49 chapters
34 hour read
Selected Chapters
49 chapters
Foreword.
Foreword.
The importance of introducing Western political thought to the Far East has long been emphasized in the West. The Chinese conception of a rational world order was manifestly incompatible with the Western system of independent sovereign states and the Chinese code of political ethics was difficult to reconcile with the Western preference for a reign of law. No argument has been necessary to persuade Westerners that Chinese political philosophy would be improved by the influence of Western politic
17 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Preface.
Preface.
The advantages may serve to offset the disadvantages. In the first place, the author's acquaintance with the Nationalist movement has given him something of a background from which to present his exposition. This background cannot, of course, be documented, but it may serve to make the presentation more assured and more vivid. In the second place, the author has had access to certain private manuscripts and papers, and has had the benefit of his father's counsel on several points in this work. 2
2 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Problem of the San Min Chu I.
The Problem of the San Min Chu I.
What are these doctrines? Sun Yat-sen was so voluminous a writer that it would be impossible for his followers to digest and codify all his writings into one neat and coherent handbook; he himself did not provide one. Before printing became common, there was a certain automatic process of condensation which preserved the important utterances of great men, and let their trivial sayings perish. Sun, however, must have realized that he was leaving a vast legacy of materials which are not altogether
4 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Rationale of the Readjustment.
The Rationale of the Readjustment.
These may, perhaps, be found in a sampling of certain data from the thought and behavior of the Chinese as a group under the old system, and the selection of a few important facts from the history of China since the first stages of the maladjustment. An exposition of Sun's thought must not slur the great importance of the past, yet it dare not linger too long on this theme lest the present—in which, after all, uncounted millions of Chinese are desperately struggling for life—come to seem insigni
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Nation and State in Chinese Antiquity.
Nation and State in Chinese Antiquity.
The history of these states reads like a page torn out of the history of early modern Europe. The struggle was half diplomatic and half military. From the beginning of the Spring and Autumn period (722-481 B.C.) to the end of the Age of Warring States (491-221 B.C.), China was subject to frequent war and unstable peace. The character of war itself changed, from a chivalrous exercise almost ritualistic in nature, to a struggle of unrestricted force. The units of government which were to develop i
26 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Theory of the Confucian World-Society.
The Theory of the Confucian World-Society.
In a society—such as Confucius dreamed of—where there was no disagreement in outlook, policy would not be a governmental question; if there were no disharmony of thought and of behavior, there would be no necessity of enforcing conformance to the generally accepted criteria of conduct. From this standpoint, government itself is socially pathological, a remedy for a poorly ordered society. Men are controlled indirectly by the examples of virtue; they do good because they have learned to do good a
45 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Chinese World-Society of Eastern Asia.
The Chinese World-Society of Eastern Asia.
The family was an intricate structure. A fairly typical instance of family organization within a specific village has been described in the following terms: “The village is occupied by one sib, a uni-lateral kinship group, exogamous, monogamous but polygynous, composed of a plurality of kin alignments into four families: the natural family, the economic-family, the religious-family, and the sib.” 41 The natural family corresponded to the family of the West. The economic family may have had a nat
34 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Impact of the West.
The Impact of the West.
With these advantages in mind, it is easy to understand the peculiarity of the Westerners, as contrasted with the other peoples whom the Chinese met and fought. The formidable physical power of the Chinese was, after the first few decades of intercourse, seen to be quite unequal to the superior military technique of the West. The Westerners, although different from one another at home, tended to appear as united in the Far East. In any case, Chinese unity availed little in the face of greater mi
20 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Continuing Significance of the Background.
The Continuing Significance of the Background.
Since Fascism seeks to reëstablish order and certainty, as does Communism (although an order and certainty of a different kind), by the extension of state activities; and since Sun Yat-sen proposed to improve the political position of China by developing a modern state (of narrow, but intense activities in contrast to the loose general controls of the old society), the drift in China may be regarded, in this respect, as Fascism in reverse. Beginning with the same premises—the regeneration of the
2 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Emergence of the Chinese Race-Nation.
