Excerpt from Modern Constitutional Development in China In the following pages modern Chinese history, from the constitutional point of view, is treated as a continuous development since the inception of reform in 1898 under the Emperor Kuang Hsu. It was only gradually that China was brought to a realization of the necessity for change in her political structure. During the years prior to 1898, it became apparent to a few in the country that the Chinese house must be repaired if it was to remain standing. The "Hundred Days" of reform in 1898 marked the attempt to patch up, without seriously altering, the existing structure. The fundamental nature of the alterations necessary, however, was not appreciated at that time. With the failure of the reform movement came a reaction against change. This reaction against the 'new' culminated in the Boxer uprising. The disastrous termination of the anti-foreign movement brought a deeper realization of the need for radical reforms. The reforms undertaken involved the introduction of a measure of representative government into China. But although committed to the idea of change, the rulers of China were not prepared to move rapidly enough to satisfy the radical element in the reform party and revolution resulted. The revolutionary ideas marked a decided break with the past. Since the revolution of 1911, the history of China has been the attempt to find a middle ground, suited to the needs of the country, between the old traditional life of the State, and the new conceptions of governmental relationships brought to the East from the West. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.