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The history of constitution seeking movement can be traced back to the end of Qing Dynasty. Witnessing the invasion of foreign powers penetrated as time went, Mr. Kang Youwei, Mr. Liang Cichao and others presented suggestion to revive the nation by political reform. Yet such a suggestion was not adopted by the Qing government. Later, because the revolution movement led by Dr. Sun Yet-Sen developed very fast, the Qing government was forced to announce that the Constitution should be made to limit the power of the emperor and guarantee the rights of the people. Such announce eased resistance of the people for the time being. However, the democratic movement was at its full extent and the Democratic Revolution at 1911 just came naturally. The constitutional monarchy turned out to be a failure. After the establishment of the Republic of China, an interim constitution was announced and the Constitution started to be drafted by the congress. However, the congress was disbanded due to the ambition of Yuan Shihkai for the throne. Later on, China fell into a warlords fighting period with an unstable political environment. The Beijing government failed to draw a formal Constitution during this period. After the national government moved its capital to Nanjing city at the success of the Northern Expedition, the government started the state establishing procedure according to the last will of Dr. Sun Yet-Sen, the National Father. The procedure described three stages, namely, military government, instructional government and constitutional government. According to the Fundamentals of National Reconstruction, the work of setting out the Constitution, carrying out Constitutional politics was going to start until the instructional politic work had been done. The provisional constitution was formulated by the National Assembly conference during instructional government period and carried out on June 1, 1931. Shortly after the provisional constitution was enacted, the 9.18 event of Japanese invasion occurred. Some people maintained that the Constitutional politics should be carried out in advance to unify the people and resist invasion of the Japanese warlord. Therefore, the Legislative Yuan started the Constitution drafting work, and after several amendments the Constitutional Draft of the Republic of China (also called Five-Five Constitutional Draft) was officially announce by the national government. The content of the draft met the needs of the nation and fitted into the tide of the era. It had been planned that a National Assembly conference would be called on November 12, 1937 to formulate the Constitution on the basis of the draft. Yet, because the war against Japanese started on July 7th 1937, this work had been stopped.
In April 1938, the national government decided to set up the Political Participation Council of Nationals as an organization for public opinion. A Constitutional Government Development Council consisting of 25 members was established in the Political Participation Council of Nationals to help the national government with Constitutional Government constructing and Constitution revising work. The Five-Five Constitutional Draft Revised Version had been passed on April 2, 1940. Later on, the war situation favored the national government and the time for practicing Constitutional politics was ripe. In order to promote the Constitutional Government constructing work, the presidium of the Political Participation Council of Nationals negotiated with the Central Committee and the two state departments formed the Assisting Council of Constitutional Government Constructing. The Council studied the Five-Five Constitutional Draft and proposed 32 suggestions to serve as a reference to formulate the Constitution after the War was over.
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