The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen

                   An Exposition of the _Sun Min Chu I_

                                    By

                   Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, Ph.D.

             The Department of Government, Harvard University

                       Greenwood Press, Publishers

                          Westport, Connecticut

                 Copyright 1937, The Johns Hopkins Press

                     First Greenwood Reprinting 1973





CONTENTS


Foreword.
Preface.
Introduction.
   The Problem of the _San Min Chu I_.
      The Materials.
      The Necessity of an Exposition.
Chapter I. The Ideological, Social, and Political Background.
   The Rationale of the Readjustment.
   Nation and State in Chinese Antiquity.
   The Theory of the Confucian World-Society.
   The Chinese World-Society of Eastern Asia.
   The Impact of the West.
   The Continuing Significance of the Background.
Chapter II The Theory of Nationalism.
   The Emergence of the Chinese Race-Nation.
   The Necessity of Nationalism.
   The Return to the Old Morality.
   The Return to the Ancient Knowledge.
   Western Physical Science in the New Ideology.
   The Consequences of the Nationalist Ideology.
Chapter III. The Theory of Democracy.
   Democracy in the Old World-Society.
   Five Justifications of a Democratic Ideology.
   The Three Natural Classes of Men.
   Ch’üan and Nêng.
   The Democratic Machine State.
   Democratic-Political Versus Ideological Control.
Chapter IV. The Theory of _Min Shêng_.
   _Min Shêng_ in the Ideology.
   The Economic Background of _Min Shêng_.
   The Three Meanings of _Min Shêng_.
   Western Influences: Henry George, Marxism and Maurice William.
   _Min Shêng_ as a Socio-Economic Doctrine.
   _Min Shêng_ as an Ethical Doctrine.
Chapter V. The Programs of Nationalism.
   Kuomintang.
   The Dragon Throne and State Allegiance.
   Economic Nationalism.
   Political Nationalism for National Autonomy.
   The Class War of the Nations.
   Racial Nationalism and Pan-Asia.
   The General Program of Nationalism.
Chapter VI. The Programs of Democracy.
   The Three Stages of Revolution.
   The Adjustment of Democracy to China.
   The Four Powers.
   The Five Rights.
   Confederacy Versus Centralism.
   The _Hsien_ in a Democracy.
   The Family System.
Chapter VII. The Programs of _Min Shêng_.
   The Three Programs of _Min Shêng_.
   The National Economic Revolution.
   The Industrial Revolution.
   The Social Revolution.
   The Utopia of _Min Shêng_.
Bibliography.
Chinese-English Glossary.
Index.
Footnotes






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 political
science.

The superior qualifications of Sun Yat-sen for the interpretation of
Western political science to the Chinese have also been widely recognized
in the West, particularly in the United States. Dr. Sun received a modern
education in medicine and surgery and presumably grasped the spirit of
Western science. He read widely, more widely perhaps than any contemporary
political leader of the first rank except Woodrow Wilson, in the
literature of Western political science. He was thoroughly familiar with
the development of American political thought and full of sympathy for
American political ideals. His aspiration to build a modern democratic
republic amidst the ruins of the medieval Manchu Empire, Americans at
least can readily understand.

What is only beginning to be understood, however, in the West is, that it
is equally important to interpret Chinese political philosophy to the rest
of the world. Western political science has contributed a great deal to
the development of political power. But it has failed lamentably to
illuminate the ends for which such power should be used. Political ethics
is by no means superfluous in lands where a government of law is supposed
to be established in lieu of a government of men. The limitation of the
authority of sovereign states in the interest of a better world order is
an enterprise to which at last, it may be hoped not too late, Westerners
are beginning to dedicate themselves.

As an interpreter of Chinese political philosophy to the West Dr. Sun has
no peer. Better than any other Chinese revolutionary leader he appreciated
the durable values in the classical political philosophy of the Far East.
He understood the necessity for preserving those values, while introducing
the Western political ideas deemed most proper for adapting the Chinese
political system to its new place in the modern world. His system of
political thought, therefore, forms a blend of Far Eastern political
philosophy and Western political science. It suggests at the same time
both what is suitable in Western political science for the use of the Far
East and what is desirable in Far Eastern political philosophy for the
improvement of the West.

Dr. Linebarger has analyzed Dr. Sun’s political ideas, and also his plans
for the political rehabilitation of China, with a view to the interests of
Western students of politics. For this task his training and experience
have given him exceptional competence. The result is a book, which not
only renders obsolete all previous volumes in Western languages on modern
Chinese political philosophy, but also makes available for the political
scientists and politicians of the West the best political thought of the
Far East on the fundamental problems of Western politics.

ARTHUR N. HOLCOMBE
_Harvard University_





PREFACE.


This book represents an exploration into a field of political thought
which is still more or less unknown. The Chinese revolution has received
much attention from publicists and historians, and a vast number of works
dealing with almost every phase of Chinese life and events appears every
year in the West. The extraordinary difficulty of the language, the
obscurity—to Westerners—of the Chinese cultural background, and the
greater vividness of events as compared with theories have led Western
scholars to devote their attention, for the most part, to descriptions of
Chinese politics rather than to venture into the more difficult field of
Chinese political thought, without which, however, the political events
are scarcely intelligible.

The author has sought to examine one small part of modern Chinese
political thought, partly as a sample of the whole body of thought, and
partly because the selection, although small, is an important one. Sun
Yat-sen is by far the most conspicuous figure in recent Chinese history,
and his doctrines, irrespective of the effectiveness or permanence of the
consequences of their propagation, have a certain distinct position in
history. The _San Min Chu I_, his chief work, not only represents an
important phase in the revolution of Chinese social and political thought,
but solely and simply as doctrine, may be regarded as a Chinese expression
of tendencies of political thought current in the Western world.

The personal motives, arising out of an early and rather intimate family
relationship with the Chinese nationalist movement centering around the
person of Sun Yat-sen, that led the author to undertake this subject, have
their advantages and disadvantages. The chief disadvantage lies in the
fact that the thesis must of necessity treat of many matters which are the
objects of hot controversy, and that the author, friendly to the movement
as a whole but neutral as between its factions, may seem at times to deal
unjustly or over-generously with certain persons and groups. The younger
widow of Sun Yat-sen (née Soong Ching-ling) may regard the mention of her
husband and the Nanking government in the same breath as an act of
treachery. Devoted to the memory of her husband, she has turned,
nevertheless, to the Left, and works on cordial terms with the Communists.
She said: “... the Nanking Government has crushed every open liberal,
democratic, or humanitarian movement in our country. It has destroyed all
trade unions, smashed every strike of the workers for the right to
existence, has thrown hordes of criminal gangsters who are simultaneously
Fascist ‘Blue Shirts’ against every labor, cultural, or national
revolutionary movement in the country.”(1) The author, from what he
himself has seen of the National Government, is positive that it is not
merely dictatorial, ruthless, cruel, treacherous, or historically
unnecessary; nor would he, contrarily, assert that the National Government
lives up to or surpasses the brilliant ideals of Sun Yat-sen. He seeks to
deal charitably with all factions, to follow a middle course whenever he
can, and in any case to state fairly the positions of both sides.

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) The
author believes that on the basis of this material and background he is
justified in venturing into this comparatively unknown field.

The primary sources for this work have been Sun Yat-sen’s own works. A
considerable number of these were written originally in the English
language. Translations of his major Chinese works are more or less fully
available in English, German, French, or Spanish. The author’s highly
inadequate knowledge of the Chinese written language has led him to depend
almost altogether upon translations, but he has sought—in some cases,
perhaps, unsuccessfully—to minimize the possibility of misunderstanding or
error by checking the translations against one another. Through the
assistance of his Chinese friends, he has been able to refer to Sun’s
complete works in Chinese and to Chinese books on Sun wherever such
reference was imperatively necessary. A list of the Chinese titles thus
made available is included in the bibliography. The language difficulty,
while an annoyance and a handicap, has not been so considerable as to give
the author reason to suppose that his conclusions would have been
different in any significant respect had he been able to make free and
continuous use of Chinese and Russian sources.

The author has thought of the present work as a contribution to political
theory rather than to sinology, and has tried to keep the discussion of
sinological questions at a minimum. In the transliteration of Chinese
words and names he has adhered more or less closely to the Wade system,
and has rendered most terms in the _kuo yü_, or national language. Despite
this rule, he gives the name of President Sun in its more commonly known
Cantonese form, Sun Yat-sen, rather than in the _kuo yü_, Sun I-hsien.

In acknowledging assistance and encouragement received, the author must
first of all turn to his father, Judge Paul Myron Wentworth Linebarger,
Legal Advisor to The National Government of China, counsellor to and
biographer of Sun Yat-sen during the latter’s lifetime. Without his
patient encouragement and his concrete assistance, this book could neither
have been begun nor brought to a conclusion after it was started. The
author desires, however, to make it perfectly clear that this work has no
relation to the connections of Judge Linebarger with the Chinese
Government or with the Nationalist Party. No information coming to the
knowledge of Judge Linebarger in the course of his official duties has
been here incorporated. Anxiously scrupulous to maintain a completely
detached point of view, the author has refrained from communicating with
or submitting the book to Chinese Government or Party officials, and
writes purely as an American student of China.

Professor James Hart, formerly at The Johns Hopkins University and now at
The University of Virginia, Professor Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Johns Hopkins
University, Professor Harley Farnsworth MacNair and Dr. Ernest Price, both
of The University of Chicago, have rendered inestimable assistance by
reading the manuscript and giving the author the benefit of their advice.
Professor Hart has criticized the work as an enterprise in political
science. Professor Lovejoy assisted the author by reading the first third
of the work, and selections of the later parts, and applying his thorough
and stimulating criticism; the author regrets that he was unable to adopt
all of Professor Lovejoy’s suggestions in full, and is deeply grateful for
the help. Professor MacNair read the book as a referee for a dissertation,
and made a great number of comments which have made the book clearer and
more accurate; the author would not have ventured to present this work to
the public had it not been for the reassurances and encouragement given
him by Professor MacNair. Dr. Ernest Price, while at The Hopkins,
supervised the composition of the first drafts; his judicious and balanced
criticism, based upon sixteen years’ intimacy with the public and private
life of the Chinese, and a sensitive appreciation of Chinese values, were
of great value to the author in establishing his perspective and lines of
study. The author takes this opportunity to thank these four gentlemen for
their great kindness and invaluable assistance.

