I wonder what the comparable system in China was? Does anyone have some in depth knowledge here? (happy to rtfm if one is available)
In China, on the other hand, there is no major oratory tradition. The way Chinese government contacted the people was by being everywhere and nowhere - omnipresent, through the imperial civil service, and yet unseen. If you wanted to gain influence in the government, you took the imperial examination, became a bureaucrat, rose through the Nine Ranks, and hopefully, by the time you reached the top, you had enough governing experience to see merit in the old way of doing things.
Yes but this was a huge source of instability for the Qing regime. Arguably, the Qing's failure to adapt to the modern world came in part from a cabal of bureaucrats that opposed reforms.
What does everywhere and nowhere, mean, specifically, in the context of a society without telephony and electronic surveillance? What were the means for a local official to adapt policy in the face of pressures and demands from his local stakeholders? How were these pressures transmitted?
Again, happy to read scholarly works well versed in the way of Chinese governing here, this is probably "Basic Chinese government history 101" stuff. :)