The Emergence of the Chinese Race-Nation.
Sun Yat-sen did not blame Confucius for cosmopolitanism. There is, indeed, nowhere in his works the implication that Confucianism was an evil in itself, deserving destruction; why then did Sun Yat-sen believe that, even though the old ideology was not invalid for the organization of China internally, the old world-view had broken down as an effective instrument for the preservation of China? First of all, Sun stated, in terms more general than did the ancients, the necessity of establishing the
18 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Necessity of Nationalism.
The Necessity of Nationalism.
Sun Yat-sen's nationalism, though most vividly clear when considered as a practical expedient of social engineering, may also be regarded more philosophically as a derivation of, or at least having an affinity with, certain older ideas of the Chinese. Confucian thinking, as re-expressed in Western terms, implants in the individual a sense of his responsibility to all humanity, united in space and time. Confucianism stressed the solidarity of humanity, continuous, immortal, bound together by the
20 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Return to the Old Morality.
The Return to the Old Morality.
Sun Yat-sen's never-shaken belief in the applicability of the ancient Chinese ethical system, and in the wisdom of old China in social organization, is such that of itself it prevents his being regarded as a mere imitator of the West, a barbarized Chinese returning to barbarize his countrymen. His devotion to Confucianism was so great that Richard Wilhelm, the greatest of German sinologues, wrote of him: “The greatness of Sun Yat-sen rests, therefore, upon the fact that he has found a living syn
23 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Return to the Ancient Knowledge.
The Return to the Ancient Knowledge.
He quotes The Great Learning for the summation, in a few words, of the highlights of this ancient Chinese social knowledge: “Investigate into things, attain the utmost knowledge, make the thoughts sincere, rectify the heart, cultivate the person, regulate the family, govern the country rightly, pacify the world.” 86 This is, as we have seen, what may be called the Confucian doctrine of ideological control. Sun Yat-sen lavished praise upon it. “Such a theory, so detailed, minute, and progressive,
16 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Western Physical Science in the New Ideology.
Western Physical Science in the New Ideology.
Sun Yat-sen pointed out the fact that while manuals of warfare become obsolete in a very few years in the West, political ideas and institutions do not. He cited the continuance of the same pattern of government in the United States, and the lasting authority of the Republic of Plato, as examples of the stagnation of the Western social sciences as contrasted with physical sciences. Already prepossessed in favor of the Chinese knowledge and morality in non-technical matters, he did not demand the
23 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Consequences of the Nationalist Ideology.
The Consequences of the Nationalist Ideology.
The overwhelming preponderance of Chinese elements in the new ideology proposed by Sun Yat-sen must not hide the fact that, in so stable an ideology as that of old China, the modifications which Sun advocated were highly significant. In method, experimentalism; 104 in background, the whole present body of Western science—these were to move China deeply, albeit a China that remained Chinese. There is a fundamental difference between Sun's doctrine of ideological extension ( “the need for knowledg
2 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Democracy in the Old World-Society.
Democracy in the Old World-Society.
Mobility in China was fostered by the political arrangements. The educational-administrative system provided a channel upwards and downwards. The government tended, for the most part, to be the way up, while the economic system was the way down for prominent official families. Few families managed to remain eminent for more than a few generations, and—with the great size of families—there was always room at the top. If a man were not advancing himself, there was always the possibility that a kin
36 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Five Justifications of a Democratic Ideology.
Five Justifications of a Democratic Ideology.
“The government of Yao and Shun was monarchical in name but democratic in practice, and for that reason Confucius honored these men.” 116 He considered that democracy was to the sages an “ideal that could not be immediately realized,” 117 and therefore implied that modern China, in realizing democracy, was attaining an ideal cherished by the past. Democracy, other things apart, was a filial duty. This argument, while persuasive in Chinese, can scarcely be considered Sun Yat-sen's most important
27 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Three Natural Classes of Men.
