How to Stop Reactionaries From Derailing Reform in China - Paul Monk - The Atlantic: In 1898, leading proponents of political reform in China were killed or exiled. One, Liang Qichao, came to -- of all places -- my own country, Australia. He witnessed the founding of the Australian Commonwealth and wrote to his Chinese readers that China should become a constitutional monarchy with a federal government like Australia's new government. Who would have thought that a highly educated Chinese intellectual would see in far-away Australia a political model for the decadent Middle Kingdom? Yet he did.
In 1911-12, he helped overthrow the Qing and a found a Chinese republic. He led one of several parties in democratic elections in China, in December 1912. Some 40 million male, propertied citizens elected a 596-member National Assembly. It convened in Beijing to deliberate over and create a new republican constitution. This was to be the beginning of a modern, democratic China, inspired by the West, not oppressed or plundered by it. That was exactly 100 years ago next month.