This chapter introduces and examines the philosophy of Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927). Kang was one of the most influential figures in modern China. As a philosopher, he created the earliest and most comprehensive philosophical system that synthesizes traditional Chinese and modern Western thought. His intellectual pursuits were strongly motivated by his political and moral ideals: to create a better China and a peaceful world for humankind. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he was among the earliest Chinese enlightenment thinkers who promoted values of democracy, freedom, and equality and advocated institutional reform to save and strengthen China. However, his advocacy of new ideas and reforms in China was all done in the name of Confucianism, which he radically reinterpreted. To undertake his task of reshaping Confucianism, he utilized and expanded the tradition of the New Text School within Confucianism, allowing him great flexibility and novelty in interpreting old texts. After Kang, Chinese thinkers began directly quoting Western ideas or promoting their own new ideas, and sometimes even defended traditional ideas using new terminologies from the West.