or religious organization independent of government administration, nor was there any self-contained, relatively independent industrial and commercial guilds or residents' self-governing organizations.

While there were industrial and commercial guilds and village organizations in Chinese history, they were all under the administration of the government, and were in fact the endpoints or variants of the governmental system, which the government did not hesitate to eliminate once they became a force for dissent.

In medieval Europe, it was a different story. From the economic system, Europe is a typical dualistic system on the one hand, the lord's territory within the self-sufficient manor economic system, on the other hand, is outside the spontaneous formation of the urban commercial and industrial economic system. Whether monarchs or lords, the city of commerce and industry and citizens have not formed an effective management, business and industry guilds of self-management and citizen self-governance is the main mode of management.

The religious system is also the same. In the European Middle Ages, although there was a fierce struggle between religious power and monarchical power, on the whole, it was the monarchical power that succumbed to the religious power. The religious system, independent of the state system, governed the spiritual world and social life of the people, including monarchs and lords, and actually checked the exercise of monarchical power.

As far as the economic structure of traditional Chinese society is concerned, the two dominant forces are the small peasant economy and the government-run industry and commerce. The so-called small peasant economy refers to the production of small land in the form of one family. During the Warring States, Qin and Han Dynasties, "a family of five with a hundred mu of land" was a common state of rural society. From then until the Ming and Qing dynasties, small landholdings by peasants remained an important form of land ownership, despite the intensification of land mergers.

For the large landowners, the majority of them also divided their land into pieces and leased it to peasant families for cultivation, charging rent in kind or in money, while only a small number of large landowners operated their large land in the form of farms or manor houses. Thus, as far as the majority of peasants are concerned, whether they are homesteaders or tenant farmers, they are engaged in production and business activities on small plots of land owned or leased on a family basis.

The nature of this kind of production and management is an integrated economy centered on land management. However, traditional Chinese farmers are not completely self-sufficient, and the limitations and vulnerabilities of small land operations are the direct cause of this problem. On limited land, with limited labor, it is impossible to produce all the products needed for production and life, and achieve true self-sufficiency.