Taiwan Today

The story of China in the modern era is the story of the Revolution initiated by Sun Yat-sen and of the evolution of his "Three Principles of the People". Dr. Sun's concepts of national independence, political democracy, and social welfare dominate the thinking of the Chinese people more completely today than they did half a century ago.

Though the Chinese Communists have tyrannized mainland China for a decade and a half, they have been unable to extinguish the flames lit by Dr. Sun's Revolution in the hearts of the Chinese people wherever they may be. Instead, they have found it politically expedient to pose as his followers in a certain sense.

China in the latter half of the nineteenth century was ruled by the Manchus; she suffered repeated defeats at the hands of foreign powers. The humiliation of military weakness was compounded by bankruptcy of the traditional socio-economic way of life. The influx of foreign influences set off endless conflicts between the old and the new.

In the search for remedies, a variety of formulas was offered. Reform-minded officials such as Li Hung-chang and Chang Chih­-tung, both holding high positions under the Manchus, tried in vain to imitate Western machines and weapons while keeping intact the old social order. Others including Kang Yu-wei and Liang Chi-chao vainly attempted to turn an absolute monarchy into a constitu­tional one. Later there appeared advocates of Western radical ideas: "wholesale Western­ization", anarchism, and socialism. But most of these were merely academic concepts among a handful of Chinese intellectuals, without any practical programs of implementation.

Dr. Sun was the first great revolutionary in both thought and action that China had produced in many a century. In his San Min Chu I or Three Principles of the People, he combined both Chinese ideas and Western theories. While others were content with limited reform, he considered it necessary to make thorough changes in China's socio-economic system to rejuvenate the "sick man of Asia", as China was called before the turn of the century.

Party of 1905

Trained in medicine, Sun Yat-sen had turned his thoughts to saving the country after the war with France in 1884-85. As early as then, he began to plan a revolution against the Manchus. In 1895, he instigated his first insurrection at Canton. That was the year of China's ignominious defeat by Japan, another Asian nation for which the Chinese people at the time had nothing but contempt. In that abortive attempt, three comrades lost their lives and 70 others were arrested. Dr. Sun fled to Hawaii, where he had received part of his early education. There he continued to carry out the activities of the Hsing Chung Hui (Society for Rebuilding China), his first revolutionary organization set up in 1894.

In 1900 came the second uprising against the Manchus at Huichow in Kwangtung province. Dr. Sun directed this campaign from Taiwan. But the revolutionary movement did not gain an appreciable following until 1905, when he founded the Tung Meng Hui (Society of the Common Cause) in Tokyo. This new organization was a full-fledged revolutionary party with many clandestine branches in various parts of China.

Eight more uprisings were launched be­tween 1905 and 1911. Most of these took place in Southern and central China and were small in scale. However, they took a heavy toll of the revolutionaries.

Despite all these reverses, Dr. Sun continued to work for the overthrow of the decadent Manchu regime. On March 29, 1911, Sun's right-hand man, Huang Hsing, led an attack on the Viceroy's headquarters in Canton. Nearly all those who took part in the assault were gunned down. Seventy-two of the dead were later buried at Huang Hua Kang (Yellow Flower Cliff), which afterward became a monument to China's revolutionary martyrs.

The Revolution of October 10, 1911, began at Wuchang, a city in central China. An accidental bomb explosion moved up the schedule of a large-scale revolt planned by revolutionaries in the New Manchu Army. The next day, troops under the command of Li Yuan-hung mutinied. Within a few days, 15 provinces had proclaimed their independence and set up a Republican government in Nanking. Dr. Sun was called from exile and inaugurated as provisional President on New Year's Day, 1912.

Throughout this period of the Revolution, overseas Chinese provided financial support, intellectuals helped with agitation and propaganda, and countless comrades and soldiers made sacrifices. As Dr. Sun said in retrospect, "the success of the Revolution did not come about by accident." The success he spoke of was the creation of the Chinese Republic, which was not only the first re­public in Asia but a vitally important step in deliverance of the nation.