It is with deep regret that the author abbreviates his acknowledgments and
thanks for the inspiration and the favors he received in his study of
Chinese politics from Dr. C. Walter Young; Professor Frederic Ogg, of The
University of Wisconsin; Professors Kenneth Colegrove, William McGovern,
and Ikuo Oyama, of The Northwestern University; Dr. Arthur Hummel, of The
Library of Congress; Professor Frederick Dunn, of Yale University;
Professor Arthur Holcombe, of Harvard University; Professor Quincy Wright,
of The University of Chicago; and Dr. Wallace McClure, of The Department
of State. Many of the author’s Chinese friends assisted by reading the
manuscript and criticizing it from their more intimate knowledge of their
own country, among them being Messrs. Miao Chung-yi and Djang Chu, at The
Johns Hopkins University; Professor Jên T’ai, of Nankai University; and
Messrs. Wang Kung-shou, Ch’ing Ju-chi, and Lin Mou-sheng, of The
University of Chicago, made many helpful suggestions. The author must
thank his teachers at The Johns Hopkins University, to whom he is indebted
for three years of the most patient assistance and stimulating
instruction, in respect of both the present work and other fields in the
study of government: Dr. Johannes Mattern; Dr. Albert Weinberg; Mr. Leon
Sachs; and Professor W. W. Willoughby. Finally, he must acknowledge his
indebtedness to his wife, Margaret Snow Linebarger, for her patient
assistance in preparing this volume for the press.

PAUL M. A. LINEBARGER.

December, 1936.





INTRODUCTION.




The Problem of the _San Min Chu I_.



The Materials.


Sun Yat-sen played many rôles in the history of his times. He was one of
those dramatic and somewhat formidable figures who engage the world’s
attention at the very outset of their careers. In the late years of the
nineteenth century, he was already winning some renown in the West; it was
picturesque that a Cantonese, a Christian physician, should engage in
desperate conspiracies against the Manchu throne. Sun became known as a
political adventurer, a forerunner, as it were, of such mutually
dissimilar personages as Trotsky, Lawrence, and Major-General Doihara.
With the illusory success of the revolution of 1911, and his Presidency of
the first Republic, Sun ceased being a conspirator in the eyes of the
world’s press, and became the George Washington of China. It is in this
rôle that he is most commonly known, and his name most generally recalled.
After the world war, in the atmosphere of extreme tension developed,
perhaps, by the Bolshevik revolution, Sun was regarded as an enigmatic
leader, especially significant in the struggle between Asiatic
nationalisms allied with the Soviets against the traditional capitalist
state-system. It was through him that the Red anti-imperialist policy was
pushed to its greatest success, and he was hated and admired, ridiculed
and feared, down to the last moments of his life. When he died, American
reporters in Latvia cabled New York their reports of Russian comments on
the event.(3) More, perhaps, than any other Chinese of modern times, Sun
symbolized the entrance of China into world affairs, and the inevitable
confluence of Western and Far Eastern history.

It is characteristic of Sun that he should have appeared in another and
final rôle after his death. He had been thought of as conspirator,
statesman, and mass leader; but with the advent of his party to power it
became publicly apparent that he had also been a political philosopher.
The tremendous prestige enjoyed by him as state-founder and party leader
was enhanced by his importance as prophet and law-giver. His doctrines
became the state philosophy of China, and for a while his most zealous
followers sought to have him canonized in a quite literal fashion, and at
one stroke to make him replace Confucius and the Sons of Heaven. After the
extreme enthusiasms of the Sun Yat-sen cult subsided, Sun remained the
great national hero-sage of modern China. Even in those territories where
the authority of his political heirs was not completely effective, his
flag was flown and his doctrines taught.

His doctrines have provided the theories upon which the Nationalist
revolution was based; they form the extra-juridical constitution of the
National Government of China. When the forces hostile to Sun Yat-sen and
his followers are considered, it is amazing that his ideas and ideals
should have survived. An empire established with the aid of Japanese arms,
and still under Japanese hegemony, controls Manchuria; parts of north
China are ruled by a bastard government, born of a compromise between
enemies; a largely unrecognized but powerful Soviet Republic exists in
outer Mongolia; the lamaist oligarchy goes on in Tibet; and somewhere, in
central and western China, a Soviet group, not quite a government but more
than a conspiracy, is fighting for existence. It is quite probable that
nowhere else in the world can there be found a greater variety of
principles, each scheme of principles fostered by an armed organization
struggling with its rivals. In this chaos the National Government has made
the most effective bid for authority and the greatest effort for the
reëstablishment of order; through it the principles of Sun Yat-sen rule
the political life of a population greater than that of the United States
or of the Soviet Union.

It is difficult to evaluate the importance of political doctrines. Even if
_The Three Principles_ is judged by the extent of the population which its
followers control, it has achieved greater results in practical politics
in fifteen years than has Marxism in ninety. Such a criterion may well be
disputed, but, whatever the test, it cannot be denied that the thought of
Sun Yat-sen has played a major part in the political development of his
native land. It may continue into the indefinitely remote future, or may
succumb to the perils that surround its advocates; in any case, these
doctrines have been taught long enough and broadly enough to make an
impress on the age, and have been so significant in political and cultural
history that they can never sink into complete obscurity.

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 coherent
or consistent with one another. Certain of his works were naturally more
important than others, but, to make the choice definitive, he himself
indicated four sources which his followers might draw upon for a
definitive statement of his views.(4)

His _Political Testament_ cites the _Chien Kuo Fang Lo_ (_The Program of
National Reconstruction_), the _Chien Kuo Ta Kang_ (_The Outline of
National Reconstruction_), the _San Min Chu I_ (_The Triple Demism_, also
translated as _The Three Principles of the People_), and the _Manifesto_
issued by the first national congress of the Party.(5) These four items
differ quite sharply from one another in form. No one of them can be
relied upon to give the whole of Sun’s doctrines.

The _Chien Kuo Fang Lo_ (_The Program of National Reconstruction_) is in
reality three works, only remotely related to one another. The first item
in the trilogy is the _Sun Wên Hsüeh Shê_ (_The Philosophy of Sun Wên_);
it is a series of familiar essays on the Chinese way of thought.(6) The
second is the _Min Ch’üan Ts’u Pu_, _The Primer of Democracy_, which is
little more than a text on parliamentary law.(7) The third is the _Shih
Yeh Chi Hua_, known in English as _The International Development __ of
China_, which Sun wrote in both English and Chinese.(8) These three works,
under the alternate titles of “The Program of Psychological
Reconstruction,” “The Program of Social Reconstruction,” and “The Program
of Material Reconstruction” form _The Program of National Reconstruction_.

The _Chien Kuo Ta Kang, The Outline of National Reconstruction_, is an
outline of twenty-five points, giving the necessary steps towards the
national reconstruction in their most concise form.(9)

The _San Min Chu I_ is Sun’s most important work. It comprises sixteen
lectures setting forth his socio-political theories and his programs. The
title most commonly used in Western versions is _The Three Principles of
the People_.(10)

The last document mentioned in Sun Yat-sen’s will was the _Manifesto_ of
the first national congress of the Kuomintang. This was not written by
himself, but was drafted by Wang Ch’ing-wei, one of his closest followers,
and embodies essentially the same ideas as do the other three items, even
though Borodin—the emissary of the Third International—had been consulted
in its preparation.(11)

Sun undoubtedly regretted leaving such a heterogeneous and ill-assembled
group of works as his literary bequest. Throughout the latter years of his
life he was studying political science in the hope that he might be able
to complete a great treatise which he had projected, an analysis and
statement of the programs of the Chinese nationalists. One attempt toward
actualization of this work was frustrated when Sun’s manuscripts and a
great part of his library were burned in the attack launched against him
by Ch’en Ch’iung-ming in 1922. His apology for the makeshift volume on the
_San Min Chu I_ is pathetic: “As I had neither time to prepare nor books
to use as references, I could do nothing else in these lectures but
improvise after I ascended the platform. Thus I have omitted and forgotten
many things which were in my original manuscript. Although before having
them printed, I revised them, added (passages) and eliminated (others),
yet, those lectures are far from coming up to my original manuscripts,
either in the subject matter itself, or in the concatenations of the
discussion, or in the facts adduced as proofs.”(12) Sun was in all
probability a more assiduous and widely read student of political science
than any other world leader of his day except Wilson; he studied
innumerable treatises on government, and was surprisingly familiar with
the general background of Western politics, in theory and practice. He was
aware of the shabby appearance that these undigested occasional pieces
would present when put forth as the bible of a new China, and earnestly
enjoined his followers to carry on his labors and bring them to
fruition.(13)

The various works included in the _Chien Kuo Fang Lo_, while satisfactory
for the purposes Sun had in mind when he wrote them, are not enough to
outline the fundamentals both of political theory and a governmental plan.
The familiar essays have an important bearing on the formation of the
ideology of a new China; the primer of democracy, less; the industrial
plan is one of those magnificent dreams which, in the turn of a decade,
may inspire an equally great reality. The outline and the manifesto are no
more suited to the rôle of classics; they are decalogues rather than
bibles.(14) There remains the _San Min Chu I_.

The _San Min Chu I_ is a collection of sixteen lectures delivered in
Canton in 1924. There were to have been eighteen, but Sun was unable to
give the last two. Legend has it that Borodin persuaded Sun to give the
series.(15) Whatever the cause of their being offered, they attracted
immediate attention. Interest in Sun and in his ideas was at a fever heat;
his friends turned to the printed lectures for guidance; his enemies, for
statements which could be turned against him. Both friends and enemies
found what they wanted. To the friends, the _San Min Chu I_ presented a
fairly complete outline of Sun’s political and social thought in such a
form that it could be preserved and broadcast readily. There was danger,
before the book appeared, that the intrinsic unity in Sun’s thinking would
be lost sight of by posterity, that his ideas would appear as a
disconnected jumble of brilliant inspirations. The sixteen lectures
incorporated a great part of the doctrines which he had been preaching for
more than a generation. To the enemies of Sun, the work was welcome. They
pointed out the numerous simplifications and inconsistencies, the frequent
contradictions in matters of detail, the then outrageous denunciations of
the economic and political system predominant in the Far East. They
ridiculed Sun because he was Chinese, and because he was not Chinese
enough, and backed up their criticisms with passages from the book.(16)

When Sun gave the lectures, he was a sick man. He carried an ivory-headed
sword cane with him on the platform; occasionally, holding it behind him
and locking his arms through it, he would press it against his back to
relieve the intolerable pain.(17) The business awaiting him after each
lecture was vitally important; the revolution was proceeding by leaps and
bounds. The lectures are the lectures of a sick man, given to a popular
audience in the uproar of revolution, without adequate preparation,
improvised in large part, and offered as one side of a crucial and
bitterly disputed question. The secretaries who took down the lectures may
not have succeeded in following them completely; Sun had no leisure to do
more than skim through the book before releasing it to the press.

These improvised lectures have had to serve as the fundamental document of
Nationalist China. Sun Yat-sen died without writing the treatise he had
planned. The materials he left behind were a challenge to scholars and to
his followers. Many persons set to work interpreting them, each with a
conscious or unconscious end in view. A German Marxian showed Sun to be a
forerunner of bolshevism; an American liberal showed Sun to be a bulwark
against bolshevism. A Chinese classicist demonstrated Sun’s reverence for
the past; a Jesuit father explained much by Sun’s modern and Christian
background. His works have been translated into Western languages without
notes; the improvised lectures, torn from their context of a revolutionary
crisis, have served poorly to explain the ideology of Sun Yat-sen, and his
long range political, social, and economic plans.



The Necessity of an Exposition.