The Three Natural Classes of Men.
He hypothecated a tripartite division of men: The harmony of this conception with the views of Confucius is evident. Presbyter is Priest writ large; genius is another name for scholar. Sun, although bitterly opposed to the mandarinate of the Empire and the pseudo-Republic, could not rid himself of the age-old Chinese idea of a class organization on a basis of intellect rather than of property. He could not champion a revolutionary creed based upon an economic class-war which he did not think exi
15 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Ch'üan and Nêng.
Ch'üan and Nêng.
Without this contrast, the doctrine of the tripartite classification of men might destroy all possibilities of a practical democracy. If the Unthinking are the majority, how can democracy be trusted? This contrast, furthermore, serves to illuminate a further problem: the paradoxical necessity of an all-powerful government which the people are able to control. If this distinction is accepted in the establishment of a democracy, what will the consequences be? 133 In the first place, the masses who
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Democratic Machine State.
The Democratic Machine State.
A distinction must be made here. The term “machine,” applied to government, was itself a neologism introduced from the Japanese. 136 Not only was the word but the thing itself was alien to the Chinese, since the same term ( ch'i ) meant machinery, tool, or instrument. The introduction of the view of the state as a machine does not imply that Sun Yat-sen wished to introduce a specific form of Western state-machine into China—as will be later explained (in the pages which concern themselves with t
29 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Democratic-Political Versus Ideological Control.
Democratic-Political Versus Ideological Control.
Now, in modern times, even though men might still remain largely under the control of the ideology (learn to behave rightly instead of being governed), the ideology was necessarily weakened in two ways: by the appearance of men who were recalcitrant to the ideology, and by the emergence of conceptions and ideas which could not find a place in the ideology, and which consequently opened up extra-ideological fields of individual behavior. In other words, li was no longer all-inclusive, either as t
2 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Min Shêng in the Ideology.
Min Shêng in the Ideology.
There are two methods by means of which the principle of min shêng may be examined. It might be described on the basis of the various definitions which Sun Yat-sen gave it in his four lectures and in other speeches and papers, and outlined, point by point, by means of the various functions and limits that he set for it. This would also permit some consideration of the relation of min shêng to various other theories of political economy. The other approach may be a less academic one, but perhaps
13 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Economic Background of Min Shêng.
The Economic Background of Min Shêng.
That there were injustices in the old system of Chinese economy, no one can deny, but these injustices were scarcely sufficient to provoke, of themselves alone, the complete alteration of economic outlook that Sun Yat-sen proposed. Chinese capitalism had not reached the state of industrial capitalism until after its contact with the West; at the most it was a primitive sort of usury-capitalism practised by the three economically dominant groups of old China—landholders, officials, and merchant-u
18 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Three Meanings of Min Shêng.
The Three Meanings of Min Shêng.
Secondly, min shêng means national enrichment. The problem of China is primarily one of poverty. Sun wanted consideration of the problem of the livelihood of the people to begin with the supreme economic reality in China. What was this reality? “It is the poverty from which we all suffer. The Chinese in general are poor; among them there is no privileged wealthy class, but only a generality of ordinary poor people.” 157 However this enrichment was to be brought about, it was imperative. Thirdly,
44 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Western Influences: Henry George, Marxism and Maurice William.
Western Influences: Henry George, Marxism and Maurice William.
In attempting to state the definitive position of Sun Yat-sen on this question several points must be kept in mind. The first is that Sun Yat-sen, born a Chinese of the nineteenth century, had the intellectual orientation of a member of the world-society, and an accepter of the Confucian ideology. Enough has been shown of the background of his theories to demonstrate their harmony with and relevance to society which had endured in China for centuries before the coming of the West. The second poi
54 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Min Shêng as a Socio-Economic Doctrine.
