Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s9.t5: Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan)
Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s9.t5
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Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan)
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Sun Yat-sen, (November 12, 1866 – March 12, 1925), is one of the most prominent figures not only in the modern Chinese political realm but also a political leader of international renown. Although Sun Yat-sen in his many sojourns abroad during his lifetime, never actually travelled to India, he
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Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan)
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remains an extremely popular international figure in the minds of the Indian people. There is even a street in Kolkata named after him. He referred to India a number of times in his writings and speeches. He thought India’s problems were similar to the ones in China during the pre-independence days when much of the country was ruled by warlords and feudal lords.
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He is credited with being the pioneer of the democratic revolution in modern China, the founder of the Republic of China and the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang Party KMT), and the main advocate of the revolutionary programme “San Min Zhu Yi” or “The Three Principles of the People” and the leader to raise the idea of putting an end to the 2,000 year old monarchy in China and bring about republican rule which ultimately paved the way for the unification of China. He is hailed as the “Father of the Republic of China” by the Nationalist Government of KMT and as the “great forerunner of modern democratic revolution by the Communist Party of China.
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Sun Yat-sen was born to a peasant family in Xiangshan County of Guangzhou Province in China. He inherited the tradition of struggle of the people of Guangdong and always aspired to the cause of the Taiping Revolution. He spent his entire lifetime in the effort to transform China from a poor, backward feudal monarchy into forward thinking modern republic, leaving behind an indelible mark of his achievements on the annals of history and precious heritage for his political successors. He received his early education in his native village in the traditional learning of the classics. However, at the age of 13, he migrated to Honolulu along with his mother where he completed his high school and college education studying Western science and Christianity.
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After graduating in Honolulu, he returned to his native village in 1882 briefly to be married which was arranged by his family. He later shifted to Hong Kong to pursue his education in medicine. After completing his medical training Sun Yat-sen went to Macau to practice medicine but unfortunately, was denied permission to stay there by the Portuguese authorities. Thus he returned to Hong Kong where he was witness to the treachery, tyranny and rampant corruption of the Qing government. By this time his interest in politics overshadowed his interest in medicine which led him to begin his crusade against the corrupt Qing government and to formulate a bourgeoisie political programme which would completely transform Chinese political thought. This was the beginning of his political career where he often aired his anti-government views in speeches and had intellectual exchanges with other reform leaders of those times such as He Qi, Zheng Guanying, etc., forming liaisons with anti-Qing secret societies and preparing to form revolutionary groups. In 1894 he wrote a letter to Li Hongzhang, the Governor of Zhili, a high official in the Beiyang government, in which is urged for reforms. Sadly Sun’s appeal fell on deaf ears. In 1894, he returned to Honolulu to organise the “Revive China Society” which promised to “expelling the Manchus and restoring China and forming a unified government. In February of the following year, the local patriotic intellectuals of Hong Kong organised the “Fu Ren Literary Society” which symbolised the Hong Kong branch of the Revive China Society. A secret uprising which was to be organised by the society on October 10 of that year was leaked to authorities and thus failed. Sun Yat-sen was forced to flee abroad. This set the pattern of his life which was punctuated with unorganised plots, failures, execution of coconspirators, overseas wanderings and financial backing for further coups (hostile takeovers). Sun grew a moustache, donned Western-style clothes, and, posing as a Japanese man, set out once again, first to Hawaii, then to San Francisco, and finally to England to visit a former school instructor. Before leaving England, he often visited the reading room of the British Museum, where he became acquainted with the writings of Karl Marx. While in exile in London, he minutely studied the economic and political conditions of Europe and USA, the various schools of thought in political theory and got in touch with several Europeans and Americans who were progressive in their thought. During this period he formulated his distinctive "theory of people's livelihood" and "the three principles of the people". In 1897, Sun reached Japan where he spent the next 16 years in exile like several other leaders of that time. After the Reform Movement, which was led by prominent leaders such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, there were some attempts made by Sun Yat-sen's group to work in conjunction with the reformists. But because the reformists continued their support for the monarchy and were against the revolution, Sun Yat-sen's alliance with them could not bear fruit.
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Sun believed India became a colony solely because the English East India Co., "cunningly" took advantage of the divisive state of Indian feudal society. His advice for India's independence was similar to that for his own country. He said since India was crucial for Britain's economy, "the British authorities would hold on to India with no stone unturned even to the extent of sacrificing everything else." He also predicted that the Indian revolutionary movement would not be smooth sailing and urged the Indians to stay united and persevere in their struggle to end British rule. When he founded the Zhongguo Tongmenghui (League of China) in Tokyo, and started Minbao (People's paper) as its mouth piece in 1905, he met several revolutionaries from India, discussed with them the problems of anti-imperialist struggle and national liberation. He was the greatest inspiration for these revolutionaries. These were the earliest contacts between the revolutionaries of the two countries.
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At the beginning of the World War I, Indian revolutionary organisations inside and outside
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*Front row: Sun Zhongshan (third from left), Huang Xing (second from left), Dai Jitao (Back row: second from left) et al., with Japanese industrialists at the Specie Bank, Shanghai, April 1913.*
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India which advocated armed struggle often sent missions to the far East to purchase arms. They often sought his help. For example, Naren Bhattacharyya (later M. N. Roy), who was a member of a secret organisation in Bengal, and the special envoy of the Ghadar Party in USA, Sachindra Sen (Sachindranath Sanyal) and Vishnu Ganesh Pingle, had all met Sun Yat-sen in China. He did what he could in helping them. When he was in Shanghai and Japan, he helped Rash Bihari Bose (who had made an abortive assassination attempt on Governor General Hardinge in 1912, and had again engineered an armed uprising in Punjab and north India in February 1915 for which he was absconding) to escape arrest twice. He also maintained close contacts and established cooperation with the well-known Indian revolutionary Barkatullah. Indian revolutionaries greatly admired Sun Yat-sen. They also knew that he was an advocate for armed struggle. It was but natural that they would seek his help. Bose recorded the unforgettable memory of how he had been helped by him in his book entitled '*The Revolutionary India*'.
