What kind of person was the real Kang Youwei in history?

A bourgeois reformist who actively seeks change and searches from top to bottom.

The Reform Movement of 1898 began in the twenty-fourth year of Guangxu (1898). After the failure of the Reform, he fled to Japan, claiming to hold the emperor's belt edict, organizing a royalist meeting, advocating enlightened autocracy, and opposing revolution. After the Revolution of 1911, as the leader of the royalist party, he opposed the Japanese peace system and had been planning Puyi's restoration.

Kang Youwei always claimed to be loyal to the Qing Dynasty in his later years. After Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City by Feng Yuxiang, he personally went to Tianjin to visit Puyi in Jingyuan where he lived. He died of illness in Qingdao on March 31, the 16th year of the Republic of China (1927). As an active member of late Qing society, Kang Youwei embodied the direction of history when he advocated the reform movement. But later, he and Yuan Shikai became the spiritual leaders of the restoration movement.

Extended information

Character evaluation——

Kang Youwei’s life received mixed reviews at that time and later generations. Those who praised him called him a reformer, "Guang Who is the leader of Xiamen? Mr. Kang Youwei of Nanhai. He wrote to Emperor Qing of the Qing Dynasty for the Seventh Anniversary.

As an active member of the late Qing Dynasty society, Kang Youwei embodied the direction of history when he advocated the reform movement and led the Reform Movement of 1898. Those who disparaged him called him a royalist, and Zhang Binglin criticized his conservative ideas a lot in his "Refutation of Kang Youwei's Theory of Revolution". The more important reason is that he did not choose to commit suicide like Tan Sitong, but chose to escape.