Research On Zhang Jian's Constitutionalism Thoughts

Since the Opium War,China had been faced with the serious situation of domestic trouble and foreign invasion.The intellectuals tried to find a political and legal model that can lead the people and the country towards prosperity.When the splendid Chinese civilization began to fade,the decadent autocratic system began to go downhill,Zhang Jian chose to abandon the traditional "official" road and save the nation through industry and education.Zhang Jian gradually understood the western advanced political civilization through contacted with western culture and the successful transformation of the Meiji Restoration.Then Zhang Jian became an advocate of constitutionalism.As the leader of the constitutionalists,Zhang Jian wanted to transform China by the constitutional thought,and actively promoted the practice and development of constitutional activities.Zhang Jian was deeply influenced by the Confucian thought and culture in his early years,then he traveled to Japan and gradually came to contact with western constitutional theory.The formation of Zhang's constitutional thought and constitutional movement reflected the difficult obstacles faced by the Chinese intellectuals in exploring the truth of saving the nation.Zhang Jian's constitutional thought not only inherited Chinese traditional culture,but also absorbed the western constitutional thought and the rule of law spirit.This paper attempts to analyze and research the origin,formation,evolution,the core content and the enlightenment to the modernization of China's political and legal modernization of Zhang Jian's constitutional thought.In the process of studying and investigating,we can find that Zhang Jian's constitutional thought is relatively progressive and scientific,which profoundly influenced the development of constitutional politics in the late Qing Dynasty.But the ultimate failure of Zhang Jian's constitutional thoughts reveals the inevitable contradictions and historical limitations.On the basis of a clearer,more comprehensive and rational understanding of Zhang Jian's constitutional thoughts,we hope to have a more profound understanding of the practice of western constitutional model transplanted to China.