In the beginning of the speech, Prof. Wang pointed out that his topic on constitutional ethics was at first glance not closely related to the topic of the Annual Conference Rule of Law and International Business Ethics, but business and politics were actually inseparable, especially from the Chinese perspective.

 Prof. Wang talked about two basic points. The first point explained the source of the topic. Prof. Wang said that during the Republican period, Lei Bing-nan translated the “Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution”, the masterpiece by the famous jurist Dicey. He gave a unique translation for “constitutional convention” “canonical form”, i.e. the rules for code of law. Later on it was translated into constitutional virtue, indicating the virtue of Constitution, which is the so-called constitutional ethics nowadays. The People’s Republic of China has its own Constitution, but could not be count as a constitutional state, critically because of a lack of constitutional ethics. Prof. Wang also pointed out that the formation of constitutional convention had two requirements: the creator and the keeper of constitutional conventions. And the latter was actually even greater than the former. Constitutional convention reminds us of the USA. As the first president in American history, George Washington chose to abdicate after two tenures although there were no written provisions on the president’s tenure in the Constitution at that time. His successors followed this constitutional convention until Roosevelt served four tenures for the sake of the Second World War. It was the constitutional ethics that made USA a universally acknowledged constitutional country. Just like the USA, China had its own political giants, such as Premier Mao and President Zhou, who showed their greatness in different ways. Deng Xiao-ping is the first political leader resigned from his own position, receiving much respect from the residents. After him, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao also resigned after two tenures. It is praiseworthy for us to build political ethics from the origin of feudal dynasties. Yet we have a long way to go till the establishment of constitutional ethics.

 The second point is directly related to constitutionalism. Prof. Wang believes that constitutionalism is an important symbol of a modern country. He mentioned that, just a day before the forum, Gadhafi died and symbolized the ending of his misrule to a certain extent. Many people disliked Gadhafi because the country had no constitutional ethics under his ruling, not because of the poverty. It was also the case for one of our neighboring countries.

 Constitutionalism is the symbol of a civilized country. Since the modern times, from Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, till Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Jiangzemin, and Hu Jintao have worked hard on it. However, it is found that constitutionalism has always been connected to modernization in China. We were pursuing constitutionalism for the purpose of independence and wealth of our nation, which is different from the perspectives of the western world. We were taught by the western experiences that constitutionalism is the only road to a rich and powerful country, and had they had been working hard for generations for this goal. However, we found alternatives to richness and power other than constitutionalism, and so it is backed off. We turned to more moderate approaches when the link between goal and constitutionalism seemed to be weakened.

 However, Prof. Wang directly pointed out that constitutionalism is more important in winning the true respect and dignity from world compared to economics and military forces. The 2008 Olympic Games was a good example. Our country, as well as every citizen, offered great passion to organize this festival. With a huge investment and careful preparations we finally got the bid to host, winning many votes from the western countries as well. The reason we won the bid laid in the universal acknowledgement of our material and technological progress. Nevertheless we received so many problems during the torch relay. While the majority of protestors were Tibetan separatists and Xinjiang separatists, it was also evident that police force from the western countries stayed sluggish dealing with the events. Why was our endeavor unfavorable? The reason was that our constitutional ethics were not as accepted as our economic development was.

 Finally, Prof. Wang pointed out that we should pay more attention on constitutionalism building apart from economic and military development.

 Applause rose soon after Prof. Wang finished his speech. The audiences were all impressed by Prof. Wang’s deep academic knowledge, moved by his constitutional ambition, and impressed by his consistence in constitutional goal.

Reported by exercitation reporter Ning Du
Translated by Fu Tanping