The Tribunal of Censors occupied a position not unlike that of the great independent establishments of the United States government. It was directed by a president and two vice-presidents, and concerned itself with ferreting out and exposing irregularities and abuses in the administration. The morale of the censorate varied from time to time, but at its optimum efficiency it was a formidable and significant institution. Han Confucianism provided the general background from which the organization rose to effectiveness.
This sophisticated and rationally designed central bureaucracy was supplemented by regional administrations. Under the T'ang the regional establishments were a source of trouble to the government. The Empire was divided into provinces, but the provincial administrations were superseded by Imperial Commissioners whenever an emergency arose. Later dynasties placed the provincial system on a more stable basis, which resulted in genuine and geographically sound regionalism. The provincial governments were replicas in miniature of the central; their heads might be regarded as appointive and removable satraps whose authority was a smaller reproduction of the power of the emperor. It was not until the Ming dynasty (a. d. 1368-1643) that the provinces took on their modern form. The provincial governments were a source of great strength to China in that they made possible a quasi-federal government. In the Ch'ing period no officer was eligible to a post in his native province;[9] this custom had considerable centripetal effect and offset the danger that populace and officials, united by common sympathies, might revolt or secede.[10]
Another feature to be noted about the Chinese government under the Empire was the examination and civil service system. The T'ang dynasty provided for three major types of examination: (1) The chü corresponded most closely to a modern academic degree, and allowed the candidate to qualify in any one of a number of subjects, including the classics, law, and mathematics. (2) The hsüan was the special examination necessary for appointment to a post in the bureaucracy; it was both written and oral and included the personal history of the candidate. (3) The k'ao, an in-service examination, consisted of annual reports on the performance of all officers in the Empire. They were transmitted to the Bureau for Examination of Merits in the Ministry of Administrators on a schedule varying with the distance of the office from the capital. There were five points on which to report: virtue and justice; integrity and circumspection; equity and impartiality; diligence and activity; and one of twenty-seven special talents suitable to the particular office in question. The grades received on these reports determined the advancement or demotion of the officer, in accordance with an elaborate and exact schedule.[11] All three examinations provided the administrative form for the close relation between the government and the scholastic elite. The chü, with its emphasis on the classics, framed the content of all curriculums. The hsüan, with its oral examination and personal record, made the prospective candidate careful in observing the customs. The k'ao kept up the morale and efficiency of the bureaucracy, while the ominous Tribunal of Censors was present to guard against abuse of the system. Every detail was precise, well ordered, explicit, to a degree that would delight present-day industrial personnel managers. Formulation was refined and impressive. In fact the T'ang laws, although their part in Chinese life was less than a Westerner might expect, were a code of such force and appeal that the Japanese and the Annamese used them as a model for their juridical systems.[12]
The decline of particular dynasties in China—caused by poor economic policy, demoralization of the court, corruption of the bureaucracy, laxity in the examinations, oppression of the farmers—did not effect great alterations in the structure of government. With the centuries the Chinese government settled into more and more definitive form. Unfortunately, the Manchu government (1644-1911)[13] had sunk into administrative demoralization when the full force of the Western impact was felt. In the early nineteenth century a British observer wrote of an imperial official:
The late tungling [gendarmerie commander] Wanking, degraded last year for connecting himself with a magician whose confessions went to implicate a large number of nobles and public servants, was a Reader at the Classical Feasts, Manchu President of the Board of Civil Office, Revisor-General of the Veritable Records of the Reign, a Superior of the Academy, Supervisor of the Household, t'utung of a Banner [military division], superintendent of the Gymnasium in the Ning-shan Palace, and of the Treasuries of the Board of Revenue, and Visitor of the 17 Granaries in the City, and at Tungchau.[14]
When such conditions of indifference toward sharply defined hierarchic ethics began to be common among the bureaucracy, the end of the dynasty was near. The Chinese Empire had remained intact even when it had fallen into the hands of Tartars, Mongols, and Manchus. It had returned to the bases of its former greatness, and the administrative machinery created since the day of the Shih Huang Ti continued for twenty centuries. With the decrepitude of the Manchu dynasty, and the simultaneous collision with the Western world, the old political system broke and had to be reshaped into new forms. Nevertheless, even in the Republican era techniques of the T'ang have reappeared in the administration of government services.
Underneath all shifts there remained a series of social groupings which were affected far less than were the broad and conspicuous central regimes. They have existed since the times before organized government, and may well be sufficiently strong to set the conditions under which any government or any race of rulers will succeed or fail in China.