The Three People's Principles, or in Chinese, San Min Chu I, which have much in common with the Western ideas of democracy, nevertheless cover a much wider range of thoughts and reach far beyond the ideas of democratic government alone.
The essence of the Three People's Principles is a product of a thorough study of Eastern and Western cultures and a methodical combination of them both. If the East and West should ever meet, they do meet in the philosophical basis of these principles.
While Western culture has given preponderating weight to intellectual development at the expense of moral culture, the Chinese have leaned towards moral culture which is characterized by humane kindness. In the Confucian way of thinking, humane kindness is the highest standard of morality and the ultimate goal in education and government. It is on this account that Dr. Sun Yat-sen, creator of the Three People's Principles, took the people's livelihood as the motivating factor in history and humane kindness as the guiding principle in maintaining the people's livelihood, evidently in opposition with the Marxist idea of historical materialism.
While giving due appraisal to Chinese traditional culture in forming his own revolutionary principles, Dr. Sun was far-sighted enough not to overlook the material achievements of Western culture which are credited to scientific methods used in search for universal truths and in creating means for satisfying human desires.
The Chinese civilization was once far ahead of that of the Western nations but the self-contentedness of the Chinese mind and their too much leaning towards moral values made them what they were at the end of the nineteenth century-one of the poorest and weakest nations of the world. Dr. Sun Yat-sen was able to see both the good and evil possibilities of the Chinese civilization and it was his intention to bring about a condition in China which would permit the Chinese people to preserve and enrich the best features of the Chinese civilization and to absorb the best features of the Western civilization. So, he created the Three People's Principles which are intended to solve international, political and social problems at the same time.
The first among these principles is that of nationalism. Non-aggressive and self-protective in nature, it seeks interracial and international equality. In his lecture on nationalism; Dr. Sun made clear distinction between the state and the nation. In his phraseology, the state is based upon politics while the nation is based upon common culture. The Chinese nation consisting of five races is a cultural entirety, therefore the Chinese state is the Chinese nation itself.
The principle of nationalism advocates internal equality among the five races of the Chinese nation and seeks to enhance their solidarity and to arouse their national consciousness so that they may stand together and fight with one will against foreign aggression if any should arise. In the present case of Communist aggression dictated by Soviet Russia, it is first of all the principle of nationalism also that should keep the Chinese people alive to the danger of being enslaved by a foreign aggressive power.
Furthermore, the principle of nationalism reminds the Chinese people of the necessity of preserving the best tenets of the Chinese cultural heritage and of absorbing the best features of Western civilization so that a modern nation may be built up that will survive on a footing of equality in the family of nations.
In regard to external relations, the principle of nationalism seeks to promote the international position of China and to cooperate with friendly nations in the common endeavor of establishing a world of peace and security.
In this connection, it is safe to say that as the final phase of the realization of the principle of nationalism Dr. Sun envisaged the ideal of what is called cosmopolitanism, which he believed may be realized by the co-operation of all nations when there is no longer any aggressor-nation and when the nations can live together in a world society of eternal peace and prosperity.
The principle of democracy may be briefly defined as government by the people. While the principle of nationalism aims at national freedom and equality, the principle of democracy aims at political freedom and equality. Freedom and equality were the watchwords in European revolutions in the past and they have been accepted as two inseparable factors that go to the making of a democratic society. In elaborating his principle of democracy, Dr. Sun Yat-sen put great stress upon the meaning of freedom and equality. He maintained that individual freedom should be so limited that they will not come into conflict with the freedom of other people and that equality should be understood in the sense of political equality, not of inborn equality.
Dr. Sun Yat-sen sought for a balance of power between the people and the government and made a clear distinction between power and ability in formulating his scheme for a democratic government. He said that the people should have full power and the government full ability. In other words, the people should have the power to exercise their political rights and the government the ability to exercise their ruling powers. As concrete measures to display the political power of the people over the government, Dr. Sun cited four political, rights of the people, namely, the right of election, the right of recalling, the right of initiating, and the right of referendum. If the people are vested with the powers of electing and recalling public servants and of making laws and referring them to popular vote, there will be no fear of the government becoming uncontrollable.
