ABSTRACT
We cannot properly understand the concept of ‘constitutionalism’ in the PRC without first ‘decoding’ that concept (as I have noted in Chapter 1). Why? Because despite a very substantial amount of foreign influence, most recently from the West, the concept of ‘constitutionalism’ as it exists in today’s China differs importantly from the Western concept. Those differences in meaning result from differences in culture and language, which themselves result primarily from differences in history between the West and China. 1 For that reason, I gave special attention in Chapter 1 to some historical matters – and particularly to (1) China’s reaction to outside influences (especially legal influences) and (2) recent developments in China’s legal and constitutional system. I asserted that the surface similarity we find between legal concepts, labels and institutions in China and legal concepts, labels and institutions in the Western world can disguise the fact that foreign influences on China’s contemporary legal system have in fact been heavily filtered, or rejected outright, in much the same way that foreign influence of various sorts was filtered or rejected in many circumstances during China’s long and glorious dynastic period. I then explored just what ‘constitutionalism’ in China amounts to today. In doing so, I attempted to provide groundwork for an examination by other participants in the Conference of such concepts as self-government, regionalism, decentralisation, autonomy and the like, especially as those concepts might apply in the case of Tibet.
