Wu Hsien-tzu (1881-7 October 1959), Confucian scholar who studied under K'ang Yu-wei and Chien Ch'ao-liang. He was long associated with Li Ta-ming in publishing the Chinese World in San Francisco, and he became head of the Constitutionalist party and chief bearer of the political heritage of K'ang Yu-wei. A native of Shun-te (Shuntak), the richest and perhaps the most culturally developed district in Kwangtung province, Wu Hsien-tzu was born into a merchant family. His grandfather had been a successful trader in the northern parts of the province near the Hunan border. His father was less active, though he had business enterprises in Canton. Although his father died in 1886, when the boy was only six sui, the family remained in comfortable circumstances. Wu Hsien-tzu began his traditional education at the village school in 1887. In 1892 his mother arranged for him to be admitted into the family school of the Mak (Mai) family in the neighboring village, where facilities for more advanced study were available. Two youths of the Mak family were pupils of K'ang Yu-wei (q.v.), and it was through them that Wu first came into contact with the ideas of the prominent reformer.

Wu Hsien-tzu spent four years studying the Chinese classics in the Mak family school. His mother, a free-thinking woman for that period, did not cherish the idea of her son seeking an official career through the imperial examinations. She believed it more practical, and also more profitable, for the boy to follow in the footsteps of his forebears and to pursue a business career. Accordingly, in 1896 she sent him to Canton to work in a cotton firm which his father had founded and in which the family retained a financial interest. Because he had been trained to observe the Confucian virtue of filial piety, the boy did not question his mother's decision.

Wu was, however, temperamentally unable to abandon his books, and he spent his leisure time reading. Noting this, a friend of the family convinced his mother that it would be unfortunate for the lad to interrupt his studies when he could afford to continue them. She was quick to respond to this plea. In 1897 Wu was accepted as a pupil by Chien Ch'ao-liang (1851-1933; T. Chi-chi; H. Chu-chu). Both Chien Ch'ao-liang and K'ang Yu-wei had been students of Chu Tz'u-ch'i (1807-1882; ECCP, I, 91), one of the leading Cantonese scholars of the nineteenth century. Though the two were close personal friends, they held opposing political views. Wu Hsien-tzu already had been converted to the reformist ideas of K'ang Yu-wei, and, during his first year as a student under Chien, he took two months off during the summer to attend lectures given by K'ang at his famous school, the Wan-mu ts'ao-t'ang [cottage of ten thousand trees], near Canton. K'ang left for Peking in the autumn of 1897; and in 1898 he made an abortive attempt to oust the empress dowager. After the failure of the attempt, he was forced to flee from China, and Wu Hsien-tzu had no opportunity for direct contact with him for several years. Wu did, however, continue to enjoy the benefit of personal instruction from Chien Ch'ao-liang, under whom he studied for about six years, from 1897 to 1903.

During his student days at Canton, Wu began writing newspaper articles. In 1900, at the age of 20 sui, he married Huang Shu-fen. In 1902 he went to Kaifeng, Honan, to take the special imperial examination for the chü-jen degree. On his return to Kwangtung from the north, Wu was invited in 1903 to teach in the Yu family school. He moved with the school to Hong Kong the following year.

With that move, Wu Hsien-tzu became involved in journalism. K'ang Yu-wei requested that Wu assist Hsu Gh'in, another disciple of his, in running the Shang Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper which advocated constitutional monarchy for China. Wu Hsien-tzu soon was appointed editor of the Shang Pao, a post he held from 1905 through 1911. During these years, the paper conducted a continuing editorial battle with the Chung-kuojih-pao, the Hong Kong organ of the T'ung-meng-hui. Although K'ang Yu-wei's monarchist organization was initially the stronger, it steadily lost ground in the competition for overseas Chinese allegiance during the final years of the Ch'ing dynasty. During that period, Wu Hsien-tzu played one spectacular role which even his political foes applauded. In 1908 the Chinese authorities got into difficulties with the Japanese over the handling of a Japanese vessel which had been caught smuggling arms. The Japanese government presented harsh demands for settlement of the case. The Chinese in Hong Kong began a boycott of Japanese goods, and Wu Hsien-tzu, through his writings, kept the movement going. The Japanese first attempted, unsuccessfully, to buy him off. They then applied pressure on the Hong Kong government, which ordered Wu's deportation. Wu, however, fought his case in the courts, and he won.

In 1909 Wu visited Southeast Asia, where he served for a brief period with the reformist newspaper in Singapore. There he had to battle formidable editorial opposition from Hu Han-min and Wang Ching-wei (qq.v.), both of whom were then in Singapore writing for the revolutionary Chung-hsing jih-pao. After returning to China in 1910, Wu visited Shanghai and Peking, taking an active part in the organization of the federation of provincial advisory councils that was agitating for the early promulgation of the constitution promised by the Ch'ing government.