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When Mahatma Gandhi launched the non-cooperation movement, Yet-sen had assumed power in Guangzhou as the Extraordinary President of the provisional government, ready to launch his Northern Expedition against the war-lords. He hailed Gandhi's movement as the "awakening of India". In 1921, he said in a speech: "The Indians have long been oppressed by the British. They have now reacted with a change in their revolutionary thinking... There is progress in their revolutionary spirit; they will not be cowed down by Britain." He departed from his prepared text to specially commend Gandhi's doctrine of non-cooperation while he was speaking and propounding the doctrine of his own three people's principles in 1924. He said: "What is non-cooperation? It is not to supply what the British are wanting. It is not to accept what the British are eager to supply. If the British need workers, no Indian would work for them; if the British bring up a lot of imported goods for the Indian consumption, the Indians should refuse to use them, and only consume their native products. In the beginning, the British had taken this idea lightly. Through the passage of time non-cooperation organisations had mushroomed in India, and this greatly hurt the British economy, hence, the British Government throws Gandhi into prison.” He, then, called upon the Chinese people to emulate the Indian example, become united and act, “sever economic ties” with the imperialists. He continued: “If all Chinese could emulate the Indian example of non-cooperation… we will not be cowed down even if the foreign powers resort to the suppression of armed forces, economic measures, and the presence of their people.”
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*Sun Zhongshan and Song Qingling, Guangzhou, July 1921*
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Sun Zhongshan and Song Qingling with naval sailors and officers on the Yongfeng ship on August 14, 1923.
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Apparently it looked strange that a champion of armed revolution like Sun Yat-sen would be favourably disposed for a non-violent and non-cooperation movement. But he had a wide vision to look at the strategies and tactics of the national struggle from various angles. He dwelt upon the active and passive ways in fighting imperialism: active, like awakening the national spirit, seeking the solutions of people’s power and livelihood, and face-to-face against foreign aggression: passive, ie “non-cooperation, to weaken the role of imperialists, hence safeguarding the national position, avoiding the fate of total extinction.” While he thought that the non-cooperation movement was an effective economic weapon in fighting the foreign rule the people will have to resort to armed struggle to overthrow it. Sun Yat-sen also advocated India-China unification. He wrote in 1923 that “All the oppressed peoples should unify their efforts to fight against the tyranny of foreign aggressors.” “India and China are the backbone of the oppressed peoples in Asia.” In deference to his wishes, the Guangdong revolutionary government and the Kuomintang Party adopted as one of their foreign policies the unification with all the oppressed people, especially with India.
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While Rabindranath Tagore was passing through Hong Kong on the way to his visit to China in 1924, Sun Yat-sen sent a person from Guangzhou to pay him a visit and convey that owing to his illness he would not be able to meet him in Guangzhou or Hong Kong. However, he expressed the hope that he might be able to meet him in Beijing, saying, “Beijing is the life centre of China, the work of the Indian representatives must begin from Beijing. I will meet there at the first available opportunity.” However, it was very unfortunate that he and Tagore - the two towering literary personalities who bore special significance for their respective nations - could not finally meet.
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The Wuchang Uprising broke out on October 10, 1911 which soon spread to several other provinces. Sun Yat-sen who was in the United States of America at the time, returned to China in December after hearing the news of the uprising. On arrival, he was elected as the provisional
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Sun Zhongshan Memorial hall
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President by representatives of 17 provinces to set up the provisional government of the Republic of China. On January 1, 1912 he was proclaimed as the provisional President of the Republic of China in Nanjing. The abdication of the Qing emperor Pu Yi was announced on February 2, 1912 ending the more than 2,000-year old absolute monarchy in China.
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Sun Yat-sen as the President of the Republic formulated and issued a series decrees designed for the systemic reform and progress of China. On March 11, the provisional Constitution of the Republic of China was promulgated. However, soon due to the forces of imperialism and centuries of feudalism as well as the lax and weak revolutionary party itself, Sun Yat-sen was forced to resign from the post of the Provisional President of the Republic on February 13, 1912 to give way to Yuan Shikai. In the next year, he actively promoted people’s livelihood, called for the adoption of equal land rights, and the promotion of industrial projects, personally undertook the supervision of the national railways and making all efforts to borrow foreign capital for the construction of railway lines. But, as the power of governance lay in Yuan Shikai’s hands, his efforts were of no avail.
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Oath taken by Sun Zhongshan on assuming the office of the provisional president.
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With prompting from Russia, Sun Yat-sen arranged an alliance between China’s Nationalist and Communist parties in 1923 to fight the remaining colonial powers and work towards reunification. The great legacy of this move was the cementing of his role as the father of modern China in the eyes of both the Nationalists and Communists. He still plays an important role in the creation myth of today’s Chinese Communist Party.
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In 1924, he was diagnosed with cancer after months of deteriorating health. He spent his final days urging his followers to hold true the goals of revolution through to victory. He died on March 12, 1925 in Beijing was accorded a state funeral.
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(Sabaree Mitra)