Sun Yat-sen: The father of modern China

At the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese reformists debated whether it was necessary to overthrow the imperial government to bring about a new order of things in the nation.

One of the key figures of the movement to bring down the Qing Dynasty was Sun Yat-sen, whom many consider to be the father of modern China.

Sun Yat-sen did not have an education traditionally viewed as projecting a career in politics, but what he lacked in education he made up for in vision, ambition and industriousness. Sun was born in 1866 to a poor peasant family in south China's Guangdong province.

He first came under the influence of Western thinking while studying at a missionary school in Hawaii, where he had moved in the footsteps of his brother. To his family's disappointment, Sun developed an interest for Christianity soon after arriving in Hawaii and later converted to the religion.

After his return to China, Sun went to university to study medicine and earned his degree in Hong Kong in 1892. Sun was a practicing physician for only a couple of years before succumbing to the desire to try his hand in politics. The reluctance of the conservative Qing Dynasty government to modernize its ways had enabled better-developed Western powers to force China to its knees on a number of occasions.

Sun wanted a change to this matter, but his proposals for strengthening the nation's governance did not spark any interest among the imperial reformists, who advocated a more moderate approach. Sun soon joined the ranks of the anti-imperialists, who wanted to see a republican system of government take root in China. After moving to Hawaii, Sun founded an association for the “rejuvenation of China,” which formed the foundation for the secret societies he would later come to lead.

From Agitator to Exile

In 1895, when the anti-Japanese War came to an end, Sun Yat-sen decided to make the most of the prevailing atmosphere of confusion by trying to incite a revolution in Guangzhou. The plan failed, however, and Sun was forced to flee into exile for 16 years. This represented the first of a total of ten rebellions Sun would help to orchestrate during his years in exile.

The following year, a failed attempt by the imperial forces to capture Sun would only boost his popularity. Chinese agents kidnapped Sun in London and kept him locked up at the Chinese embassy for thirteen days. Sun was ordered to repatriate and face punishment in China, but somehow he managed to send word of his arrest to James Cantlie, a former dean at the university Sun attended while in Hong Kong.

Soon, the British foreign ministry got involved in the matter and subsequently Sun was freed. The incident received widespread publicity, making him a well-known public figure all over the world. What's more, his written account of the incident became a top seller.

The following years Sun spent in Japan and the United States, where he tried to persuade the leaders of the triad to support his cause. Failed uprisings and betrayals by secret societies made him even more convinced of the need to mobilize support from among the county's literati for a revolution and the establishment of a Chinese republic.

Sun's plans started to get off the ground when overseas Chinese students, increasingly disillusioned by the actions of the imperial court, started to offer their support for the revolution. Sun gained a strong following among the nation's intellectual elite and in 1905, he took on the role of leading the Tongmenghui revolutionary alliance. Sun's three guiding principles: unity of the people, (nationalism); power of the people (democracy); and welfare of the people – became the doctrine of the coalition.

President of the Republic of China

Sun's fame and influence did not come without a price. The revolutionaries started to shun his attempts to control their actions and Sun was no longer able to exert an influence on the members of the coalition. The imperial court managed to persuade Japan and the French Indochina to banish Sun from their territory. And on top of everything, in 1910, another large scale attempt at revolution launched in Guangzhou came to an abrupt end.

When the revolution finally got underway in China, Sun was in the US and was not directly involved in choreographing the uprising. The revolution gained momentum in 1911 when a unit of the Chinese army revolted in Wuchang and succeeded in overthrowing the provincial government. When Sun got word of the rebellion, he traveled to China, where the remaining provinces had already joined the Xinhai Revolution.

Representatives of the provinces gathered in Nanjing in December and elected Sun Yat-sen as the provisional president of the Republic of China. Although the new state was weak and Sun had to soon cede his place as president, the millennia-old Chinese imperial tradition had already met its demise.

China Under the Rule of Chiang Kai-shek

In connection with the 90th anniversary of the CCP, we took a look back at the beginnings of the party.

At the turn of the 20th century, China was the stage of intense confrontations between nationalists and communist forces. Their views and ideas about each other were anything but flattering. In the China of Chiang Kai-shek, communists were seen as desperate bandits.

Mao Zedong, in turn, regarded himself as a savior who would liberate the country from Chiang's corrupt rule. In retrospect, it appears that China under the Kuomintang had a lot in common with the communist-ruled People's Republic that would follow it.

The Three Principles of the People, which forms the basis of China's political philosophy, was developed by Sun Yat-sen. Its core idea was to build a unified, democratic and equal China. The Kuomintang and the communists both aligned themselves with this philosophy, and thus felt entitled to continue Sun's work.

Their aim was to form a strong, centralised government, to liberate the country from imperialism, to reduce rural poverty and to industrialise the country. The greatest and, in fact, most divisive difference between their political approaches was that the communists did not imagine that China could ever change without a class struggle.

China Under Kuomintang Rule

It was the Kuomintang that first had the opportunity to carry out their political programme. The nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek, rose to power through their own military undertakings and popular support.

The Northern Campaign, launched against the warlords, was so successful that Chiang was able to set up his government in Nanjing in 1928. At the time, the internationally recognised Nanjing cabinet was seen as the most promising administration in China in nearly two decades.

