The dragon was the symbol on the imperial flag and other imperial objects, including the throne or imperial utensil. The dragon was said to have the power to become visible or invisible—in short, the dragon was a in the "divinity business" of the Chinese emperors. The dragon was the crest on royal monuments. The dragon was displayed on the Emperor's robes. The Grand Chair of State was called the "Dragon Throne." The term can be used to refer to a very specific Seat of State in the "Hall of Supreme Harmony". This is a uniquely crafted object which was used only by the Emperor. When European and American military forces pushed their way into the Peking after the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, they were the first men from the West to appear in the presence of the Dragon Throne since Isaac Titsingh and Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest were received with grace and ceremony by the Qianlong Emperor in 1795. William Elliot Griffis was among those who did actually stand with cameras and notebooks before the Dragon Throne on a sunny September day in 1900; and he described what he saw:
History
In Imperial China, the seat of power was called the Dragon's Seat or the Dragon Throne. The process of accession, the ceremonies of enthronement and the act being seated on the Dragon's Throne were roughly interchangeable. The Dragon Throne was an hereditary monarchy in China before 1912. In much the same sense as the British Crown, the Dragon Throne became an abstract metonymic concept which represented the monarch and the legal authority for the existence of the government. According to tradition, the Chinese Empire began with the Qin dynasty in 221 BC; and the chronology of the emperors continued in unbroken succession until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912. For a short time in 1917, to whatever extent the Chinese emperor was held to be as symbol of the state and its people, the Dragon Throne would have been construed as a symbol of a constitutional monarch.
Rhetorical usage
This flexible English term is also a rhetoricaltrope. Depending on context, the Dragon Throne can be construed as a metonymy, which is a rhetorical device for an allusion relying on proximity or correspondence, as for example referring to actions of the Emperor or as "actions of the Dragon Throne." The Dragon Throne is also understood as a synecdoche, which is related to metonymy and metaphor in suggesting a play on words by identifying a closely related conceptualization, e.g.,
referring to a part with the name of the whole, such as "Dragon Throne" for the mystic process of transferring Imperial authority, e.g.,
referring to the general with the specific, such as "Dragon Throne" for emperorship or Imperial China itself, e.g.,
referring to the specific with the general, such as "Dragon Throne" for the long reign of the Qianlong Emperor or equally as well for the ambit of the Imperial system, e.g.,
