Dynastic China adopted a constitutional system oscillating between a feudal distribution of power and a unitary autocracy.
The first attempt towards constitutionalism was during the Hundred Days' Reform (1898), but a coup d'état by conservative monarchists loyal to Empress Dowager Cixi ended this effort.
The "Provisional Covenants" of 1912 established a parliamentary republic, but a series of written and unwritten changes to the constitution in the ensuing years oscillated between semi-presidential, presidential and monarchical systems of government, until the Kuomintang took power in 1928.
Both the provisional covenants and later constitutional documents authored by the Kuomintang, purported to reflect Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People and Western norms.
In June, the CCP organized the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) to prepare for the establishment of a New Democracy to replace the Kuomintang-dominated Republic of China government.
The meeting approved the Common Program, which was effectively an interim Constitution, specifying the structure of the new government, and determining the name and symbols of the new state.
The People's Republic of China functioned for the next five years under the Common Program, with a degree of democracy and inclusion that has never been seen again in Chinese government to the present day.
On 24 December 1952, Premier Zhou Enlai moved on behalf of the CCP at the 43rd meeting of the first CPPCC Standing Committee for a resolution to draft a permanent constitution.
The resolution was passed, and on 13 January 1953, the Central People's Government appointed a thirty-person drafting committee led by Mao Zedong.
In March 1954, the draft Constitution was passed to the CPPCC and discussed in a national education campaign in the spring and summer of 1954.
On 20 September 1954, exactly five years after the passage of the Common Program, the first meeting of the first National People's Congress unanimously approved the new Constitution.
Formal duties of the President as Head of State were to be performed by the Chairman of the National People's Congress (who was, at the time, Zhu De).
On the one hand, the new Constitution in many places maintained the ideological tone of the 1975 Constitution, such as in Article 16 ("State officials must diligently study Marxism, Leninism, and Mao Zedong Thought, serve the people whole-heartedly ...") and Article 19 ("The fundamental role of the Armed Forces is: [...] defending against destabilisation and invasion from Socio-Imperialism, Imperialism, and their running dogs").
At the same time, the need for "socialist democracy" was emphasized (Article 3), and the 1954 system of government was largely restored, including its significant checks on executive power.
The Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens were greatly expanded, and elevated to Chapter Two, ahead of the provisions for the structure of the government.
Deng Xiaoping, also the Chairman of Central Military Commission, used his formal powers during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre to deploy troops to Beijing in support of the state of emergency declared by Premier Li Peng, and colluded in the subsequent violent crackdown in Beijing,[5] against the wishes of Zhao Ziyang, the General Secretary of the Communist Party.
In a reaction against the conflict between the independent power centers, at the expiration of Deng's term, the new paramount leader, Jiang Zemin, became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, and later took on the position of the Chairman of the Central Military Commission as well.