Constitutional Protection Movement

A southern Chinese political and military campaign launched in 1917 to defend the Republic of China’s provisional constitution against rule by decree.

Yuan Shikai: A Chinese military and political leader who served as president of the Republic of China from 1912 until his death in 1916. His dissolution of parliament and attempted monarchy prompted the constitutional crisis the movement opposed.
Sun Yat-sen: A Chinese revolutionary and political leader who became a central figure in the Republic of China’s early years. He organized the movement and headed its rival government in Guangzhou.
Guangzhou Military Government: The southern government established in Guangzhou in 1917 by politicians and military leaders opposing Beijing’s dissolution of parliament. It gave the campaign an executive structure separate from the Beijing government.
Canton Coup: The 1917 seizure of power in Guangzhou by military leader Lu Rongting, which curtailed Sun Yat-sen’s authority. The coup fractured the coalition that had launched the constitutional campaign.
1911 Revolution: The revolution that overthrew China’s Qing dynasty and established the Republic of China. It created the republic whose provisional constitution the campaign sought to defend.
Li Yuanhong: A Chinese military and political leader who served as president of the Republic of China after Yuan Shikai’s death. His refusal to endorse the campaign’s restoration effort exposed divisions among constitutionalists.
Extraordinary National Assembly: A rump assembly convened in Guangzhou in 1917 by lawmakers who rejected the dissolution of the Republic of China’s parliament. Its declaration of constitutional protection supplied the movement’s institutional basis.
Chinese warlord era: The period of fragmented military rule in China, conventionally dated from the 1910s to the late 1920s. The movement’s dependence on provincial armies reflected the wider collapse of centralized authority.
Chinese Provisional Constitution of 1912: The constitution adopted by the Republic of China’s National Assembly in 1912, establishing a parliamentary framework. This was the constitutional order the movement claimed to restore.
Duan Qirui: A Chinese general and politician who dominated Beijing politics and served as premier during the movement’s founding crisis. His government’s rejection of parliamentary limits became the campaign’s immediate target.

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