According to the Five Power Constitution initiated by Dr. Sun on the basis of his balanced power theory, there are five ruling powers belonging to the government. They are the power of administration, the power of legislation, the power of jurisdiction, the power of examination, and the power of control. The last two powers of examination and of control to be incorporated as independent institutions of the Central Government is a great improvement over the three-power system of the Western constitutions.
Furthermore, Dr. Sun cited six individual freedoms which are to be protected under the representative government based upon the Five Power Constitution, the notable of which are the freedoms of speech and of belief. Thus, the principle of democracy enables the Chinese people to enjoy more political rights and no less individual freedoms than people in other democratic countries.
The principle of people's livelihood, which aims at economic equality, revolves around Dr. Sun's theory of evolution. He held that man's desire to live is the motivating power of evolution and the people's struggle for livelihood as direct expression of man's desire to live has made the history of mankind what it is today and keeps it moving on.
Though admitting that a change in the mode of production accelerates change in social structure, Dr. Sun criticized the Marxian theory of surplus value as a lame interpretation of capital accumulation and denounced class struggle as a sound way to social progress. Marx was wrong in attributing the beneficial results of industrial production entirely to the labor of factory workers, he said, all other useful members of the society are contributing their part, directly or indirectly, toward making production possible.
He considered class struggle the result of social trouble but not the cause of social progress, which depends on the harmonious accordance of the economic interests of the majority, rather than on the conflict of them. So, he said Marx was a social pathologist, not a social physician.
Dr. Sun was clear-sighted enough to have seen both the merits and demerits of capitalism. While denouncing capitalism unregulated by sound laws designed to prevent vicious exploitation-ridden monopolies and cartels, he saw in capitalism the good qualities of increasing production and stimulating individual initiative and competition, which are essential to social progress.
It is perhaps pertinent here to remark that what evils Dr. Sun saw in capitalism during his days have been effectively remedied by sound laws designed to uphold the freedoms of the people including the all-important freedoms of opportunity as is the case in the United States.
The two main policies Dr. Sun worked out for the realization in China or his principle of people's livelihood are the equalization of land ownership and the regulation of capital. As farmers constitute the major portion of the Chinese population, the question of land ownership is a matter of vital importance from an economic point of view. With the ideal of "land to every tiller" in mind, he paid special attention to the utilization of waste land and the seeking of ways and means for agricultural development. The concrete measures he formulated for the policy of equalizing land ownership are fixation of land values, taxation on declared land values, state purchase of land at fixed values, public appropriation of increasing land values, and state appropriation of newly developed city land. All these are designed to prevent land profiteering in larger cities and to reduce the evil possibilities of concentrated private land ownership to the minimum.
Regulation of private capital shall go side by side with development of state capital. Speaking of regulation of private capital, Dr. Sun set his eye more on the future than on the present. Capitalism in China is still in its infancy, he said, and capitalists are as few as morning stars. Yet it is necessary to pre vent right at the start the evil possibilities of capitalism from growing up into a menace. By regulating private capital, Dr. Sun referred more to the control of capitalists than to capital itself. It is the monopoly of social wealth by a few capitalists that will bring about social unrest.
The industrial development in China should go on along two parallel lines. One is private enterprises and the other state enterprises. Enterprises that can be undertaken by private persons or may be more suited to private handling than to state management should be left to private capital, while those of a monopolizing nature or of a too large scale for private capital such as great banks, railways, shipping lines, etc. should be put under state management.
Direct taxation on capitalist incomes and inheritance are the two other measures to regulate private capital as mentioned by Dr. Sun in his first lecture on the principle of people's livelihood, while labor insurance is what he recommended as a protective measure to the interests of the workers.
For the development of state capital, Dr. Sun saw the evident lack in China of both capital and technicians, and therefore he recommended the use of foreign loans and investments and the invitation of foreign technicians for cooperation. In his Industrial Plans, he listed whole sale projects and programmes for the industrialization of China, all of which are based upon the principle of people's livelihood.
In the light of what has been said in the foregoing paragraphs, the spirit of the Three People's Principles may be summed up in the three words of "liberty, equality, and fraternity" or in the three phrases "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" so often quoted by Dr. Sun himself. Another feature of the Three People's Principles is that they are so closely inter-related that they can hardly be separated in both theory and practice. They are indeed one in spirit though they may have their order in practice. It is only through the carrying out of all of the three principles that the success of anyone of them may be said to be complete.