Who Are They? A Study of Chinese Legislators Elected During the First Nationwide Election in 1912–13

The Chinese, after the 1911 Revolution, held the first and only nation-wide popular election in late 1912 and early 1913, during which the eligible voters, who made up ten percent of the total population, elected over eight hundred senators and congressmen (representatives). Those newly elected legislators traveled to Beijing to convene the first national congress on April 8, 1913, which could be seen as the first democracy in Chinese history. This congress did not last long, however, because it was disbanded by Yuan Shikai on January 10, 1914. Thus, the short existence of this congress has not attracted much scholarly attention.

When we study this congress, important questions should be asked in regard to those eight hundred legislators. Who were those senators and congressmen? What were their family backgrounds? Why could they be elected? What did they do before and during the election? What role did they play in the short-lived congress? Because this congress existed for only nine months, what did they do in the future? Did they collaborate with diverse political parties, such as the CCP and the KMT (or GMD)? All these questions are important scholarly issues concerning the identities of those historical actors of China’s state-building efforts after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. The paper argues that those legislators were Chinese elites from diverse regions and that they had played an important role in shaping China’s republican politics. Because of the future complicated political landscape, they would embark on diverse political roads. Nevertheless, their personal experience mapped modern China’s historical trajectory, in particular during the long 20^th century.