Followers of Sun who knew him personally, or were members of that circle
in which his ideas and opinions were well known, have found the _San Min
Chu I_ and other literary remains helpful; they have been able to turn to
the documents to refresh their memories of Sun on some particular point,
or to experience the encouraging force of his faith and enthusiasm again.
They need not be reminded of the main tenets of his thought, or of the
fundamental values upon which he based his life and his political
activities. His sense of leadership, which strangers have at times thought
fantastic, is one which they admire in him, since they, too, have felt the
power of his personality and have experienced that leadership in the
course of their own lives. His voice is ringing in their consciences; they
feel no need of a guide to his mind. At the present day many members of
Sun’s own family, and a considerable number of his veteran disciples are
still living; the control of the National Government is in their hands.
They are people who need no commentary on Sun Yat-sen; to them, he died
only yesterday.

Others, who met Sun only casually, or who could know him only through his
writings, have a quite different impression of his thought. They perforce
assume that he thought as he wrote, and fail to realize that virtually all
his writings and speeches were occasional pieces, improvisations designed
as propaganda. One of the most respected American authorities on China
says that in the _San Min Chu I_ “... there is a combination of sound
social analysis, keen comment on comparative political science, and
bombast, journalistic inaccuracy, jejune philosophizing and sophomoric
economics.”(18) This view is one which can scarcely be attacked, if one
considers only the printed lectures, and overlooks the other utterances
and the personality of Sun. To apply this, or any similar estimate (and
there are many of them), to all of Sun Yat-sen’s thought would be woefully
inaccurate. It is not the critic’s fault that Sun never found time to
write a sober, definitive political treatise expressing his ideas; it is,
nevertheless, the critic’s responsibility to weigh the value of the _San
Min Chu I_, and consider the importance which Sun himself attached to it,
before judging Sun’s whole philosophy by a hastily-composed and poorly
written book.

Yet, if the Western student of modern Chinese history were to look
elsewhere for some general exposition of Sun Yat-sen’s political ideas, he
would find none. He could discover several excellent translations of the
sixteen lectures, and parts of the other work of Sun. He would be helped
by the prefatory notes to some of these translations.(19) A few treatises
would be available to him on special phases of Sun’s thought: the
influence of Maurice William, and the influence of the Russian
Communists.(20) In addition, there would be the biographies, of which
there are more than a dozen, and a few other useful although not general
works. None of these sifts Sun’s thought, seeking to separate the
transitory from the permanent in his ideas. For this the searcher would
have to rely on brief outlines of Sun’s ideas, to be found in works
dealing with modern China or the Chinese revolution.(21)

This relative scarcity of exegetic material concerning the ideology and
programs of Sun is not the result of any inadequacy on the part of those
persons, both Chinese and Western, who have devoted thought and time to
his life or to the translation of his works. It is one thing to point out
a task that has yet to be done; and quite another, actually to perform it.
An interpretation or exposition of Sun’s thought, to be worthy of the
great significance of the original, must be very thorough; but scarcely
enough time has elapsed to allow a perspective of all the materials, let
alone an orientation of Sun in the Far Eastern scene. Yet the importance
of Sun demands that something be done to bring his thought to the
attention of the world, so that the usual distortion of his
personality—arising from the lack of commentaries—may be avoided in
present day works. In a sense, the time is not ripe for a definitive
treatment of Sun, either as a figure in history or as a contributor to the
significant and enduring political thought of modern times; any work now
done will, as time passes, fall grotesquely far short of adequacy. On the
other hand, there is so much material of a perishable nature—anecdotes and
legends not yet committed to print, and the memories of living men—now
available, that a present-day work on Sun may gain in color and intimacy
what it loses in judgment and objectivity, may gain in proximity what it
has to forgo in detachment. And, lastly, the complete absence of any
systematic presentation of Sun’s ideas in any Western language is so great
a deficiency in the fields of Far Eastern history and world political
thought, that even a relatively inadequate exposition of the thought of
Sun Yat-sen may prove to be not without value. Sun himself never explained
his philosophy, whether theoretical or applied, in any broad, systematic
fashion; nor has anyone else done so.

If the permissibility of an exposition of Sun Yat-sen’s thought be
conceded, there still remains the vexing problem of a choice of method.
While the far-flung peripheries of Sun’s thought touch almost every field
of knowledge and opinion, a systematic condensation of his views cannot
hope to survey the same broad ranges. The problem of proportion, of just
emphasis, involves the nice appraisal of the degree of importance which
each of Sun’s minor rôles had in his intellectual career as a whole. Nor
do the difficulties concerning method end with the consideration of
proportion; they merely begin, for there remains the far more important
and perplexing problem of a technique of interpretation.

Interpretation obviously relates to the problem of language. The
translation of theoretical terms from Chinese into English constitutes a
formidable difficulty which proves, in several instances, to be
insuperable. No satisfactory equivalent for _min shêng_ (usually rendered
“livelihood”) can be found in English; even simpler and less specialized
terms are extremely difficult to render. Sometimes it would be convenient
to employ four or five alternative translations for one Chinese term. Sun
uses the word “nationalism” in the sense that a Westerner would, in
advocating national consciousness in a China hitherto unfamiliar with the
conception of nation-states; but, in a different context, he uses it in
the sense of “patriotism.”(22) These difficulties must be faced and,
somehow or other, overcome. When the Western reader encounters a familiar
term in an unexpected place, he must be prepared to meet a shift of
meaning. No amount of definition can make a Chinese term, which has no
exact Western equivalent, completely clear. It is simpler to grow
accustomed to the term, to gather together its connotations, to understand
something of the frame of reference wherein it is set, and thereby to
learn it as a child learns a word. A dictionary is no help to a baby; in a
realm of unfamiliar ideas even scholars must learn terms step by step.

Less obviously than language, the translation of ideas and of values is
also involved in interpretation. In dealing with the intellectual content
of a civilization as alien as that of China, the Westerner must be wary of
the easy analogy. The full, forceful application of Western ideas and
values in a world to which they are completely irrelevant produced strange
results during the nineteenth century. Western notions of goodness and
reasonableness did not fit the Chinese scheme of things. Under such a test
a wildly distorted image of China was obtained. China seemed peculiar,
topsy-turvy, fantastic. To themselves the Chinese still seemed quite
matter-of-fact, and the Westerners thought even this odd and ridiculous:
not only was China upside-down, but the Chinese did not know it! In any
case, the present-day scholar, to whom so much material concerning the
Chinese is available and China so near, has little justification for
applying Western tests of virtue and rationality to things Chinese.

If the application of Western values to China is avoided, there is still
the danger that the Chinese scheme of things may not be interpreted at
all. The literal translation of Chinese terms strips them of their
contexts. The result may be unintelligibility. The Chinese term _jên_ is
frequently rendered “benevolence,” a Western word which, while at times an
approximate equivalent, fails to carry the full burden of meaning. Sun
speaks of an interpretation of history antagonistic to dialectical
materialism—the interpretation of history by _jên_. A “benevolent”
interpretation of history means nothing whatever to a Westerner. If _jên_
is translated into a different configuration of words, and given as
“group-consciousness” or “social fellow-feeling,” the result, while still
not an exact equivalent of the Chinese, is distinctly more intelligible.

To effect this translation of ideas and values, several methods are
available. The issue cannot be dodged by a denial of its existence; the
mere act of explanation involves some process, whether deliberate or
unconscious, of translation and transvaluation. If the interpreter refuses
to deal with the problem consciously, he will nevertheless be guided by
his unrevealed assumptions. To give an accounting for what he has done, he
must, first, admit that he is interpreting, and second, seek to make plain
what he is doing, so that his readers may allow for the process. The
demonstration of the consequences of interpretation minimizes their
possible adverse effects. The simplest way to allow for the alterations
(beyond mere reproduction) arising from interpretation would be to adopt a
technique so widely known that others could, in their own minds, try to
re-trace the steps of the process and negate the changes. Among such
widely known techniques are the Marxian and the sociological.

Both these scarcely seem adapted to the problems presented by an
interpretation of Sun Yat-sen. The Marxian terminology is so peculiarly
suited to the ulterior purposes the Marxians keep in mind, and is so
esoteric when applied to matters not related to the general fields in
which the Marxians are interested, that it could scarcely be applied in
the present instance. A non-Marxian would find it a hazardous task. The
interpreter of Sun Yat-sen must interpret _into_ something; what, depends
on the audience. Dialectical materialism, in the abstract excellent as a
technique, would scarcely make Sun understandable to most Americans of the
present day. Sun himself rejected the Marxian method of interpretation; an
American audience would also reject it; these two factors outweigh all the
conceivable advantages.

The sociological technique of interpretation is quite another question.
The various methods of analysis developed by each of the schools of
sociologists are still the objects rather than the tools of study. Such
men as Max Weber and Vilfredo Pareto have made contributions to Western
social thought which enrich the scope and method of the social studies.
Their methods of analysis are not weighted down by a body of extraneous
considerations, as is the Marxian, and they promise an objectivity not
otherwise attainable. On the other hand, they are still at that stage of
development where the technique obtrudes itself; it has not, as has the
inductive method in general, become so much taken for granted as to be
invisible.

The sociological approach need not, however, be carried to the full extent
thought necessary by its advocates. In the study of law, the consideration
of extra-juridical materials is called sociological in contrast to the
strictly juristic. If the legal scholar goes beyond the strict framework
of the law, and considers other elements in man’s behavior and knowledge
while dealing with legal problems, he is apt to be called a sociological
jurist. In doing so he is not committed, however, to belief in or use of
any particular form of what is known as the science of society or
sociology. He may adopt almost any sort of social outlook, or may be
committed to any one of many doctrines of social value and to any one of
widely varying methods of social study.

This negative, broad sense of the sociological, when applied to the study
of politics, has commonly meant that the scholars employing it began with
the notion of the political, but, finding it too narrow, touched upon
related fields. An interpretation of Sun Yat-sen’s politics might be based
on this method. It would still be a political work, in that it sought to
associate his ideas with the ideas concerning government to be found in
the West, but would be free, nevertheless, to touch upon non-political
materials relevant to Sun’s politics. The Chinese have had notions of
authority and control radically different from those developed in the
West; a purely juristic interpretation of the various Chinese politics
would simply scrape the lacquer off the screen.

The Chinese have not had the sharp distinction of disciplines which runs
through all Western learning. Since one of the most conspicuous
ingredients in their thought—conspicuous, that is, to Westerners looking
in from outside—has been the ethical, many Westerners have dismissed
Chinese historical, political and more strictly philosophical thought as
being loosely and amiably ethical but never getting anywhere. The Chinese
did not departmentalize their learning to any considerable degree.
Politics was not the special activity of a definite group of men, or the
study of a select body of scholars. Politics ran through and across most
of the activities in society, and was largely the interest of that
intellectual élite by which China has been so distinguished on the roster
of civilizations. In becoming everything, politics ceased being politics;
that is, those elements in man’s thought and behavior which Westerners
have termed political were not separated and labelled. The Westerner must
say that politics was everything in China, or that it was nothing.

