Probe Of The Ban On Political Parties In The Late Qing Dynasty

The ban on political parties is an important means which crack down ondissidents and political forces, and maintain the autocracy in the traditional politicalsystem. Since the early Qing prohibited the establishment of associations, The Qinggovernment enforce the policies of the ban on political parties strictly. The policy hadnot begun to loosen until the late Qing Dynasty, with the decline of social control ofauthorities and the spread of the constitutional ideas. After the Boxer Movement, inorder to ease the Crisis of governance, the Qing court advocated constitutional, so theissues of the ban on political parties gradually prominented with the development ofthe constitutional movement, and become the focus which brung together the variouspolitical forces.Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao who were in exile because of the ReformMovement of1898Strived to seek to lift the ban on political parties in order to returnto develop forces, domestic constitutionalists formatted political groups actively topromote the implementation of the constitutional that broke the restrictions of the banon political parties policy in fact; Some powerful figure in the central government, thekey officials who were open-minded in the local agreed to lift the ban on politicalparties for their own political considerations. At the same time, there were manyconstraints from the multi-strength in the process of seeking to lift the ban on politicalparties, there existed opposition from some officials in the central government, therevolutionaries and even in the constitutionalists. Position and attitude of the politicalforces were able to show in the political game of promoting or blocking the ban onpolitical parties.The movement of lifting the ban on political parties occurred with theconstitutional movement simultaneously, it had an important significance for thespread of Democracy and Constitution and the derivative of lawful political parties,people’s political consciousness and awareness of political participation wereenhanced because of it, and the invigoration of the political parties in the Parliamentof the early years of the Republic of China was closely related to the flourishing of the political groups because of lifting the ban of political parties. In the long run, theprocess of the lifting of the ban on political parties accompanied by the formation ofthe people’s modern political ideas, political prerequisite and the cultural soil wasprovided for implementation of the democracy and had a far-reaching implication forthe advancement of political civilization in modern China.