A Study On The Evolution Of Liang Qichao’s Constitutional Thought In1895-1906

This article is about the evolution of Liang Qichao’s constitutional thought of master degree thesis. Four parts are included in this thesis to analyze the evolution course of Liang Qichao’s constitutional thought.The first part presents the preliminary exploration for China constitutional road of Liang Qichao during the reform in the last years of the qing dynasty, from which we can see his original understanding to the concept such as parliament and civil rights. Civil rights and parliament is the central idea of Liang Qichao in this period, explains the principle of the "monarchical" and "civil rights" phase change, and initially established the theoretical framework of constitutional monarchy.The second part discusses the transition process of Liang Qichao from the relatively mild reformist to solidly revolutionary by early exile in Japan. After the failure of the reform movement of1898, the content of Liang Qichao’s constitutional idea is becoming increasingly fierce and has worked with the revolutionary forces led by Sun Yat-sen since facing the decadent tyranny of the Qing Dynasty. During this time, he exposed to a lot of Western constitutional philosophy and began to actively engaged in the renew people’s thought activities.The third part probes in the major turning point from constitutional monarchy to the democratic republic of Liang Qichao after he returned form America in1903. Mainly launches from his teacher and friend’s recommendations, personal experience and other aspects analyzing the reasons for his ideological transition.The fourth part draws outline of Liang Qichao’s logical structure and unearth spiritual essence from political radicalism to gradualism in thinking about the selection of a political system. Changing according to the situation can be said to be the most distinctive feature of Liang Qichao’s constitutional thought which precisely illustrates the "changing" get through his a lot of thinking on the basis of national situation. Being the first man to quest for "signification" of constitutionalism, Liang Qichao viewed that learning western constitutionalism system must full of consider China’s national conditions and cultural tradition.