Leadership Criteria in Late Imperial China

- 17 LEADERSHIP CRITERIA IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA By John Watt, Johnston College, University of Redlands Late imperial China before the nineteenth century was a highly organized bureaucratic state, employing some 27,000 officials to administer a population verging on 300,000,000. How was this monumental task accomplished? Those familiar with the literature on the Ming and Ch'ing dynsasties will be aware that both the central government and local forces utilized the resources of whole classes and status groups to uphold public ideology, assist with tax collection and public security, support public works and more importantly enrich the private incomes of administrators and local power groups. Yet the responsibility for maintaining the administrative machinery in running order and keeping the peace within each territorial jurisdiction rested with a small and highly select group of men. Who were these men? How were they selected and for what objectives, and how were they evaluated? How did they prepare for office and how did they maintain themselves in office? What differences existed between governmental and social criteria and how did they affect individual performance? These - 18 are some of the questions which this paper will explore. Before going further let me explain that this discussion will deal with leadership criteria primarily within the context of local administrative performance. One reason is that Ch'ing commentators themselves felt that responsibility for maintaining peace and order rested principally with local administrators. Other officials were cast in a largely supervisory role; only local administrators actually governed the people. Secondly and concurrently, this area of administration is where my special research interests have lain. A discussion of leadership criteria should also be concerned with formative influences in homes, schools and academies; with the educational requirements of the examination system and the mental and physical stress which that system imposed; or with the broader context of social organization and control. The narrower context taken here should be regarded as a special case, most significant for its relevance both to ideological role playing and to governmental policy. Who, then, were the administrative leaders? According to commentators ranging from emperors to local educational officials, they were the district magistrates. District magistrates were the "father and mother officials", the "officials close to the people", the "shepherds" of the people. "The order or disorder of the - 19 Empire depended on their conduct". While other officials could talk about "promoting good and getting rid of harm", only district magistrates could really carry this out. "If the districts were well managed, then the Empire would be well managed". As these reiterated statements imply, this was a society which attached great significance to paternalistic values. The ultimate political parent was the Emperor himself. But the Ch'ing empire was broad and the child people many. For tangible parental guidance they depended on district officials. Who were the district magistrates? As a general group numbering around 1,500 officials, they were middle-aged men of some wealth and considerable intellectual attainment. The substantial majority possessed advanced examination degrees and the social status that went with those degrees. In an economy of fluctuation and scarcity, their advanced degrees were also a passport to patronage and security. Through strictly enforced "laws of avoidance", magistrates were outsiders within their jurisdictions, unfamiliar with its customs and not infrequently with its dialect. While some served long terms most stayed for considerably less than the allotted three or five year terms of service. In many respects they were men on the move, in office to represent imperial authority and to make their fame and fortune. - 20 How were these men selected for office? Many Westerners now have some knowledge of the Chinese examination system, though perhaps less of its significance in terms of personal conduct and less of other processes of selection which went into the making of an administrator. The examination system itself acted like a narrow bottleneck, separating millions of aspirants from litter ove: 21, 000 people at any one time who qualified by degree for admissioi to office as metropolitan officials or hsien magistrates. Those who held these qualifying degrees had proved an exceptional master of orthodox ideology and unusual ability to analyze questions and form succinct and...