Research On Liang Qichao’s Thought Of Constitutionalism

Liang Qichao has made significant exploration for the constitutional construction in modern China. The formation and transformation of his thought about the constitutional state-building typically reflected the general tendency of the political thoughts in modern China, and at the same time, the complexity and contradiction of his political thought also showed us the common problem in modern Chinese political thoughts. Based on an introduction of the historical and ideological background of Liang Qichao’s political thought, and a detailed analysis of the origin of his thought, this dissertation will thoroughly investigate the development of Liang Qichao’s constitutional thought.Since he regarded nation-state as the highest level of human group, his modern nation concept happened two changes in its general orientation—from the nation concept with liberalist characteristics to nationalism in1903, and from nationalism to a nation concept with the value concern of cosmopolitanism after the voyage to Europe. These two changes divided the development of his thought into three phases: in1902, Liang Qichao tried to join the liberalist constitutional democracy with nationalism in the Darwinian framework, so his thought was full of complexity, contradiction and uncertainty in this phase. In1903-1917, Liang Qichao gave up Rousseau’s thought of the Social Contract and called upon German State Theory so as to deal with the tension between the individualist tendency and the collectivist concern. Once again in the Darwinian framework, Liang Qichao rearranged the relation between individual and the state and thus clearly took the position of nationalism. Therefore, at this phase, in his opinion, individual and the constitutional system were actually all the tools for the pursuit of national goals, and the existence and prosperity of the country in international competition were prior to anything else. In the last ten years of his life, because of the failure of the state-building in the early Republic of China and the observation of the Europe after World War I, Liang Qichao recognized the harmfulness of the Darwinism and the extreme nationalism, and reaffirmed cosmopolitanism as the value restraint and norm on the nation. However, the construction of modern state should be restrained by modern value orientation. Although the traditional value care had been transformed in the modernistic framework, it could not be converted to effective institutional arrangement, so the restraint from cosmopolitanism was abstract and nominal. On the contrary, with the value care of cosmopolitanism, what would be emphasized was the traditional philosophy of life, and it would be bad for individual to become the subject of the right and politics.To establish the constitutional system in modern China was the pursuit of Liang Qichao’s life, but in the whole course, he had not ever conceived the constitutional system for modern China from the original individualist value orientation of the western constitution. Undoubtedly, the constitutional system was not an effective tool for the collectivist goal or that of human entirety, therefore the pursuit of democracy instead of the constitutional system construction became the focus of the consideration, and following this line of thinking, the reform of the nationality would be inevitably an important theme in his thought. Liang Qichao hesitated to choose one from populist and elitist approach to modern democratic politics throughout his life. In fact, when he took the position of populism, the elitism was always a hidden tendency in his thought. This tendency further developed into the expectation and dependence on authoritarianism in the political environment of modern China. Basically speaking, this was the general feature of modern Chinese political thoughts.The development of Liang Qichao’s political thought provides some important implications for us. As a political organization with monopolistic force, the state should be restrained by a higher value, or it would become a crazy ’power machine’ without spirit of virtue, totally deviating from people’s original intention of building it. Modern state is built for public security and functions as a protector and arbiter in public life. In addition to providing peace and security, it can also help its members to pursue a better life, but it isn’t its basic task to develop a certain cultural tradition or to realize a certain collective goal. So the prosperity of the country or national rejuvenation can not enough to be the value orientation of modern political life, and it is only the establishment of the value orientation of constitutional liberty and the construction of the constitutional system that can be the direction and core task of the state-building of modern China. Only in the benign interaction of the state and the society can the construction of constitutional system gain sustainable dynamic mechanism; and only by separating modem politics from traditional ethics can the value orientation of constitutional liberty be really established.