Wang Tao

Born Nov. 10, 1828; died 1897. One of the ideological forerunners of the reformist movement in China.

Wang was a native of the Suchou area in Kiangsu Province. From 1849 to 1861 he taught Chinese in an English missionary society in Shanghai. In 1862 he turned to translating and pamphleteering. He advanced a program for stimulating trade and industry and fought for strengthening the military and economic power of China. By means of his writings and his translations of foreign books, he acquainted Chinese readers with the political structure of bourgeois countries. His propuganda on the necessity of reforms greatly influenced the subsequent development of sociopolitical thought in China.