. Prior to the creation of the Zongli Yamen, Qing foreign relations were conducted by several different agencies, such as the
Ministry of Rites and the
Lifan Yuan. The Zongli Yamen was the first significant institutional innovation in the central Beijing bureaucracy that the Qing government had made since the
Yongzheng Emperor created the nucleus of the
Grand Council in 1729. The Zongli Yamen was supervised by a controlling board of five senior officials (initially all Manchus), among whom
Prince Gong was the
de facto leader. In their discussions on establishing the new agency, Qing officials reiterated that it was only to be a temporary institution, maintained until the current foreign and domestic crisis had passed. The Zongli Yamen had a relatively low formal status in the Qing administrative hierarchy and its members served concurrently in other government agencies, which further weakened its position. Furthermore, the Zongli Yamen was not the sole policy making body in foreign affairs, a prerogative which still rested in the hands of the emperor. While the Zongli Yamen remained an important body for a few decades after its foundation, its influence was soon overshadowed by influential officials such as
Zeng Guofan and
Li Hongzhang. Nevertheless, it became the means of communication between the Qing government and the foreign ministers to China in
Beijing's legation quarter. The successor to the
Bureau of Translators, the
Tongwen Guan was set up by the Qing dynasty for translating western languages and subordinated to the Zongli Yamen instead of the Hanlin. In 1873, the Zongli Yamen got into a quarrel with the foreign ministers to China over the protocol that was to be followed at their audience with the
Tongzhi Emperor, as the foreign ministers not surprisingly refused to perform the ritual
kowtow to the emperor, with an impasse eventually being solved thanks in part to the Japanese ambassador to China,
Soejima Taneomi. Similar protocol would be followed in 1891 with the ministers' audience with the
Guangxu Emperor. In 1875, the Zongli Yamen began establishing
consulates and
legations in foreign countries staffed by Qing diplomats and assisted by both foreign staff and Qing interpreters trained at the
Tongwen Guan. Through these
permanent diplomatic missions, the Zongli Yamen gained a degree of autonomy in its self-representation and the ability to dispute the views of foreign diplomats in their home countries. Following the
Boxer Rebellion, the Qing government was forced to change its foreign service. According to Article XII in the
Boxer Protocol 1901, the Zongli Yamen was replaced with a Foreign Office, known at the time as the
Waiwubu (), which ranked above the other
six boards in the government; "as the course of subsequent events made clear, the Waiwubu was as ineffective in the establishment of good relations between China and the outside world as the Zongli Yamen had been." == Current Location ==