EVENTS
Event Highlights
Chinese Culture and Constitution Seminar
2024-02-28
The Maritime Silk Road Society organized a seminar on "Chinese Traditional Culture and National Constitutionalism" on 28 February. Dr Song Sio Chong, PhD in Constitutional and Administrative Law, was the speaker who shared his insight on the integration of Chinese traditional culture with national constitution.
Dr Song first clarified the concept of “constitution” with the participants and mentioned that the history of constitution since ancient times was extremely important. He said that there are strengths and weaknesses in traditional Chinese culture, and how to integrate its essence with constitution is an issue that needs to be addressed continuously. He then analyzed the characteristics and discrepancies between China and the West and pointed out the differences in the understanding of the concept of "democracy" between the two sides.
Dr Song said that China's constitutional system is characterized by a mission-based approach, where the purpose of the election is to select the capable ones with majority votes, and that it demonstrates a consensual approach to democracy. In fact, China is a multi-party co-operative system with a small number of democratic parties under the leadership of the Communist Party thus formulating a more efficient way of governing the country than the ruling party alternation system adopted in the West. Dr Song also gave many concrete examples to illustrate the differences between direct and indirect elections and their advantages and disadvantages.
Finally, Dr Song explained in details that whether traditional culture is suitable for the current situation or not depended on the development of the society and should be integrated and applied to constitutional reform, development and advancement according to the social condition.
