Building constitutional democracy on oriental foundations: an anatomy of sun yat-sen's constitutionalism

AutorEric Chiyeung Ip
CargoAsistente de investigación en la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Hong Kong (HKU)

Eric Chiyeung Ip: Asistente de investigación en la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Hong Kong (HKU). Graduado con honores en dicha Universidad. Ha sido editor ejecutivo de Politika: Annual Journal of Political Science, y Presidente del HKU Politics and Public Administration Association. Sus intereses académicos incluyen el Derecho Administrativo comparado, el Derecho constitucional, y la teoría jurídica.

I Introduction
  1. Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925 AD), often called the "Father of Modern China", was a Chinese thinker, political leader and medical practitioner, widely praised as a significant contributor to the collapse of China's two thousand year-old autocratic imperial system. 1 At the time of the establishment of Asia's first constitutional republic in 1912, the Chinese state encompassed a population as vast as four billion. Sun himself was briefly installed as the first President of the Republic of China for just six weeks, and later became a major founder of the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or "KMT").

  2. Sun's considerable volumes of works have heavily influenced the governmental structure of Republican China between 1928 and 19492, and Taiwan until the present day. 3 The principal focus of this note will concentrate on the unique constitutional design presented by his writings, which was a true mixture of the very distinctive and even contradictory political and cultural norms of the east and West. Because of Sun Yat-sen's irreplaceable importance in modern Chinese political history, many earlier interpretations of his thoughts were highly influenced by ideological factors that may affect their accuracy.

  3. This note will argue that even though Sun's constitutional theory carries some Western elements, it is by nature an indigenous Oriental theory of constitutionalism. Despite its regionalized tendencies, his program may also offer valuable inspirations for other countries, because it attempted to answer some of the central problems of the liberal democratic polity, such as the domination of the "best marketed" politicians of "low-calibre" over the best statesmen; the powerless of the electorate and the difficulties of promoting democratic and socio-economic reforms together.4 Sun offered solutions that were unconventional if not unfamiliar to the West, because they were largely rooted in the traditional ideas of Oriental philosophy, particularly, Confucianism. Following the analysis of this note, the interesting question to be asked is whether it is possible to construct a localized theory of constitutionalism on the foundation of non-Western political and legal traditions.

  4. Sun's pragmatic project to blend certain Confucian political ideas with certain liberal democratic elements may not be truly satisfactory. In fact, he has been sharply criticized, such as being "disorganized and illogical" in his writings, and the arguments against him may not be false.5 However, due to Sun's originality and historical influences, his constitutional philosophy could still provide contemporary readers with valuable insights in the field of comparative constitutional history.

II Historical context
  1. Sun Yat-sen's constitutional project was closely associated with the historical context that nurtured it. Origins of his theories could be traced back to the late 19th. century when colonialism and imperialism penetrated into the very heart of the Chinese empire. At that time, China met successive failures in several major wars. The incapable and corrupted dynastic regime accelerated widespread poverty and social instability. Revolts and unrests were common - the Christian-inspired Taiping Rebellion affected the entire of Southern China.

  2. As a young man, Sun attributed the Chinese state's weaknesses to the highly autocratic and rigid structure of the Manchurian Qing emperor's government (1644-1912 AD). The Manchurians were an ethnic group alien to the indigenous Han Chinese, but their regime, which conquered the Han people's Ming dynasty, inherited the legal and political system of the Chinese empire with a history dating back to 221 BCE. In the beginning of the twentieth century, Sun's actions against the existing imperial government became more explicit than ever. His corresponding political thought was largely ground-breaking, in the sense that it attempted to shake the very foundations of the traditional Chinese state and society - the supreme, nearly sacred emperor and his professional imperial bureaucracy which derived their legitimacy from Confucian texts. These were once considered as the untouchable pillars of the Chinese state, because even those who originally proposed to adopt a constitution for the imperial government did not argue for the total abolition of the institution of the emperor.6