Min Shêng as a Socio-Economic Doctrine.
Second: if Sun Yat-sen's min shêng ideology cannot be associated with capitalism, it can as little be affiliated with Marxism or the single-tax. What, then, in relation to Western socio-economic thought, is it? We have seen that the state it proposed was liberal-protective, and that the society from which it was derived and to which it was to lead back was one of extreme laissez-faire, bordering almost on anarchism. These political features are enough to distinguish it from the Western varieties
28 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Min Shêng as an Ethical Doctrine.
Min Shêng as an Ethical Doctrine.
The nationalist ideology was designed as the inheritor of and successor to, the old ideology of China. The doctrine of nationalism narrowed the field of the application of Confucianism from the whole civilized world to the state-ized society of the Chinese race-nation. The doctrine of democracy implemented the old teachings of popular power and intellectual leadership with a political mechanism designed to bring forth the full strength of both. And the doctrine of min shêng was the economic appl
2 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Kuomintang.
Kuomintang.
What instrument could preach nationalism to the Chinese people and awaken them, and, having awakened them, lead them on to a victorious defense of their race and civilization? Sun's answer was: “The Kuomintang.” The nationalist revolutionary party was the designated heir to the leadership of the people, and even in his life-time Sun Yat-sen worked through the party that was almost entirely his own creation. This party had begun as a small group of the personal followers of Sun Yat-sen in the day
43 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Dragon Throne and State Allegiance.
The Dragon Throne and State Allegiance.
This consciousness of themselves as a race-national unity was not of itself enough. The Chinese had lost the favored position that they had held since before the beginning of recorded history, and were no longer in a position to view the frailties of outside nations with the charity to which their once impregnable position had entitled them. It was no longer a mere question of pushing through a recognition that China, hitherto regarded by the Chinese as the ecumene of civilization, was a nation,
34 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Economic Nationalism.
Economic Nationalism.
Of the three forms of the foreign oppression of China, the economic, because it did not show itself so readily, and was already working full force, was the most dangerous. It was from this oppression that China had sunk to the degraded position of a sub-colony. “This economic oppression, this immense tribute is a thing which we did not dream of; it is something which cannot be easily detected, and hence we do not feel the awful shame of it.” 232 Sun Yat-sen, as stated above, was not hostile to t
2 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Political Nationalism for National Autonomy.
Political Nationalism for National Autonomy.
The further necessity for nationalism appeared in several ways. First, the Chinese had not become nationalistic enough in their attitude toward the powers. Sun Yat-sen, with his reluctance to enter into violent disagreement with the old ideology, was most unwilling that chauvinism should be allowed in China. 243 He hoped that the Western powers, seeing a fair bargain, would be willing to invest in China sufficient capital to advance Chinese industrial conditions. Instead, he saw Japanese capital
36 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Class War of the Nations.
The Class War of the Nations.
At the same time Sun was faced with the spectre of imperialism, and had to recognize that this unjust but effective alliance of economic exploitation and political subjection was an irreconcilable enemy to Chinese national freedom. He saw in Russia an ally, and did not see it figuratively. Years of disappointment had taught him that altruism is rare in the international financial relations of the modern world. After seeking everywhere else, he found the Russians, as it were, on his door-step off
24 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Racial Nationalism and Pan-Asia.
Racial Nationalism and Pan-Asia.
The speech itself is a re-statement of the race-class war of the nations. He points out that “It is contrary to justice and humanity that a minority of four hundred million should oppress a majority of nine hundred million....” 262 “The Europeans hold us Asiatics down through the power of their material accomplishments.” 263 He then goes on to stress the necessity of emulating the material development of the West not in order to copy the West in politics and imperialism as well, but solely for t
26 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The General Program of Nationalism.
The General Program of Nationalism.
