2. The Qing Central Government Institutions in Control of the Handicrafts

Abstract

This chapter explores the institutional structure of those agencies of the Qing central government that controlled craft production and construction, together with one of their most important bureaucratic instruments, the handicraft regulations. Temporally it covers the entire range of the dynasty from the Ming-Qing transition through to the demise of the monarchy and the rise of the Republic of China. It does so by concentrating on the craft branches in the capital or in its close vicinity. For the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, during the transition to ‘modernity’ in the sense of mechanized production, innovations in the government vocational schools are discussed, and the industrial policies of the Qing administration are outlined. By the nineteenth century, a divergence between the court and the central government in terms of government policy towards the craft institutions can be analyzed on the basis of official documentation: while the government and provinces had their artisan staff reduced to practically nothing, the court institutions were strengthened rather than weakened.