Negotiated Power in Late Imperial China: The Zongli Yamen and the
Politics of Reform explores the nature and functioning of reform
during the nineteenth century of China's Qing dynasty (1644-1911).
By analyzing the bureaucratic modes of management that developed
around the creation and evolution of the Zongli Yamen or Foreign
Office (1861-1901), the book demonstrates the vitality of not only
the Chinese State, but also the institutional traditions of its
Manchu rulers. Drawing on precedent and the flexibility of the
administrative system in their efforts to manage the conduct of
foreign affairs, high Qing ministers transformed opportunities for
institutional dynamism into the reality of a functioning central
Zongli Yamen with a foreign affairs field administration supporting
it in the provinces. In the process, they altered the governmental
hierarchy and changed the definition of institutional power in the
multi-faceted area of foreign affairs and, more generally, for the
Qing bureaucracy. As the most significant example of institutional
development in China's critical period of the nineteenth century,
the Zongli Yamen's experience serves as valuable background for
understanding reform efforts in late imperial China and beyond.
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