No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
Over the gulf of one century and two revolutions, two groups of Chinese petitioners drafted remarkably similar blueprints for political reform. Both groups sought civil rights and political responsibilities for Chinese citizens and a Western-influenced form of constitutional government to replace rule by autocracy. Today, China's autocratic government is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, and in the waning years of the Chinese empire, it was ruled by the Qing dynasty. The striking differences between these petition movements are as instructive as their similarities, reflecting not only the qualities of the movements themselves but the radically different political environments—inside and outside China—from which they emerged.
1 “China's Charter 08,” translated from the Chinese by Perry Link, New York Review of Books, January 15, 2009.
2 Norbert Meienberger, The Emergence of Constitutional Government in China (1905-1908): The Concept Sanctioned by Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi (Bern, Frankfurt am Main and Las Vegas: Peter Lang, 1980), p 91.
3 Robert Leo Worden, “Chinese Reformer in Exile: The North American Phase of the Travels of K'ang Yu-wei, 1899-1909” (PhD dissertation, Georgetown University, 1972), p. 77-78, gives this figure by Kang in 1906 as the most conservative membership estimate and mentions other much higher (and improbable) estimates such as 1 million, given by Kang's daughter, Kang Tongbi, and 5 million, by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1905. See “Mapping the Baohuanghui” for a chart of the chapters that have been identified, along with schools, businesses, newspapers, women's auxiliaries, and other organizational arms.
4 Permutations of the name used by Kang, Liang and other members are: Guomin Xianzhenghui, Guomin Xianzhengdang, Diguo Xianzhenghui, Zhonghua Xianzhenghui, Zhonghua Diguo Xianzhenghui, and Diguo Lixianhui.
5 Even in the 1890s, Kang saw the emperor as primarily a figurehead, “sacred but without responsibility” and forming “one body” with the citizens. According to Peter Zarrow, “Monarchical power (junquan) thus virtually disappears in Kang's reformism.” Peter Zarrow, “Democracy in Twentieth-Century China: Notes on a Discourse,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 26:1 (March 1999), 124-125.
6 Who are “the people” [min] Kang is referring to? While one might assume that he was referring to the gentry, or to enlightened reformers, we know from Kang's utopian vision in Datong Shu that he believed in a progression from autocracy to a pure democracy of free and equal men and women, with constitutional monarchy as the transitional stage. With exile, Kang's political constituency changed from the educated elite of China to a broad swath of overseas Chinese society (largely laborers and small businessmen in North America), and Baohuanghui and Xianzhenghui membership was open to all those who espoused constitutional reform goals. Merchants who were leaders in their communities were most likely to be the chapter leaders, however.
7 “Diguo Xianzhenghui Dahui Yiyuan Xuli” [Procedures for participants in Imperial Constitutional Association plenary meeting] in Gao Weinong, Ershi Shiji chu Kang Youwei Baohuanghui zai Meiguo Huaqiao Shehui zhong de Huodong [Activities of Kang Youwei and the Baohuanghui among the Chinese in the United States in the first part of the 20th century], (Beijing: Xueyuan Chubanshe, 2009), p. 93.
8 Feng Chongyi in “Charter 08, the Troubled History and Future of Chinese Liberalism,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, 2-1-10, January 11, 2010, noted that overseas Chinese were specifically excluded from inclusion in the original 303 Charter 08 signatories because the drafters feared being branded as “colluding with hostile forces abroad.” However, in tribute to its international inspirations, Charter 08 took its name from Charter 77, Czechoslovakia's human rights manifesto, and its drafters intended for it to be published on the 60th Anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration Human Rights.
9 “Haiwai Yameioufeiao Wuzhou Erbai Bu Zhonghua Xianzhenghui Qiaomin Gongshang Qingyuan Shu” [A petition presented by the overseas Chinese members of the Chinese Constitutional Association in 200 overseas cities in Asia, America, Africa, Europe and Australia], reprinted in Kang Youwei's journal, Buren Zazhi [Cannot Bear Magazine], #4 and #6 [from page 27], Shanghai, 1913. The petition itself was probably written in 1907 by Kang, who gave this date in Buren Zazhi, but it was published by Jianghan Gongbao on July 30-31, 1908, and by other reform newspapers overseas around this time. Versions vary somewhat.
10 In some versions, including the one Kang republished in 1913, this demand is missing. See Kung-chuan Hsiao, A Modern China and a New World: K'ang Yu-wei, Reformer and Utopian, 1858-1927(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975), pp 243-245.
11 “… Manchus were classified differently from Han. They were registered as ‘banner people,' whereas non-banner people, who were nearly all Han, were generally registered as ‘civilian.' These classifications were hereditary and essentially permanent.” Edward J.M. Rhoads, Manchus and Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republican China, 1861-1928 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), p. 35.
12 “Who is Liu Xiaobo,” Xinhua, Oct. 28, 2010.
13 Human Rights in China, translation of Beijing Municipal No. 1 Intermediate People's Court Criminal Verdict, 12/25/2009 (link).
14 Jung-pang Lo, ed., K'ang Yu-wei: A Biography and a Symposium (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1967), pp 212-213.
15 L. Eve Armentrout Ma, Revolutionaries, Monarchists, and Chinatowns: Chinese Politics in the Americas and the 1911 Revolution (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990), 126-7, and Wu Xianzi, 中國民主憲政党党史 Zhongguo Minzhu Xianzhengdang Dang shi [Party history of China's Democratic Constitutional Party], [San Francisco: Chinese Constitutionalist/Reform Party, 1952], 53-56.
