Feng Guifen

(1809 - 1874)

Among the first reformist thinkers in nineteenth-century China, Feng Guifen published Protests from the Study of Jiaobin after Western influences had become further entrenched in the country with the conclusion of the Second Opium War in 1860. About China’s traditions, he wrote, “When methods are faulty, we should reject them even though they are of ancient origins; when methods are good, we should benefit from them even though they are those of the barbarians.”