Jianhua Chen. World Revolution Knocks the Door of Qing Dynasty——Kang Youwei’s Use of "Revolution" During Reform Movement of 1898[J]. JOURNAL OF UNIVERSITY OF JINAN (Social Science Edition), 2017,27(1):76-87.
Jianhua Chen. World Revolution Knocks the Door of Qing Dynasty——Kang Youwei’s Use of "Revolution" During Reform Movement of 1898[J]. JOURNAL OF UNIVERSITY OF JINAN (Social Science Edition), 2017,27(1):76-87.DOI:
as the ruler of Qing Dynasty failed to deal with the national crisis because of the failure in Sino-Japanese War in 1894
the ideology of revolution has a place to put its feet. Due to the stimulation of Japanese translators and Revolutionary Party led by Sun Yat-sen
China’s revolutionary discourse had a shift in paradigm and began to take the rising mass as the master of history. Kang Youwei’s outlook came into being under this world revolution background. He referred the French Revolution as the Anti-Qing Dynasty Revolution which gave the rebels validity and betrayed the classics where he nestled himself. In the process of analyzing Kang Youwei’s official document in 1898
this paper reveals how his reform theory and practice were constructed by his world revolution view and how he mixed up the world revolution with revolution of King Tang and King Wu literally to make these words "reform movement"
"restoration" and "reform politics" interweave?with the invisible word "revolution" . In fact
the words used by Kang Youwei were characterized with revolutionary discourse and imposed on Qing government instead of using the traditional Confucian way to make it legal. In the process of studying these keywords in traditional context
the analysis in this paper not only crosses the areas like language
politics
Confucian Classics study and elite culture
but also deals with many subtle levels such as mutual authentication
psychological complexity and tension between politics and culture. With the help of all these researches
I hope this paper can bring new thinking dimension to the study of Kang Youwei and "Reform Movement of 1898" .