Research On The Fujian Provincial Constitution

As one of the earliest open provinces,Fujian Province played an important role in modern Chinese history,which contracted western ideology and culture earliest,and demonstrated excellence in performance of Westernization Movement and The Guanzhou Uprising.In the 1920 s Fujian province did not give up the pursuit of constitutionalism under the background of confused fighting between the warlords and Movement for provincial constitution.Fujian provincial constitution has been abolished immediately after promulgation,but its idea and value is worthy of researching,which reflects hard choices about system of province and pathes of founding state.This thesis reveals some core issues of Fujian provincial constitution during the procession of enacting and abolishing.This graduation thesis includes five chapters.The first chapter analyzes the germination of movement for provincial constitution.It's purpose is to reveal the background of Movement for provincial constitution and describe its run status.The first background is the rise and development of localism.Due to the need of repression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and implementing New Deal etc.,localism gradually evolved in the late Qing Dynasty,which manifested as expansion of the power of governors,promotion of the power of local gentry and establishment of Consultative Bureau.Localism has contributed to the success of Rvolution of 1911 which correspondingly promoted the development of the former.Until the early years of the Republic of China,“localism” became fashionable.The second background is the formation of the Idea of Interprovincial Autonomy,which originated from the federalism theory the late Qing Dynasty.In the national crisis of domestic trouble and foreign invasion,Chinese bourgeois intellectuals came into contract with weastern Federal Republic,and started the exploration of Federalism in modern Chinese political history.After coming to power,Yuan Shikai imposed centralisation and personalist,which prompted the revival of the thought of federalism,which reflected as the Idea of Inter-provincial Autonomy.The development of localism and the Idea of Inter-provincial Autonomy offer the thought foundation for Movement for provincial constitution,which can be divided into two stages: the formulation of the constitution of military government in late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China and the formulation of the constitution of province in the 1920 s.The fomer stage is represented by the Ezhou Provisional Constitution.Some provinces including Jiangsu and Guizhou succeeded to enact different provincial constitutions after declaring dependence in Revolution of 1911,which had the nature of modern constitution or provincial constitution.The later stage began from the formulation of Hunan constitution,developed subsequently in Zhejiang province and Guangdogn province,as resulted gigantic Movement for provincial constitution.The second chapter reveals the local foundation of the germination of the Fujian provincial constitution.Establishment of representative institution laid foundation in organization,which was the first important factor.Political decadence and economic distress were its second factor.After the founding of the Republic of China,Fujian has long been under the dictatorship of Beiyang warlords,which was full of turbulence,corruption,economic distress,sharp drop in population,and structural abnormality.The preparation of local self-government in the late Qing Dynasty and increasing of autonomy in the early republic of china were the third factor.Fujian adopted vigorous measures to promote local autonomy in towns led by Qing government,which set up autonomy teaching institute for personnel training,and made the schedule for local self-government matters.Since 1920 all walks of life in Fujian province raised strong demands for autonomy because of the infuence of the wave of provincial autonomy,the autocratic rule of the Northern Warlords and real threat of visiting force in Fujian.The third chapter displays the procedure of formulating Fujian provincial constitution.The original initiative can be dated back to 17 August 1921,but until December 1922 Fujian Provincial Parliament Official launched of the agenda.The procession included five steps:preparing,drafting,reviewing,referendum and promulgating.In the course of formulating which took more than three years,Constitutional Preparatory Office had fighted with the governor of Fujian province and central government many times.Owing to the small-scale and indifference to politics of gentry,warlord's boycott and shortage of funds,compared with other provinces,the course of creating Fujian provincial constitution was very sluggish.The forth chapter analyzes primary content and characteristics of Fujian provincial constitution.It consists of a preamble and 18 chapters,totaling 207 articles,including relationship between province and country,the scope of provincial power,provincial organization structure,rights and duties of provincial citizens and regional governance system.Unlike others,Fujian provincial constitution had been greatly affected by part of bills in the deliberation process of Temple of Heaven draft constitution.It has distinct features.for example,it set up an independent examination authority and formed a unique government system of separation of six powers.It established a special chapters for livelihood,which reflected Socialist thought and the idea of national politics after the October revolution as well as World War II.It specially emphasized protection of the right to education of provincial citizens,respected proposals and suggestions of professional groups,and emphasized direct democracy by creation and referendum.Provincial administrative organs adopted committee system.Judicial legislative power and final adjudication power belonged to central government.The last chapter discusses the end of Fujian provincial constitution movement.More than half a month after its promulgation,it had been abolished because of special reason of Fujian and universal reason of the provincial constitution movement.The former includes self-interested motivation of provincial assembly which did serious damage to the authority and dignity of constitution,weak foundation of public opinion,virtual defect to enact constitution.The later includes lack of common view about provincial institution,a temporary expedient under instrumental values,obstacles to normative identity,the change of current political situation and the choice of the road of unification once again.