An interpretation of Sun Yat-sen must keep in mind these differences
between Chinese and Western categories. In doing so it will pass beyond
the limits of what is commonly known as politics, since no sharp
boundaries of “politics” are to be found in China. Yet, as an
interpretation designed to serve Western readers, it must return again and
again to Western politics, making comparisons when they are justified,
pointing out differences between China and the West as they become
relevant and clear. The interpretation will thus weave back and forth
between conventional Western political science, with its state-mindedness,
and the wholly different material of traditions and customs out of which
Sun sought to construct an ideology and a system of working politics for
China in the modern world.

How can this interpretation seek to avoid the misfortunes and errors into
which so many similar attempts have fallen? It must proceed without the
aid of such specialized techniques as dialectical-materialistic or
Paretian analysis, and yet aim at the scientific, the rationally
defensible, the objective. In seeking to apply a method in the
interpretation of Sun Yat-sen, the work must face criticism of its method,
must make the method explicit and simple enough to allow criticism. If the
thought of Sun really is to emerge from the exposition, the exposition
must allow itself to be judged, so that it can be appraised, and so that,
one way or another, it may not interfere with the just evaluation of the
materials which it seeks to present. Sun Yat-sen should not be judged poor
because of a poor interpretation; nor, on the other hand, should his
thought be adjudged more excellent or more exact than it seems to the
Chinese, merely because the expositor has suggested an interpretation
possibly more precise.

The technique adopted in the present work is a relatively simple one. It
is an attempt to start _de novo_ with certain concepts of society and
government. Several simple although novel terms are introduced, to provide
a foundation upon which the procedure may rest. One of these, for
instance, is “ideology,” which in the present work refers to the whole
psychological conditioning of a group of persons.(23) No attempt is made,
at the beginning or at any later phase of the exposition, to distinguish
between the ideology as belief and the ideology as truth. Whether the
Chinese were and are right, or the Westerners, are questions, not for the
student of comparative political science, but for the philosopher and the
psychologist. The interpretation seeks, as far as possible, to transpose
certain parts of the traditional Chinese ideology, as they were, and as
Sun Yat-sen re-shaped them, into one frame of reference provided by the
ideology of twentieth-century America. What the “real truth” is, does not
matter; the Marxians would say that both ideologies were inexact; so might
the Roman Catholics. If the ideology of old China, and the ideology that
Sun wished to see developed in the minds of the Chinese people of the
future, can be made comprehensible in terms of contemporary American
beliefs, of fact or of value, this venture will have been successful.

The Chinese ideology cannot be explained in its own terms; these exist
only in the Chinese language. If Sun Yat-sen’s own arrangement of his
works is inadequate for the Chinese, rearrangement is a task for the
Chinese and not for the Western scholars to perform. The Westerners who
deal with Sun can contribute substantially only if they give what the
Chinese cannot—enough of a reference to their own ideology to permit a
broader scale for the analysis and the appreciation of Sun’s thought.
Their knowledge of their own world of ideas is the special tool which
justifies their intervention in this Chinese field of knowledge.

In avoiding the unjustifiable imposition of Western ideas and values upon
the Chinese, and yet orienting Sun’s thought with respect to the West, the
interpretation will have to resort to several fairly evident means. In the
first place, it will have to transpose Chinese ideas into the Western
ideology, and yet avoid distortions of meaning. This can be partly done by
the use of neutral terms, of terms which are simple and clear enough to
reproduce the Chinese, and nevertheless not so heavily burdened with
connotations that they will cause a reading-in of Western ideas not
relevant to the point in question. More simply, the Chinese ideas must be
represented by terms which approximate the same set of values in the West
that their originals have in China. This will sometimes require the use of
unfamiliar periphrases: the words “music” and “rites” may be given as “the
rhythm of life” and “conformity to the ideology.” Secondly, the Chinese
ideology need not be given as a whole; it is improbable that it could,
without a terrific expansion of the Western ideology to accommodate it;
but enough of the Chinese ideology must be given to explain the
significant differences between the Chinese system of controlling the
behavior of men, and the Western. This latter involves the choice of
material, and is therefore by its nature challengeable.

Again, in demonstrating significant differences instead of merely seeking
analogous (and probably misleading) examples, the interpretation might
turn to certain aspects of Chinese philosophy which appear as strikingly
illustrative of the point of view of the Chinese. Confucius the political
thinker is only a small part of Confucius the man and the philosopher;
Chinese political thought, although a vast field, is only a small part of
the social thought of the Chinese. Only an infinitesimal part of this
comparatively minor area of Chinese study will suffice to make clear some,
at least, of the sharp differences of outlook between China and the West.

A recapitulation of this declaration of technique may be found helpful,
for an understanding of Sun Yat-sen by Westerners is necessary because of
the vastly different background of his thought. Even apart from the
strangeness of his thought to the West, it is scattered in the original,
and must be pieced together. An exposition of his ideas which would, at
one and the same time, present a systematic outline of his ideas, and
transpose them into a frame of reference where Western scholars might
grasp them, might be a labor meriting performance. His terms would have to
be rendered by neutral words (not overladen with particular Western
contexts) or by neologisms, or simply left in the original, to develop
meaning as a configuration of related ideas is built up about them. The
problem of interpretation cannot, however, be solved by settling the
difficulty of language: there still remains the question of a technique
which can pretend to the scientific, the exact, the rationally defensible.
Despite their great merits, the Marxian and Paretian techniques are not
suited to the present task. The point of view and means of study of
political science may be kept, if a few necessary borrowings from
sociological thought (not necessarily sociology) are introduced. Such
borrowing includes the use of notions such as non-political society,
patterns of authority, and ideology, none of which are to be found in the
more law-minded part of political science. By seeking to point out the
Chinese, then the Western, ideas involved, without confusing the two, the
presentation may succeed in transposing the ideology of Sun Yat-sen, as
well as his beliefs concerning working politics, into the English language
and into an explanatory but not distorting background. To do this, a small
sampling of certain aspects of old Chinese social thought and behavior
will be a required preliminary.





CHAPTER I. THE IDEOLOGICAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND.




The Rationale of the Readjustment.


The _San Min Chu I_ and related works of Sun Yat-sen represent in their
entirety one of the most ambitious bodies of doctrine ever set forth by a
political leader. They differ from such a document as the Communist
Manifesto in that they comprehend a much greater range of subject matter
and deal with it in much greater detail. They pertain not merely to the
reconstitution of an economic or political system; they propose a plan for
the reconstruction of a whole civilization, the reformation of a way of
thought customary among a great part of the human race, and a consequent
transformation of men’s behavior. Conceived in the bold flights of a
penetrating, pioneering mind, avowedly experimental at the time of their
first utterance, these works of Sun have already played a most significant
rôle in the Far East and may continue to affect history for a long time to
come. They may quite legitimately be called the bible of new China.

Social change is a consequence of maladjustment. The thought of Sun
Yat-sen is a program of change—change which, if it is to be understood,
must be seen at its beginning and its end. The background from which Sun
emerged and which was an implicit condition of all his utterances must be
mentioned, so that the problems he faced may be understood. Only then will
it be possible to turn to the plans he devised for the rethinking of
Chinese tradition and the reorganization of Chinese polity. A vast
maladjustment between the Chinese and the world outside led to the
downfall of the Manchu Empire in China and has threatened the stability of
every government erected since that time; Chinese society is in a state of
profound unrest and recurrent turmoil. Sun Yat-sen contributed to the
change, and sought a new order, to be developed from the disorder which,
voluntarily or not, he helped in part to bring about.

The old order that failed, the _interregnum_ (in the etymological sense of
the word), and the new order proposed by Sun must be taken all together in
order to obtain a just understanding of Sun’s thought. No vast history
need be written, no _Decline and Fall of the Chinese Empire_ is necessary,
but some indication of the age-old foundations and proximate conditions of
Sun’s thought must be obtained.

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 insignificant.

Confucianism is a philosophy so broad and so highly developed that any
selection does violence to its balance and proportion, which are among its
chief merits.(24) Yet only those few facts can be taken from the history
and thought of the Chinese which may assist the Westerner in becoming
familiar with a few terms which recur again and again in the works of Sun
Yat-sen. If the present work purported to be a study of Chinese history,
or a complete analysis of the Chinese social system, such an extreme
selectivity could not be condoned; since it, however, tries only to
outline Sun’s thought, the selection of a few Confucian doctrines and the
complete ignoring of others, may be forgiven. All the schools of the past,
and the literary traditions which developed from them, and social
tendencies that were bound up with these have to be omitted, and those few
ideas and customs described which bear directly on one single point—the
most significant ideological differences between the Chinese and the West
with respect to the political order, i. e. the control of men in society
in the name of all society.(25)




Nation and State in Chinese Antiquity.


The Confucian system, against which Sun Yat-sen reacted in part and in
part sought to preserve, was a set of ideas and institutions developed as
a reaction against certain conditions in ancient China. These conditions
may be roughly described as having arisen from a system of
proto-nationalisms, at a time when the old—perhaps prehistorically
ancient—Chinese feudal system was rapidly declining and an early form of
capitalism and of states was taking its place. The Chou dynasty (ca.
1150-221 B.C.) was in power at the time of this transition; under its rule
the golden age of Chinese philosophy appeared—Confucius (552-479 B.C.) and
Lao Tzŭ (ca. 570-ca. 490 B.C.) lived and taught.

Their philosophies, contrary to the popular Western beliefs concerning
Chinese philosophies, were protests against a world which seemed to them
well-nigh intolerable. The old Chinese system, which may seem to
Westerners a highly mystical feudal organization, was in its century-long
death-agonies; the virtues it had taught were not the virtues of the hour;
the loyalties it had set up were loyalties which could scarcely be
maintained in a time when rising states, acting more and more as states
have acted in the West, were disrupting the earlier organization of
society, waging struggles—in the manner that, centuries later, Machiavelli
was to portray—of intrigue and warfare for the eventual hegemony over that
whole area of eastern Asia which the Chinese of that time regarded as the
civilized world.

The political aspects of the transition from the feudal to the
proto-national system is described by one of the most eminent of the
Western authorities on China in the following terms: “The aim of all the
Leaders was to control western Ho-nan. There is the heart of ancient
China.... All around about, in vaster regions occupied no doubt by less
dense and more shifting populations, great States formed, increasing first
towards the exterior, seeking (as we have seen in the case of China) to
cut the communication of their rivals with the Barbarians, mutually
forcing each other to change the directions of the expansion, exercising
on each other a pressure from behind, and a converging pressure on the
central overlordships. All schemed to conquer them. Thus an amalgamation
was achieved. Whilst in the centre the Chinese nation was coming into
being, on the outer borders States were being formed which, aiming at
annexing the centre of China, ended by themselves also becoming
Chinese.”(26) Not only did the newer, political organization of society
begin to make itself distinct from the family, feudal, and religious
organization; it began to engage in activities which increased its
resemblance to the Western system of nations. Tributes of textiles,
horses, and compulsory labor were demanded. A non-feudal economy was
encouraged; the state of Ch’i encouraged artisans and merchants, and
favored the trade in fish and salt. Mining, metallurgy and currency were
studied. State monopolies were created out of the products of forests,
lakes, marshes, shell-fish beds, and salt pans. Mines also became
“treasures of the state.”(27)

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 into
states, and almost into nations, began as feudal overlordships;
traditional hatreds and sentiments were developed; diplomatic and military
policies crystallized and became consistent; and activities of a state
nature became increasingly prominent.

