LAW Yuk-fun

Photograph of Kang Youwei, circa 1905.
Kang Youwei 康有为, as one of the engineers of the Hundred-Day Reform of 1898, championed for a strong constitutional monarchy in place of Qing imperial rule to facilitate the modernization of China. A coup by conservative elements toppled him from power. Kang fled to Japan and continued to promote constitutional monarchism for China.
Born in Foshan, Guangdong Province, to a scholar-official family, Kang Youwei was raised to be a devoted Confucian