Entangled political struggles: the Anhui Consultative Council and the Anhui governor in the late Qing dynasty

Following the late Qing constitutional reforms, the establishment of provincial Consultative Councils (ziyiju 咨议局) prompted an adjustment of the existing local power structures. In Anhui Province, the gentry used the Consultative Council as a platform to engage in political negotiation with the provincial governor through the the review and discussion of proposals, thereby intervening in the province’s administrative affairs. However, the effectiveness of their efforts to restrain autocratic power was limited by the institutional arrangements deliberately designed by the Qing court and the governor’s dominant authority. Furthermore, the setbacks of the National Assembly Petition Movement prompted Anhui council members to alter their attitude toward the Qing government and to reconsider the path of political reform. Through an examination of the interactions between council members and the provincial governor, this study reveals, the reconfiguration of local political structures and the adjustment of power relations following the introduction of representative institutions during the late Qing and early Republican periods; on the other hand, it sheds light on the characteristics of the Anhui Consultative Council itself, its connection to the later development of provincial democratic politics, and the intrinsic relationship between the shift from centralization to decentralization at the local level and the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution (xinhai geming 辛亥革命). This analysis provides a new perspective for understanding the dilemmas of Qing constitutional reform and the regime reconfiguration between the late Qing and early Republican eras.