Hi, I was reading up on Li ShiMin and I came across the below phrase on the net where the article claimed that a 17th century philosopher actually praised Li Shi Min for adopting the separation of powers doctrine. Is this accurate? and if it is, what is the source of this quote?

Thank you

西方在十七世纪兴起的分权学说，李世民早在一千多年前就已运用于中国的政治体制，进一步说明了贞观王朝的文明程度是何等之高。http://www.china.com.cn/aboutchina/zhuanti...ent_9350101.htm

Hi Yandao,

The citation claims that Li Shimin adopted "the doctrine of the separation of powers" (分权学说) long before the Europeans did so in the seventeenth century. There is no mention of any 17th-century philosopher.

Cheers,
Madalibi

In what form did this separation of powers take place?

The separation of powers would suggest that at least some portion of Imperial power had to be beyond the reach of the Emperor.

I've read that b/c Li ShiMin knew he had a quick temper and thus prone to making rash actions, he created a separate "cabinet" in which bureaucrats within the cabinet have to approve of imperial orders before those orders can be put into action. However, his successors got rid of this cabinet pretty quick, so if an emperor can do that then the cabinet is probably just for show.

However, I don't have the primary source for this .

The online article, which is rather anachronistic, excessive, and simplistic in its praise for Li Shimin's personality and reign, has the following on the so-called 'separation of powers':

中书省发布命令，门下省审查命令，尚书省执行命令。一个政令的形成，先由诸宰相在设于中书省的政事堂举行会议，形成决议后报皇帝批准，再由中书省以皇帝名义发布诏书。诏书发布之前，必须送门下省审查，门下省认为不合适的，可以拒绝“副署”。诏书缺少副署，依法即不能颁布。只有门下省“副署”后的诏书才成为国家正式法令，交由尚书省执行。这种政治运作方式很有点类似现代民主国家的“三权分立”制...

Translation: The Palace Secretariat issues orders, the Review Secretariat reviews these orders, and the State Secretariat executes the orders. The formulation of a policy is first discussed in a meeting of the chief ministers held in the Policy Hall of the Palace Secretariat, and the consensus is then reported to the emperor for approval. An edict is then issued by the Palace Secretariat in the name of the emperor. But before the edict can be issued, it has to first be sent to the Review Secretariat. If the Review Secretariat finds it to be inappropriate, it can decline to sign the edict. An edict that has not been signed by the Review Secretariat cannot be issued. Only an edict signed by the Review Secretariat can become an official decree of the state, to be handed down to the State Secretariat for implementation. This policy-making process is very similar to the 'threefold separation of powers' seen in modern democratic countries...

My comments:
While the article is generally accurate in its description of the Three Secretariats system found in the Tang central government, its assessment of the origin and function of this system is seriously flawed. First of all, none of the three secretariats originated under Li Shimin's reign or even under the Tang empire. The State Secretariat emerged in Western Han as an agency for handling the emperor's paperwork, and when it gradually became too powerful, the Cao-Wei emperors established the Palace Secretariat to check its power, and reduced its function to that of implementing policy decisions rather than formulating them. Then, when the policy formulation role of the Palace Secretariat in turn made it too powerful, the first Western Jin emperor Sima Yan developed the Review Secretariat to advise him on the soundness of policies formulated and proposed by the Palace Secretariat, as well as to veto any policies that he found to be unsound. During the Age of Fragmentation, the Review Secretariat then gradually became the most influential and powerful branch of the central government in various regimes, due to its proximity to the emperor and its role as the sole intermediary between the Palace and State Secretariats. But if an emperor persisted in ignoring the Review Secretariat's recommendations or remonstrations against accepting a policy proposed by the Palace Secretariat, the members of the Review Secretariat certainly had no power to veto his decision. After all, he was the Son of Heaven and they were only his subjects.

So, rather than an innovation created by Li Shimin for the sake of checking his own arbitrary power, the Three Secretariats system was instead the product of a long evolutionary process that began with the Cao-Wei regime 400 years earlier and was basically completed by the end of the Age of Fragmentation. And far from serving as a restraint on the emperor's power, the system was instead designed to prevent any one branch of the central government from becoming powerful enough to issue edicts in the emperor's name without first consulting the emperor himself. On the surface, it was the Review Secretariat that was approving, modifying, or rejecting each policy proposal from the Palace Secretariat, but in reality it was usually the emperor and the Review Secretariat who were doing this together (unless the emperor either voluntarily or involuntarily gave up his involvement in this process). It was therefore a checks-and-balances arrangement aimed at preserving the dominance of the emperor over his ministers, and not at all like the legislative-executive-judiciary separation of powers practiced in modern democracies.

Yun, you amaze with your knowledge again.

Am I correct in interpreting the first stage of this process as basically being an Imperial conference?

No, I believe it was normally just a meeting of the members of the Palace Secretariat, and the emperor himself did not have to be present.

I should add that the Policy Hall 政事堂 in the article above was effectively the Prime Minister's Office and was actually part of the Review Secretariat, not the Palace Secretariat, during Li Shimin's reign. So it was where the emperor met with the Review Secretariat (which usually included the Prime Minister) to discuss the Palace Secretariat's proposals during the second stage of the policy process. But the Policy Hall was transferred to the Palace Secretariat in 683, because of a resurgence in the Palace Secretariat's powers under Empress Wu, and it was renamed the Palace-Review Department 中书门下 in 723.