Concurrently, other factors operated to prevent an indefinite continuance
of these struggles of proto-national states and to avoid the appearance of
a permanent system of armed nations such as that which has appeared in
modern Europe. The feudal system of China left a strong ethnical,
linguistic and intellectual heritage of unity, which was stronger than the
cultural disunities and particularities appearing in certain of the
states. (The state of Chêng was particularly conspicuous in developing a
peculiar state culture.)(28) As the states became larger and larger with
the passing of time, they tended not only to develop certain large
differences between themselves, but to eradicate the minute local
peculiarities of the old system, and in so doing to increase the general
homogeneity which was also a heritage of the past ages. This general
homogeneity found a living symbol in the persons of the Chou Emperors who,
possessed of no more power than the Tennos under the Shogunate, acted, as
did their Japanese analogues two thousand years later, as the
quasi-religious personifications of the whole general community. It thus
occurred that the old feudal system was destroyed by the growth of a
general non-feudal economy and political order, which, in its turn, led to
the development of the great imperial system under which China continued
for many centuries. The period of the transition, during which the
traditional feudal unity had been shaken and the new imperial unity not
yet established, was a tumultuous and bloody one. The presence of a
confederation under the hegemony of some one state—the so-called
Presidency—provided a suitable framework for rivalries toward power,
without particularly increasing the general peace.

The transition, as it took place, was neither apparent nor agreeable. The
political turmoil was but slightly less than the intellectual unrest and
disturbance. Everywhere faith and acceptance seemed to have been lost to
humanity; licentiousness and impiety fed discord. The lack of harmony,
made doubly vivid by the presence of a strong tradition of primeval
Arcadian peace and unity under the mythological Emperors, was bitter to
the scholars and men of virtue of the time. It was quite inevitable that
protests should be raised which would hasten the advent, or return, of
unity and peace. These protests form the subject of the work of Confucius
and the other great philosophers, and schools of thinkers, of the Chou
dynasty. It was, in later ages, upon these philosophies that the great
structure of Chinese society developed and continued down until modern
times.




The Theory of the Confucian World-Society.


The various types of protest against the development of states and the
consequent anarchy of the Chinese society considered as a whole cannot be
considered in this work; many were primarily religious; Taoism, while
ranking as one of the most conspicuous religions of the world, has little
bearing on politics. Even Confucianism, which merits careful study, must
be summarized and re-stated as briefly as possible. Confucianism has
suffered from an ambiguity and exoticism of terms, when presented to the
West; its full significance as a political philosophy can become fully
apparent only when it is rendered in the words of the hour.

What was it that Confucius did in protest against the established discord
of the world he knew? He struck directly at the foundations of politics.
His criticisms and remedies can be fully appreciated only by reference to
a theory of ideology.

Confucius perceived that the underlying problem of society was that of
ideology; he seems to have realized that the character of a society itself
essentially depends upon the character of the moral ideas generally
prevalent among the individuals composing it, and that where there is no
common body of ideas a society can scarcely be said to exist.(29) He did
not consider, as did Han Fei-tzŭ and the legalist school of philosophers,
questions of law the preëminent social problem. He realized that state and
law were remedies, and that the prime questions of organization were those
anterior to the political, and that the state existed for the purpose of
filling out the shortcomings of social harmony.(30)

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 and do it
unquestioningly and simply. Whatever control is exercised over men is
exercised by their ideology, and if other men desire control they must
seek it through shaping the ideas of others. At its full expression, such
a doctrine would not lead to mere anarchy; but it would eliminate the
political altogether from the culture of man, replacing it with an
educational process. Ideological control would need to be supplemented by
political only if it failed to cover the total range of social behavior,
and left loopholes for conflict and dispute.

This doctrine is framed in quite different terms by Confucius, who spoke
and wrote in an age when the mystical elements of the old feudal ideology
still exercised powerful and persuasive influence, and when there was no
other society than his own which he might make the object of his study.
The central point of his teachings is the doctrine of _jên_. Liang
Ch’i-ch’ao, one of the most brilliant modern exponents of ancient Chinese
philosophy, wrote of this:


    In the simplest terms, “Jen” means fellow-feeling for one’s kind.
    Once Fan Chih, one of his disciples, asked Confucius what “Jen”
    meant. Confucius replied, “To love fellow-men”; in other words
    this means to have a feeling of sympathy toward mankind....

    Intellectually the relationship becomes common purpose;
    emotionally it takes the form of fellow-feeling.(31)


This doctrine appears more specific in its application when it is realized
that Confucius regarded his own society and mankind as coterminous.
Barbarians, haunting the fringes of the world, were unconscious of _jên_;
not being in sympathy with mankind, they were not as yet fully human.

_Jên_ is a word which cannot be exactly translated into English. It is
laden with a burden of connotations which it has acquired through the
centuries; its variability of translation may be shown by the fact that,
in the standard translations of the Chinese classics, it is written
“Benevolence.” It might equally well be given as “consciousness of one’s
place and function in society.” The man who followed _jên_ was one who was
aware of his place in society, and of his participation in the common
endeavors of mankind.

_Jên_, or society-mindedness, leads to an awareness of virtue and
propriety (_têh_ and _yi_). When virtue and propriety exist, it is
obligatory that men follow them. Behavior in accordance with virtue and
propriety is _li_. Commonly translated “ethics,” this is seen as the
fruition of the force of _jên_ in human society. _Jên_ underlies and
establishes society, from the existence of which spring virtue and
propriety; these prescribe principles for human conduct, the formulation
of which rules is _li_.(32) Auxiliary to _li_ is _chêng ming_. _Chêng
ming_ is the rightness of names: _li_, the appropriateness of
relationships. _Li_, it may be noted, is also translated “rites” or
“ceremonies”; a rendering which, while not inexact, fails to convey the
full import of the term.

_Chêng ming_, the rectification of names, may be regarded as a protest
against the discords in language that had developed during the
transitional period from feudalism to eventual unity. Confucius, of
course, did not have as sharp an issue confronting him as do the modern
Western innovators in social and political ideology. Nevertheless, the
linguistic difficulty was clear to him. The expansion of the Chinese
written language was so great at that time that it led to the
indiscriminate coining of neologisms, and there was a tendency towards a
sophisticated hypocrisy in the use of words.(33)

Confucius saw that, in obtaining harmony, language needed to be exact;
otherwise long and fruitless disputes over empty words might be engaged in
or, what was even worse, words might not conform to the realities of
social life, and might be used as instruments of ill-doing. Confucius did
not, however, present a scheme of word-worship. He wanted communication to
cement society, to be an instrument of concord. He wanted, in modern
terms, a terminology which by its exactness and suitability would of
itself lead to harmony.(34) In advocating the rectification of names,
Confucius differed from many other founders of philosophies and religions;
they, too, wanted names rectified—terminology reorganized—to suit their
particular doctrines; but there they stopped short. Confucius regarded the
rectification of names as a continuous process, one which had to be
carried on unceasingly if communication, for the sake of social harmony,
was to remain just and exact.

_Chêng ming_ is highly significant in Confucian thought, and exhibits the
striking difference between the Chinese and the older Western political
study. If the terms by means of which the communication within a society
is effected, and in which the group beliefs of fact or of value are to be
found, can be the subject of control, there is opened up a great field of
social engineering. _Chêng ming_ states, in recognizable although archaic
terms, the existence of ideology, and proposes the strengthening of
ideology. In recognizing the group (in his case, mankind) as dependent
upon ideology for group existence, Confucius delivered Chinese political
thought from any search for an ontology of the _real state_. It became
possible to continue, in the traditional pragmatic manner,(35) thinking of
men in simple terms referring only to individual men, avoiding the
hypostatizations common in the West. In pointing out the necessity for the
control of ideology by men, Confucius anticipated theories of the
“pedagogical state” by some twenty centuries.

_Li_, in the terminology of the present work, is the conformity of the
individual to the moral ideology, or, stated in another manner, the
control of men by the ideology.(36)

_Li_, conformity to the ideology, implies, of course, conformity to those
parts of it which determine value. _Li_ prescribes the do-able, the
thinkable. In so far as the ideology consists of valuations, so far do
those valuations determine _li_. Hsü lists the operations of _li_ in six
specific categories:


    (1) it furnishes the principles of political organization; (2) it
    furnishes details for the application of the doctrine of
    ratification; (3) it discusses the functions of government; (4) it
    prescribes the limitations of governmental authority; (5) it
    advances principles of social administration; and (6) it provides
    a foundation for crime and lawsuits. These are only the political
    functions of _li_. Its force is to be regarded as equally
    effective in every other type of human behavior.(37)


The approach to society contained in the doctrines of _jên_, _chêng ming_,
and _li_ is, therefore, one which largely eliminates the necessity for
politics. Its influence may be estimated from three points of view: (1) to
what degree was government different from what it might have been had it
followed the line of development that government did in the West? (2) what
was the range of governmental action in such a system? and (3) what was
the relation of government to the other institutions of a Confucian
society?

In regard to the first point, it will be seen immediately that government,
once _chêng ming_ has been set in motion, is not a policy-making body.
There is no question of policy, no room for disagreement, no alternative.
What is right is apparent. Politics, in the narrow sense of the word,
ceases to be a function of government; only administration remains.

Secondly, government needs to administer only for two purposes. The chief
of these is the maintenance of the ideology. Once right views are
established, no individual is entitled to think otherwise. Government must
treat the heterodox as malefactors. Their crime is greater than ordinary
crime, which is a mere violation of right behavior; they pollute right
thought, set in motion the forces of discord, and initiate evils which may
work on and on through the society, even after the evil-thinkers
themselves are dead. To protect the society actively against discord, the
government must encourage the utterance of the accepted truth. The scholar
is thus the highest of all the social classes; it is he who maintains
agreement and order. The government becomes, in maintaining the ideology,
the educational system. The whole political life is education, formal or
informal. Every act of the leader is a precept and an example. The ruler
does not compel virtue by law; he spreads it by his conspicuous example.

The other function of the government in maintaining the ideology lies in
the necessity of dealing with persons not affected by the ideology.
Barbarians are especially formidable, since both heretics and criminals
may be restored to the use of their reason, while barbarians may not, so
long as they remain barbarians. Accordingly, the government is also a
defense system. It is a defense against open and physical disruption from
within—as in the case of insurrectionaries or bandits—and a defense
against forces from without which, as veritable powers of darkness, cannot
be taught and are amenable only to brute force.

In connection with the third point, government itself appears as subject
to _li_. It has no right to do wrong. The truth is apparent to everyone,
and especially to the scholars. In this wise the Chinese governments were
at the mercy of their subjects. No divine right shielded them when public
opinion condemned them; ill-doing governments were twice guilty and
contemptible, because of the great force of their examples. An evil
emperor was not only a criminal; he was a heresiarch, leading many astray,
and corrupting the virtue upon which society rested—virtue being the
maintenance of a true and moral ideology, and conformity to it.