1. The Kuomintang was to be the instrument of the revolution. Re-formed under the influence of the Communist advisers, it had become a powerful weapon of agitation. It was, as will be seen in the discussion of the plans for democracy, to become a governing system as well. Its primary purpose was to carry out the advancement of nationalism by the elimination of the tuchuns and other anti-national groups in China, and by an application of the three principles, one by one, of the nationalist progra
2 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Three Stages of Revolution.
The Three Stages of Revolution.
The three stages of revolution may resemble Communist doctrine; they may have been influenced by Confucian teaching; whatever their origin, they play an extremely important part in the doctrines of Sun Yat-sen, and in the politics springing from his principles. If the Kuomintang is the instrument of the revolution, the three stages are its process. The clearest exposition of this theory of the three stages is found in The Fundamentals of National Reconstruction , a manifesto which Sun Yat-sen is
21 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Adjustment of Democracy to China.
The Adjustment of Democracy to China.
In approaching Sun Yat-sen's solution the Western student must again remember two quite important distinctions between the democracy of Sun Yat-sen and the democracy of the West. Sun Yat-sen's principle of min ch'üan was the self-control of the whole people first, and a government by the mass of individuals making up the people secondarily. The Chinese social system was well enough organized to permit the question of democracy to be a question of the nation as a whole, rather than a question of
15 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Four Powers.
The Four Powers.
This was to be accomplished by two means. The Four Powers were to be given to the people, in order to assure their possession of ch'üan . The Five Rights were to assure that the government might be protected in its right to nêng , in its right to have only the most competent officials. Together the Four Powers and the Five Rights implement [pg 219] a scheme of government so novel that Sun Yat-sen himself believed it to be a definite contribution to political method. The learned Jesuit translator
24 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Five Rights.
The Five Rights.
Foreign Constitutions Sun Yat-sen believed that in separating the Five Rights from one another he would make clear certain differentiations of function which had led to numberless disputes in the past, and would present to the world a model government. Thus far, the Five Rights seem the complement of the Four Powers. The two sets of controls, of people over the government, and of the government over the people, assure China that a neo-democratic administration will have no less continuity and po
22 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Confederacy Versus Centralism.
Confederacy Versus Centralism.
Sun Yat-sen did not immediately shift from this position. As late as 1919-1922, when he was preparing his official biography, he spoke enthusiastically to his biographer of the potentialities of democratic provincial home rule. 284 He still believed in the importance of the provinces as units of a future democracy in China. From the time that Sun went South, and the Kuomintang was reorganized, to the present, the tendency in the Sun-Kuomintang theory seems to have been toward minimization of the
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Hsien in a Democracy.
The Hsien in a Democracy.
The hsien , however significant they may be in the social system of China, both past and present, cannot be described in a work such as this. It is not inappropriate, however, to reiterate that they form what is perhaps the most important grouping within China, and that much of Chinese life is centred in hsien affairs. It is by reason of hsien autonomy that the Chinese social system has been so elastic as to permit the shocks of invasion, insurrection, conquest, famine and flood to pass through
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Family System.
The Family System.
He planned to reorganize the already existing clan organizations in each district. These organizations have existed from time immemorial for the purposes of preserving clan unity, commemorating clan ancestry, performing charitable functions, and acting as a focus—although this last was not an avowed purpose—for clan defense. The reorganization which Sun proposed would probably have involved some systematizing of the organization for the purposes of uniformity and official record, as well as effe
2 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Three Programs of Min Shêng.
The Three Programs of Min Shêng.
Sun Yat-sen was averse to tying the hands of his followers and successors with respect to economic policy. He said: “While there are many undertakings which can be conducted by the State with advantage, others cannot be conducted effectively except under competition. I have no hard-and-fast dogma. Much must be left to the lessons of experience.” 296 It would be inexpedient to go into details about railway lines and other modern industrial enterprises by means of which Sun sought to modernize Chi
17 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The National Economic Revolution.
The National Economic Revolution.
