The San-Min Doctrine and the early legislation of the Nanjing government

Abstract

Shortly after the Nanjing Nationalist government was established, Hu Hanmin and others rejected the existing legal system and proposed instead the San-Min Doctrine legislative principles, which they called society oriented. These principles were derived from Sun Yat-sen’s San-Min Doctrine. A direct manifestation of these legislative principles was the Guomindang’s one-party dictatorship under the system of political tutelage. As the legal system developed during the early period of the Nanjing government, a number of laws were designed to restrain capital and equalize landownership. In his legislative principles, Hu Hanmin understood “obligations centered” to mean “society centered.” When his society-centered principle was applied in laws, the resulting legislation appeared authoritarian in that the state, the nation, and society had the first priority. Therefore, the nature of the political tutelage based on this legislation was closer to feudalism than to modern capitalism.

Keywords:

• society-centered legislative principle
• San-Min Doctrine
• Hu Hanmin

Notes

¹ Rong Mengyuan and Sun Caixia, Zhongguo guomindang, 654.

² Hu Hanmin, Geming lilun, 788.

³ Ibid. However, Sun Yat-sen’s original words cannot be found. Sun once said: “Individuals cannot have too much liberty, but the state should have complete liberty,” Sun Zhongshan quanji, vol. 9, 282).

⁴ Hu Hanmin, Geming lilun, 788.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid., 800.

⁷ Ibid., 801.

⁸ Ibid., 796.

⁹ Ibid., 801–802.

¹⁰ Hu Hanmin, Hu Hanmin xiansheng wenji, vol. 2, 225.

¹¹ Ibid., vol. 2, 249.

¹² Ibid., vol. 2, 261.

¹³ Ibid., vol. 2, 255.

¹⁴ Hu Hanmin, Hu Hanmin xiansheng wenji, vol. 4, 782.

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Sun Yat-sen, Sun Zhongshan quanji, vol. 9, 272.

¹⁷ Ibid., 275.

¹⁸ Ibid., 281.

¹⁹ Ibid., 282.

²⁰ Ibid., vol. 5, 299.

²¹ Ibid., vol. 9, 283.

²² Ibid., vol. 5, 191.

²³ Ibid., vol. 6, 397.

²⁴ Ibid., vol. 5, 250.

²⁵ Ibid., vol. 5, 398.

²⁶ Ibid., vol. 9, 127.

²⁷ Rong Mengyuan and Sun Caixia, Zhongguo guomindang, 658.

²⁸ Hu Hanmin, Hu Hanmin xiansheng wenji, vol. 3, 411.

²⁹ Mei Siping, “Wu quan xianfa.”

³⁰ Huiyi jilu, “Zhongguo guomindang zhongyang zhixingweiyuanhui di yiqier ci changwu huiyi sujilu” [Records of the 172nd Regular Meeting of the GMD Central Executive Committee] October 3, 1928, Zhongguo guomindang wenhua chuanbo weiyuanhui dangshiguan, Class: 2.3, no. 105.1.

³¹ Huiyi jilu, “Zhongguo guomindang zhongyang zhixingweiyuanhui di yibaqi ci changwu huiyi sujilu” [Records of the 187th Regular Meeting of the GMD Central Executive Committee] December 13, 1928, Zhongguo guomindang wenhua chuanbo weiyuanhui dangshiguan, Class: 2.3, no. 105.1.

³² Wang Jingwei, “Wang Jingwei tan yuefa,” 433.

³³ Hu Hanmin, “Geming guocheng,” 115.

³⁴ Zhongguo fagui kanxingshe bianshen weiyuanhui, Liufa quanshu, 9.

³⁵ “Fagui,” 76.

³⁶ “Zhongyang zhengzhi huiyi han guanyu xiuzheng fan geming zhizui fa,” 31.

³⁷ Ibid., 31–32.

³⁸ Lifayuan mishuchu, Lifa zhuankan, 15.

³⁹ “Lifayuan tongguo zhi jingji lifa yuanze”, Fajie, 13.

⁴⁰ Ibid.

⁴¹ Sun Yat-sen, Sun Zhongshan quanji, vol. 6, 252.

⁴² “Lifayuan tongguo zhi jingji lifa yuanze”, 13–14.

⁴³ “Tudifa yuanze,” 17.

⁴⁴ Ibid.

⁴⁵ “Tudifa,” 1.

⁴⁶ Ibid., 3.

⁴⁷ Ibid., 4.

⁴⁸ Hu Hanmin, Hu Hanmin xiansheng wenji, vol. 4, 803.

⁴⁹ Hu Hanmin, Geming lilun, 351.

⁵⁰ Liang Huixing, Minfa zonglun, 41.

⁵¹ Ibid., 42.

⁵² Hu Hanmin, Geming lilun, 788.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yuan He

HE Yuan is a senior research fellow in the Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing. Her research interests include the political theory of the Guomindang and the political history of the Republic of China. She is the author of San-Min Doctrine and Chinese Politics (Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 1st ed. 1995, 2nd ed. 1998, 3rd ed. 2002), Research on “New Life” (Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2011), and the co-author of The Biography of Chen Yi (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2011).