The Republic's first government was short-lived. In a bid for peace and national unity, Sun Yat-sen resigned from the presi­dency in favor of Yuan Shih-kai, leader of the northern military forces. The premature introduction of parliamentarianism was not what Dr. Sun had expected of the Revolution. His party was reduced to an ineffectual parlia­mentary group, the Kuomintang.

Back to Monarchy

Even so, he never neglected to remind his followers of their duty to carry forward the Revolution in both the political and social fields. Emphasis was placed on the welfare of the people. He told Sung Chiao-jen, whom he appointed to lead the Kuomintang opposition in parliament: "The Revolution aims at promoting the welfare of the people and solving the problems of livelihood. If we dis­card the principle of livelihood, we may as well give up the whole Revolution."

But the government of Yuan Shih-kai ignored Dr. Sun's principles. A cynical monarchist, Yuan later dissolved the parlia­ment and abolished the provisional constitution in spite of Dr. Sun's objections. In 1915, he proclaimed himself emperor. At this, the Kuomintang forces in southwestern China revolted. Yuan abdicated shortly after. In 1916, he died and the Republic took on a new lease of life.

In the years that followed, the Peking government fell into the hands, of warlords. With powerful generals intriguing for power, a prolonged series of civil wars plagued the nation. The people lived in agony and distress no less than under the Manchus. Dr. Sun attributed this chaos to the nation's failure to enforce revolutionary fundamentals. In his opinion, the Revolution had to go through three stages: military rule, political tutelage, and constitutional government.

Soviet Meddling

In this period, Dr. Sun perfected his theories and rallied Kuomintang comrades in southern China to set up a truly revolutionary regime. At first his efforts met with little success owing to the resistance of local warlords. By the time he went to Shanghai in 1922 as a result of General Chen Chiung­-ming's revolt in Canton, the Revolution was at its lowest ebb. It was sustained principally by its author's magnetic personality and strong will.

To revive the Revolution, Dr. Sun considered it important to have a powerful orga­nization capable of carrying out his long-term programs. He reorganized the Kuomintang to enhance its rank and file strength. By building up revolutionary might, he hoped to launch an expedition to defeat the warlords in the North and terminate the unequal treaties China had signed with foreign powers.

At this juncture, the Soviet Union, born of the October Revolution in 1917, professed readiness to renounce its unequal treaties with China and offered to help with the Revolution. A succession of Comintern representatives, including G. Maring, A. S. Dalin, and Adolf Joffe, went to China. On behalf of the Chinese Communist-Party, which was established as a Comintern branch in 1921, they ap­proached Dr. Sun with proposals for Communist participation in the National Revolution.

In the beginning, the Communists de­manded alliance with the Kuomintang on an equal footing. Dr. Sun refused. He proposed instead that the Communists join the Kuomintang as individuals to work for the realization of the Three Principles of the People. His rejection had nothing to do with numbers. In 1922, the Kuomintang had 150,000 members and popular support versus scarcely 300 Communists. What he was really concerned about was the future of China.

For insidious purposes of their own, the Comintern representatives who conducted the negotiations with Dr. Sun yielded to his de­mands. Aware of the dangerous ramifications of dealings with the Comintern, Dr. Sun sought agreements not only on the degree of Communist participation in the Kuomintang but also on such controversial issues as the Russian-controlled Chinese Eastern Railway and, Outer Mongolia.

Qualified Accord

Dr. Sun's refusal to compromise with principle is clearly evident in his final agree­ment with Joffe. The accord, announced January 26, 1923, in the form of a joint statement, began with these words: "Dr. Sun holds that the Communistic order or even the Soviet system cannot actually be introduced into China, because there do not exist here the conditions for successful establishment of either Communism or Sovietism."

In the same statement, the Soviet Union promised to renounce its special rights over the Chinese Eastern Railway and not to detach Outer Mongolia. In return for Dr. Sun's acceptance of the participation of the Communists in the Kuomintang as individuals, Russia pledged not to try to impose Communism on China and agreed to surrender special privileges that had descended from Czarist times. It would have been a good bargain for China, if the Communists had kept their word.