It is this last attitude which one finds expressed in the acts of the last years of his life. The national revolution was to be made a reality by being intimately associated with the economic life and development of the country. The plans made for economic development should be pushed as far as possible without waiting for foreign help. The Chinese should use the instrument of the boycott as a sanction with which to give weight to their national policy. 300 They had to practise economic national
38 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution.
This outline was originally prepared as a vast plan which could be financed by the great powers, who would thereby find markets for their glut of goods left over by the war. The loan was to be made on terms not unprofitable to the financial powers, but nevertheless equitable to the Chinese. Sun Yat-sen hoped that with these funds the Chinese state could make a venture into state socialism. It was possible, in his opinion, to launch a coöperative modern economy in China with the assistance of int
40 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Social Revolution.
The Social Revolution.
Behind his demand for a program to carry out min shêng there was the fundamental belief that a government which does not assure and promote the material welfare of the masses of its citizens does not deserve to exist. To him the problem of livelihood, the concrete aspect of min shêng , was one which had to be faced by every government, and was a means of judging the righteousness of a government. He could not tolerate a state which did not assure the people a fair subsistence. There was no polit
30 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Utopia of Min Shêng.
The Utopia of Min Shêng.
Perhaps no other passage from the works of Sun Yat-sen in relation to min shêng could illustrate his position so aptly. He describes his doctrine. He labels it “communism,” although, as we have seen, it is quite another thing than Marxism. He cites Lincoln. In the end he calls upon the authority of Confucius. To a Westerner, the ideal commonwealth of Sun Yat-sen bears a remarkable resemblance to the world projected in the ideals of the ancient Chinese. Here again there is “great similarity,” com
50 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
A. Major Sources on Sun Yat-sen Which are Available in Western Languages.
A. Major Sources on Sun Yat-sen Which are Available in Western Languages.
Also a popular work. Valuable for the description of Sun Yat-sen's education. The only biography authorized by Sun Yat-sen, who wrote parts of it himself. A propaganda work, it presents the most complete record of Sun's early life. Does not go beyond 1922. Not available. A synopsis, by a spokesman for the Nationalist Party. An excellent outline, largely from Chinese sources. Useful for a description of Sun Yat-sen's life in Honolulu, and of some of his overseas connections. —— (R.-Ch. Duval, tra
24 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
B. Chinese Sources and Further Western Works Used as Auxiliary Sources.
B. Chinese Sources and Further Western Works Used as Auxiliary Sources.
Anonymous; Tsung-li Fêng An Shih Lu (A True Record of the Obsequies of the Leader) , Nanking, n. d. Bai-ko-nan (Mei Sung-nan); San-min-shu-gi To Kai-kyu To-so (The San Min Chu I and the Struggle between Capitalism and Labor) , Tokyo, 1929. Chung Kung-jên; San Min Chu I Li Lun Ti Lien Chiu (A Study of the Theory of the San Min Chu I) , Shanghai, 1931. Huang Huan-wên; Sun Wên Chu I Chen Ch'üan (The Real Interpretation of the Principles of Sun Wên) , Nanking, 1933. Lin Pai-k'ê (Linebarger, Paul M.
2 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Chinese-English Glossary.
Chinese-English Glossary.
Proper Names and Special Terms America ( see also United States ), 62 , 220 American Indians, 124 Anglo-Saxons, 62 Annam, 127 Austria, 62 Beresford, Lord Charles, 187 Bismarck, 254 ff. Bolsheviks ( see Russians , Marxian philosophy ) Borodin, 5 , 7 , 161 Boxer Rebellion, 78 British Empire, 71 , 199 Burgess, J. S., 41. . Cantlie, Sir James, 84 Canton, 7 , 66 , 126 , 233 Catherine I of Russia, 243 Catholic Church, 54 n., 122 Chang Tso (Djang Chu), 186 n. Ch'en Ch'iung-ming, 6 Chen, Eugene, 159 n.
40 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter