「立憲」の胎動 : 清朝朝廷の「立憲」構想

In 1905, the imperial edict was issued appointing five officials to inrestigate foreign political systems. In the following year, the mission came back to China, and then the Qing court promulgated the imperial edict, announcing the Preparatory Constitutionalism. On the other hand, in 1902, the details of the foreign constitutions had been already introduced to the Qing court by Zaizhen（載振）. In 1902, Zaizhen dispatehed to the United Kingdom to witness the coronation of King Edward VII, visited France, Belgium, the United States and Japan. It was Tang Wenzhi（唐文治）, a member of the tour with Zaizhen, that wrote an inspection report in Zaizhen’s name. Tang Wenzhi reported the Constitution of the Empire of Japan prescribing the imperial prerogative and stabilizing the succession to the throne. In 1905, before the decision on the dispatch of the Overseas Inspection Tours, Prince Qing Yikuang（慶親王亦劻）, Zaizhen’s father, proposed this dispatch for researching the systems of the foreign constitutional governments and gave a draft by Tang Wenzhi to Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu. Zaize（載沢）, the only member from the imperial family in the five inspection officials, directed his attention to the Japanese Constitution as the subject of the inspection, shortly after his appointment as mission. Thus Zaize was assigned the task of reinvestigating the report on the Japanese Constitution by Tang Wenzhi.