Abstract: Diplomacy of the Song Dynasty is well-known for its failure,and the important reason is the “upsurge” of the capitulationist thoughts during the last years of the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty period.Qin Hui’s is most typical of the thougts. He advocated “Southerners return to the south and northerners return to the north” and that the enemy should be treated with all sincerity.In suing for peace,people should “suffer self aggrievement”,they should stand firmly and never balk at all cost.The source of his thoughts of capitulationism is that in the face of the strong enemy,he utterly lost his mettle;he was sheer egoistical and he catered to the emperor’s thoughts of capitulation with his “loyalty to the throne”; in order to consolidate his position, he did not hesitate to give up national interests;he took “preservation of the southeast” as a facade to conceal his actual purpose of dragging out an ignoble existence.Qin’s thoughts of capitulationism exert an important impact on the later period of the Southern Song Dynasty.

Key words: the Southern Song Dynasty, Qin Hui, Capitulationism