Sun Yat-sen

Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) , "the father of modern China," was the leader of the republican movement that overthrew the Manchu dynasty in China in 1911 and created a republic; he founded the Kuomintang (or "Guomindang") party (KMT), but never held effective power in China himself. However his republican ideas and modernizing vision proved central to China, and he became an iconic hero to the Chinese diaspora across the world.

Life

He, frequently referred to as Sun Wen, and also as Chung Shan (Central Mountain), the latter from his Japanese pseudonym, Nakayama, was born in Guangdong Province near Canton in 1866. He spent 1879 to 1883 in the Kingdom of Hawaii (then an independent country), staying with his brother Sun Mei. During the first three years he attended Iolani College, run by the Anglican Church. In 1883 he attended two terms at Oahu College (Punahou School) under the name Tai Chu. He possibly also attended St. Louis College, a Catholic institution. His lifelong Christianity was formed in large part by his years in Hawaii.

He studied Western medicine in Canton and Hong Kong and worked 1892-94 at the Jinghu Hospital for traditional Chinese medicine in Macao, where he introduced numerous Western practices. His hatred of Western imperialism and his admiration for Japan's successful of modernization, drew him again and again to Japan, where he had numerous friends and supporters.

Revolutionary, to 1911

After 1894 he increasingly was a revolutionary, in touch with anti-imperial elem,ents throughout the Chinese diaspora. In 1894 he petitioned the Manchu viceroy Li Hung-chang for a program of modernization; he was ignored. In 1895, after the disastrous Sino-Japanese war, Sun Yat-sen attempted his first revolution in Canton; this was the first of his ten failed attempts. He escaped to Japan, taking the name Nakayama. He traveled widely, in Asia, Europe and the U.S., preaching revolt and modernity, raising funds and recruiting followers. Several of his most ambitious revolts were staged with foreign assistance, one from Japanese-controlled Taiwan and one from French-controlled Indochina. The stunning triumph of Japan over Russia in 1905 energized his movement. In Tokyo, he appealed to the many Chinese students amd organized his T'ung-meng-hui, or Combined League Society, in 1905. The overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty overshadowed all other goals and tended to obscure the multiple goals within the movement. With a formal organization behind him he redoubled his fund-raising and propaganda campaigns. Hawaiian Chinese, particularly those in the Hilo region, contributed tens of thousands of dollars via small cash donations, the purchase of bonds, or the purchase of gold banknotes. Although a professed socialist, he worked well with capitalists and raised funds by promising businessmen future economic concessions.

In 1911, while Sun Yat-sen was in the United States, revolutionaries in Hankow staged a tentative when, unexpectedly, imperial units joined them. Suddenly all of China realized the incompetent and unpopular Manchu dynasty was rapidly collapsing. Sun Yat-sen returned to a hero's welcome and was immediately elected president of the Chinese Republic. However he was never good at political bargaining and feared the power of imperial army commander Yüan Shih-k'ai, so Sun resigned his office in Yüan's favor and took a planning post in which he formulated ambitious programs for rail and industrial development. China's new republican leaders bivkered endlessly and Yüan--who wanted the throne himself--used force (and international financial aid) to crush liberal parliamentarianism. Sun tried to oust Yüan by calling for a second revolution in 1913; it failed and he again fled to Japan, where his fortunes were at their nadir for years.

Yüan died suddenly in 1916, and power fell to local military leaders who made themselves regional war lords. China had no effective national government from 1916 to 1927. Sun Yat-sen tried to collaborate with Chen Chiungming, the war lord in Canton, seeking a new base of power there. Gradually Sun regained stature as spokesman of the new Chinese nationalism that moved students, professionals and cosmopolitan Chinese in the coastal cities. Hisattacks on the Versailles Treaty gained attention, and Sun's denunciation of Western imperialism as the cause of China's malaise was widely accepted. In 1922, failing to outmaneuver the Canton militarists, Sun fled to Shanghai. There he met the Comintern agent Adolf A. Joffe, who had been sent by Lenin to seek possible allies for Soviet policy. They reached an understanding in 1923 whereby he received Soviet support for a "united front" effort; Sun did not endorse Communism. Soviet agent Mikhail Borodin helped reorganize the KMT on the lines of "democratic centralism" familiar in Communist parties, with leadership securely in the hands of a small group. Fighting forces were equipped and trained, and Chinese Communists--who joined the Kuomintang as part of the agreement--did their part in propaganda and organization to prepare for the military drive by KMT military leader Chiang Kai-shek that was to drive out the war lords. Late in 1924 Sun traveled to North China for a last effort at negotiation with the war lords; but he became ill and died in Beijing on March 12, 1925.

Three Principles

In the early 1920s Sun announced an elaborated vision for China, the "Three Principles of the People" (San Min Chu I). The principles had been forst sketched in 1905 and Sun's statements were not concise or systematic. His program was a political document for the KMT and all of China that became sacrosanct, beyond criticism and change.

