The Constitution of the Federal Republic of China (suggestion draft)

Composed based on a series of academic seminars organized by the "21st Century China Foundation," this draft constitution outlines a confederalized constitutional democracy in future China. It was written under the direction of Prof. Yan Jiaqi, with the participation of several dozen scholars of many different nationalities from the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and overseas.

Since its publication, this draft constitution has attracted the attention of various circles. In 1996, during the dialogue between the Dalai Lama and scholars of Han nationality hosted by this foundation, the Dalai Lama relayed to Dr. Liu Kaishen, Mr. Yan Jiaqi, and Mr. Zhang Weiguo that the spirit of this constitution was acceptable. During my visit to Dharamsala, India, I met with the Dalai Lama. He once again commended this foundation's effort on constitution design. Scholars from the National Party participated in the research in this area organized by this foundation from the very beginning. Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party has been attending the seminars hosted by this foundation since 1999, and has started to study this draft constitution. Many scholars from Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas have mentioned the constitutional outline proposed by this foundation in their publications. During the Youth Leader Workshop organized by this foundation, this topic was also passionately discussed. So far, the foundation has been constantly receiving suggestions from all circles, including those by well-know scholars such as Wu Jiaxiang, Liu Junning, Wang Lixiong and the late Gong Xiangrui. At this time of Launching the E-Weekly, we once again introduce this draft constitution to the readers, hoping that there will be wider participation and more in-depth discussion.

Some may say that talking about which kind of state and political systems China should adopt in the future when China is still under the totalitarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party is like "premature consumption." That is not true. Any careful design that has been through thorough discussion will have guiding significance. Also, many historical examples tell us that, due to lack of thorough brainstorming over the possible future choices, when the historical moment comes, those who had the opportunity to affect the historical direction would lead history astray, either because of blind moves due to lack of clear goals, or because the lack of consensus allowed some careerists to misguide history for their own personal or partisan ambition. Therefore, discussion over future China's constitutional democracy is highly necessary. In fact, even discussion is not enough. What China needs is a constitutional movement.

In broad terms, a constitutional movement consists of two parts. First, a clear constitutional goal needs to be established, including the scope of the country,  and structure and system of the country. Then promotion is needed to push various political forces and interests groups, including nationality groups, geographical groups, to participate in jointly building and implementing a number of broad constitutional goals. The broad constitutional goals refer to some general principles, such as the confederation system. They do not include fine details such as the term of office of parliament members. Virtually all the details of the future constitutional system, including even certain general principles, will be realized in a process participated by various political forces and factions, interests groups, nationalities, and geographic regions. The finally realized constitutional arrangements are basically the results of compromises among different interests. From the point of view of a scholar, such results are not the best arrangements. However, this process cannot be bypassed. For instance, any well-trained constitutional scholar can write a very good constitution after working in seclusion for a period of time. And things written by a single person often contain the fewest logical conflicts. However, a constitution that has not gone through the due process will not be collectively cherished. And it will not enjoy public trust. Such a constitution therefore is not implementable. As an analogy, constitutional democracy is like a child. If it is given birth by many people collectively, everyone will treat it like their own child, and will cherish it, love it, protect it, and trust it. A constitutional movement is thus a process of promoting the realization of constitutional democracy. Only through such broad participation will us Chinese foster the kind of constitutional habit and legal mentality that have never been established before.

Setting up broad constitutional goal is to initiate such a process. As Mr. Zhang Weiguo said in his editorial in the first issue of E-weekly, the political system under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party is a system with a constitution but without constitutional governing. To a certain extent, this is the source of all of China's conundrums. Due to conflict of interests, the Chinese Communist Party still has not proposed any clear goals for constitutional democracy. In such a political situation, pro-democracy forces are obliged to bear the responsibility of initiating the process toward constitutional democracy. Also as an important part of the constitutional movement, we should propose certain constitutional goals to be discusses by the people, and certain constitutional blueprints to be selected by the people. The confederalized constitutional democracy outlined by the 21st Century China Foundation has lead to a discussion broadly participated by various nationalities from both sides of the Taiwan Straight (including mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau). This is a good start. Many ordinary Chinese people are not clear about the goals of the constitutional movement, and are afraid that democratization may lead to the disintegration of their country. The constitutional movement is a forward-looking movement. We believe that the goal of a democracy without disintegration, and a unification without totalitarianism agrees with the wish of the people of mainland China. Such a goal can only increase people's confidence in democracy.

Currently, mainland China faces two kinds of danger. First, the breakdown of the existing order in the political system may lead to the collapse of the country. Second, due to the authorities' continual blocking of the democratization process, China is slipping into Nazism. The only way out for China is for all the nationalities, all the geographical regions, and all political forces to work together to initiate a democratization process and to build a confederative constitutional China. This will meet not only the interests of the mainland Han people, but also the interests of other nationalities in the mainland as well as the people of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. I hope our friends here will spread this important idea, build a common base, form a force, so as to complete the development of a confederalized constitutional democracy.

I look forward to your valuable suggestions as well as actions.

Yang Jianli

Chairman of the 21st Century Foundation

August 1, 2001