Sun Yat Sen And Three Notable Chinese Characteristics Within The Chinese Constitutions

Master's Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Law - Public Law / Constitutional Law / Basic Rights, grade: Pass (Original version), Queen Mary University of London, course: LL.M (Public Law), language: English, abstract: ‘Chinese characteristics’ has become a term commonly used to explain why China is different from the rest of the world. However, it has raised the question of whether China really is so different. In the field of constitutionalism, Sun Yat-Sen was the first Chinese politician who embraced Chinese characteristics and constructed the world’s first theory of democracy with ‘Chinese characteristics’ in the early twentieth century. His theory thus enlightens us on the question of whether China really is so different. Sun Yat-Sen’s theory of democracy consists of three notable ‘Chinese characteristics’ – the pentapartite separation of powers system, direct democracy with an institutional arrangement of representation, and the constitutional single party system. However, all of these ‘Chinese characteristics’ are rooted in Sun Yat-Sen’s misunderstanding of ‘Western’ democracy. It is even more troubling that the incompetent amendments made by Sun Yat-Sen, who was a physician, not only failed to democratise China, but also produced a permanent dictatorship in China. In addition, his allegation that China is different from the rest of the world is not substantiated by logic – any amendment which is based upon a misunderstanding of the original concept is logically false, regardless of who is the originator of the amendment.

This book explains the details and underlying thinking of many major reforms to Chinese law and legal practice that have taken place since 2013. It draws widely on laws and regulations, policies, cases, official statistics as well as the latest Chinese and foreign literature. The informed analysis answers intriguing questions such as why China runs the world’s largest database of court judgments without recognising any precedent, or why the number of judges was cut by 40% despite a more than doubled caseload. Ultimately it offers a new approach on how to understand Chinese law and legal reforms in the contemporary world.

Which European and non-European ideas and practices facilitated the shaping of European unity? Or rather, which pursuits led to deadlocks in the cooperation between states? The book seeks answers to these questions by surveying the historical attempts at realizing supranational patterns of governance in Europe since the Middle Ages. The main focus is on the nineteenth and twentieth century organizational models of European unification. The analysis draws on an abundance of historical and legal source material. While the author encourages critical thinking about European integration, the exploration is admittedly based on specific values. Éva Bóka claims that the struggle for the humanization of power with its democratic creative force has been the major driver in the development of the system of liberties and the idea of European unity. The analysis of the historical process up to the Lisbon Treaty (2007) with the recognition of common, shared, and supported competences meets the author’s set of values to a great extent. The last part of the book examines whether the European Union can serve as a political and economic organizational model for other parts of the world.

This book is a grand review of the centurial development of rule of law in China. It covers the most important issues in this area and presents “political constitution,” a new interpretative framework that allows the Chinese experience of rule of law to be more fully and correctly expressed. It is especially useful to scholars involved in the study of modern China. The main chapters of this book include: The Constituent Movement in the Late Qing Dynasty; The Xinhai (1911) Revolution; Constitution-making at the Beginning of the Republic of China; The Great Revolution in the 1920s; The Rise of the Party State and its Transition; The Founding of 1949 New China and its Early Constitutional Development; and The Dualist System of Rule of Law in the Reforming Times.

Offering a fresh and unique approach to surveying the historical transformations of the Chinese state, Human Security and the Chinese State focuses on human security in contrast with the twenty-first century obsession with national security. Building upon Hobbes' Leviathan, Robert Bedeski demonstrates how the sovereignty of the state reflects primary human concerns of survival, indeed, that fundamental purpose of the state is the preservation of the life of its citizens. Combining political science theory with historical literary, cinematic and sociological materials and ideas, Bedeski has produced a truly original approach to the last two thousand years of Chinese political history, explaining the longevity of the imperial Confucian state and locating the dilemma of modern China in its incomplete sovereignty.

The Unfinished Revolution is a superb new biography of Sun Yat-sen, whose life, like the confusion of his time, is not easy to interpret. His political career was marked mostly by setbacks, yet he became a cult figure in China after his death. Today he is the only 20th-century Chinese leader to be widely revered on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. In contrast, many Western historians see little in his ideas or deeds to warrant such high esteem. This book presents the most balanced account of Sun to date, one that situates him within the historical events and intellectual climate of his time. Born in the shadow of the Opium War, the young Sun saw China repeatedly humiliated in clashes with foreign powers, resulting in the loss of territory and sovereignty. When his efforts to petition the decrepit Manchu court to institute reforms failed, Sun took to revolution. Sun traversed the globe to canvass support for his cause. A notable feature of the book is its coverage of the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and their contributions to his uprisings on the mainland, which set the stage for the overthrow of two millennia of imperial rule in 1911. But Sun’s vision of China was not to be. Within a few years the republic was hijacked and plunged into chaos. This fascinating and immensely readable work illuminates the man and his achievements, his strengths and his weaknesses, revealing how he came to spearhead the revolution that would transform his country and yet, at his death in 1925 and still today, remain agonizingly unfinished.