Public Research Edition — August 2026
This section examines the development of republican constitutional institutions from the founding of the Republic of China in 1912 through the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War. It treats republican state form, constitutional aspiration, representative institutions and actual political practice as related but distinct questions.
1912 and the republican constitutional starting point
The establishment of the Republic of China introduced a republican state form and a constitutional vocabulary centered on popular sovereignty, representative government and limits on monarchical power. Subsequent political breakdown did not erase the importance of those institutional claims, but neither did formal republican language guarantee democratic practice.
1915–1928: republican crisis and fragmented authority
The failure of Yuan Shikai’s monarchical restoration was followed by prolonged fragmentation and competing centers of military-political authority. The research therefore separates nominal legal continuity from effective nationwide control.
1928–1945: national reconstruction and incomplete constitutional transition
After the Northern Expedition, a national government again exercised substantially broader nationwide authority. The period nevertheless remained characterized by one-party predominance, limited political competition, wartime emergency pressures and an unfinished transition from political tutelage to full constitutional government. The constitutional debates of 1946 are studied against this longer institutional background rather than as an isolated event.
Free China 