8. The Road to Constitutional Government in China

LSM, “Everyone Studies the Social Problems, Please” (1933), 5: 357–363.

Ibid.

LSM, “On Constitutional Government in China” (1944), 6: 498; “An Account in My Own Words” (1934), 2: 21–22.

Cf., in general, Guy S. Alitto, The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity, op. cit., in chap. 7 Liang Shu-ming’s theory and practice in relation to the rural reconstruction movement have be challenged by both communists and liberals. An example of the former is the criticism from the famous economist Qian Jia-ju, who declared that the rural reconstruction movement is “a wrong road for China”. His argumentation detailed in his article “A Wrong Forked Road for China” (1935), and the course of this rebuttal between them can be obtained in his reminiscences My Personal Experiences in the Past Seventy Years, at 98–100. On the liberal side, aside from people like Hu Shi and his followers who appeared in the first half of this century, two articles published in recent years with relevance to my discussion are: Xu Ji-lin, Liang Shu-ming: The Anti-modern Utopia of a Cultural Nationalist; Gao Li-ke, Rural Society and Chinese Modernity: A Revaluation of Liang Shu-ming’s Ideas of Rural Reconstruction. For a recently published introductory description about this movement see Zhu Han-guo, Studies on Liang Shu-ming’s Rural Reconstruction. Cf., section Local self-government and election: an irony behind life and mind in Chap. 12 of the book.

“The Council of National Affairs”, which Liang Shu-ming and his colleagues designed, comprised one hundred members chosen from four sources: forty from KMT, twenty from CP and China Democratic League respectively; the others were nonparty personages. For the details see his “On Current Issues about Constitutional government: Questions and Answers” (1945), 6: 559–563; “Rules for the Comrades of United Construction-Nation” which was related in LSM, “What I Had Tried Hardly for: My Experiences since the War of Resistance to Japanese Invasion” (1941), 6: 250–252.

In fact, nearly two hundred years ago, Alexander Hamilton had pointed out this nature and object of the constitution when he explained

that the powers contained in a constitution of government… ought to be construed liberally in advancement of the public good. This rule does not depend on the particular form of government, or on the particular demarcation of the boundaries of its powers, but on the nature and objects of government itself. The means by which national exigencies are to be provided for, national inconveniences obviated, and national prosperity promoted, are of such infinite variety, extent, and complexity, that there must of necessity be great latitude of discretion in the selection and application of those means.

LSM, at 7: 403–404.

LSM, 6: 288–289.

LSM, 6: 293–295.

LSM, 6: 290-292.

LSM, 7: 458.

For this see his China: A Macro History; and “Endless Complications and Unexpected Turns”, in 18 The Twenty-first Century Bimonthly (1993), at 114–118.

See Guy S. Alitto, The Last Confucian, op. cit., at 182, no. 19 at 198, 279, 310.