Bureaucratic centralization and public finance in late Qing, China, 1900-1911

Through a case study of the reform of public finance in the last decade of the Qing dynasty, this thesis examines a process of bureaucratic centralization that was the late imperial Chinese state's consciously chosen method of modernization. Rejecting views that attribute the shortcomings of the late Qing reforms to the existence of regional centers of power or the Manchu court's lack of commitment to modernizing reforms, this thesis shows that the limitations on the capacity of the state to centralize finances resulted from problems of "bureaucratic culture," i.e. the bureaucratic procedures, habits and ways of thinking that had made the unreformed system decentralized.;The interaction of financial centralization and the late imperial bureaucracy is approached from a number of directions. Chapter one shows how the unreformed Qing state was decentralized, stressing the informal sector of public finance that was beyond the knowledge and control of the central state. Chapter two examines the formation and content of financial centralization policies, showing their relationship to preparations for the establishment of constitutional government. Chapter three demonstrates the role of Xiong Xiling in financial policy-making and analyzes his ideas to show how financial centralization was part of a larger set of policies aiming at expansion of the state and economic development. Chapter four studies the reporting processes that produced China's first national budget in 1911, revealing the bureaucracy-wide obstacles encountered by financial reform. Chapter five examines the new tax-collecting bureaucracy that was organized in Sichuan in 1908, showing both how this new bureaucracy experienced the same problems that had plagued tax collection in the past and how bureaucratic centralization contributed to the 1911 Revolution by alienating local elites whose financial interests were threatened by centralization policies.