Very Modern Elements inside Our Beloved Emperor

One of the main reasons why I admire Guangxu Emperor so much is due to some modern elements embodied by him, elements that have not been accepted by a great many Chinese until this day. Without much exaggeration, we can title Guangxu as a 'democratic Emperor' for even though he was neither democratically elected nor did he succeed in establishing parliaments, he did believe in almost all modern values esteemed in the Western world: on macro level, he identified with an open free economy based on industry and trade (thus breaking the Confucian dogma of despising commerce) as well as constitutional monarchy with Emperor merely as a figurehead (See the quote: 'As long as the people can be saved, what matters even if I lose power?' ) On micro level, he defended unanimously the freedom of religion as well as the freedom of speech. Guangxu was indeed, to some extent, the first to declare openly, on behalf of the ruler of China, that certain basic human rights are divine and inviolable.

During the Hundred Days Reform, according to 'Court Life in China' by Issac Taylor Headland, Guangxu Emperor issued a decree to allow all Chinese people to memorialize the emperor in sealed memorials. Then, Headland recorded in his book the following incident relating to this decree:

There was at this time a third-class secretary of the Board of Rites named Wang Chao who sent in a memorial in which he advocated:

1. The abolition of the queue.

2. The changing of the Chinese style of dress to that of the West.

3. The adoption of Christianity as a state religion.

4. A prospective national parliament.

5. A journey to Japan by the Emperor and Empress Dowager.

The Board of Rites opened and read this memorial, and, astounded at its boldness, they summoned the offender before them, and ordered him to withdraw his paper. This he refused to do and the two presidents and four vice-presidents of the Board accompanied it with a counter memorial denouncing him to the Emperor as a man who was making narrow-minded and wild suggestions to His Majesty.

Partly because they had opened and read the memorial and partly because of their effort to prevent freedom of speech, Kuang Hsu issued another edict explaining why he had invited sealed memorials, and censuring them for explaining to him what was narrow-minded and wild, as if he lacked the intelligence to grasp that feature of the paper. He then turned them all over to the Board of Civil Office ordering that body to decide upon a suitable punishment for their offense, and assuring them that if they made it too mild, his righteous wrath would fall upon them. The latter decided that they be degraded three steps and removed to posts befitting their lowered rank, but the Emperor revised the sentence and dismissed them all from office, and this was the beginning of his downfall.

Guangxu Emperor could never have agreed with all these radical proposals by that bold young man, yet he would still go at any length to defend his right to express his opinions.

I also found in Charles Denby's 'China and Her People' an excerpt on Guangxu's attitudes towards religious matters, which presented him as a pioneer of freedom and tolerance of religion in China:

In 1891 the present Emperor Kuang Hsu issued a very strong edict commanding good treatment of the missionaries. He therein made the following statement: "The religions of the West have for their object the inculcation of virtue, and, though our people become converted, they continue to be Chinese subjects. There is no reason why there should not be harmony between the people and the adherents of foreign religions."