Sun Yat-sen

Chinese revolutionary leader

• Born: November 12, 1866
• Birthplace: Cuiheng, Xiangshan county, Guangdong Province, China
• Died: March 12, 1925
• Place of death: Beijing, China

Sun founded the Kuomintang, or Chinese Nationalist Party, and led the Republican Revolution of 1911. He is honored by both the Communists and the Nationalists as the founder of the Chinese republic.

Early Life

Sun Yat-sen (sewn yaht-sehn) was born in the village of Cuiheng, some eighty miles from Guangzhou (Canton). His family was highly respectable, conservative, and ordinary. His father, a thin, ascetic man with a reputation for honesty, was a small-land owner who also worked as a tailor. Sun’s mother was conservative, observing ancestral rites, enduring bound feet, and teaching filial piety to her six children (Sun Yat-sen was the fifth). She was, however, literate, which was rare among Chinese women of the time. Sun apparently displayed a rebellious spirit from his early youth. He began attending his village school at the age of eight but also worked in the fields after school and during harvest season. By the age of ten, he had protested footbinding and criticized the traditional teaching methods of his school. A good student, Sun studied the Chinese language and the Confucian classics.

Sun’s village was in the area of China most affected by Western influence. Two of his uncles had gone to the United States during the California Gold Rush and never returned, his grandmother told him stories about Westerners, and his elder brother, Sun Mei, emigrated in 1872 to Hawaii, where he became successful as a shopkeeper and as a rice and sugarcane grower. Sun Yat-sen joined his brother in Honolulu in 1879, working in his shop. He soon became bored, however, and went to the Church of England boarding school at Iolani in 1880. There he quickly learned English and became one of the first Chinese to obtain a Western education, studying geography, mathematics, science, and the Bible. He apparently became a convert of Christianity in 1882 and thereafter was an enthusiastic admirer of Western ways. All of this alarmed his elder brother, who sent him home in 1883.

Sun did not fit into village life, however, as he had learned to despise the old ways. He earned the enmity of the villagers by attacking the worship of idols. His father therefore sent him to another Christian school in Hong Kong to forestall further embarrassment. Between 1884 and 1892, Sun attended Queen’s College, married a girl chosen by his parents, and earned a medical degree. His patron in medical school was the English dean of the college, James Cantlie. As the Western powers began to shear away China’s peripheral territories, Sun turned to politics, hatching plots to reform or overturn the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty. By 1894, he had decided to give up the practice of medicine and devote his life to revolutionary activities.

Life’s Work

During the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, which the Chinese unexpectedly lost, Sun launched his first overt attempts at revolution. He founded his first revolutionary party, the Xingzhonghui (Revive China Society), in 1894 among overseas Chinese and plotted an uprising against the dynasty in October, 1895. Before the revolt could be launched, however, the plot was discovered, the Qing officials crushed the organization, and Sun fled the country, a price on his head. He spent most of the next sixteen years outside China, traveling around the world to raise money and popular support for his revolutionary activities from overseas Chinese.

Sun arrived in London in September, 1896, to visit his former mentor, Cantlie, and to raise support for his cause. On October 11, while walking near the Chinese embassy, he was abducted by the Chinese and held prisoner in the embassy. He was to be shipped back to China and executed. Eventually, he got word to Cantlie that he was being held prisoner, and Cantlie obtained his release by taking his case to the London newspapers. Overnight, Sun became famous. He spent the next two years in Europe, reading and studying Western political theory, including the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In 1898, he traveled to Japan, where he continued to build his revolutionary party and to argue against Chinese moderates who believed that the Qing monarchy could be reformed. His organization launched an abortive attack on the dynasty after the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. Undaunted, he traveled around the world again, from 1903 to 1905, raising more support for his plans.

By 1905, Sun was back in Japan, where he founded a new revolutionary party, the Tongmenghui (Revolutionary Alliance), with the goals of destroying the Qing Dynasty, creating a republic, establishing full diplomatic relations with the world, and carrying out a social revolution. This was a significant political party, with branches in China and among overseas Chinese. Between 1906 and 1909, the party launched six revolutionary attempts, all of which failed. Sun’s attempts at violent revolution made him unwelcome in most of Asia. He therefore went to the West again in 1909. In his absence, his party launched two more abortive attempts at revolution before finally succeeding in October, 1911. Sun returned to China in December, 1911, and assumed the office of president of a provisional Chinese republic on January 1, 1912.

However, Sun’s revolution was far from complete. The Qing emperor still occupied the throne, and the foreign powers continued to recognize the Qing as the legitimate government of China. Moreover, Sun’s armies were small and poorly organized. His problem, then, was to develop a power base sufficient to overthrow the Qing. To accomplish this overthrow, he made an alliance with a powerful Qing general, Yuan Shikai, who agreed to support the republic in return for being made the provisional president. Sun hoped that Yuan could be converted to republicanism and that genuine representative institutions could be instituted. To further this end, Sun and his associates founded the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party, also Guomindang) in August, 1912. It soon became clear, however, that Yuan had no loyalty to republicanism and that he aspired to become a new emperor. Consequently, in the summer of 1913 the Kuomintang launched a so-called second revolution. It quickly failed, and Sun once again fled the country, arriving in Tokyo in early December, 1913.

