If Hawaii is to be known as the cradle of the Chinese Revolution for its role during the formative years before the turn of the century, it will be no exaggeration to regard Japan as the guardian of the Revolution in the early 1900s. Both Hawaii and Japan were bases of the Chinese revolutionary movement at one time or another and contributed much to the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty and the establishment of the first republic in Asia.
The patriotism and sacrifice of Chinese political exiles and students in Japan were indispensable to Dr. Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary movements. Had it not been for the help of his Japanese friends, Dr. Sun would have been deprived of a base close to China. The revolutionary activities he carried out from Japan contributed importantly to the success of the uprising on October 10, 1911.
It is not surprising that Dr. Sun made generous acknowledgement of the help given by Tsuyoshi Inukai and other liberal politicians, and also mentioned leading Japanese financiers in his autobiography. "We must wait," Dr. Sun wrote, "for the official history of the Chinese Revolution to record in greater detail the invaluable work of our Japanese friends." The Japanese had befriended him ever since 1896, when he was first compelled to flee China for his life.
From 1899 to 1903, Dr. Sun lived in Japan almost continuously. This period of exile gave him opportunity to observe and study the modernization of an Oriental people. Moreover, the Japanese from time to time provided money, munitions, and even military technicians.
After a world trip he returned to Japan in 1905 and organized Tung Meng-Hui (Society of Common Cause). He left only when his revolutionary activities brought insistent demands from the Manchus that Japan harbor him no longer. Even after his expulsion in 1907, Dr. Sun could slip back quietly for brief periods. In a reminiscent mood, Prime Minister Inukai said in 1923:
"For a time Sun Yat-sen lived with me. My house was a secret meeting place for the revolutionists. Often they shared my food and clothes and even my meager income. None could have been more jubilant than I was when the new republic sounded the knell of the Manchu dynasty."
Dr. Sun's magnetic personality and his goal of a brotherhood of man attracted many Japanese to his cause. He also fostered Sino-Japanese cultural relations and was convinced that the peoples shared a common destiny.
It was after the Chinese constitutional reforms of 1898 that Dr. Sun Yat-sen left Europe and went to Japan. This was 'his first opportunity to study Japan closely. Previously he had stopped there only briefly.
Japan's Liberal Party was just coming to prominence. Dr. Sun was given encouragement by some of its leaders. Tsuyoshi Inukai, who was assassinated in May, 1932, while he was prime minister, sent two representatives to meet Dr. Sun in Yokohama and invited him to Tokyo to meet Japanese Liberal leaders. Dr. Sun tells of the meeting in his autobiography: "We talked about our affairs as if we were old and intimate friends."
Visit to Taiwan
When Sun Yat-sen left Japan for Hongkong late in 1899 with the intention of going on to China, he was refused entry. In response to request of the Manchu government, Great Britain had put him on a proscribed list. So Dr. Sun went to Taiwan, where he made preparations for revolutionary uprisings along the South China coast. The governor of Taiwan welcomed him and promised help. Japanese military experts were employed, munitions had been ordered in Japan. Believing everything was ready, Dr. Sun authorized his supporters to start the revolution and capture coastal cities of Kwangtung and Fukien. A successful beginning was made in the fall of 1900, only to have the effort fall apart as a result of governmental change in Japan. The Liberals lost power and the new prime minister ordered the governor of Taiwan to stop backing the revolutionists and not to supply them with weapons.
Many Students
Dr. Sun dispatched a Japanese to report this to his waiting commander. The messenger spent more than a month reaching China, then was arrested and executed by the Manchus as he attempted to return. Dr. Sun went back to Japan and spent most of the next three years there.
Japan increasingly became the refuge of exiled reformers and rebels. Included among them were Huang Hsing and Sung Chiao-jen. Chinese students also swarmed into Japan eager to learn modern ways. By 1905 about 8,000 Chinese students were in Tokyo. The average age was 23. As Japan defeated Russia, it became apparent that the Japanese were modernizing more rapidly than was China. Even so, the victory of an Asian nation over a Western power gave China new confidence in its own modernization plans. Dr. Sun wrote:
"A new Japan, transformed into a first-class power, has arisen, and Japan's success has given the other nations of Asia unlimited hope ... Japan has been able to learn from Europe and since her modernization to catch up with Europe ... Because Asia possesses a strong Japan, the white races now dare not disparage the Japanese or any Asiatic race. So Japan's rise has raised the standing of all Asiatic peoples. We once thought we could not do what the Europeans could do; we see now that Japan has learned from Europe and that, if we follow Japan, we, too, will be learning from the West as Japan did."
New Confidence
Dr. Sun made rapid progress in inculcating Chine3e students in Japan with his revolutionary ideals. In September, 1905, shortly after the conclusion of the Treaty of Portsmouth ending the Russo-Japanese War, Chinese students in Japan established a new revolutionary organization, the Tung Meng Hui (Society of Common Cause). It was a merger of several older groups, including the Hsing Chung Hui (Society for Rebuilding China) which had been started in Hawaii. The members of the Tung Meng Hui pledged themselves to expel the Manchus, return power to the people of China proper, establish a republic, and equalize land ownership.
Dr. Sun, who had the motivation of nationalism and the genius of leadership, was elected president of the Tung Meng Hui. The vice president was Huang Hsing. Next day Dr. Sun wrote: "On the day of the organization of the Tung Meng Hui at Tokyo by intellectuals representing the whole of China, I began to have confidence that my revolutionary work might be completed in my lifetime."
