Liang Qichao (Chinese: 梁啓超; Wade–Giles: Liang2 Chʻi3-chʻao1; Jyutping: Loeng4 Kai2 Ciu1; February 23, 1873 – January 19, 1929) was a Chinese politician, social and political activist, journalist, and intellectual. His thought had a significant influence on the political reformation of modern China. He inspired Chinese scholars and activists with his writings and reform movements. His translations of Western and Japanese books into Chinese further introduced new theories and ideas and inspired young activists. Liang was of Taishanese descent.
In his youth, Liang joined his teacher Kang Youwei in the Hundred Days' Reform of 1898. When the movement was defeated, he fled to Japan and promoted a constitutional monarchy and organized political opposition to the dynasty. After the revolution of 1911, he joined the Beiyang government, serving as the chief justice and the first president of the currency system bureau. He became dissatisfied with Yuan Shikai and launched a movement to oppose his ambition to be emperor. After Yuan's death, he served as the finance chief of the Duan Qirui cabinet and as supervisor of the Salt Administration. He advocated the New Culture Movement and supported cultural change but not political revolution.
Liang Qichao was born in a small village in Xinhui, Guangdong Province on February 23, 1873. Liang's father, Liang Baoying (梁寶瑛, Cantonese: Lèuhng Bóu-yīng; courtesy name Lianjian 蓮澗; Cantonese: Lìhn-gaan), was a farmer and local scholar, but had a classical background that emphasized on tradition and education for ethnic rejuvenescence allowed him to be introduced to various literary works at six years old. By the age of nine, Liang started writing thousand-word essays and became a district-school student soon after. Liang had two wives: Li Huixian (李惠仙; Cantonese: Léih Waih-sīn) and Wang Guiquan (王桂荃; Cantonese: Wòhng Gwai-chyùhn). They gave birth to nine children, all of whom became successful individuals through Liang's strict and effective education. Three of them were scientific personnel at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, including Liang Sicheng, the prominent historian of Chinese architecture.
Liang passed the Xiucai degree provincial examination at the age of 11. In 1884, he undertook the arduous task of studying for the traditional governmental exams. At the age of 16, he passed the Juren second level provincial exams and was the youngest successful candidate at that time.
In 1890, Liang failed in his Jinshi degree national examinations in Beijing and never earned a higher degree. He took the exams along with Kang Youwei, a famous Chinese scholar and reformist. According to one popular narrative of Liang's failure to pass the Jinshi, the examiner was determined to flunk Kang for his heterodox challenge to existing institutions, but since the exams were all anonymous, he could only presume that the exam with the most unorthodox views was Kang's. Instead, Kang disguised himself by writing an eight-legged essay espousing traditionalist ideas and passed the exam while Liang's paper, which was assumed to be Kang's, failed.
Inspired by the book Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms by the reform Confucian scholar Wei Yuan, Liang became extremely interested in western political thought. After returning home, Liang went on to study with Kang Youwei, who was teaching at Wanmu Caotang in Guangzhou. Kang's teachings about foreign affairs fueled Liang's interest in reforming China.
In 1895, Liang went to the capital Beijing again with Kang for the national examination. During the examination, he was active in the Gongche Shangshu movement. After failing to pass the examination for a second time, he stayed in Beijing to help Kang publish Domestic and Foreign Information. He also helped to organize the Society for National Strengthening, where Liang served as secretary. For time, he was also enlisted by the governor of Hunan, Chen Baozhen to edit reform-friendly publications, such as the Hunan Daily (Xiangbao 湘報) and the Hunan Journal (Xiang xuebao 湘學報).
As an advocate of constitutional monarchy, Liang was unhappy with the governance of the Qing Government and wanted to change the status quo in China. He organized reforms with Kang Youwei by putting their ideas on paper and sending them to the Guangxu Emperor (reigned 1875–1908) of the Qing dynasty. This movement is known as the Wuxu Reform or the Hundred Days' Reform. Their proposal asserted that China was in need of more than self-strengthening, and called for many institutional and ideological changes such as getting rid of corruption and remodeling the state examination system. Liang thus was a major influence in the debates on democracy in China.
This proposal soon ignited a frenzy of disagreement, and Liang became a wanted man by order of Empress Dowager Cixi, the leader of the political conservative faction who later took over the government as regent. Cixi strongly opposed reforms at that time and along with her supporters, condemned the "Hundred Days' Reform" as being too radical.
In 1898, the Conservative Coup ended all reforms, and Liang fled to Japan, where he stayed for the next 14 years. While in Tokyo he befriended the influential politician and future Japanese Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi. In Japan, he continued to actively advocate the democratic cause by using his writings to raise support for the reformers' cause among overseas Chinese and foreign governments. He continued to emphasize the importance of individualism, and to support the concept of a constitutional monarchy as opposed to the radical republicanism supported by the Tokyo-based Tongmenghui (the forerunner of the Kuomintang). During his time in Japan, Liang also served as a benefactor and colleague to Phan Boi Chau, one of Vietnam's most important anticolonial revolutionaries.
In 1899, Liang went to Canada, where he met Sun Yat-Sen among others, then to Honolulu in Hawaii. During the Boxer Rebellion, Liang was back in Canada, where he formed the "Chinese Empire Reform Association". This organization later became the Constitutionalist Party which advocated constitutional monarchy. While Sun promoted revolution, Liang preached incremental reform.
In 1900–1901, Liang visited Australia on a six-month tour that aimed at raising support for a campaign to reform the Chinese empire and thus modernize China through adopting the best of Western technology, industry and government systems. He also gave public lectures to both Chinese and Western audiences around the country. This visit coincided with the Federation of the six British colonies into the new nation of Australia in 1901. He felt this model of integration might be an excellent model for the diverse regions of China. He was feted by politicians, and met the first Prime Minister of Australia, Edmund Barton. He returned to Japan later that year.
In 1903, Liang embarked on an eight-month lecture tour throughout the United States, which included a meeting with President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington, DC, before returning to Japan via Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
While living in Japan in 1905, Liang supported the Constitutionalist movement within the Qing administration.
The descendant of Confucius Duke Yansheng was proposed as a replacement for the Qing dynasty as Emperor by Liang Qichao.
For the construction of a modern nation-state, Liang focused on two relative political questions. The first was the ways by which people became citizens in a modern nation-state, as Liang thought Chinese needed to improve civic ethos to build the nation-state in the Qing dynasty. The second was the meaning of citizenship itself; Liang thought both questions were important achieving reformation and modernization under Qing rule. In Liang's view, Chineseness was a cultural concept rather than an ethnic concept. Liang viewed China as weak not because of ethnic Manchu rule, but because of its cultural customs formed over millennia. From his perspective, an "imperial strategy" to combine all Chinese ethnicities into one nation was the best path to a strong China.