Abstract:

Liang Qichao made great contributions to the spread of “civilization”. His idea of civilization experienced profound changes from the Late Qing Dynasty to the May Fourth Movement. During the Hundred Day’s Reform, he took “civilization” as the direction of social progress. He regarded law as the foundation of civilization and called for reform. During his exile in Japan, influenced by Fukuzawa Yukichi’s theory of civilization, he considered “civilization” as the goal of China’s modernization, and advocated to promote Chinese civilization with “new citizens”. In his later years, he wrote The Records of Travels in Europe, with his concern changed from admiring Western modern civilization for the sake of national “prosperity” to looking back at Chinese tradition to seek the ultimate meaning of life from Confucianism, Daoism and Mohism. He changed from criticizing tradition with modernization to criticizing modernity with tradition. In his later years, he no longer talked about a singular civilization exemplified by the West. On the contrary, He discussed Chinese and Western civilizations of equal status, advocating to recreate a new type of human civilization in the process of Chinese and Western civilizations’ learning from each other and complementing each other. This idea of new civilization that advocated rebuilding a new civilization on the basis of reflecting on modernity, marked the rise of a new enlightenment after the May Fourth Movement.

Key words: Liang Qichao, civilization, modernization, tradition, life