Tung Meng Hui grew rapidly. Within a year, there was not a province without a branch, and the total membership was well over 10,000, including workers, teachers, merchants, soldiers, and politicians. Tung Meng Hui began publication of newspaper, Min Pao (National Daily). Effective writing in the Min Pao spread revolutionary ideas among the intellectuals. The war against the Manchus had entered upon a new epoch.
Dr. Sun spent the first half of 1906 traveling in order to raise revolutionary funds. He was in Japan for the second half of 1906. A Japanese preacher who was later transferred to Honolulu told of his acquaintance with Dr. Sun in Yokohama during this period:
"Dr. Sun was frequently in my house and we became good friends. He trusted me and was grateful to me and we had long talks about his affairs. He was very hopeful and said he was sure of success in the end, by the help of God. These were the very words he med, for he had told me that he was a Christian. He moved to Tokyo where he became friends with many of the professors of Waseda University. He met Count Okuma, who was interested in him. Japanese Christians were favorable to Dr. Sun. They believed he stood for the rights of man and was opposed to oppression and cruelty as found in the actions of the Manchus."
Conflict with Yuan
Trouble overtook him January 16, 1907, when he addressed Chinese students in Tokyo on the occasion of the first anniversary of Min Pao. Five thousand Chinese and Japanese attended. The occasion brought Dr. Sun such prominence that Manchu authorities deter mined to press the Japanese to expel him.
After the establishment of the Republic in 1911, the Tung Meng Hui was reorganized into the Kuomintang with Dr. Sun as leader. The goal was democratic government through the agency of political parties. However, Yuan Shih-kai, President of the Republic, had other ideas. Yuan wanted to establish a new dynasty with himself as the first emperor. In 1913 he attempted to suppress the Kuomintang by expelling its members from the parliament and by ordering the party's dissolution.
From 1913 to 1916, Dr. Sun stayed in Japan most of the time. The Chung Hwa Ke Ming Tang (Chinese Revolutionary Party) was established in Tokyo with a view to revitalizing the revolutionary spirit of the Kuomintang. Or. Sun needed Japan's support for another revolution to overthrow Yuan Shih-kai and to return the Kuomintang to power.
Dr. Sun remained an admirer of modern Japan until his illusions were shattered by the ambitious designs on China revealed by Japanese militarists during and after World War I. In February of 1913 he addressed the Tung Ya Tung Wen Hui (Institute of East Asian Languages) in these words:
"China and Japan have a common linguistic and ethnical origin. As close neighbors, they must rid themselves of distrust and discord and not be provoked by other nations to discriminate against each other ... Asians are duty-bound to preserve the peace in Asia. But at the moment, China is not strong enough to offer much help. So the duty of Japan is heavy. It is my hope that Japan will endeavor to promote China and cooperate with her. This apparently is not just a personal wish of mine. It is also the sincere wish of all the Chinese people.
"Asia is our home. Japan and China are like twin brothers in the same house. If they quarrel, there will be no peace in Asia. Japan is the strongest Asian power and China is the largest nation in the Orient. It is beyond doubt that cooperation between our two countries will not only assure the peace of East Asia but also the peace of the world."
Pleas to Japan
Despite the urgings of Dr. Sun, imperialistic Japan not only refused to help him but apparently used his pleas as threats in extorting sweeping concession from Yuan Shih-kai. After the death of Yuan Shih-kai in 1916, Japan continued policies detrimental to China and the Chinese Revolution. The notorious Twenty-One Demands on China was a systematic attempt to colonize the Chinese nation. Tokyo's support of the pro Japanese warlords in Peiping and its acquisition of the Shantung properties as a result of the Versailles Treaty were severe blows to Dr. Sun's dream of a friendly Japan.
Between 1917 and 1918, several letters were written by Dr. Sun to Japanese friends, urging that Japan stop aid to General Tuan Chi-jui and other Pei-yang generals. In his reply to a Japanese reporter in 1919 and in a letter to Torazo Miyazaki, Dr. Sun charged that the militarists of Japan treated China more treacherously than had the Europeans. Unless this policy was changed, he warned, China would be forced to ally itself with the West against Japan. When his efforts proved of no avail, and when all his pleas for Western aid fell on deaf ears, Dr. Sun turned to Soviet Russia for assistance.
Imperialist Japan became even more aggressive after World War I. She set a time table for the conquest of China. In opposition to Dr. Sun's genuine pan-Asianism, the Japanese militarists began to preach Japan's hegemony as its manifest destiny in the so-called Asian co-prosperity sphere. This was actually a neo-colonialism. The Mukden Incident of 1931 and the Battle of Shanghai in 1932 were only preliminaries to the invasion of China in 1937 and the Pacific War ill 1941. However, Japan finally was defeated by its own excessive ambition. World War II brought Japan not only terrible destruction but six years of military occupation. This national disaster should have been averted, if Japan had followed the counsel of its good friend, Sun Yat-sen, and undertaken a Sino-Japanese program for development of Asia on a cooperative basis.
Despite the terrible suffering inflicted on China as a result of Japan's aggressive policy, President Chiang Kai-shek did not seek vengeance at the end of World War II. Instead, he returned the outrages of militarist Japan with Chinese magnanimity. President Chiang's decision has helped bring Sino-Japanese relations back toward trust and friendship in keeping with the intentions of Dr. Sun. Once before Japan suffered grievously because of failure to take the out stretched hand of China. President Chiang Kai-shek is trying to make sure it doesn't happen again.