The consequence of these teachings was such that we may say, without
sacrificing truth to paradox, that the aim of Chinese government was
anarchy—not in the sense of disorder, but in the sense of an order so just
and so complete that it needed no governing. The _laissez-faire_ of the
Chinese was not only economic; it was political. The Great Harmony of
Confucius, which was his Utopia, was conceived of as a society where the
excellence of ideology and the thoroughness of conformity to ideology had
brought perfect virtue, perfect happiness.

The other doctrines of Confucius, his practical teachings on
statesmanship, his discourses on the family—these cannot be entered into
here. Enough has, perhaps, been shown to demonstrate the thoroughness of
Confucius’ reaction against state and nation.(38) This reaction was to
continue, and to become so typical that the whole Chinese system of
subsequent centuries was called Confucian,(39) until the exigencies of a
newer, larger, and more perilous world led to Sun Yat-sen’s teaching of
modern Chinese nationalism. Before taking up the doctrine of _min tsu_, it
may be worthwhile to summarize the manner in which Chinese society,
deliberately and accidentally, each in part, followed out the doctrines of
Confucius in its practical organization.




The Chinese World-Society of Eastern Asia.


It would be, of course, absurd to pretend to analyze the social system of
China in a few paragraphs; and yet it is necessary to the study of Sun
Yat-sen that certain characteristics be at least mentioned. Several
problems appear which are quite outstanding. What was the social position
and function of each individual? How were refractory individuals to be
disciplined in accordance with the requirements that the general opinion
of society imposed? What were the ultimate ends which the organization of
Chinese society was to realize? How were the educational system and the
frontier defenses to be maintained? What was to be the position and power
of the political organization?

At the outset it is necessary that a working demarcation of the political
be established. Accepting, by definition, those coercive controls as
political which are operated for the preservation of society as a whole,
and are recognized within the society as so doing, we see immediately that
the range of the political must have been much less in old China than it
has been in the West. Western societies tend, at least in law, to
emphasize the relationship between the individual and the society as a
whole; free and unassociated individuals tend to become extraordinarily
unstable. In the old Chinese society the control of the individual was so
much an ideological one, that political control was infinitely narrower
than in the West. But, in order to effectuate ideological control, there
must be an organization which will permit pressure to be exercised on the
individual in such a compelling manner that the exercise of external
coercion becomes unnecessary. In a society in which the state has withered
away, after an enormous expansion in the subject-matter of its
control,(40) the totalitarian state is succeeded by the totalitarian
tradition, if—and the qualification is an important one—the indoctrination
has been so effective that the ideology can maintain itself in the minds
of men without the continuing coercive power of the state to uphold it. If
the ideology is secure, then control of the individual will devolve upon
those persons making up his immediate social environment, who—in view of
the uniform and secure notions of right and justice prevailing—can be
relied upon to attend to him in a manner which will be approved by the
society in general.

In China the groups most conspicuous within the society were the family
system, the village and district, and the _hui_ (association; league;
society, in the everyday sense of the word).

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 natural family
as its core, but commonly extended through several degrees of kinship, and
may have included from thirty to one hundred persons, who formed a single
economic unit, living and consuming collectively. The religious family was
an aggregate of economic families, of which it would be very difficult to
give any specified number as an average. It was religious in that it
provided the organization for the proper commemoration and reverence of
ancestors, and maintained an ancestral shrine where the proper
genealogical records could be kept; the cult feature has largely
disappeared in modern times. The sib corresponded roughly to the clan,
found in some Western communities; its rôle was determined by the
immediate environment. In some cases—as especially in the south—the sib
was powerful enough to engage in feuds; at times one or more sibs
dominated whole communities; in the greater part of China it was a loose
organization, holding meetings from time to time to unite the various
local religious families which constituted it.

Family consciousness played its part in sustaining certain elements of the
Confucian ideology. It stressed the idea of the carnal immortality of the
human race; it oriented the individual, not only philosophically, but
socially as well. The size of each family determined his position
spatially, and family continuity fixed a definite location in time for
him. With its many-handed grasp upon the individual, the family system
held him securely in place and prevented his aspiring to the arrogant
heights of nobility or falling to the degradation of a slavery in which he
might become a mere commodity. A Chinese surrounded by his kinsmen was
shielded against humiliations inflicted upon him by outsiders or the
menace of his own potential follies. It was largely through the family
system, with its religious as well as economic and social foundation, that
the Chinese solved the problem of adequate mobility of individuals in a
society stable as a whole, and gave to that stability a clear and
undeniable purpose—the continued generation of the human race through the
continuity of a multitude of families, each determined upon survival.

The family was the most obviously significant of the groupings within the
society, but it was equalled if not excelled in importance by the
village.(42)

Had the family been the only important social grouping, it might have been
impossible for any democracy to develop in China. It so occurred that the
family pattern provided, indeed, the model for the government, but the
importance of villages in Chinese life negated the too sharp influence of
a familistic government. It would have been the most awful heresy, as it
is in Japan today, to revolt against and depose an unrighteous father;
there was nothing to prevent the deposition or destruction of an evil
village elder. In times of concord, the Emperor was the father of the
society; at other times, when his rule was less successful, he was a
fellow-villager subject to the criticism of the people.

The village was the largest working unit of non-political administration;
that is to say, groups within and up to the village were almost completely
autonomous and not subject to interference, except in very rare cases,
from outside. The village was the smallest unit of the political. The
District Magistrate, as the lowest officer in the political-educational
system, was in control of a district containing from one to twenty
villages, and negotiated, in performing the duties imposed upon him, with
the village leaders. The villages acted as self-ruling communes, at times
very democratic.(43)

Next in importance, among Chinese social groups, after the family and the
village was the _hui_. It was in all probability the last to appear.
Neither ordained, as the family seemed to be, by the eternal physical and
biological order of things, nor made to seem natural, as was the village,
by the geographic and economic environment, the association found its
justification in the deeply ingrained propensities of the Chinese to
coöperate. Paralleling and supplementing the former two, the _hui_ won for
itself a definite and unchallenged place in the Chinese social structure.
The kinds of _hui_ may be classified into six categories:(44) 1) the
fraternal societies; 2) insurance groups; 3) economic guilds; 4) religious
societies; 5) political societies; and 6) organizations of militia and
vigilantes. The _hui_ made up, in their economic form, the greater part of
the economic organization of old China, and provided the system of
vocational education for persons not destined to literature and
administration. Politically, it was the _hui_—under such names as the
Triad and the Lotus—that provided the party organizations of old China and
challenged the dynasties whenever objectionable social or economic
conditions developed.

The old Chinese society, made up of innumerable families, villages, and
_hui_, comprised a whole “known world.” Its strength was like that of a
dinosaur in modern fable; having no one nerve-centre, the world-society
could not be destroyed by inroads of barbarians, or the ravages of famine,
pestilence, and insurrection. The ideology which has been called Confucian
continued. At no one time were conditions so bad as to break the many
threads of Chinese culture and to release a new generation of persons
emancipated from the tradition. Throughout the centuries education and
government went forward, even though dynasties fell and the whole country
was occasionally over-run by conquerors. The absence of any juristically
rigid organization permitted the Chinese to maintain a certain minimum of
order, even in the absence of an emperor, or, as more commonly occurred,
in the presence of several.

The governmental superstructure cemented the whole Chinese world together
in a formal manner; it did not create it. The family, the village, and the
_hui_ were fit subjects for imperial comment, but there was nothing in
their organization to persuade the student that the Emperor—by virtue of
some Western-type _Kompetenz Kompetenz_—could remove his sanction from
their existence and thereby annihilate them. There was no precarious legal
personality behind the family, the village, and the _hui_, which could be
destroyed by a stroke of law. It was possible for the English kings to
destroy the Highland clan of the MacGregor—“the proscribed name”—without
liquidating the members of the clan _in toto_. In China the Emperor beheld
a family as a quasi-individual, and when enraged at them was prone to wipe
them out with massacre. Only in a very few cases was it possible for him
to destroy an organization without destroying the persons composing it; he
could, for example, remove the privilege of a scholarship system from a
district, prefecture, or province without necessarily disposing of all the
scholars involved in the move. The government of China—which, in the
normal run of affairs, had no questions of policy, because policy was
traditional and inviolable—continued to be an administration dedicated to
three main ends—the maintenance of the ideology (education), the defense
of the society as a whole against barbarians (military affairs) and
against the adverse forces of nature (public works on the most
extensive—and not intensive—scale), and the collection of funds for the
fulfillment of the first two ends (revenue). The Emperor was also the
titular family head of the Chinese world.

The educational system was identical with the administrative, except in
the case of the foreign dynasties. (Under the Manchus, for example, a
certain quota of Manchu officials were assigned throughout the government,
irrespective of their scholastic rank in contrast to the Chinese.) It was
a civil service, an educational structure, and a ritualist organization.
Selected from the people at large, scholars could—at least in
theory—proceed on the basis of sheer merit to any office in the Empire
excepting the Throne. Their advancement was graduated on a very elaborate
scale of degrees, which could be attained only by the passing of
examinations involving an almost perfect knowledge of the literature of
antiquity and the ability to think in harmony with and reproduce that
literature. The Chinese scholar-official had to learn to do his own
thinking by means of the clichés which he could learn from the classics;
he had to make every thought and act of his life conform to the pattern of
the ideology. Resourceful men may have found in this a proper
fortification for their originality, as soon as they were able to cloak it
with the expressions of respect; mediocre persons were helpless beyond the
bounds of what they had learned.

The combination of education and administration had one particular very
stabilizing effect upon Chinese society. It made literacy and rulership
identical. Every educated man was either a government official or expected
to become one. There was no hostile scholar class, no break with the
tradition. Struggle between scholars generally took the form of conflicts
between cliques and were not founded—except in rare instances—on any
cleavage of ideas. The Throne secured its own position and the continuity
of the ideology through establishing intellectuality as a government
monopoly. The consequences of the educational-administrative system
fostered democratic tendencies quite as much as they tended to maintain
the status quo. The scholars were all men, and Chinese, owing allegiance
to families and to native districts. In this manner a form of
representation was assured the government which kept it from losing touch
with the people, and which permitted the people to exercise influence upon
the government in the advancement of any special interests that could
profit by government assistance. The educational system also served as the
substitute for a nobility. Hereditary class distinctions existed in China
on so small a scale that they amounted to nothing. The way to power was
through the educational hierarchy.(45) In a society which offered no
financial or military short cuts to power, and which had no powerful
nobility to block the way upward, the educational system provided an
upward channel of social mobility which was highly important in the
organization of the Chinese world order.

The scholars, once they had passed the examinations, were given either
subsistence allowances or posts, according to the rank which they had
secured in the tests. (This was, of course, the theory; in actuality
bribery and nepotism played rôles varying with the time and the locality.)
They made up the administration of the civilized world. They were not only
the officials but the literati.

