What are the greatest shortcomings of the draft provincial constitution? Let us discuss them in the order of the articles. The first greatest shortcoming is that the rights of the people are insufficiently stipulated. In my opinion, the following three extremely important articles must absolutely be added to the provincial constitution:

(1) All people, regardless of gender, shall have the right to inherit the property of their relatives. However, this shall not apply if a relative wishes to use part or all of their property for public welfare undertakings.

(2) The people shall have the right to freely determine their own marriages. The right to freedom of marriage, except for the legally stipulated marriageable age, shall not be restricted by parents or any other person. Divorce shall not be restricted except in accordance with legal provisions.

(3) The people shall have the right, according to their free will, to seek legitimate professions. All professions such as education, agriculture, industry, commerce, journalism, law, medicine, authorship, the arts, and other professions that do not harm social peace and happiness are considered legitimate professions.

Of these three articles, the first is to remedy the defect of women having no property. Without property, women's efforts to resolve issues of education, profession, political participation, and marriage are all nothing but idle dreams. Property is the root; education, profession, marriage, and the rest are merely branches and leaves. The comrades of the Women's Federation, by not contending for the root but for the branches and leaves, have indeed mistaken their focus. This article would transform China's inheritance system, a matter of great significance, and therefore should be stipulated in the constitution. The second article: In China, children have no right to self-determination in marriage, and this, originating from the family, harms society, with all manner of evils rooted herein. Yet, that children should have the right to self-determination in marriage has already become an unalterable principle. The marriageable age for men and women and the minimum restrictions on divorce (such as mutual consent) should be left to civil law, but the shift of the right to betrothal from parents to children, transforming the evils of our country's marriage system, should be fixed in the constitution; I consider this truly crucial. The third item is especially critical. At present, the number of unemployed and jobless people is so vast; for such a grave social problem, the constitution not stipulating a solution is truly outrageous. Here, stipulating that the people have the right to freely seek legitimate professions is to enshrine the people's "right to subsistence" in the constitution and seek constitutional protection for it. In my view, this is even more important than stipulating the "right to bodily freedom." Then, defining what constitutes a legitimate profession may ensure that future politics becomes a politics of professions, rather than the present politics of vagrants.


The first greatest shortcoming of the draft provincial constitution is as described above. What, then, is the second greatest shortcoming? It is that there are no stipulations whatsoever regarding the right to stand for election for people without legitimate professions, nor any provisions concerning labor matters. That universal suffrage alone is insufficient to solve social problems has already been demonstrated to us by the examples of the advanced countries of Europe and America. Now, taking a step back, even if people without legitimate professions are granted the right to vote, the right to stand for election absolutely must be restricted. Note: the original restrictions were on property; now, the restriction is on profession. Those sitting on property might instead fall under the restriction; I call this a counter-restriction. If there are no professional restrictions on assembly members, then in reality, the rich will still be elected, the poor will be left out, vagrant society will have its representatives, and professional society will have none. The result will still be a politics disadvantageous to the common people. Therefore, I advocate: in addition to the three categories of "soldiers," "officials," and "students" listed in Article 29 as ineligible for election as assembly members, add one more category: "people without legitimate professions" (the definition of legitimate professions has been given above). In this way, those who live off interest, live off inheritance, and professional politicians... will all be ineligible for election. Those elected will all have legitimate professions, thus forming a politics of professions.