A Study On The Constitutional View Of Chinese Groups Studying In Japan In The Late Qing Dynasty

When the Sino British Opium War broke out in 1840,the Qing Dynasty,a great country,was defeated miserably by the "British foreigners" of the small island country and signed the Nanjing Treaty,which humiliated the country.The capitalist powers followed suit and seized China’s privileges,which gradually reduced modern China to a semi colonial and semi feudal society.At that time,the Chinese people were increasingly in dire straits.The brutal invasion of the great powers forced the Chinese people who had been in a closed door environment for a long time to open their eyes to see the world.It was like a bolt from the blue.They woke up a few patriotic and worried people and individual officials who were not conservative and concerned about the fate of the motherland.They began to calmly reflect and seek a way out of China’s dilemma.At the same time,Japan,which was separated from China by a strip of water,successively defeated the Qing Empire and Russia through the Meiji Reform in modern times,proving its identity as a world power and the superiority of constitutional monarchy in the international environment at that time in terms of feudal autocracy.At that time,China was mired in a swamp of domestic and foreign troubles.Foreign guns and guns opened the locked door of the Qing government and pierced the dream of the Qing government as an "ideal country".The victory of Japan in the war with Russia,a powerful autocratic country,made the Chinese people see the limitations brought by feudal autocracy and understand that modern China,which was in a situation that had not changed for thousands of years,must actively seek changes in its political system.It is not only necessary to learn from the advanced military and economy of the West and Japan,but also important to introduce an advanced political system in order to change the long-standing weak situation of the Qing Dynasty at the end of the Qing Dynasty.Therefore,the road of constitutionalism in modern China was officially opened,and all classes successively boarded the political stage and threw themselves into the torrent of constitutionalism.After the signing of the Xin Chou treaty in 1901,the Qing government formulated a series of constitutional documents such as the outline of the imperial constitution in 1908 under the pressure of domestic and foreign pressure,which is also the concentrated embodiment of the spirit of constitutionalism in the late Qing Dynasty.Although the outline of the imperial constitution still retains a strong feudal centralized nature,it is the first constitutional precedent and formulated the first constitution in China’s history of thousands of years,which has an indelible impact on the development of modern China.The outline of the imperial constitution and the Meiji Constitution of Japan are highly similar in legal spirit and legal text,because the constitutional activities in the late Qing Dynasty mainly followed the principle of imitating Japan.Imitating Japan rather than Europe and the United States is not only similar in geographical location.The deeper reason is that,on the one hand,Japan’s Meiji Constitution emphasizes the protection of monarchical power more than the European and American Constitution,and the Qing government hopes to retain more monarchical power when it starts the transition from autocratic regime to constitutional regime;On the other hand,the groups studying in Japan at that time had more people,stronger political influence and economic strength than those studying in Europe and America,which had a greater impact on the constitutional activities in the late Qing Dynasty.The specific chapters of this paper are arranged as follows:The first chapter is the introduction,which defines the specific composition of the groups in Japan and the practical reasons for the emergence of the groups in Japan,analyzes the specific components of the groups in Japan,analyzes the main constitutional views and causes held by the components,and makes a specific analysis of why China "imitates Japan" to carry out constitutional reform.The second part is the formation and development of the constitutional view of the group studying in Japan in the late Qing Dynasty.Based on the definition and classification of the constitutional views of the groups studying in Japan in the first chapter,this paper further analyzes the formation and development of the constitutional school and the revolutionary school,and discusses how the Japanese Constitutional View entered the vision of modern China and how the Japanese Constitutional View was widely spread and developed into different groups studying in Japan by analyzing the representatives of the typical figures of the two schools,The third part is the summary of the constitutional view of the groups studying in Japan in the late Qing Dynasty.This paper introduces and launches the road of constitutionalism in modern China,and focuses on the specific impact of Japan’s Meiji Constitution on the opening of China’s constitutional Road,as well as the study of European and American constitutional views by the groups studying in Japan.The fourth part is the influence of Japan’s Meiji Constitution on the constitutional view of the groups studying in Japan in the late Qing Dynasty.Then it makes a specific analysis of the groups studying in Japan at all levels in the late Qing Dynasty.Through the comparative analysis of the constitutional views formed by all levels,it analyzes how to use the specific constitutional views to strive for their own interests and political demands,and finally how to promote and lead to the final demise of the Qing government.The fifth part is the Japanese constitutional spirit and constitutional activities in the late Qing Dynasty.Through the comparison of constitutional activities and legal texts in the late Qing Dynasty,it is found that the embodiment of Japanese constitutional spirit in the constitutional activities in the late Qing Dynasty and its impact on the constitutional activities in the late Qing Dynasty.