It would be impossible even to enumerate the many posts and types of
organization in the administration of imperial China.(46) Its most
conspicuous features may be enumerated as follows: China consisted of half
a million cities, towns, villages, and hamlets, each to a large extent
autonomous.(47) These were divided among, roughly, two thousand _hsien_,
in each of which an over-burdened District Magistrate sought to carry out
all the recognized functions of government in so far as they applied to
his locality. He did this largely by negotiation with the leaders of the
social groups in his bailiwick, the heads of families, the elders of
villages, the functionaries of _hui_. He was supervised by a variety of
travelling prefects and superintendents, but the next officer above him
who possessed a high degree of independence was the viceroy or
governor—whichever type happened to rule the province or group of
provinces. Except for their non-hereditability, these last offices were to
all intents and purposes satrapies. The enormous extent of the Chinese
civilized world, the difficulty of communicating with the capital, the
cumbersomeness of the administrative organization, the rivalry and
unfriendliness between the inhabitants of various provinces—all these
encouraged independence of a high degree. If Chinese society was divided
into largely autonomous communes, the Chinese political system was made up
of largely autonomous provinces. Everywhere there was elasticity.

At the top of the whole structure stood the Emperor. In the mystical
doctrines which Confucianism transmitted from the animism of the feudal
ages of China, the Emperor was the intermediary between the forces of
nature and mankind. The Son of Heaven became the chief ritualist; in more
sophisticated times he was the patron of civilization to the scholars, and
the object of supernatural veneration to the uneducated. His function was
to provide a constant pattern of propriety. He was to act as chief of the
scholars. To the scholars the ideology was recognized as an ideology,
albeit the most exact one; to the common people it was an objective
reality of thought and value. As the dictates of reason were not subject
to change, the power and the functions of the Emperor were delimited; he
was not, therefore, responsible to himself alone. He was responsible to
reason, which the people could enforce when the Emperor failed. Popular
intervention was regarded as _de jure_ in proportion to its effectiveness
_de facto_. The Imperial structure might be called, in Western terms, the
constitutionalism of common sense.(48) The Dragon Throne did not enjoy the
mysterious and awful prestige which surrounds the modern Tenno of Nippon;
although sublime in the Confucian theory, it was, even in the theory, at
the mercy of its subjects, who were themselves the arbiters of reason.
There was no authority higher than reason; and no reason beyond the reason
discovered and made manifest in the ages of antiquity.




The Impact of the West.


Mere physical shock could not derange the old Chinese society as easily as
it might some other, dependent for its stability upon complex, fragile
political mechanisms. China was over-run many times by barbarians; the
continuity of its civilization was undisturbed. Each group of conquerors
added to the racial composition of the Chinese, but contributed little to
the culture. The Ch’in, the Mongols, the Manchus—all ruled China as
Chinese rulers.

This strength of the Chinese society—in contrast to the Roman—must not,
however, lead us to suppose that there were any extraordinary virtues in
the Chinese social organization that made Chinese civilization
indestructible. On the contrary, the continued life of the Chinese society
may be ascribed, among others, to four conditions acting definitely and
overwhelmingly in its favor: China’s greater physical extent, homogeneity,
wealth, and culture.

No barbarian conqueror, with the possible exception of the Mongol, would
have been a match for an orderly and united China. Without exception, the
barbarian incursions occurred in times of social and political disorder
and weakness. That this is no freakish coincidence, may be shown by the
contrast between China and any of the peripheral realms. None approached
China in extent, in heaviness of population. Conquest of China was always
conquest by sufferance of the Chinese.

Second, China’s neighbors were divided among themselves. There was never
any coalition extensive enough to present a genuine threat to a thriving
China. The Chinese, in spite of diversities of spoken language, were
united—so far as they were literate—by a common writing and literature;
the common ideology had, moreover, fostered an extreme sympathy of thought
and behavior among the Chinese. Persons speaking mutually unintelligible
dialects, of different racial composition, and in completely different
economic and geographical environments displayed—and, for all that, still
display in modern times—an uncanny uniformity of social conditioning.
China faced barbarians on many fronts; China was coördinated, homogeneous;
the barbarians of North and South did not, in all probability, know
anything of each other’s existence, except what they heard from the
Chinese.

Third, China’s wealth was a socially fortifying factor. In all Eastern
Asia, no other society or form of social organization appeared which could
produce a higher scale of living. The Chinese were always materially
better off than their neighbors, with the possible exception of the
Koreans and Japanese.

Fourth, Eastern Asia was Chinese just as Europe was Graeco-Roman. The
peripheral societies all owed a great part, if not all, of their culture
to the Chinese. China’s conquerors were already under the spell of Chinese
civilization when they swept down upon it. None of them were anxious to
destroy the heritage of science, arts, and invention which the Chinese had
developed.

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 military power.
The economic factor, while a great attraction to the Westerners, was no
inducement to them to become Chinese; they were willing to gain Chinese
wealth, and dreamed of conquering it, but not of making wealth in the
Chinese manner. And lastly, and most importantly, the Westerners presented
a culture of their own which—after the first beginnings of regular
intercourse—was quite well able to hold its own against the Chinese.(49)

To the utter certainty of the Chinese way of life, the Westerners
presented the equally unshakable dogma of Christianity. They regarded the
Chinese—as did the Chinese them—as outlanders on the edge of the known
world. They exhibited, in short, almost the same attitude toward the
Chinese that the Chinese had toward barbarians. Consequently, each group
regarded the other as perverse. The chief distinction between the Chinese
and the Westerners lay in the fact that the Chinese would in all
probability have been satisfied if the West had minded its own business,
while the West, feverish with expansionism, cajoled and fought for the
right to come, trade, and teach.(50)

At times, the two races met on agreeable and equal terms. The Jesuit
missionaries ingratiated themselves with the Chinese and, by respecting
Chinese culture, won a certain admiration for their own. The eighteenth
century in Europe was the century of _chinoiserie_, when Chinese models
exercised a profound influence on the fine and domestic arts of
Europe.(51) The great upsurge of economic power in the period of the
European industrial revolution led to increased self-assurance on the part
of the Europeans. The new standards of value alienated them from those
features of Chinese culture which the eighteenth century had begun to
appreciate, and placed them in a position to sell to the Chinese as well
as buy. More and more the economic position of the two societies changed
about; the Westerners had come to purchase the superior artizan-made goods
of China, giving in exchange metals or raw materials. A tendency now
developed for them to sell their own more cheaply, and, in some cases,
better manufactured products to the Chinese. The era of good feeling and
mutual appreciation, which had never been very strong, now drew to a
close.

The vassal states of China were conquered. The British fought the Chinese
on several occasions, and conquered each time. The full extent of Western
military superiority was revealed in the capture of Peking in 1860, and in
the effectiveness—entirely disproportionate to their numbers—that
Western-trained Imperial troops had in suppressing the Chinese T’ai-p’ing
rebels.

When Sun Yat-sen was a boy, the country was afire with fear and
uncertainty. Barbarians who could neither be absorbed nor defeated had
appeared. Instead of adopting Chinese thought and manners, they were
vigorously teaching their own to the Chinese. The traditional Chinese
mechanisms of defense against barbarians were not working.(52) Something
was vitally wrong. The Chinese could not be persuaded, as some other
non-European peoples conquered in the age of Western world-dominion seem
to have been, that all error lay with themselves, and that their own
ideology was not worth the saving; nor could they, in face of the
unfortunate facts, still believe that they themselves were completely
right, or, at least, that their own notions of rightness were completely
expedient. In view of the pragmatic foundations of the whole Chinese
ideology and way of life, the seriousness of these consequences cannot be
over-estimated. Little wonder that China was disturbed! The pragmatic,
realistic method of organization that the Chinese had had, no longer
worked in a new environment rising, as it were, from the sea.

The Western impact, consequently, affected China in two ways. In the first
place, the amorphous Chinese society was threatened and dictated to by the
strong, clearly organized states of the West. In the second place, the
introduction of disharmonious values from the West destroyed, in large
part, that appearance of universality, upon which the effectiveness of the
Chinese ideology depended, and shocked Chinese thought and action until
even their first premises seemed doubtful.

This, in short, was the dilemma of the Chinese at the advent of Sun
Yat-sen. His life was to be dedicated to its solution; it is his analyses
that are to be studied in the explanation of the Chinese society in the
modern world.




The Continuing Significance of the Background.


Before proceeding to the exposition of Sun Yat-sen’s theories and
programs, it is necessary that a superlatively important consideration be
emphasized: namely, that Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese, that the nation he
worked for was China, and that the intellectual and social background of
his labors was one completely different from that of the Euramerican
world. A great part of the vaporous disputation which has hidden Chinese
politics in a cloud of words has been the consequence of the ignoring, by
Westernized Chinese as well as by Westerners, of the monumental fact that
China is in only a few respects comparable to the West, and that the ideas
and methods of the West lose the greater part of their relevance when
applied to the Chinese milieu. Political dialecticians in China split
Marxian hairs as passionately and sincerely as though they were in
nineteenth-century Germany.(53) Sun Yat-sen, though accused of this
fantastic fault by some of his adversaries, was—as his theories show upon
close examination—much less influenced by Western thought than is commonly
supposed to be the case, and in applying Western doctrines to Chinese
affairs was apt to look upon this as a fortunate coincidence, instead of
assuming the universal exactness of recent Western social and political
thought.

What are the features of the Chinese background that must be remembered in
order to throw a just light upon the beliefs of Sun Yat-sen? Primarily, it
must have become apparent, from the foregoing discussion of Confucianism
and the old social order, that China, under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen,
was beginning to draw away from an order of things which the West—or at
least a part of the West—aspires to achieve: a world-society in which the
state had withered away. This ideal, while never completely realized in
China, was perhaps more closely attained than it has ever been in any
other society. Modern actualities led away from this ideal. The West,
dreaming of world unity, was divided and armed; China too had to abandon
the old notions of universal peace, and arm. The West, seeking social
stability, was mobile; China too had to move.

The old society was in its controls totalitarian. Diffuse and extensive
controls operated fairly evenly throughout the system. The West possessed
a state system which was fundamentally different. By limiting the range of
law to the reinforcement of certain particular _mores_, the Westerners
were able to obtain a terrific concentration of political power within the
sphere of what they conceived to be legitimate state control. On the other
hand the presence of a large number of activities not subject to state
control led individuals to cherish their freedom—a freedom which in most
cases did not impair the military and political effectiveness of the state
in external action.

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
nation—Mussolini was led to a course of policy diametrically opposite to
that plotted by Sun Yat-sen.

Even, however, with his plans for developing a “machine state” in a
society where states had long since perished, Sun Yat-sen did not propose
to destroy Chinese morality and non-political discipline for the sake of
instituting a sharp juristic law-and-order organization. He was anxious
that the old Chinese morality and social knowledge be applied. In this, he
differed from most of the other modern leaders of China, who were for
veneering China with a Parliament and police without delay. Sun Yat-sen
realized that a state was necessary in China, and hoped to establish one;
he also hoped that, beyond the limits of the new state activity,
individualism and disorder would not come to prevail, but that the old
controls would continue to operate.

