Kang Youwei’s Interpretation of Mencius

The purpose of this study is to analyze the interpretation of Mencius by Kang Youwei (1858-1927), a leader of the Confucian movement during the turbulent period of modern China. After presenting Confucius’s great principle as the three ages in the Spring and Autumn Annals and the great unity in the Evolution of the Rites, he reinterpreted Mencius’s thought in the Subtle Principles of Mencius in terms of this principle. First, Kang Youwei, based on Dong Zhongshu’s concept of ‘innate good quality’, not only synthesizes various existing theories on human nature by reinterpreting Mencius’s concept of the goodness of human nature with a focus on the ‘ordinary people’, but also emphasizes that the good nature is the driving force behind the evolution of civilization. Second, Yao and Shun, for Kang Youwei, were sages of democracy who embodied the way of supreme peace and great unity, serving as symbolic figures that promoted moral advancement. Furthermore, nourishing the vast material-moral force, understanding of words, and the reciprocity of relations presented by Mencius were all defined as practices for realizing humanity. Third, Kang Youwei connected the concept of the evolution of the three ages with Mencius’s humane politics, not only presenting the historical development process of government moving toward democracy in the age of supreme peace but also defining Mencius’s political and economic systems, including the well-field land system (井田), in terms of the principle of equality. Fourth, Kang Youwei proposed the principle of equal politics, which makes people equal, and based on the concept of the competitive expansion of humanity, not only explained the process of history evolving from turbulent times to peaceful times but also presented a process of differential realization of benevolence. In conclusion, Kang Youwei, applying the concept of three-age evolution from the Spring and Autumn to the interpretation of Mencius, presented the moral evolutionism. In this view, human civilization progresses through historical stages, rooted in benevolence as the universal essence, with the ultimate goal of creating a world of supreme peace and unity. As humanity evolves, the scope of love expands accordingly, starting from the family, extending to all of humanity, and ultimately encompassing all things, realized in a differentiated way.