Sun Yat-sen The Man Who Changed China STELLA DONG
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Kuo Fu the Father of the Chinese Republic
In formulating his famous “Three People’s Principles” (San Min Chu-i 三民主義 ) – the foundation of his political program – Sun reasoned that they “correspond with the principles stated by the 16th President of America, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people.’” These tenets are translated to mean Min Yu (the people to have), Min Chih (the people to govern), and Min Hsiang (the people to enjoy).
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In the fading years of the Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong and Macau became important centres for Chinese emigration as free emigrants and contract coolie labour embarked for foreign shores to be engaged on sugarcane plantations, mining and railroad construction.
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Hong Kong was fast becoming a tropical replica of Victorian England. Prince George (later King George V) proudly described the city in 1881 as, “a little England in the eastern seas.� The far-flung imperial enclave soon gave the impression of offering sanctuary to all comers, Chinese and non-Chinese alike, seeking security and opportunity.
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Dr Sun Yat-sen, ‘Father of the Republic’, returned sporadically to the colony which had helped shape his republican dreams. When entertained at Government House in May 1912, by Sir Claude Severn, the Colonial Secretary (seated with Sun) he was able to renew his acquaintance with his mentor and financial backer (standing left), Sir Kai Ho-kai, founder of the Hong Kong College of Medicine and responsible also for reclaiming land on which Kai Tak Airport was built. Present also are two future Hong Kong governors, (far right) Cecil Clementi (1925-1930) and in uniform, then Head of Police, Henry May (1912-1918). Sun Yat-sen The Man Who Changed China
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Seated left, the Chinese statesman Li Hung-chang (1823-1901) with his identical brother and surrounded by male members of the all-powerful Li clan. Viceroy of the province of Zhili, Li was an influential adviser to the ruling Empress Dowager Tz’u-hsi. China Sun Yat-sen The Man Who Changed China
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was not, as is often asserted, closed off to the world, but its traditional mandarin ruling class saw no need for foreigners or their ways. Li and his peers refuted this, seeing modernization on western lines as a way of strengthening imperial rule, not destroying it. Sun Yat-sen The Man Who Changed China
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Unschooled but shrewd, the Empress Dowager Tz’u-hsi ruled China for nearly half a century. A former concubine of Emperor Hsien-feng, the Empress was canny about her florid and flamboyant life. “I don’t think [Queen Victoria’s] life is half as interesting and eventful as mine,” she once swaggered. Her ill-advised support of the xenophobic Boxer movement led to her eventual downfall and also that of the Ching dynasty. Sun Yat-sen The Man Who Changed China
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On 15 November 1908, the Empress Dowager passed away at the age of 73, one day after the death of Emperor Kuang Hsu whom she had out-maneuvered and isolated as a virtual prisoner in the Summer Palace since his failed attempt 10 years previously to implement reforms. Her funeral brought an outpouring of ritualized grieving as her elaborately decorated cortege was borne through the city’s crowded streets. Sun Yat-sen The Man Who Changed China
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Prince Ch’un 醇親王 , brother of the ill-fated Emperor Kuang Hsu. In her fading days, the Empress Dowager Tz’u-hsi named Prince Ch’un’s three-year old son, Pu-yi, the succeeding emperor of China and she proclaimed his father Prince Regent. At Pu-yi’s coronation ceremony on 2 December 1908, Prince Ch’un accompanied his dispirited son into the Great Hall of Supreme Harmony, and is reported to have whispered into his ear, “Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon” then raised the toddler onto the Dragon Throne. Sun Yat-sen The Man Who Changed China
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Evolving as strongman of China, after the fall of the Empire, Yuan Shi-kai strove to be a national figure. He was adept at double dealing, including forcing the abdication of the Ching after they had rallied to him to save the Empire. He duped Sun Yat-sen and in 1912 took over as President of the Republic. Yuan soon reneged on his promise to uphold the constitution and betrayed the revolutionaries. Not content with this, the diminutive, squat general proclaimed himself emperor. Sun Yat-sen The Man Who Changed China
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The Boxer Rebellion traumatized the prestige of the Chinese Empire. As a consequence, Peking was obliged to pay a crippling indemnity to foreign powers. Students and intellectuals seen here
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at the gates of Peking University on 29 November 1900 held demonstrations to express their anger at the dynasty’s incompetence and the rapacity of foreign aggression.
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Chiang Kai-shek with Soong Mei-ling at home in Nanking shortly after their marriage. In 1928 Chiang Kai-shek became Generalissimo of all Chinese forces and Chairman of the National Government. But Nationalist rule carried weight only in the Yangtze valley area, obliging Chiang to strike-up alliances with warlords who controlled much of the rest of the land to instill the faรงade of a united and consolidated Chinese government.
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After the defeat of Chiang Kai-shek by Mao Zedong’s Communist forces, the Generalissimo with Mei-ling and remnants of his Nationalist government fled to Taiwan where he reconstituted a parallel but illusionary government in the name of the Republic of China. On 1 March 1950, Chiang was elected President by its National Assembly. In this position he continued to claim sovereignty over all of China until his passing on 5 April 1975.
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The apogee of Soong Mei-ling’s fame peaked during her 1943 visit to the United States. In addition to giving a speech to a celebritypacked audience at the Hollywood Bowl, she also was the first non-American and the second woman only to address a joint session of Congress at which she sought financial assistance for her husband’s embattled China campaign. Sun Yat-sen The Man Who Changed China
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American educated Madame Chiang evolved as China’s spokesperson to the West. She was invited to the White House during her 1943 visit to the United States, where she is photographed with Eleanor Roosevelt. For the trip, it was reported, she brought along her own silk bedsheets. Sun Yat-sen The Man Who Changed China
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During days of political retreat, Sun spent time reading, writing and refining his calligraphy. He nurtured a modest library of classic Chinese literature in a study that is now on view to the public. Here he also met with close friends and political associates and hosted informal dinners in the Rue Molière home, in the Shanghai French Concession. Sun Yat-sen The Man Who Changed China
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Upon meeting Soong Ching-ling for the first time in Wuhan in 1927, Vincent Sheean was taken aback and wrote, “It did not occur to me that this exquisite apparition, so fragile and timorous, could be the lady herself, the most celebrated woman revolutionary in the world,� the awestruck journalist recalled in his book, Personal History. Sun Yat-sen The Man Who Changed China
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This is the last known photograph taken of Dr Sun Yat-sen. In November 1924, he departed Canton for talks with Peking warlords. To welcoming crowds on 4 December 1924, he arrived in Tientsin. There he attended a banquet and posed for a group Sun Yat-sen The Man Who Changed China
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picture with local dignitaries. But the day was to prove fateful. That evening Sun took ill and was rushed to Peking where doctors diagnosed him as afflicted with liver cancer. Sun Yat-sen The Man Who Changed China
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Today – millions of Chinese revere Sun Yat-sen as the ‘father of the nation’. Although he spent the greater part of his life outside his homeland, much of it as a peripatetic wanderer, no one was more single-mindedly devoted to the cause of a free and modern China than this missionary-educated son of Chinese peasants. Despite repeated failures and disappointments, Sun refused to abandon his vision. Of all China’s leaders, none is more enigmatic, a sometimes tragic but most often courageous and many-sided figure.
ISBN 978-988-15562-9-5