| Prime Minister of the Imperial Cabinet | |
|---|---|
| 大清內閣總理大臣 | |
 | |
| Appointer | Emperor of China |
| Inaugural holder | Prince Qing |
| Formation |
|
| Final holder | |
| Abolished |
|
| Prime Minister of the Imperial Cabinet | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 內閣總理大臣 | ||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 内阁总理大臣 | ||||||
| |||||||
The Prime Minister of the Imperial Cabinet was a position created on 8 May 1911 during the late Qing dynasty,as part of the imperial government's unsuccessful attempts at creating a constitutional monarchy in China.
In the early 1900s, the Qing government began implementing constitutional reform in China in order to prevent a revolution. The reforms included the Outline of the Imperial Constitution passed in 1908, which ordered that elections for provincial assemblies must be held within a year. In May 1911, the government replaced the Grand Council with a thirteen-member cabinet, led by Prince Qing, who was appointed Prime Minister of the Imperial Cabinet. However, the cabinet included nine Manchus, seven of whom were members of the imperial clan. This "Princes' Cabinet" was unpopular among the people and was viewed as a reactionary measure, being described at one point as "the old Grand Council under the name of a cabinet, autocracy under the name of constitutionalism." [1]
When the Wuchang Uprising broke out in November 1911, the imperial court summoned the general Yuan Shikai to command the Beiyang Army and put down the revolution. He was named prime minister on 2 November 1911, shortly after Prince Qing stepped down. He remained in that office until March 1912, when he negotiated with Empress Dowager Longyu the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor. [1]
The post was briefly revived in July 1917 during Zhang Xun's attempt to restore the Qing monarchy, but he only held it for several days before Beijing was retaken by Republican forces.
| No. | Portrait | Name (born–died) | Term of office | Political party | Cabinet | Emperor (Reign) | Ref. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Took office | Left office | Time in office | ||||||||
| 1 |  | Yikuang, Prince Qing (1838–1917) | 8 May 1911 | 1 November 1911 | 177 days | Independent (Imperial Family) | Yikuang | Xuantong (Puyi) (1908–1912) | ||
| 2 |  | Yuan Shikai (1859–1916) | 2 November 1911 | 10 March 1912 | 129 days | Beiyang Clique | Yuan | |||
| Abolished (1912–1917) | ||||||||||
| 3 |  | Zhang Xun (1854–1923) | 1 July 1917 | 12 July 1917 | 11 days | Independent (Warlord) | Zhang | Puyi (unrecognized) | ||
Yuan Shikai was a Chinese general and statesman who served as Prime Minister of the Imperial Cabinet, the second provisional president of the Republic of China, head of the Beiyang government from 1912 to 1916 and Emperor of China from 1915 to 1916. A major political figure during the late Qing dynasty, he spearheaded a number of major modernisation programs and reforms and played a decisive role in securing the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor in 1912, which marked the collapse of the Qing monarchy and the end of imperial rule in China.
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The Wuchang Uprising was an armed rebellion against the ruling Qing dynasty that took place in Wuchang in the Chinese province of Hubei on 10 October 1911, beginning the Xinhai Revolution that successfully overthrew China's last imperial dynasty. It was led by elements of the New Army, influenced by revolutionary ideas from Tongmenghui. The uprising and the eventual revolution directly led to the downfall of the Qing dynasty with almost three centuries of imperial rule, and the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC), which commemorates the anniversary of the uprising's outbreak on 10 October as the National Day of the Republic of China.
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Late Qing reforms, commonly known as New Policies of the late Qing dynasty, or New Deal of the late Qing dynasty, simply referred to as New Policies, were a series of cultural, economic, educational, military, diplomatic, and political reforms implemented in the last decade of the Qing dynasty to keep the dynasty in power after the invasions of the great powers of the Eight Nation Alliance in league with the ten provinces of the Southeast Mutual Protection during the Boxer Rebellion.
The Cabinet of Prince Qing was the first cabinet of the Qing dynasty and of China, formed as part of the Qing state's reforms to create a constitutional monarchy in the early 20th century. It was active from 8 May to 1 November 1911, led by the Prime Minister of the Imperial Cabinet, Yikuang. It initially consisted of thirteen members, of which nine were Manchus while only four were Han Chinese. As a result, it remained unpopular among the people and was nicknamed the "Princes' Cabinet" or "Imperial Family Cabinet"(皇族内阁; 皇族內閣; Huángzú Nèigé) by its critics.
The Qing dynasty held its first set of provincial assembly elections from February to June 1909. Following a lengthy period of political turmoil and the failure of the 1898 Hundred Days' Reform, the constitutionalist movement gained approval from the imperial court and Empress Dowager Cixi in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion. Following administrative and bureaucratic reform, such as the abolition of the imperial examination system in 1905, the Qing government created the Constitutional Commission in preparation for a twelve-year transition from absolutism to a constitutional monarchy. Seeing local self-governance as a valuable initial step towards constitutionalism, the Commission received imperial approval in 1907 to create provincial assemblies.
The Advisory Council, also known as the Government Advisory Council, Political Advisory Council, or Political Advisory Board, was a preparatory body for the parliament established in 1910. It was part of the New Policies in the late Qing dynasty, of which the Qing court was moving toward the implementation of a constitution. In September 1907, the Guangxu Emperor promulgated a decree on the setting up of the Advisory Council, following by the provincial Consultative Bureaus in October.
The political systems of Imperial China can be divided into a state administrative body, provincial administrations, and a system for official selection. The three notable tendencies in the history of Chinese politics includes, the convergence of unity, the capital priority of absolute monarchy, and the standardization of official selection. Moreover, there were early supervisory systems that were originated by local factions, as well as other political systems worthy of mention.
China was a monarchy from prehistoric times up to 1912, when a republic was established. The succession of legendary monarchs of China were non-hereditary. Dynastic rule began c. 2070 BC when Yu the Great established the Xia dynasty, and monarchy lasted until 1912 when dynastic rule collapsed together with the monarchical government. Various attempts at preserving and restoring the Chinese monarchy occurred during and following the Xinhai Revolution, but these regimes were short-lived and lacked widespread recognition.
The Imperial Edict of the Abdication of the Qing Emperor was an official decree issued by the Empress Dowager Longyu on behalf of the six-year-old Xuantong Emperor, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty of China, on 12 February 1912, as a response to the Xinhai Revolution. The revolution led to the self-declared independence of 13 southern Chinese provinces and the subsequent peace negotiation between the rest of Qing China and the collective of the southern provinces.
