On "qing Yi" Constitutional Publicity

Many research have been done on the constitutional movement of the late Qing dynasty in the field of Chinese history. They focused more on the social class base and political acts of the constitutional advocators, but less on their public propaganda and ideas. In fact, the constitutional advocates carried on a lot of constitutional propaganda with periodical publications and brought great historical influence. The China Discussion is one and the first of periodical publications that the constitutional advocates established. It played a vanguard role. This paper tries to inquire into the constitutional propaganda of the China Discussion.This paper contains three parts.Chapter one: the China Discussion and its constitutional propaganda survey. It introduces the ainru columns and issue of the China Discussion .All constitutional propaganda papers are arranged and expressed with graphs.Chapter two: analyze the constitutional propaganda contents of the China Discussion. There were four aspects in it, that is to say: the propaganda of civil rights the propaganda of the reform of the national character the propaganda of political party politics and the propaganda of constitution.The propaganda of civil rights criticized forcefully feudal dictatorial system armed with the theory that God endow people with civil rights and people have political rights. Therefore, it laid an ideological foundation for the constitutional movement at the early 20th century.The propaganda of the reform of the national character criticized the slave character, inoculated the national ideology and advocated the duty and rights thought etc, which laid a mass foundation for the constitution movement.The propaganda of political party politics proved that the party can save China and resist tyranny, Moreover, political party politics have historic progressiveness. It spreaded the new party concept and made people know the momentous significance of the political party politics preliminarily, which contributed to the forming of party in constitutional movement.The propaganda of constitution was the first in China ideological fields. It introduced the concept the intension, the nature and the role of constitution, proved the historical inevitability of drafting the constitution and projected the sequence for China, which made deeply influence on the late Qing constitutional movement.Chapter three: evaluated the significance and influence of constitutional propaganda of the China Discussion. It was that the China Discussion enlightened Chinese ideology to some extent, leaded the trend of constitutional thought and promoted the late Qing constitutional movement.