The nationalists formed China's first modern government. According to Sun Yat-sen, an ideal government is divided into legislative, executive and judicial branches, also called yuans. Following Sun and preserving Chinese traditions, the nationalists established two additional yuans: the administrative and the one supervising civil servant qualifications.

Above these yuans, president Chiang Kai-shek exercised power. China under the nationalists was a communist-type, one-party state. The Kuomintang was to guide and educate the Chinese people until the country would be mature for democracy.

Immediately after the Kuomintang had risen to power, they began to campaign for state-controlled industrialisation and development. Later on, the communists continued the process from where the nationalists had left off. In addition to modernising China's banking and credit institutions, the Kuomintang government also massively improved the country's railway and road infrastructure.

In foreign policy, the Nanjing government succeeded in reducing the privileges enjoyed by foreigners, an issue that had enraged the Chinese since the 1800s.

A China of Law and Order

Sun Yatsen's objective was to complete the revolution that had begun in 1911, and Chiang Kai-shek envisioned himself as his successor. However, the Kuomintang, led by Chiang, eventually changed its revolutionist line to conservatism.

The Nanjing government did not hesitate to introduce all possible measures to maintain law and order. The communists, whom Chiang Kai-shek called simply "bandits," were the primary targets of persecution.

The need for social reform was more than obvious, because China's mortality rate in the 1930s was the highest in the world. The principle of a welfare state was developed by Sun Yat-sen and it included the idea of equality of land ownership, but for the Nanjing government it was impossible to implement.

While the Kuomintang relied heavily on land-owners to ensure its power, much-needed land reforms could only be carried out in Taiwan after the civil war. In the 1930s, four-fifths of China's population still lived in rural areas. The Kuomintang failed to convince the people that it was dedicated to serving the interests of the rural population, and thus the communists, driven to remote areas, found new supporters.

The Kuomintang ruled China's main areas for about ten years until the Japanese invasion in 1937. Throughout this period, the nationalists struggled with the problem of social fragmentation. In addition to the communists, the newly emboldened warlords also posed a threat to the Nanjing government.

Nevertheless, during the time of the Kuomintang, China witnessed significant developments. In fact, Japan did not attack the country because it was weak, but rather because it saw growing China as a threat.

Battle of Nanjing: A Fight to the Death

December 9, 2012, marked the 75th anniversary of the Battle in Nanjing. This is a day both Chinese and Japanese children read about in school, although the perspectives to the battle might be different.

Chinese students will be particularly familiar with two generals of the battle – one who abandoned the city and the other who remained to fight. On this anniversary it is worth looking back at the historical background and the events which lead to this tragic battle based on Tang Shengzhi's book Battle of Nanjing.

Events Leading to the Battle

In 1931, Japan invaded the northern part of China Manchuria. Six years later the ruling power of that time, the Chinese Nationalist Party, Kuomintang (KMT) started to fight against the invasion. However, the poorly trained and equipped Chinese army was no match to the Japanese troops which occupied Beijing and Shanghai in 1937.

On November the 8th, Chinese troops retreated from Shanghai to protect Nanjing, the capital of China. Three days later the Japanese army started to move towards Nanjing and the official order to take Nanjing was made on December 1st.

Defense of Nanjing

KMT knew that the fall of Shanghai would be inevitable because of the low morale of the retreated Chinese troops and the Japanese control of the air and the Long River. The next natural step for the Japanese army would be to invade the capital, Nanjing.

Foreseeing this danger, Chiang Kai-shek, president of KMT, made the decision to move the capital to Wuhan and start the evacuation of Nanjing civilians. Chiang Kai-shek knew that abandoning and giving up the capital without a fight would be a political suicide. Therefore, as the president and his advisors left Nanjing before December the 7th, General Tang Shengzhi was ordered to defend Nanjing.

Siege and assault

The Japanese started to attack the Chinese troops and destroy the defenses outside Nanjing. They reached the outside of the walls of Nanjing on December 9th and dropped leaflets which urged the Chinese army to surrender within 24 hours. Tang refused and the Japanese army decided to take Nanjing by force.

In two days the Chinese army lost most of their defensive positions and Chiang Kai-shek sent a permission to allow the Chinese troops to retreat. On December the 12, 1937, Tang Shengzhi, who previously had announced that the Chinese army would fight to the death to defend Nanjing, escaped from Nanjing.

He made no plan for an organized evacuation, which caused confusion among the soldiers and the retreat soon turned into a chaotic fight. Many commanders abandoned their troops and escaped on their own.

Xiao Shanling, was the general that followed Tang to defend the capital. According to the record of the Defense Department of KMT, Xiao a son of a farmer, was a shy man who stammered. But what proved to be the last few days of his life, he showed courage and led his soldiers to fight against the Japanese army.

Fight to the death

Xiao Shanling’s troops were finally besieged by the Japanese army on the beach of the Long River. Realizing the battle was lost, Xiao Shanling’s took his life by using his own gun. Nobody knows the exact number of the lives lost in the following tragic Nanjing Massacre. Some estimate that in the following six weeks, 200,000 to 300,000 Chinese civilians died.