IV. Conclusion: further barriers ahead?
This paper has argued that constitutionalism in China is, at present, in a theoretical vacuum, one that the party-state, despite initial efforts in this area, has yet to fill. This paper has also argued that this vacuum has real-world impact: if and when the government is drawn into a debate over the current constitutional structure and the need for constitutional reforms, it will face the difficulty of trying to articulate support for the status quo without being able to rely on a Marxist theoretical framework that no longer has significant public or scholarly support.
Yet scholars and legal activists also face significant barriers of their own: though they have offered alternative readings of the Chinese constitution, and have even offered innumerable constitutional reform proposals, they have yet to fully articulate a successful theory of their own – beyond the recitation of various platitudes asserting the importance of constitutional rights protection – to justify their calls for a fundamental change in China’s governance structure. This may be a prerequisite to progress.