Wary of Reds

Even today, the Chinese Communists try to exploit the propaganda value of Dr. Sun's name by misrepresenting the agreement as evidence of his endorsement of Communism. Dr. Sun actually was trying to prevent leftist "intellectuals from monopolizing Soviet aid" in their rivalry with the Kuomintang. His move was not a mere matter of expediency but an effort to nip in the bud the Communist attempt to transplant a Soviet-type revolution to China.

In his book Soviet Russia in China, President Chiang Kai-shek, who as a revolutionary veteran was sent by Dr. Sun on an observation tour of Russia in late 1923, records Dr. Sun's views as follows:

"He believed that under the circum­stances the only way to deter the Chinese Communists from inciting class conflicts and sabotaging our National Revolution was to put them under the unified control of the Kuomintang. He thought that the moment the pro­jected Northward Expedition came to a suc­cessful conclusion, the Three People's Prin­ciples would be assured of implementation ac­cording to schedule, and that it would then be too late for the Chinese Communists to cause any trouble even if they tried. Besides, was it not a fad that Soviet Russia recognized the Kuomintang as the one and only political party to lead China in her National Revolution?"

Dr. Sun's attitude toward Soviet Russia and the Chinese Communists was also made abundantly clear in a statement he made in late 1923. When the Communists showed signs of insubordination, he said: "If Russia wants to cooperate with China, she will only cooperate with our Party, and not with Chen Tu-hsiu (then leader of the Chinese Com­munist Party). If Chen and his followers disobey our Party, we must expel them."

In order to put the Kuomintang in a position of strength to lead the Revolution, Dr. Sun wanted desperately to regain his base in South China. In November of 1922, while he was negotiating with the Comintern representatives, Sun wrote to Chiang Kai-shek:

"We must secure a base first. To do that, we must recapture Kwangtung. Once Kwangtung is recovered, we shall be able to unify the Southwest. When we have the southwest­ern provinces under our control, we can proceed to unify the entire country."

Canton was recovered from warlord Chen Chiung-ming in January, 1923, and Dr. Sun returned there to establish the Kuomin­tang regime. Thousands of youths, eager to fight for the Revolution, flocked to Canton and rallied behind the banner of the Kuomin­tang. The Communists constituted a negli­gible percentage in the ranks of the reorga­nized Kuomintang.

Whampoa Founded

On behalf of the individual Communists of the Kuomintang, Li Ta-chao, a Communist leader, submitted a memorandum to the First Kuomintang National Congress in January, 1924, pledging allegiance to the "political program" and "constitution" of the Kuomin­tang. He said that the Reds would accept such "punishment as may be meted out by the Kuomintang in case we should fail to honor our pledge."

In March the same year, Dr. Sun found­ed the Whampoa Military Academy and ap­pointed Chiang Kai-shek its commandant. The purpose was to build up a powerful revolutionary army so the Kuomintang would not have to rely on the troops of undependable local generals. With a fresh crop of young, enthusiastic officers, Dr. Sun was able to consolidate his revolutionary power in southern China. The die was cast to unleash the long-heralded Northward Expedition.

Being a man of Confucian benevolence, Sun Yat-sen never failed to offer a peaceful alternative. Two years of preparations made him feel strong enough to compel the warlords of the North to come to terms. As late as November, 1924, he issued a call for a na­tional convention of the people of all social strata to work out a peaceful settlement. In search of peace, he did not hesitate to travel all the way to Peking the next spring. Un­fortunately, he died there on March 12, 1925. From his death bed, the great revolutionary leader urged his comrades to "strive on to save China".

Faithful to this enjoinder, Chiang Kai­-shek led the Northward Expedition to triumph in 1926-28. The warlords were liquidated. China was unified for the first time in modern history.

