The Chinese Constitutional Missions of 1905-1906

Abstract

IN THE summer of 1905 edicts were issued from the imperial palace in Peking appointing five special commissioners to study political systems abrcod. This represented the first concrete action, however indirect, taken by the moribund Ch'ing dynasty toward a change in the form of the government of China, and for this reason it has aroused the interest of historians. As a part of the process in the modernization of China, these missions deserve closer scrutiny. Whether or not the failure of the reform measures in those years was entirely due to the inability of the government to carry them out, or to its insincerity from the beginning, or to some cause inherent in the Chinese approach to the problem, is a significant question. It may be useful to ask just what they were seeking to accomplish when high government officials and some educated groups began advocating constitutionalism in China. One question needs to be disposed of before the missions can be taken up, namely, the role of the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi in the constitutional reforms of this period. The majority of Western writers have tended to regard her as sagacious and statesman-likce, one who saw the needs of the nation and resolutely embarked upon a course of reform. Modern Chinese writers, on the other hand, see in her reform measures a desperate effort to strengthen the dynasty's hold over the country at the expense of real advancement and national salvation. It avails us little, however, to speculate as to the personal motives of Tz'uhsi. Granted that, as the power behind the throne, she was chiefly responsible for the government's efforts, beginning with the constitutional missions of 1905-6. Granted also that, as a dynast, she was never really converted to Western constitutionalism, though under pressure she was ready to adopt structural changes in the government. But the problem of ascertaining the nature of the external pressure and the characteristics of the reforms advocated by the court still remains. For the Peking government the situation in 1905 was far more menacing than has been generally realized. The threats came from two directions. At home the process of national awakening was assuming lively aspects. It expressed itself on the one hand with particular force in antiforeign manifestations. Anti-American demonstrations in 1905, set off by the new immigration regulations, were so widespread and intense that it looked as though popular sentiment was getting completely out of control of the authorities. By the spring of the next year nationalistic manifestations were further fanned into flame by an incident in Kiangsi where a minor local official died of a wound after having conferred with a French priest. The ensuing public reaction was so bellicose that the students, gentry, and the general populace was enjoined, on pain of penalty, to behave more peacefully.' While the edict was un-