Kuang Hsu

(given name, Tsai T’ien). Born Aug. 14, 1871, in Peking; died there Nov. 14, 1908. Chinese emperor from 1875 to 1908; nephew of Tz’u Hsi. On June 11, 1898, Kuang Hsu issued a decree on the state’s basic policy course that marked the beginning of the period of limited bourgeois reforms in China. As a result of the palace coup staged by Tz’u Hsi on Sept. 21, 1898, he was taken into custody and confined to the palace, after which he did not take any part in governing the Ch’ing empire.