Attack of Japan

At this juncture, the Japanese militarists, fearful of Chinese regeneration, began in­vading the mainland in 1931. The Northward Expedition marked only the first phase of the National Revolution. The second was the war of resistance against Japan in 1937-45, and the third is the continuing anti-Communist struggle waged by free China for national recovery and reconstruction.

A tragedy of the Revolution in China was that the Communists, despite their professions of loyalty to Dr. Sun's principles, actually worked to communize China. Even when they were members of the Kuomintang, they regarded the National Revolution of Dr. Sun as a "bourgeois democratic revolution", a mere step in transit toward communization of the whole of China.

The Kuomintang is a party of all classes and the National Revolution is intended to benefit the whole people. In contrast to Communist ideology, Dr. Sun's Three Principles of the People place nationalism ahead of internationalism, define democracy as a goal in itself and not just a stepping stone toward the proletarian dictatorship, and advocate social welfare through peaceful cooperation rather than violent class struggle.

The National Revolution originally had the twin goals of battling warlordism and imperialism. But Dr. Sun never identified imperialism with capitalism. Lenin defined imperialism as the "last and dying stage of capitalism". Hence the Chinese Communists have applied the term "imperialist" to non­-Communist countries. Dr. Sun called for international and especially for Western assistance to rebuild China's economy. This is set forth in his plan for The International Development of China.

Communist Intrigue

In his struggle against imperialism, Sun's criteria for distinguishing friend from foe were based on their behavior, particularly in China. His cautious approach in his negotiations with the Comintern representatives demonstrated awareness of the continuing imperialism of Soviet Russia.

After Dr. Sun's death, the Chinese Communist tools of the Comintern became bolder in their intrigues and tried to use the prestige of the Kuomintang to conceal their activities. During the Northward Expedition, they tried to seize political power while the Kuomintang troops fought to unify China. On Comintern orders, they attempted to turn the revolutionary government of the Kuomintang into "a democratic dictatorship of the workers, farmers, and petty bourgeoisie". In the end, the Kuomintang was compelled to purge the Communists in 1927.

The latter holed up in their "Soviet" pockets, mostly in the mountainous areas of Kiangsi, Hunan, and Fukien. Not until 1937, when some 20,000 remnants fled to Yenan, did the Communists again pledge allegiance to Dr. Sun's principles and the National Re­volution. This time their aim was survival. For they were faced with the danger of extinc­tion. The government, eager to make preparations for an inevitable war with Japan, and desirous of showing leniency, forgave the Reds once more.

The war, which subsequently became World War II, resulted in the defeat of Japan in 1945. But peace in China was destroyed by the Communists, who had expanded their organization under the Kuomintang's protec­tive cover during the war. When the Reds began to receive massive military aid from Soviet troops in Manchuria, the military balance began to tip against the government. Post-war economic and social chaos offered them a further opportunity to stir up discontent.

Seeking a peaceful settlement, the gov­ernment called a "political consultative con­ference" to prepare for constitutional rule. However, nothing short of a guarantee of their minority domination of government and military forces would satisfy the Communists. In spite of preliminary agreement, they boycotted the National Assembly and the subse­quent constitutional government of 1947-48. Finally the government was compelled to withdraw from the mainland in 1949-50. Since then it has continued the battle from Taiwan.

Battle Goes On

The struggle for the realization of the ideals of Sun Yat-sen's Revolution, namely national independence, democratic freedom, and social welfare, goes right on. In its third and decisive stage, this has become a fight against Communist totalitarianism and for the restoration of freedom and justice to the peo­ple on the Chinese mainland. For this anti­-Communist struggle, the free Chinese under the leadership of the Kuomintang have built a strong bastion on Taiwan and developed it in keeping with Dr. Sun's principles. Successful implementation of these principles will help guarantee the ultimate victory of the Revolu­tion.

Now that the Chinese Communists have unmasked themselves as neo-imperialist aggressors, only the success of Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Revolution can assure the peace and security of China, of Asia, and ultimately of the world.