SUN YAT-SEN

SUN YAT-SEN. - Cantonese form of the name of Süen-sien (Sun I-hsien), a Chinese political figure and revolutionary. Born on 12 Nov. 1866 into a humble peasant family in the village of Tsuihang, midway between Canton and Macao, he died in Peking on 12 March 1925. He attended the local school, and at the age of eleven went with his elder brother to Honolulu in Hawaii, where he studied at the Iolani College until, at sixteen, he was brought back by his brother out of fear that he was becoming too westernized.

Feeling ill at ease among backward people, he took refuge in Hongkong, where at the beginning of 1884 he was baptized by an American Protestant missionary and on 7 May was married. To devote himself more fully to the revolution without arousing police suspicion, he turned to the study of medicine, first in Canton and then again in Hongkong from 1887 to 1892, when he obtained the degree of bachelor in medicine and surgery. From then on he was known as Dr. Sun Yat-sen, although in fact he never attained the rank of doctor. After the defeats in the Franco-Chinese War of 1884-85 and the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, he attempted a coup in Canton against the Manchu dynasty. But the plot was discovered in time and Sun no longer felt safe in China. During sixteen years of wandering life, he sought refuge in Japan, America, Europe, Siam, Malaya, India, etc., always pursued by the imperial police who placed a price of one million tael on his head, dead or alive. On 11 Oct. 1896 he was therefore kidnapped in the Chinese Legation in London, but an old

teacher from Hongkong managed to secure his release. He continued to travel the world, preaching revolution and democracy to the many Chinese he encountered everywhere. After China’s disasters around 1900, the revolutionary party gained ground and in 1905 serious talk began of a future Chinese Republic. It was the moment when Sun concentrated his reforms around the Three Principles (v.).

In October 1911, the outbreak of the revolution in China found him in Denver, Colorado. Confident of British support, on 23 Dec. 1911 he returned to his homeland, was immediately elected provisional president of the young Republic, and assumed office in Nanking on 1 Jan. 1912. From then on he was regarded as the Father of his Country. Forty-five days later, weary of the presidency, he abdicated in favor of Lüneescache (Yuan Shih-k’ai), on condition that the Emperor also abdicate, which took place on 12 Feb. 1912. Freed from all political responsibility, he set about preaching his new political gospel, the Three Principles. But relations between President Lüneescache and Sun deteriorated, especially when in 1915 the former sought to restore the monarchy in his own favor. Sun again took refuge in Japan, from where he returned in 1916 upon the death of his antagonist. In 1917 a military government was formed in Canton with Sun as generalissimo, and when in 1921 the city proclaimed itself an independent republic from Peking he was elected its president. Immediately he preached the Northern Expedition, which twice came to nothing. Faithful to his grand plans for reform, in January 1924 he admitted the Communist party, desired by Russia, to his Nationalist party, to which Sun had turned for help. Then he resumed preaching his Three Principles once more. On 1 June 1929 his mortal remains were interred in a magnificent marble mausoleum in Nanking.

Pasquale M. D'Elia