Among the leading advocates of reform in the aftermath of China’s defeat by Japan was Kang Youwei (1858–1927), a brilliant Confucian scholar, whose views informed the Hundred Days of Reform in 1898. Understanding Confucius as a reformer, Kang Youwei argued that the Chinese emperor could be an active agent for China’s transformation while operating in a parliamentary and constitutional setting. With its emphasis on human goodness, self-improvement, and the moral example of superiors, Confucianism could provide a framework for real change even as it protected China from “moral degeneration” and an indiscriminate embrace of Western culture. In a memorial to the emperor in early 1898, Kang Youwei spelled out his understanding of what China needed.

KANG YOUWEI

Memorial to Emperor Guangxu

1898

A survey of all states in the world will show that those states which undertook reforms became stronger while those states which clung to the past perished. . . . If Your Majesty, with your discerning brilliance, observes the trends in other countries, you will see that if we can change, we can preserve ourselves; but if we cannot change, we will perish.

It is a principle of things that the new is strong but the old is weak. . . . [T]here are no institutions that should remain unchanged for a hundred years. Moreover our present institutions are but unworthy vestiges of the Han, Tang, Yuan, and Ming dynasties. . . . [T]hey are the products of fancy writing and corrupt dealing of the petty officials rather than the original ideas of the ancestors. To say that they are ancestral institutions is an insult to the ancestors. Furthermore institutions are for the purpose of preserving one’s territories. Now that the ancestral territory cannot be preserved, what good is it to maintain the ancestral institutions?

Nowadays the court has been undertaking some reforms, but the action of the emperor is obstructed by the ministers, and the recommendations of the able scholars are attacked by old-fashioned bureaucrats. If the charge is not “using barbarian ways to change China,” then it is “upsetting ancestral institutions.” Rumors and scandal are rampant, and people fight each other like fire and water. A reform in this way is as effective as attempting a forward march by walking backward. . . . I beg Your Majesty to make up your mind and to decide on the national policy.

After studying ancient and modern institutions, Chinese and foreign, I have found that the institutions of the sage-kings and the Three Dynasties [Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties of very ancient times] were excellent, but ancient times were different from today. I hope that Your Majesty will daily read Mencius [a famous Confucian writer] and follow his example of loving the people. The development of the Han, Tang, Song and Ming dynasties may be learned, but it should be remembered that the [present] age of universal unification is different from that of sovereign nations. . . . As to the republican governments of the United States and France and the constitutional governments of Britain and Germany, these countries are far away and their customs are different from ours. . . . Consequently I beg Your Majesty to adopt the purpose of Peter the Great of Russia as our purpose and to take the Meiji Reform of Japan as the model of our reform. The time and place of Japan’s reforms are not remote and her religion and customs are somewhat similar to ours. Her success is manifest; her example can be followed.