The system of government decision-making and its changes in the late Qing

ABSTRACT The government decision-making in the middle and late Qing Dynasty was mainly shown in the process of how government documents and memorials to the emperor were dealt with. Officials who were authorized with the right to submit memorials to the emperor drafted reports on the state affairs to ask for permissions or offer their own opinions, and the emperor replied to them with absolute power. In the late Qing, the Grand Council (Junjichu), the Six Boards (Bu), Zongli Yamen and other institutions were frequently consulted during the two periods of the empress dowagers’ “administering the state affairs behind the curtain” (chui lian ting zheng), so the higher officials’ role in dealing with state affairs gradually increased. The monarch’s routine approval of higher officials’ suggestions made these institutions to a large extent participated in the daily decision-making. However, the monarch’s authority of final decision-making remained unchanged until the establishment of Yuan Shikai’s cabinet in November 1911 when all government affairs followed the cabinet orders. Then the monarch’s decision-making power became void, and the Qing was actually turned into a constitutional monarchy.