Sun Yat-Sen’s Constitutionalism

In 2013, China witnessed the controversial debate on constitutionalism (xianzheng) which lasted for months. In China, the concept of xianzheng is traceable back to Sun-Yat-sen’s constitutional doctrine. Anti-constitutionalists in the 2013 debate understand constitutionalism as analogous to western liberal constitutionalism and argue that Sun Yat-sen’s conception of constitutionalism reflected western “bourgeois” thinking. The xianzheng debate in China suggests the necessity of revisiting Sun’s constitutionalism. This paper argues that Sun Yat-sen integrates elements of western modern constitutionalism (written constitution, popular sovereignty, democratic government, and the separation of the legislative, executive, and judicial powers) with elements of Confucianism (ren or humanity, minben or people as basis and elitism) to generate his distinctive vision of mixed constitutionalism. The implication of this study for academic inquiry is to consider whether to develop a normative theory of mixed constitutionalism in contemporary East Asia.