On The Conceiving And Evolving Of The Thoughts Of Local Autonomy In Later Qing Dynasty

This paper takes On the Conceiving and Evolving of the Thoughts of Localautonomy in Later Qing Dynasty-from the Opium War to the Eve of ProbationaryConstitutionalism as the subject, mainly research on such essential courses as the influx and propagation of the thoughts of local autonomy from other countries, its initial presentation in China, the evolution of speech and intention and the boom of ideological trend of local autonomy during the period from the Opium War to the eve of Probationary Constitutionalism. The whole paper includes six parts as follows: introduction, the influx and propagation of foreign thoughts of local autonomy, the initial presentation of the thoughts of local autonomy in China, the transformation of the thoughts of local autonomy, the spread of the ideological trend of local autonomy and conclusion.The grounds for the author to select this subject and the perspective, attitude and position of the research are mainly conveyed in the part of "Introduction". In the author's view, it is worthy for us to ponder deeply over these inquires: why local autonomy became popular and found favor in thousands of people's eyes under the changing situation in later Qing Dynasty, and the ideological trend of local autonomy boomed abruptly? And what ever revealed and implicated during this course? Ideological trend was evolved from thoughts, which was also the product of mature thoughts. Consequently, we must explain this ideological trend from the historical perspective. Thus, we cannot avoid narrating and describing the course and details of the conceiving and evolving of the thoughts of local autonomy in later Qing Dynasty.However, any thought or ideological trend is the product of an era, and is the voice of the era. So, in order to explain and unscramble the thought and ideological trend of local autonomy in later Qing Dynasty, we have to examine it under the wide social background at that time and then seek for its causes and particularities. In the meantime, a thought or ideological trend is not only the spirit of the times, but also the natural revelation of people's true feelings. Another way to explain the thought and ideological trend of the local autonomy in later Qing Dynasty is to recur into the surroundings ofVIthat thought and experience the spiritual disposition and character of those thoughtful people.Since ideological trend is not certainly equal to thought, therefore, when we explain and describe the ideological trend of local autonomy, we can not focus mainly on the arguments of several thinkers, but throw light on that of the people in all social circles including the thinkers, as well as their various and particular ways of putting their thoughts. Finally, we need to indicate that an inquiry into the thoughts and ideological trends is not to prove a proposition or a truth, but to confirm a kind of fact or clarify some misunderstandings, and naturally, to open out a kind of thoughts of the Chinese and their ways of thinking during the period from the Opium War to the Constitutionalism Campaign. As for their thoughts and the ideological styles, we can not deny their significance no matter which angle we choose to evaluate them.In the section of "The influx and spread of overseas local autonomous information", the author makes a textual research into the basic situation, route and influence of which the local autonomous thoughts' was introduced to China from western countries and Japan mainly from the dimension of time. Firstly, it was the western missionaries who firstly introduced western local autonomous information into China. It mainly was the introduction of the local parliamentarism and the circumstance of the general election of bureaucracies, which was made in the publications initiated by western missionaries and some western works introduced by them. Secondly, it was the introduction and propaganda of the thoughts of local autonomy in western countries in the works about foreign history, geography and local conditions and customs complied by scholar-bureaucrats...