On Zhang Junmai's Thoughts About Constitutional Government

The value of constitutional government became accepted in the modern history of China in a rather passive way, amid an existence crisis of the Chinese nation, due to the use of military power against China by major Western countries. Faced with a pressing need to keep the nation from falling apart and to build up the national strength, Zhang Junmai (Carsun Chang, 1887-1969) was preoccupied with an ambitious attempt at realizing a constitutional government in China, rather than pursuing an academic definition of constitutional government. Nevertheless, his thoughts of constitutional government and his practice on it are equally important in the history of modern and contemporary China, as well as in the history of China's constitutions. This paper is aimed at a systematic study on Zhang Junmai's thoughts of constitutional government.The paper consists of three parts: Introduction, Main body and Conclusion.The Introduction includes a brief biography of Zhang Junmai, his importance in the modern constitutional history, and a current lack of researches and documents on the study of his thoughts. The motivation and purpose of writing this paper, as well as the realistic significance of such a topic is given in the Introduction.The main body is made up of two parts. The first part is about Zhang Junmai's experience in pursuing a constitutional government; the second one is about his concrete thoughts on constitutional government. The four major points are as follows:Firstly, his experience and attitude. A brief description of Zhang Junmai's lifelong pursuit of a constitutional government is given, thus revealing the formation process of his thoughts and his determination to put it into practice. He not only made every effort at advocating that China should practice the constitutional government,but also refuted the idea that China can't practice the theory of constitutional government immediately. At that time, though not so many Chinese people were against the theory of constitutional government, there were different understandings about the proper time when a constitutional government should come into force. The Chinese government of Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) also rejected the formation of constitution government, using the ongoing Anti-Japanese War as an excuse. Zhang Junmai suggested that the constitutional government be immediately put into practice in China, and set the constitutional awareness as the precondition for practicing constitutional government.Secondly, human rights is the basis of constitutional government. Protection of human rights is a key element of Zhang Junmai's thoughts about constitutional government. In his view, human rights is one of the objectives of constitutional government, as well as an integral component of constitutional government. Thus, he not only followed the development of human rights in the West, but also introduced it to the Chinese people, exerting considerable shock to the deep-rooted tradition of autocracy in China. Zhang Junmai's version of "The Draft Constitution of the Republic of China" is much better than the draft constitution prepared by Kuomintang on May 5, 1936 (usu. referred to as "Double Five Draft Constitution"), with regard to the protection of human rights.Thirdly, detailed structure of a constitutional government. This is an exploration of Zhang Junmai's idea about the details of a constitutional government, by analyzing his two versions of draft constitution of the Republic of China. He didn't copy the Western pattern in designing the state system, the government system and the state structure. The state system he proposed for the Republic of China is a democratic republic belonging to the people, governed by the people and serving the people. He was opposed to Kuomintang's dictatorship, while acknowledging the contribution to the nation by Sun Yatsen's Three Principles of the People. The government system he designed was a separation of the five powers in name, but a separation of the three powers (i.e. the legislative, executive and judicial powers) in fact. With respect to the state system, he advocated a combination of federal system and centralized system, namely, the coexistence of a powerful central government and considerably autonomous local governments.Fourthly, political parties are indispensable to a constitutional government. Zhang Junmai was much aware of the significance of political parties in a democratic constitutional government system. So he put forward his theory on establishing a political party and tried to set up a political party in person to take part in politics. Keen on following the middle route, he chose to organize a third party on both occasions, first between the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) and Yuan Shikai(1859-1916), and later between Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China (CPC). But what he actually did does not really match his theory on party politics, which believes that while a multi-party political system is better than a single-party system, a bipartisan system is more stable than a multi-party system.Conclusion. The theoretical basis of Zhang Junmai;s thoughts about constitutional government lies in three aspects: the British liberalism, the French and German idealism, and the Chinese Confucianism. The conclusions reached after a study on Zhang Junmai's thoughts about constitutional government are as follows. First, he was keen to construct a harmonious society with a constitutional government, based on the interaction of the upper strata of society and the masses of the people. Second, he was keen to combine theory with practice. In his lifetime, Zhang Junmai not only wrote many articles on constitutional government, but also actively took part in drafting constitutions. Third, he was good at incorporating diverse theories on constitutional government. In working out his thoughts on constitutional government and drafting the constitution, he made use of various theories in that field while maintaining his own characteristics. Fourth, we should appraise Zhang Junmai in an objective and fair way, avoiding going from extreme to the other.