ABSTRACT
This chapter is an examination of the suppressed liberal force within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with a focus on the ongoing debate on constitutionalism and its applications for China's future political development. It argues that the current debate on constitutionalism in China since May 2013, has revealed a profound division within the Chinese government, as well as among the Chinese population, with regard to the direction for China's future development, and that the social conditions are ripe for the suppressed but longstanding liberal force within the CCP, including liberal Party members and the ideas of liberalism, to turn the tables on the mainstream of Leninist orthodoxy. The powerful Constitutional Movement spearheaded by the "third force" and supported by the CCP in the 1940s was a political movement to terminate one-party rule and return the power to the people assumed to have the choice in establishing the legitimate government through free elections.
