Abstract: The abdication of the Qing Emperor and the Big Compromise in 1912 was a dramatic change in China’s political culture, not only because it represents the transformation from a monarchy to a republic, but also because the compromise, to some extent, updated the “shifts of dynasties” in the traditional sense. In China’s political history, revolutions had been always cruel, in which “emperors died for the nation; officials died for the territory; literati died for the institutions”. “Death” has become a political protocol. However, in 1912, they decided to compromise: the emperor rather granted the nation to the common people than died for it; it was unnecessary for officials and literati to die for the emperor, embracing the new institutions of the “republic”. In various entanglements of home, nation and ethnical groups, “adhesion to the feudalism” lost its rationality and value foundation, while it was an appropriate choice to “compromise”. Western revolutions and modern transitions were usually achieved in the spirit of contract. This kind of compromises guided by the contract spirit is rare in China’s traditional politics. Therefore, if we regard the compromise as a principle of the parliament and constitutionalism, the Big Compromise in 1912 has more specific significance in the sense that it at least terminated the imperialistic politics and culture formally and initiated the modern transformation of China’s politics.