Kang Youwei, a Cantonese scholar, reinterprets Confucian…

Kang Youwei, a Cantonese scholar, reinterprets Confucian principles to advocate social equality in China.

Kang calls for an end to property and the family in the interest of an idealized future cosmopolitan utopia and cites Confucius as an example of a reformer and not as a reactionary, as many of his contemporaries do.

The latter idea is discussed in great detail in his work Kongzi Gaizhi Kao (孔子改制攷), or Study of the Reforms of Confucius

He argues to bolster his claims that the rediscovered versions of the Confucian classics are forged, as he treats in detail in Xinxue weijing kao (A Study of the 'New Text' Forgeries).

Kang is a strong believer in constitutional monarchy and wants to remodel the country after Meiji Japan.

These ideas anger his colleagues in the scholarly class, who regard him as a heretic.