The first principle, People's Rule--often translated as Nationalism--was long uppermost in his mind and appealed to the greatest audience. It emphasized the importance of restoring China's equality with the Western powers, who, he said, had made China their collective colony, All Chinese were now called upon to identify with the nation and transcend regionalism and localism. The second principle, People's Authority, often given as Democracy, expressed Sun's ideas about the organization of power. He believed that the people had sovereignty, but were still incapable of exercising it; therefore they must be guided by an elite--the KMT. Drawing freely on Western theories of republicanism, Sun was prepared to grant the people the four powers of election, recall, initiative, and referendum. The government of trained specialists would have five branches: legislative, executive, judicial, civil-service, and censorial. Finally, under minsheng or People's Livelihood, sometimes translated as Socialism, Sun drew on Henry George and other land reformers to argue that a tax on the unearned increment in land values would go far to solve China's fiscal and agrarian problems. Sun's thought was eclectic and unsystematic, and his proposals were often better suited to meeting the tactical needs of the moment than to formulating long-range solutions. The third principle was an outgrowth of China's traditionalism incorporating ideas from socialism (the redistribution of private wealth to achieve equality) and capitalism (the government must represent the people in its effort to regulate capital).

Image and reputation

Sun Yat-sen became an iconic figure for both the Nationalists of the KMT, and the Communists under Mao Zedong, and is revered in Taiwan and highly respected in China in the 21st century.

Bibliography

see also China, history/Bibliography

Biography and ideas

• Bergere, Marie-Claire. Sun Yat-Sen (1998), 480pp, the standard biography, based on rigorous modern scholarship
• Chang, Sidney Hsu-hsin and Gordon, Leonard H. D. All under Heaven . . . : Sun Yat-sen and His Revolutionary Thought. (1991). 253 pp.
• Metzger, Thomas A. "Did Sun Yat-sen Understand the Idea of Democracy? The Conceptualization of Democracy in the Three Principles of the People and in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty" American Asian Review 1992 10(1): 1-41. Issn: 0737-6650 Argues that both men extol the belief in a leadership hierarchy based on degrees of moral and educational enlightenment. Differences resulting from cultural, educational, and economic differences between their countries show Mill stressing the importance of the unpredictable interplay of diverse impulses, while Sun Yat-sen stresses leadership by a group that is publicly and politically supported in its endeavors.
• Moran, Craig Joseph. "Tang Jiyao and Sun Yat-sen: Reform, Revolution and the Struggle for Southern China." PhD dissertation U. of Michigan 1992. 549 pp. DAI 1993 53(11): 4046-A. DA9308405 Fulltext: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Schiffrin, Harold Z. Sun Yat-sen: Reluctant Revolutionary. (1980) 280 pp.
• Sharman, Lyon. Sun Yat-Sen, His Life and Its Meaning: A Critical Biography (1968), first published 1934 online edition
• Wang, Huiyun. "Comparing Discourses on Tradition and Modernization: Sun Yat-sen's and Gandhi's Perspectives on Social Change." PhD dissertation U. of Chicago 1995. 313 pp. DAI 1995 56(3): 1079-A. DA9523535 Fulltext: [ProQuest Dissertations & Theses]]
• Wang, Ke-wen. "Sun Yat-sen, Wang Jingwei and the Guangzhou Regimes, 1917-1925." Republican China 1996 22(1): 1-22. Issn: 0893-2344

National studies

• Boorman, Howard L., ed. Biographical Dictionary of Republican China. (Vol. I-IV and Index. 1967-1979). 600 short scholarly biographies excerpt and text search
• Botjer, George. A Short History of Nationalist China, 1919–1949 (1979). 312pp
• Fairbank, John K., ed. The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 12, Republican China 1912-1949. Part 1. (1983). 1001 pp. ; Fairbank, John K. and Feuerwerker, Albert, eds. The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 13: Republican China, 1912-1949, Part 2. (1986). 1092 pp. summarizes latest scholarship
• Harrison, Henrietta. The Making of the Republican Citizen: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China, 1911-1929. (2000). 270 pp.
• Hsü, Immanuel Chung-yueh. The Rise of Modern China, 6th ed. (1999), textbook with detailed political coverage excerpt and text search
• Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China (1991), 876pp; well written survey from 1644 to 1980s excerpt and text search; complete edition online at Questia

Primary Sources

• Cheng, Chu-yuan, ed. Sun Yat-sen's Doctrine in the Modern World. (1989). 327 pp.
• Wei, Julie Lee; Myers, Ramon H.; and Gillin, Donald G., eds. Prescriptions for Saving China: Selected Writings of Sun Yat-sen. (1994). 328 pp.

See also

• Chiang Kai-shek