Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.5, 2013

 

Foreign Factors in Late Qing Constitutional Preparations: A Study Centered on Ariga Nagao and His Group                                  

(Abstract)

 

Sun Hongyun

 

Ariga Nagao was closely involved in preparations for the late Qing constitution: he was the writer of draft reports for Duan Fang and Dai Hongci, officials whom the government had sent to investigate political systems abroad, and he later expounded European and Japanese constitutions and systems of government to the officials Da Shou and Li Jiaju, who had been assigned to investigate foreign constitutions. He also put to the Qing government relatively systematic proposals on the preparation of a constitution, centering on the establishment of the cabinet system of responsibility. His views and suggestions were clearly reflected in the memorials submitted to the court by the officials assigned to investigate political systems abroad. His ideas had a close relationship with the overall thinking and planning relating to the organization of the civil service and with the drafting of a constitution in the preparatory stage of Qing constitutionalism. Under the influence of Ariga Nagao and Hozumi Yatsuka, the late Qing constitutional movement tended to copy the model of Japanese "power politics" adopted after the Meiji Restoration. But the issue of how to handle the relationship among the monarch, the cabinet and Manchu and Han bureaucrats under a system of power politics was the trickiest problem facing governmental reform.