Kang Youwei Quotes

Kang Youwei was a Chinese scholar, noted calligrapher and prominent political thinker and reformer of the late Qing dynasty. Through his connections, he became close to the young emperor and fervently encouraged the young monarch to promote his friends and consequently soured the relationship between the emperor and his adoptive mother, the empress dowager Cixi. He was an ardent Chinese nationalist and internationalist. His ideas inspired a reformation movement that was thought to be supported by the weak Guangxu Emperor and, more cautiously, by the powerful Empress Dowager Cixi. Although he continued to advocate a constitutional monarchy after the founding of the Republic, Kang's political theory was never put into practice as he was forced to flee China for constantly attempting to assassinate the empress dowager. He fled to Japan where he gave false informations and negative impressions of the empress dowager Cixi.