This essay investigates the cultural presuppositions of the innovative way in which Xu Fuguan 徐復觀, answers a major question concerning Chinese culture, asked by Chinese intellectuals since the May Fourth Movement: how best to approach the modernization of China. In the present analysis, I argue that to this end, Xu Fuguan systematically undertook a two-dimensional research project: first, coming to a genuinely reconstructive understanding of the initially Western notion of democracy from within the core of Chinese tradition (Confucianism); second, based on this understanding, building a new historical interpretation of the Chinese past (Confucian thought), thus redefining the Contemporary New Confucians' relation with their own tradition. Both dimensions are cross-cultural, and my intention is to explore in particular a facet of his work, which has not been previously addressed: Xu Fuguan's project as an act of cultural hospitality.