On Investigating Westen Constitutional Politics In The Late Qing Dydasty

Taken the special political activity of the overseas investigation into the western constitutional politics in the period of the late Qing, this article makes a systematic research into the details of the activities of overseas investigation into the constitutional politics with the methodology of documentation and comparison. Firstly, the article deals with the background and process of the twice investigations in the period of late Qing, and reaches a conclusion that it was an important and prudent decision of the Qing administration after careful measuring of its own interest. Secondly, the article analyzes such activities as the formation of the unite decision within the ruling administration, the issuing of the order of the emperor for the preliminary constitution, the promulgating of the《Outline for the Constitution of the Emperor》, the undertaking of the preparation of legitimating of the Constitution etc., and expounds the tremendous pushing force of the overseas investigation towards the late Qing constitutional political activities. Meanwhile the article tries to analyze the different constitutional modes held by the school of constitution advocators and school of the revolutionists, and emphasizes the mode of the constitutional politics held by those investigators and their respective reasons. The article points out that those constitutional modes of the investigators exert a very important influence towards the Qing administration which chose the Japanese Mode and later the British Mode. At last, this article makes a comment on the advantages and disadvantages of this overseas investigation, and argues that it was just because of this investigation that the administration put forward the idea that the constitutional politics was better than the monarch and at the same time put forward the scenarios of how to legitimate constitution and a new Sino-west cultural relationship of " combine the domestic advantages with the foreigners", hence it was theoretically valuable and also significant for the current researches. The article also points out the deficiencies of the overseas investigation, namely, the emphasizing of the necessity of legitimating Constitution and the neglecting of the feasibility of it; the exaggeration of the instrumental value of the constitutional politics and the neglecting of the purposeful value of it; the grasping of the surface function of the constitutional politics and the ignoring of its deep structure; and the extreme maintenance of the monarchy power and the indifference to the people's right. These deficiencies exerted a negative effect on the late Qing constitutional politics and even the following century's as well. Therefore, in the process of the constructing a socialist legitimating country, we should summarize the accomplishments of the overseas investigation and the lessons from this activity to better serve the construction of Chinese Constitutional politics. And this article demonstrates the theme of late Qing Chinese Society, which is to save the country and enhance its power, and the conflicts, compromises and struggles between various political forces and the investigators, and makes an objective analysis and assessment on the contribution and limitation of this special political bureaucratic group.