Between 1913 and 1920, Sun struggled to find a formula for successful revolution. His attempts to gain control of the republican government by parliamentary means after Yuan’s death in June, 1916, failed, and he concluded that his only recourse was to establish a rival government in south China. This was accomplished by April, 1921. Sun hoped to launch a “northern expedition” to unify the country, but this required a strong party organization built around Sun’s ideology (sanmin zhuyi, or Three Principles of the People) and outside military support. On January 26, 1923, Sun signed an agreement with the Soviet Union, whereby the Soviets agreed to help unify China. Sun was apparently not attracted by communist doctrines but by the opportunity to obtain military and political assistance. The Soviets hoped to gain control of the Chinese revolution by working within the Kuomintang.

By 1924, the Kuomintang had been reorganized into a tightly disciplined party along the lines of the Soviet Communist Party, and the Chinese Communist Party had allied with the Kuomintang. The Soviets also supplied significant military assistance. Thus strengthened, Sun traveled to Beijing in 1925 to consult with the Beijing government leaders about potential unification of China. While there, in March, 1925, he fell seriously ill and died.

Significance

After Sun’s death, Kuomintang leaders took steps to ensure that his memory would be preserved. Eventually, he was honored as the founder of the republic by both the Nationalists and the Communists. His thought, particularly the Three Principles of the People, was canonized. In the Three Principles of the People (nationalism, democracy, people’s livelihood), Sun attempted to formulate a plan for China’s national development. Nationalism initially demanded the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and then the ousting of the imperialist powers from China. Democracy called for the institution of a republican form of government through three stages of military government, political tutelage, and constitutional government. The people’s livelihood was a quasi-socialist program that explicitly rejected Marxism while advocating such concepts as state ownership of industries. The Three Principles of the People was adopted as the official ideology of the Kuomintang and became the national ideology of the Republic of China on the mainland of China (1927-1949) and on the island of Taiwan after 1949.

Sun was one of the most important political figures of twentieth century China. A short but strongly built man, with a broad face, wide-set eyes, and a high forehead, he had great personal magnetism and a commanding oratorical style. He was courageous, idealistic, and selfless. His career as a revolutionary, though, was marked by a continuous series of debacles and defeats. Many of his failures were attributable to his own limitations as a leader. Too often, he relied on subordinates who flattered him but did not serve him well. His headstrong, impulsive nature led him into many foolhardy, unprofitable adventures. Nevertheless, most Chinese believe him to be the greatest person of China’s twentieth century. He symbolizes honesty, sincerity, and idealism. His writings have exerted enormous influence in China. In spite of his personal and political shortcomings, he epitomizes China’s long struggle to become a modern nation.

Bibliography

Bruce, Robert. Sun Yat-sen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. A short, popular biography, this thin volume encapsulates the major events of Sun’s life and provides a reliable introduction. Contains several pages of photographs.

Chen, Stephen, and Robert Payne. Sun Yat-sen: A Portrait. New York: John Day, 1946. This book is an early attempt to record the essential outline of Sun’s life and to place it within the context of twentieth century China. The authors received the assistance of Sun’s family and the nationalist government, so it has the flavor of an authorized biography.

Leng, Shao Chuan, and Norman D. Palmer. Sun Yat-sen and Communism. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1960. The authors explore the relationship between Sun and Communism, reviewing Sun’s contacts with Western thought and the process of his ideological development. It compares the similarities and differences between his thought and Chinese Communism.

Schiffrin, Harold Z. Sun Yat-sen and the Origins of the Chinese Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. This brilliant, scholarly book explores Sun’s early career, particularly his exposure to Western thought and institutions, and his travels among the overseas Chinese communities. It is an indispensable source for understanding Sun’s early years and his relationship to the larger Chinese revolution.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Sun Yat-sen: Reluctant Revolutionary. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980. Schiffrin provides a balanced appraisal of Sun’s life and career in this well-written biography designed for general audiences. He presents Sun both as a man and as a symbol of China’s national regeneration.

Sharman, Lyon. Sun Yat-sen: His Life and Its Meaning. New York: John Day, 1934. Sharman witnessed the process by which Sun was turned into a national symbol and determined to write a biography that would penetrate beyond the ideological shibboleths to the man himself. As such, this is a critical biography that annoyed many Chinese nationalists. It is an early attempt to present a balanced image of Sun.

Wells, Audrey. Political Theory of Sun Yat-Sen: Development and Impact. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Traces the development of Sun’s ideas about revolution and their impact on Chinese revolutionary leaders and developing countries.

Wilbur, C. Martin. Sun Yat-sen: Frustrated Patriot. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976. Wilbur focuses on the last years of Sun’s career, particularly his efforts to find funding for his revolutionary activities, his search for foreign support, and his relationship with the Soviet Union. He demonstrates how Sun’s hopes were frustrated by the intractable realities within China and by foreign manipulation.

Wong, J. Y. The Origins of an Heroic Image: Sun Yat-sen in London, 1896-1897. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Wong reexamines the events of Sun’s abduction by the Chinese in London, attempting to clarify some of the mysteries surrounding the situation. It is a fascinating exploration of the events themselves and of the way they have entered into the popular image of Sun.