Sun Yat-sen Thought Of Constitutionalism,

Dr. Sun Yat-Sen is a great pioneer of Chinese democratic revolution. For his great endeavors and achievements, Dr. Sun has been always living in the hearts of the Chinese people. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen has devoted all his life to pursuing national independence by revolution, and trying to make China a liberal and prosperous country all over the world. Dr. Sun appears to be a loyal and leading democrat during the same times, for his conducts and the corresponding thinking tracks.Established during the 19^th to 20^th century, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's thoughts are the crystals forming by considering the situation of Chinese society at that time, notwithstanding that several parts of Dr. Sun's thoughts were not realized due to the confines of the social environment and revolutionary condition at that time. However, the consideration of democratic constitution as well as the exploration of socialism and the society of great harmony still have great significance in guiding us to construct a society of democracy and legal system and a harmonious society. There are lots of important points for us to summarize and learn from. Proposed on the basis of forerunner's researching achievements, this paper is divided into three parts, including Part I-The Course of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's thought on Constitutional Government, Party II-The Review and Discussion on Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's Thought about Separation of Five Powers, Separation of Rights and Duties and Theory of Revolutionary Processes, and Part III, the major part of the paper, which has studied the socialistic elements of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's Principle of People's Livelihood and its guiding significance in the social development of China at the present. Please provide your comments and suggestions on the weak points of this paper.Part I has presented the courses of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's thought on democratic constitution with lots of words. The author considers it necessary to evaluate a historical figure and to obtain the pertinent conclusions by understanding the historical environment of the historical figure. With the gunboat policy and unequal treaty, the western imperialist powers forced the ancient China into a semi-feudal and semi-capitalist society, which was the greatly changing world that had never encountered during the last five thousands years. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's thought on democratic constitution was established under such historical background, which had also brought great effects on the establishment, development and forming of the democratic constitution as well as the democratic practice of Dr. Sun. The rough and rugged revolutionary practice of Dr. Sun in his lifetime had also reflected the hardships of researching the truth of salvaging the country and the nation from internal revolts and foreign invasions by modern Chinese people. Every human being is bom with and fettered by certain historical background. Realizing this fact, we can avoid making any improper guesses about the predecessors with the current motives. We will be able to have a better and more precise grasp of the connotations and extensions of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's thought on democratic constitution.Part II has introduced and reviewed on Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's thought about Separation of Five Powers, Separation of Rights and Duties and Theory of Revolutionary Processes, which are the main embodiments of Dr. Sun's thought on democratic constitution. By sticking to the democratism of bourgeois, using western constitutional system for reference, courageously considering the imperial examination system and Yushi supervisory system in ancient China and combining Chinese and western systems, the famous thought about Separation of Five Powers of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen has made various supplements and explanations on his principles of civil rights. The creation of separation of five powers has shown the consciousness of democratic politics of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, which exceeds any person at that time. The thought about separation of five powers can be regarded as the first scheme that possesses time meanings proposed after the research on the significant proposition of law transplantation by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen and even the first group of democratic revolutionist.Sun Yat-Sen's thinking of the relationship between the country and the citizens. In Dr. Sun's opinion, only the executant (duty) shall be responsible to the sovereign (power), while the executant can not interfere with the sovereign, which is the reassertion of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's principle of "Democratic Right for the People". The regime design of Dr.The thought of Separation of Rights and Duties is a conclusion of Dr. Sun's thought of separation of rights and duties aims at making the national congress an authority that will grasp the actual powers on behalf of the citizens and guarantee the realization of civil rights of the people. Besides, by designing the separation of powers and duties, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen had tried to construct an efficient and undisturbed omnipotent government, based on the complete verification of direct rights, so as to greatly exert the functions of indirect authority and take direct rights as the final relief means.The Theory of Revolutionary Processes were proposed based on Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's judgment on the revolutionary processes for realizing the constitution, including stages of military rule, political tutelage and constitutional government. Briefly speaking, military laws were carried out during the stage of military rule. The revolutionary armies were organized to overthrow the dictatorial system of Man-Qing Dynasty, which had laid the foundation of democracy, equality and freedom. It was turned into the stage of political tutelage when sovereignty was put in force all over the country. During this stage, only one party held the leadership, and was liable to create early conditions for the stable development of democratic system, and to cultivate correct mentality and view of value for creating culture of democratic politics. Early conditions shall include economic development and industrial modernization, which will greatly increase the output of the whole country. When the early conditions were realized and local autonomy was proposed by Chinese people, the revolution of China had entered into the stage of constitutional government. At that time, democratic constitution would be generated after careful discussion and resolution. As a self-governing unit, each county shall carry out direct civil right. The design of the stage of political tutelage served as a connecting link between the destroying stage (military rule) and constructing stage (constitutional government). In addition, it was of particularly importance to organize the citizens and to motivate the basic consciousness of democracy of them. The artificial design of a transitional stage (political tutelage) connecting the new and old systems possessed objective rationality, which had been proved by the historical development thereafter.Actually, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's thought about Separation of Five Powers, Separation of Rights and Duties and Theory of Revolutionary Processes had constituted the hardware, software and implementing steps respectively for the realization of Dr. Sun's thought on constitutional government. They are the integral parts in Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's thought.Part III emphasizes the most characteristic part of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's thoughts, the Principle of People's Livelihood. Dr. Sun was regarded as the political representative of national bourgeois in modern China, but he frequently talked with eloquence about the socialism theory which was feared by the western bourgeois at that time. In his treatises and speeches, Dr. Sun distinctly did not conceal his admiration towards Marx and his theories. He frequently mentioned his principle of people's livelihood and the theory of socialism as the related things or intersections. He even made a statement that "I am a complete socialist". During the later stage, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen classified the theory of socialism as part of the system of his principle of people's livelihood, which was regarded as an abnormal action. However, it was this abnormal action that had become one of the important subjects for scholars who study Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's thoughts to study and explain Dr. Sun's socialistic viewpoint for the principle of people's livelihood, which will be the key to understand his thought about three principles of the people. It will help scholars to grasp Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's thought on constitutional government theoretically or internally. To study and explain Dr. Sun's socialistic viewpoint for the principle of people's livelihood will also help them to figure out the positive significance for socialism as well as the referential significance for the construction of a democratic and harmonious socialistic society nowadays from the thought about principle of people's livelihood.