YU Keping
In the development of empires, the British Empire has established the most complete and advanced colony system in the world. From the perspective of territory, population, army force, comprehensive power, science and technology level and international influence, the British Empire has achieved the summit of empires historically. The rise of the British Empire contributes to such hard power as science and technology, productivity level, army force and so on, as well as such soft power as national
quality, rule power and political and economic systems. Representative democracy system, established after "Glorious Revolution", brings about technology revolution and industry revolution, which frees social productive power and make the British Empire rise to the earliest industrialized power in the world. It is the decisive factor to the summit of the British Empire. However, the logic of democratic politics is opposed to that of imperial politics. The development of democratic politics is bound to lead to the breakdown of imperial politics. The rise of the British Empire is due to the emergence of representative democracy, while the breakdown of the British Empire is due to the progress of democratic politics. The British Empire is unique in the history of empires in the world whose warning to the mankind is that all the dreams of imperial sovereign go against the mainstream of democratic progress of human beings, and they are bound to be eliminated by the mainstream civilization of human beings.