Enemies of the revolution: Ideology and practice in the making of Chinese liberalism, 1890--1927

Despite its enormous influence in modern Chinese history, constitutional liberalism for the most part has been seen as a tangent to the revolutionary development that culminated in the success of the Communist revolution. This dissertation seeks to take up the task of probing the development and the significance of constitutional liberalism by focusing on the most prominent group of constitutional liberals, the Research Clique, led by Liang Qichao. The Research Clique presented the most coherent and systematic defense of a liberal constitutional order throughout modern China.; Because constitutional liberalism was entirely foreign to China before the latter half of the 19th century, any study of liberalism must address precisely what this transplanted ideology meant in theory and in practice. This study will highlight some of the less obvious elements of constitutional liberalism in China. Besides emphasizing the usual features of constitutional liberalism—the protection of civil liberties, the rule of law, and a competitive multi-party political system—the members of the Research Clique tended to be cultural conservatives and often supported a regional approach to the question of national unification. These two crucial components have received scant academic attention. Focusing on these unexplored areas would shine light on how an imported concept interacted with the political and social realities of modern China.; In addition to the two traits mentioned above, elitism—a characteristic usually associated with the Liang group—deserves attention as well because previous scholarship has not addressed the full implications of the Research Clique's view of elite-led politics. I argue that the constitutionalists' opposition to mass politics hinged on their understanding of politics as a competition of different interests rather than an expression of the will of the mass—a view Chinese revolutionaries held.