After the republican revolution began in October 1911, Wu Hsien-tzu went to Japan to join K'ang Yu-wei, who was launching a new campaign against republicanism. Because K'ang was ill late in 1911, he dictated to Wu his Kjing-ho cheng-Ci lun [on the republican system of government] , which argued that China could only avoid prolonged and disastrous chaos by establishing a constitutional monarchy. In 1912, the year the Chinese republic was founded, Wu Hsien-tzu left Japan and visited Canada, where he spent a month at Vancouver, British Columbia. His original plan to tour other parts of Canada and the United States was interrupted by a message of recall from Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (q.v.), who had decided to accept Yuan Shih-k'ai's invitation to return to Peking. In 1913, when a cabinet was formed by Hsiung Hsi-ling (q.v.), Liang was named minister ofjustice. Wu Hsien-tzu was appointed director of the civil affairs division of the provincial government in his native Kwangtung. He served there for only a short time, however, and had no time to institute administrative reforms before he was transferred to a similar post in Hupeh province early in 1914. Wu did not take up the Hupeh appointment, however, and he later declined an appointment to be superintendent of the Chinese Maritime Customs at Lungchow.

In 1914 Wu established residence at Peking. Although he was made an adviser in the finance ministry and also a counselor in the presidential headquarters, he took no active part in politics. As Yuan Shih-k'ai's monarchical aspirations became increasingly clear in 1915, Liang Ch'ich'ao and Ts'ai O (q.v.) decided to take action against Yuan. Ts'ai proceeded to Yunnan where, with the aid of T'ang Chi-yao, the famous Yunnan revolt of December 1915 was staged. Early in 1916 Liang Ch'i-ch'ao went to Kwangsi to secure the collaboration of Lu Jung-t'ing (q.v.). Hsu Ch'in, who was later to head the Constitutionalist party, was assigned to Kwangtung to mobilize opposition against Lung Chi-kuang. Wu Hsien-tzu was assigned to work with Hsu, but because he was detained in north China, he did not leave for the south until later.

After the death of Yuan Shih-k'ai in 1916, Li Yuan-hung (q.v.) succeeded to the presidency at Peking. Wu Hsien-tzu then served as a counselor in the headquarters of the vice president, Feng Kuo-chang (q.v.). The abortive attempt of Chang Hsün (q.v.) in July 1917 to restore the Manchus to the throne led to a total political split between K'ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, with K'ang supporting the restoration attempt and Liang playing a major role in its suppression. Wu Hsien-tzu later claimed that he made a fruitless attempt at that time to dissuade K'ang Yu-wei from supporting Chang Hsün.

After remaining in Peking for about three years, Wu Hsien-tzu went down to Hong Kong again in the autumn of 1919 and took over the operation of the newspaper Kung-ho jih-pao [republican daily]. When it suspended publication in 1922, he returned to Peking, where he was given a sinecure position with the state council. He paid two visits to Loyang in an unsuccessful attempt to dissuade Wu P'ei-fu (q.v.) from precipitating a civil war with the Fengtien clique led by Chang Tso-lin (q.v.). He also visited Canton, Amoy, and Hainan Island during 1923 and 1924. Early in 1925, on instructions from K'ang Yu-wei, he journeyed to Yunnan, where he saw T'ang Chi-yao (q.v.) and tried to urge him to take a stand against the Canton government. Exploiting the death of Sun Yat-sen, T'ang had assumed the post of acting generalissimo in the hope of rallying support from the southern provinces. But the National Government which was formed at Canton in that year quickly denounced him. When K'ang Yu-wei died at Tsingtao in March 1927, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Wu Hsien-tzu, and Hsu Ch'in met in Tientsin, where Liang then was living, to discuss the continuation of K'ang's work. It was decided that Liang Ch'i-ch'ao should remain in China to supervise the affairs of the Constitutionalist party, that Wu Hsientzu should assume charge of the party's organizations abroad, and that Hsu should go to Mexico to reorganize the bank that the party owned there. The plans were more impressive than their implementation: Hsu was unable to go to Mexico, and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao died at Peking early in 1929. Wu Hsien-tzu, however, did go to San Francisco in the summer of 1928. There he took charge of the newspaper Chinese World, the organ of the Constitutionalist party, which was committed to preserving the political legacy of K'ang Yu-wei. Wu remained in the United States for eight years carrying on a solo crusade, with the aid of his newspaper, against the policies of the Kuomintang, which was rapidly consolidating power in China. In the spring of 1935 he was hospitalized for three months as the result of an automobile accident Wu Hsien-tzu in San Francisco. After his recovery, he made an extensive tour of the Chinese communities in the United States.

