Abstract:

]With the Yihetuan Movement coming to a climax, and under the pressure of several political forces both at home and abroad, such inspectors and governors in the South as Li Hongzhang, Liu Kunyi and Zhang Zhidong, out of their dissatisfaction with the policies of the Qing government, produced respectively an idea of independence or autonomy. But the subsequent change of the situation prompted them quickly to give up the idea and turn completely to the southeast mutual protection. This protection also displays some idea of independence or autonomy, which, under the political circumstances at that time, highlights the dissociation of the local regime and the central regime, even a spark of "revolution", but, ultimately, does not break through the political limit of local autonomy trend in the late Qing Dynasty. In essence, this protection is a kind of continuation and development of the local autonomy trend in the late Qing Dynasty, reflecting a great political crisis faced by the central regime. In other words, the continuous development of the local autonomy trend in the late Qing Dynasty and the constant intensification of the regional idea based on the geographical complex are important inducement shaping the southeast mutual protection.

Key words: the southe mutual protection, local autonomy, Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, Liu Kunyi