Liang Qichao
(1873–1929), Chinese scholar and essayist. Liang Qichao was a reform-minded Chinese scholar and essayist who rose to prominence following the humiliating defeat of China in the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). In 1898, he was among the leading participants of the ill-fated "Hundred Days of Reform" sponsored by the progressive Guangxu emperor. Following the reactionary restoration of Empress Dowager Cixi, Liang fled to Japan, where, for the next fourteen years, he edited a series of influential journals and wrote an impressive range of persuasive and inspiring essays and monographs. His writings at this time advocated political reform or revolution and introduced his contemporaries to Western liberalism, nationalism, and science.
In the aftermath of the Republican revolution of 1911, Liang returned to China and formed the moderate Progressive Party (Jinbudang) that contended with the ruling Guomindang in the nascent National Assembly. He twice served as a cabinet-level minister. With the onset of warlordism in 1917, Liang withdrew to a life of teaching and scholarship during which he wrote prolifically on Chinese culture, literature, and history. These later writings reflected his predominant aspiration for a new cultural synthesis in China that would combine the most worthy and enduring elements of Chinese Confucianism with the social and political principles of Western liberalism.
Further Reading
Huang, Philip C. (1972) Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Modern Chinese Liberalism. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
Tang Xiaobing. (1996) Global Space and the Nationalist Discourse of Modernity: The Historical Thought of Liang Qichao. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
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