Wu Hsien-tzu returned to China in the summer of 1936. At the invitation of Sung Che-yuan (q.v.), he visited Peiping. There he met Carsun Chang (Chang Chia-sen, q.v.), with whom he discussed the possibility of merging Chang's National Socialist party and the Constitutionalist party. A tentative agreement was reached. The leaders of the two groups taking part in the discussions and signing the draft agreement included Chang Tung-sun, Hsu Ch'in, and Lo Lung-chi. Wu was in Peiping in July 1937 when the Sino- Japanese war began. As hostilities spread in north China, Wu moved to the British concession in Tientsin to await developments. He remained in Tientsin until 1940, when he decided to move to Hong Kong.

On his journey south, Wu stopped at Nanking, where Wang Ching-wei had established a Japanese-sponsored regime in March 1940. Wu Hsien-tzu had already refused Wang's invitation to join the regime, but he did call on Wang three times to attempt to convince him of the futility of his so-called peace movement. Wu compared Wang Ching-wei's advocacy of Sino-Japanese cooperation with K'ang Yu-wei's advocacy of the preservation of the monarchy and the theory that both Han Chinese and Manchus were "one family" in the twilight years of the Ch'ing dynasty. Although Wu Hsien-tzu had been an adherent of K'ang Yu-wei, he emphasized that the constitutional monarchists had failed in 1911, while the revolutionaries had succeeded. Similarly, he told Wang Ching-wei, the concept of Sino- Japanese cooperation could not stand up against the more popular principle of Chinese resistance sparked by the Japanese military invasion.

After his arrival in Hong Kong, Wu Hsien-tzu established contact with the leaders of the various minor parties then active in that British colony, particularly Liang Shu-ming (q.v.), who then was editing the Kuang-ming pao [light]. Wu joined the opposition elements which in 1941 formed the League of Chinese Democratic Political Groups (see Chang Lan). He placed little credence in the persisting rumors that the Japanese would attack Hong Kong. Events soon proved him wrong, however, but he nevertheless remained in Hong Kong throughout the years of Japanese occupation. When Hsu Ch'in, head of the Constitutionalist party, died at Tientsin after a long illness early in 1945, Wu Hsien-tzu became the chief bearer of the political heritage of K'ang Yu-wei. That position was confirmed in the immediate postwar period when, at a meeting held at Montreal, Canada, in November 1945, the Constitutionalists reorganized their party as the Chinese Democratic Constitutional party. The use of the word "democratic" was intended to stress that the party, though committed to the fight for sound constitutional government in China, no longer had royalist tendencies. Wu Hsientzu was elected chairman of the reorganized party, with Li Ta-ming (q.v.) as his deputy and head of the American overseas headquarters. Despite the general jubilation in China following the end of the war with Japan, Wu Hsien-tzu took a dim view of the domestic political situation. Writing in the magazine Tsai-sheng [renaissance] in Hong Kong, he warned the Chinese people against the reemergence of civil conflict between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communists. During the summer of 1946, as United States mediation efforts in China disintegrated, Wu participated in an attempt to create a stronger alternative to both the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist party. In August of that year, at a meeting in Shanghai, his Democratic Constitutional party and the National Socialist party of Carsun Chang combined to form the new Democratic Socialist party. Carsun Chang was chosen to be chairman of the new organization, with Wu Hsien-tzu as vice chairman, At that time, the National Government at Nanking was attempting to broaden its base of power and to undercut Communist influence by offering posts to members of minor political parties. Wu thus was named to the State Council at Nanking, but he did not assume office.

Early in 1947, internal dissension wracked the newly formed Democratic Socialist party. After Wu Hsien-tzu had made an unsuccessful attempt to mediate in the dispute, the Democratic Constitutionalist party decided to withdraw from the coalition and to resume its independent status. Meanwhile, a dissident group within the Democratic Socialist party formed a so-called reform committee and elected Wu Hsien-tzu its chairman. Wu, however, was not responsible for the formation of that group and never became actively associated with the move.

In 1949, when Wu Hsien-tzu was 69 sui, his mother died at the advanced age of 86 sui. In keeping with Confucian tradition, he remained inactive during the conventional period of mourning. At the end of 1951, he paid a brief visit to Taiwan at the invitation of the National Government, but soon returned to Hong Kong. Wu then retired from political life, though he occasionally wrote newspaper articles and delivered lectures in the Chinese colleges of the colony. He died ofa heart ailment in Hong Kong on 7 October 1959.