Chen Duxiu (1879–42), a standard-bearer of the New Culture Movement who would cofound the Chinese Communist Party, compared China (the “Eastern nation”) and the West in his 1915 article published in the Youth Journal (Qingnian zazhi). Chen attributed China’s “semi-civilized” status and all the major social problems he observed in Chinese society to the ill consequences of the unity between loyalty and filiality. Here, Chen promoted individual freedom, but primarily in the context of eliminating social evils and increasing Chinese citizens’ productivity. In this regard, Chen’s criticism of the “feudal” morality of loyalty-filiality resonated with twentieth-century legal reformers’ efforts in undermining parental authority to facilitate a direct relationship between state and individuals in the service of Chinese national strengthening.