Building constitutional democracy on oriental foundations: An anatomy of Sun Yat-Sen’s constitutionalism

Abstract

Sun Yat-sen was one of the earliest and most influential political thinkers in East Asia who advocated constitutional democracy. How different was his model from its Western counterparts? Most of Sun’s constitutional thought was built on blocks of ancient Chinese political philosophy, which might not be easy for outsiders to understand. Although his set of ideas was not short of criticisms, it was indeed creative and pioneering in late 19 th and early 20 th century China. How successful was Sun’s controversial yet exciting prototype in integrating democratic constitutionalism with regionalized Oriental political traditions, which have for centuries developed in a course fundamentally different from that of the West? Submission date: 17/10/2007 Acceptance date: 21/12/2007