16 Ding Wenjiang and Zhao Fengtian, eds., Liang Qichao Nianpu Changbian [Uncut version of Liang Qichao life chronicle]. Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 1983, pp 472-473.
17 Chang Yu-fa, Qingjide Lixian Tuanti [Constitutionalists of the Late Ch'ing Period: An Analysis of Groups in the Constitutional Movement, 1895-1911], (Taipei: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 1985), pp. 348-361.
18 William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), pp. 273, 277.
19 Hsiao 1975, p 245.
20 Chang P'eng-yuan, “Constitutionalism in the Late Qing: Conception and Practice,” Zhongyang Yanjiu Yuan Jindaishi Suo Jikan, #18, June 1989, p 110, writes that “under the encouragement of Liang Qichao, the 1,643 provincial representatives demanded the establishment of a formal national assembly right away” and then mentions three successive delegations of provincial delegates that traveled to Beijing to organize petitions.
21 John H. Fincher, Chinese Democracy: The Self-Government Movement in Local, Provincial and National Politics, 1905-1914 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981), p. 169. Prince Pu Lun soon came to be “known as a spokesman for ‘the progressives’,” according to Fincher, but had much earlier shown sympathies with the reformers (including meeting with Baohuanghui members during his 1904 visit to the United States).
22 Min Tu-ki, (Philip A. Kuhn and Timothy Brook, eds.), “The Soochow-Hanchow-Ningpo Railway Dispute” in National Polity and Local Power: The Transformation of Imperial China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), pp 207-216. Mary Backus Rankin, “Nationalistic Contestation and Mobilization Politics: Practice and Rhetoric of Railway-Rights Recovery at the End of the Qing,” Modern China 28:3:315-331, July 2002.
23 Feng Chongyi, “Charter 08, the Troubled History and Future of Chinese Liberalism,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, 2-1-10, January 11, 2010.
24 Ruth Cherrington, China's Students: The Struggle for Democracy, London: Routledge 1991; Merle Goldman, Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China: Political Reform in the Deng Xiaoping Era, Harvard University Press, 1994.
25 Wen Jiabao, ‘guanyu shehuizhuyi chuji jieduan de lishi renwu he wo guo duiwai zhengce de jige wenti’ (Some Issues with regard to the historical tasks during the initial stage of socialism and foreign policies of our country); ‘Guowuyuan zongli Wen Jiabo da zhongwei jizhe wen (Premier Wen Jiabo's reply to questions of Chinese and foreign journalists), link; ‘Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Speaks Exclusively to CNN's Fareed Zakaria', 23 September 2010.
26 Feng Jian, et al, ‘Guanyu kefu jingji kunnan kaichuang gaige xin jumiian de jianyi’ (A proposal for overcoming economic difficulties and making a breakthrough in reform).
27 Li Rui, et al, ‘zhixing xianfa 35 tiao, feichu yushen zhidu, duixian xinwen chuban ziyou: zhi quanguo renmin daibiao dahui changwu weiyuanhuai de gongkaixin’ (Carry out article 35 of the Constitution, eliminate the mechanism of prior approval, honour the commitment of the freedom of speech and press: an open letter to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress), link. Premier Wen seems to have caused a deep concern among his colleagues in the Politburo by repeatedly calling for democratic reform and declaring in his interview on CNN that “I believe I and all the Chinese people have such a conviction that China will make continuous progress, and the people's wishes for and needs for democracy and freedom are irresistible, … … I will not fall in spite of the strong wind and harsh rain, and I will not yield until the last day of my life.”
28 Chen Kuiyuan, ‘Speech at the working forum of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’, Journal of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 2 September 2008; Jia Qinglin, ‘Gaiju zhongguo tese shehui zhuyi de weida qizhi, ba renmin zhengxie shiye buduan tuixiang qianjin’ (Raise high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics and uninterruptedly advance the cause of People's Political Consultative Conference), Qiushi (Seeking Truth), No.1 2009, link; and Wu Bangguo, ‘Jue bu gao duodang lunliu zhizheng’ (Never practise the multi-party rule by turns), link.
29 Guoguang Wu, ‘China in 2009: Muddling through Crises’, Asian Survey, Vol. 50, No 1, pp. 25–39.
30 Jerome A. Cohen, ‘China's hollow “rule of law”'; Jiang Ping, ‘Zhongguo de fazhi chuzai yige da daotui shiqi' (The rule of law in China is in the stage of major retrogression', http://www.gongfa.org/bbs/redirect.php?tid=4037&goto=lastpost
31 Yu Jianrong, Dangdai nongmin de weiquan douzheng: Hunan Hengyang kaocha (Rights defence struggles of contemporary peasants: an investigation into Hunan's Hengyang), Beijing: Zhongguo wenhua chubanshe, 2007.
32 Sun Liping, ‘Zhongguo de zuida weixian bus hi shehui dongdang ershi shehui kuibai‘(The Biggest Threat to China is not Social Turmoil but Social Decay“; Social Development Research Group, Tsinghua University Department of Sociology, “Weiwen xin silu: yi liyi biaoda zhiduhua shixian shehui de chang zhi jiu an “[New thinking on weiwen: long-term social stability via institutionalised expression of interests], Southern Weekend, 14 April 2010, link.
You have
Access
Open access