The late Qing political consultative assembly: impeaching the officials of the Grand Council

Thesis

The final decade of the Qing regime (1644–1911) is often portrayed in a light of inevitable corruption and decline, with a dying imperial court bowing out to a brighter republican future. My dissertation joins a body of literature in challenging this conception, revealing that between 1901 and 1911, China was transformed by a wave of legal, educational, and political reforms. I focus on a 1910 attempt to impeach the emperor’s closest advisors, the Grand Council (Junjichu), by members of a provisional parliament, the Political Consultative Assembly (Zizhengyuan). Through numerical and qualitative analysis, I establish that a small but influential faction of Japanese-educated assembly members made impeachment possible, by playing mutually conducive functional roles and deploying two distinct but complementary models of constitutional monarchy. Though impeachment was ultimately unsuccessful, I argue that the assembly’s threats to impeach did have a considerable impact on the imperial court’s decisions. More generally, the willingness of both sides to play by constitutional rules reflect the depth and substance of the 1901–11 reforms.

Authors: Yeung, S

• Type of award: MPhil
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Political Consultative Assembly; Grand Council; Qing Dynasty; Constitutional Reform; Impeachment; New Policies Reform
• Subjects: Qing Dynasty (China); East Asian History