Research On Carsun Chang's “The Parliament Political Theory Of John Mill”

As an important thinker and political activist in modern China,Carsun Chang pursued democracy in his whole life.The struggle between constitutionalists and reformists started in 1906,in which year,Carsun Chang published a translation of <Considerations on Representative government>by John Stuart Mill named “the Parliament Political Theory of John Mill” in Xinmin Series Newspaper which is the starting point of his constitutional democratic thought.This article tries to analyze his democratic thought and how he understands and discusses the representative thought of John Mill through comparison of the original text and Chang's translated version.The key point of this article is to discuss Chang's thought presented in the translation and the relevance with social status.Besides introduction and conclusion,the article can be divided into three parts.The first part is to review the writing background and motivation of the translation,where introduce several versions of translations in China and Japan,as well as the Chinese and Japanese social status and political background then.The second part is the core of this article.By comparing the original and translated version,this article is to analyze how the latter transformed and inherited the former and the reason of the differences.This part also can be divided into three sections,which describes the transformation from “representative regime” to “constitutional regime”,showing Chang's support for the constitutionalists and high attention to the people's ability.The third part discusses the influence of Mill on Chang's thought.Chang showed his tendency to liberal democracy and the expectation for constitutional democracy here,as well as great attention to the people's intellectual and public spirit,which play an important role in Chang's political and academic career.All in all,in order to defend freedom of expression,the intellectuals of the late Qing dynasty felt desperate to break the old rules and make a new way of national salvation.They absorbed the western advanced political thought,and found a conflict between the traditional way of thinking at the same time,leading to the result that they were affected by the old thinking form when they tried to separate themselves from the old tradition.“The Parliament Political Theory of John Mill” is based on Chang's understanding and grasp of the main idea of <Considerations on Representative Government>,which has described his desire for constitutional regime at that time under the nationalism prevailing background,It has showed Chang's concern for Chinese politics and national destiny,seen as one of the exploration of the intellectuals made under the dual influence of western political current and traditional Chinese reality.