|
|
By the end of the nineteenth century, the words of Chinese law had lost their binding power and had become a tool of imperial politics. Both the content and implication of the imperial law would change each time a new emperor was crowned, and a local legal administration arrived as the provincial judges rotated in their assignments.
It was a challenge for Chinese reformers to find an alternative for the imperial law, which has had a historic tendency to submit to political power. It proved to be almost as difficult as changing the Chinese language itself. During China's thousand years of history, reform movements had emerged many times from both the bottom and the top segments of society, but none of them were able to shake the foundation of the traditional power structure. Large-scale peoples' movements, such as the White Lotus Rebellion (1796–1804), inspired by Buddhism, and the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864), motivated by Christian social ideas, were repressed by the imperial court, but not before seriously weakening and almost toppling the Qing dynasty. The ineffectiveness of imperial authority was proven when Emperor Guanxu's Hundred Days' Reform (1898) failed.
Chapter 2: Words and Swords of the
Republican Revolution
Unlike the republican revolution in Western Europe and North America, where peace was proclaimed in the words of constitution, the Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China (1912) marked the beginning of war among several influential warlords who, in the name of the republic, had designs of the throne.
While the Western constitutions could negotiate and redistribute interests and power, as well as override opposition, Chinese words of law, including those of the Constitution, became worthless as they awaited the outcome of these military actions. The Republican Revolution of 1911 led by doctors, scholars, and other men of letters could not succeed without a war because no politician was willing to give up power without a fight.