This article explores the different jurisprudential approaches to the interpretation of the constitution of People’s Republic of China to see what they reveal regarding legitimacy in modern China. In detailing the theoretical foundations and evaluating the political aspirations of the Democratic, Normative and Political Schools of thought that comprise contemporary Chinese jurisprudence, it argues that these jurisprudential schools reveal three sources — the people, the rule of law and the Chinese Communist Party — as constitutive and potentially contending sources of legitimacy and sovereignty in Chinese constitutionalism and politics.