  3. Sun's personal background had profound impacts on his constitutional thoughts. He was born, in 1866, to an impoverished peasant family in a small village in the southern Guangdong province. Sun, as a teenager, received education from both the typical Confucian and Western-style liberal traditions. His American years enabled him to speak fluent English, build social linkages with the West and overseas Chinese, and be exposed to the democratic ideas of figures like Abraham Lincoln. Sun later pursued secondary and tertiary studies in the British colony of Hong Kong, where he earned a professional medical qualification from the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese7. He subsequently practiced medicine for a short period, but later gave up and fully concentrated on revolutionary activities.

  4. The nearly three hundred year-old Qing Dynasty collapsed dramatically after the Xinhai Revolution in October, 1911. However, the revolution itself at most exerted only an accelerating effect to the downfall of the imperial throne. Sun, who was traveling around the world seeking support that time, was dramatically selected as the first president of the new government. But his presidency only lasted for less than two months, when the republican regime decided to reward Yuan Shikai, the powerful warlord in Beijing who forced the emperor to abdicate, as the next president. Yuan, who was neither a revolutionary nor a believer of democratic ideals, but more a military bureaucrat, quickly betrayed the republic by declaring himself "Emperor of the Chinese Empire" four years later, shortly before his death. The government in Beijing, although calling itself a republic, was in many ways a substantial continuation of the dynastic polity. The personnel of the new government could almost resemble that of the emperor's court, because it was a "tradition" for mandarins would serve the successive government after the fall of the previous dynasty.8

  5. Politics of China between the 1910s and 1920s, where warlords commanding military forces of different sizes segregated the country, could be characterized as simply chaotic. Sun had twice served as the generalissimo of the rival military "Constitutional Protection" (hufa) government in Canton (Guangzhou). The regime aimed to restore the original constitution abolished by the Beijing government. He was also reelected as the state president of another rival Republican government for a short period during 1921 to 1922 until a dramatic coup happened. Having experienced all of these ups and downs, the man spent a few years concentrating in elaborating ideas which were scattered in major works like The Three Principles of the People, The Congress Manifesto, The Doctrine of Sun Yat-sen, The Plan for National Construction and The Summary of National Construction. In 1925, Sun passed away from cancer at the age of fifty-eight, in the course of an unfinished talk with the Beijing republic government, and unfulfilled mission to end the nation's unrest. Sun's writings were glorified as the "sacred text" of the KMT political program, but his true legacy may be the populace's admiration of a man who died before having realizing a positive future for his country.9

  6. The KMT, later under Chiang Kai-shek, overthrew warlord rule and nominally unified the whole of China, when its armies captured Beijing in 1928. Until its defeat by the Communists in 1949, the constitutional model crafted out by Sun Yat-sen's many writings was largely implemented into the political structures. The nationalist regime retreated to Taiwan since the 1950s still formally crystallized Sun's ideas in its constitutional system. Sun's ideas were not short of criticisms. The core of Sun's political philosophy was a "broad and diffuse"10 set of ideas called the "Three Principles of the People". 11 These ideas were formulated against different opponents, originally the emperor, and later, the warlords. It is nevertheless difficult to identify the content of Sun's ideas as it was always dominated by the practical tasks of finding allies and gaining support.12 Some critics argued that his ideas were a hybrid of "ancient and modern, left and right, Chinese and foreign, authoritarianism and freedom" and believing in "democracy, but not right away."13 This may not be completely accurate, and Sun's doctrines undoubtedly need a more extensive reassessment, because as it is argued here, they may actually be consistent in at least two dimensions: always Chinese in substance, and Western sources were only injected as refinements.

III An overview of the model
  1. A superficial glance at the constitutional model of Sun Yat-sen might be misleading. Rhetoric like the separation of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, the talk of republicanism and representative assemblies, the discussion of regional autonomy and party politics might...

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