The constitutional system, basic in most Western states, plays a peculiar, subordinate role in China. Consideration of the issue of constitutionalism high-lights the most practical aspects of the issues of full democracy. Although the purely legal aspects of constitutional development are still unimportant in the internal power politics of China, further constitutional development involves a very real shift in the domestic balance of power. The fullness of national unity, and therefore the effectiveness of resistance against Japan, depend in part on the successful solution or compromise of the problems of constitutionalism. Ever since the beginnings of political modernization in China, demands for constitutional government have included a written constitution as an imperative prerequisite. The formidable Empress Dowager was troubled in her last days by the Imperial constitution, a rather unimaginative plagiarism of the Japanese Constitution of 1889. Since the Republic began in 1912, China has continued constitutional drafting, amendment, replacement, and suppression; many of these constitutions have gone into legal effect. Law being what it was, practical politics flowed on untroubled.[1] Only with the establishment of the National Government at Nanking did constitutional structure and actual government develop similarities. [Footnote 1: On the Manchu constitutional programs, see _Columbia University Studies in Political Science_, Vol. XL, No. 1: Yen, Hawkling L., "A Survey of Constitutional Development in China"; Vinacke, Harold Monk, _Modern Constitutional Development in China_, Princeton, 1920; Cameron, Meribeth, _The Reform Movement in China, 1898-1912_, Stanford University, 1931; and Hsieh, Pao Chao, _The Government of China (1644-1911)_, Baltimore, 1925. The earlier constitutional developments under the Republic are summarized in Escarra, Jean, _Le Droit Chinois_, Paris and Peiping, 1936, which includes excellent bibliographies; Tsêng Yu-hao, _Modern Chinese Legal and Political Philosophy_, Shanghai, 1934, Ch. VI, "The Law of Modern Chinese Constitutions"; a characteristic proposal for a pre-Kuomintang constitution is Bau, Mingchien Joshua, _Modern Democracy in China_, Shanghai, 1927; and the works of Lum, Wu, and Linebarger, cited above.] THE _Yüeh Fa_ OF 1931