Accordingly, Sun Yat-sen’s thought cannot be studied as a mere offshoot of
recent Western thought. It must be realized that he proposed two ends
which, of all the countries of the world, would be mutually compatible
only in China: the development of a state, and the full continuation of
non-political controls.(54)

In fostering the continuation of ideological control, Sun Yat-sen hoped to
modify the old ideology so that it would become applicable to the new
situations. As will be made clear later, he was redefining the old
world-view so that, without disturbing the consequences to which it would
lead, it might apply in a novel and unprecedentedly disturbed world. He
was, in short, switching the premises and trying to preserve the
conclusions, modifying the actual behavior of the Chinese only in so far
as it was necessary for the purpose of strengthening and invigorating the
whole body politic of China.

Another strain of the ancient thought penetrates Sun Yat-sen’s theories.
Ideological control was not to the Confucians, as some Marxian critics
aver,(55) a rather naïve duplicity by which the gentry of China could
maintain themselves in power indefinitely. Confucius can not be accused,
save on the basis of unwarrantable reading-in, of insincerity in his
teaching of order. He was conservative, and knew what he was doing, in
seeking for the general self-discipline of men, and the rule of precept
and virtue; but to believe that he desired one public philosophy and
another private one goes beyond the realm of historically justifiable
interpretation. An ideology may, of course, be deceptive to its
promulgators, but the absence of any genuine class-society—as known in the
West—must serve as a testimonial to the sincerity of Confucian teachings.
The Confucian ideology was to the ancients not only an instrument for
good; it was common sense.

Sun Yat-sen did not, as a Western leader in his position might have done,
seek to befuddle the masses for their own good. Since he proposed to
entrust China’s destinies to the votes of the masses, he could scarcely
have believed them liable to fall victims to deceit over a great length of
time. In teaching of the race-nation, and of the nature of Chinese
society, Sun Yat-sen was telling the people what it would be good for them
to believe; it was good for them because it was the truth—that is, most in
accord with the actual situation of China in the general society of the
world.

Few today would dare say what is really in the minds of European leaders
such as Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler. These men may themselves believe
what they say; or, not believing it, say it nevertheless because they
think it the right thing for the masses, in the masses’ own interests, to
believe. Their respective enemies accuse them of saying what they do in
order to mislead the masses and to dominate the masses for hidden purposes
of their own. No such accusation has been levelled against Sun Yat-sen.
Apart from his personal sincerity, his belief in the qualities of the
common people was such that he did not consider it necessary to deceive
them, even for their own good.

Consequently, in dealing with the various doctrines that Sun preached, it
must be remembered that he himself believed what he was saying. He did not
merely think that the people should regard the Chinese society as a
race-nation; he thought that China _was_ a race-nation. The modifications
of the Confucian philosophy were to be contemplated, as was the original
philosophy, as pragmatically true.(56)

These two factors must be reckoned with—that Sun Yat-sen was teaching and
working in the Chinese milieu, and that his ideology was an ideology not
in the older pejorative sense of the word, which connoted duplicity, but
an ideology in the sense of a scheme of exact knowledge which, by its very
truthfulness, was a political and social instrument.





CHAPTER II THE THEORY OF NATIONALISM.




The Emergence of the Chinese Race-Nation.


It could, at first thought, be supposed that the reconstruction of Chinese
society might have been necessitated by internal weakness just as much as
by a changed environment. The process of organizing and developing a
tight, clear scheme of political control organizations within the society
(stateification), and delimiting the extent and aims of the society
(nationalism) were the chief characteristics of this reconstruction.

It is only by means of a disregard of actual conditions that the
supposition of an internal weakness so great as to require radical change
can be maintained. While the latter days of the Manchu Empire represented
a decline, it was a decline no more serious than others through which
Chinese culture had passed and resurged many times in its history. It is
still a debatable matter as to whether China had actually become
intellectually and artistically sterile during this period. In any event,
it is questionable whether the completely revolutionary reorganization of
Chinese society—of the type that Sun Yat-sen found it necessary to
support—would have been either worth-while or probable in the absence of
Euramerican aggression, and the appearance, all about China, of a new,
hostile, and unstable environment. If it had not been for the impact of
the West it is conceivable—although all comment on this must remain mere
speculation—that a social revolution such as those which occurred under
Wang Mang (usurper-founder of the unrecognized Hsin Dynasty, 9-25 A.D.),
Wang An-shih (prime minister, 1069-1076 A.D., under the Sung dynasty), or
Hung Hsiu-ch’üan (founder of the rebel T’ai P’ing dynasty, 1849-1865),
might have adjusted matters by a general redistribution of wealth and
administrative reorganization.

In his earliest agitations Sun Yat-sen was opposed to the Manchus.(57) In
this connection he developed a peculiar and interesting theory concerning
nationalism. He held, briefly, that the Chinese had, at the noon-day glory
of their Empire, fallen under the lure of a cosmopolitanism which was not
in accord with the realities of political existence. It was this lack of
distinction between themselves and outsiders which had permitted hundreds
of millions of Chinese to fall prey to one hundred thousand Manchus in the
early seventeenth century,(58) with the consequence that the Manchus, once
on the throne of China, made every effort to erase their barbarian origin
from the minds of the Chinese, and, with this end in view, did everything
possible, as modern Japan is doing in Korea, to destroy the national
consciousness of the Chinese.(59) China, to Sun Yat-sen, had always been a
nation, but its inhabitants did not believe it a nation. They had lost the
precious treasure of nationalism. Without contradicting Sun Yat-sen, but
differing from him only in the use of words, Westerners might say that the
Chinese had once known nationalism as members of the antique Chinese
states, but had later formed—in the place of a nation—a cosmopolitan
society which comprehended the civilized world of Eastern Asia.(60)

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 ideology on the basis of pragmatism. He
stated:


    We cannot say in general that ideas, as ideas, are good or bad. We
    must judge whether, when put into practice, they prove useful to
    us or not. If they are of practical value to us, they are good; if
    they are impractical, they are bad. If they are useful to the
    world, they are good; if they are not useful to the world, they
    are not good.(61)


He states, also, that if the Chinese race is to survive, it must adopt
nationalism. “... if we now want to save China, if we wish to see the
Chinese race survive forever, we must preach Nationalism.”(62) Hitherto
they had been no more conscious of race than were the Europeans of the
middle ages. To be sure, they were barbarians, whose features were
strange; but the Chinese were not conscious of themselves as a racial
unity in competition and conflict with other equal or superior racial
unities. The self-consciousness of the Chinese was a cultural rather than
a racial one, and the juxtaposition that presented itself to the Chinese
mind was between “Ourselves of the Central Realm” and “You the
Outsiders.”(63) Sun Yat-sen became intensely conscious of being a Chinese
by race,(64) and so did many other of his compatriots, by the
extraordinary race-pride of the _White Men_ in China. In common with many
others of his generation, Sun Yat-sen turned to race-consciousness as the
name for Chinese solidarity.

There is nowhere in his works, so far as the writer knows, any attempt to
find a value higher than the necessity of perpetuating the Chinese race.
Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese; his followers were Chinese; whatever benefits
they contemplated bestowing upon the world as a whole were incidental to
their work for a powerful and continued China. At various times Sun
Yat-sen and his followers expressed sympathy with the whole world, with
the oppressed of the earth, or with all Asia, but the paramount drive
behind the new movement has been the defense and reconstruction of China,
no longer conceived of as a core-society maintaining the flower of human
civilization, but regarded as a race abruptly plunged into the chaos of
hostile and greedy nations.

Throughout his life, Sun Yat-sen called China a nation. We may suppose
that he never thought that Chinese society need not necessarily be called
a nation, even in the modern world. What he did do, though, was to
conceive of China as a unique type of nation: a race-nation. He stated
that races could be distinguished by a study of physical characteristics,
occupation, language, religion and folkways or customs.(65) Dividing the
world first into the usual old-style five primary races (white, black,
yellow, brown, and red), he divides these races into sub-races in the
narrow sense of the term. The Chinese race, in the narrow sense of the
term, is both a race and a nation. The Anglo-Saxons are divided between
England and America, the Germans between Germany and Austria, the Latins
among the Mediterranean nations, and so forth; but China is at the same
time both the Chinese race and the Chinese nation. If the Chinese wish
their race to perpetuate itself forever, they must adopt and follow the
doctrine of Nationalism.(66) Otherwise China faces the tragedy of being
"despoiled as a nation and extinct as a race."(67)

Sun Yat-sen felt that China was menaced and oppressed ethnically,
politically and economically. Ethnically, he believed that the
extraordinary population increase of the white race within the past few
centuries represented a trend which, if not counterbalanced, would simply
result in the Chinese race being crowded off the earth. Politically he
observed that the Chinese dependencies had been alienated by the Western
powers and Japan; that China was at the mercy of any military nation that
chose to attack; that it was a temporary deadlock between the conquering
powers rather than any strength of China that prevented, at least for the
time being, the partition of China and that a diplomatic attack, which
could break the deadlock of the covetous states, would be even more deadly
and drastic than simple military attack.(68)

It must be remembered that Sun Yat-sen saw a nation while the majority of
his compatriots still envisioned the serene, indestructible society of the
Confucians. Others may have realized that the Western impact was more than
a frontier squabble on a grand scale; they may have thought it to have
assumed epic proportions. But Sun Yat-sen, oppressed by his superior
knowledge of the Western nations, obtained at the cost of considerable
sympathy with them, struggled desperately to make his countrymen aware of
the fact, irrefutable to him, that China was engaged in a conflict
different not only in degree but in kind from any other in Chinese
history. The Great Central Realm had become simply China. Endangered and
yet supine, it faced the imperative necessity of complete reconstitution,
with the bitter alternative of decay and extinction—a race tragedy to be
compounded of millions of individual tragedies. And yet reconstitution
could not be of a kind that would itself be a surrender and treason to the
past; China must fit itself for the modern world, and nevertheless be
China. This was the dilemma of the Chinese world-society, suddenly become
a nation. Sun Yat-sen’s life and thought were devoted to solving it.




The Necessity of Nationalism.


An abstract theorist might observe that the Chinese, finding their
loose-knit but stable society surrounded by compact and aggressive
nations, might have solved the question of the perpetuation of Chinese
society in the new environment by one of two expedients: first, by
nationalizing, as it were, their non-national civilization; or second, by
launching themselves into a campaign against the system of nations as
such. The second alternative does not seem to have occurred to Sun
Yat-sen. Though he never ventured upon any complete race-war theory, he
was nevertheless anxious to maintain the self-sufficient power of China as
it had been until the advent of the West. In his negotiations with the
Communists, for example, neither he nor they suggested—as might have been
done in harmony with communist theory—the fusion of China and the Soviet
Union under a nuclear world government. We may assume with a fair degree
of certainty that, had a suggestion been made, Sun Yat-sen would have
rejected it with mistrust if not indignation. He had spent a great part of
his life in the West. He knew, therefore, the incalculable gulf between
the civilizations, and was unwilling to entrust the destinies of China to
persons other than Chinese.(69)

Once the possibility of a successful counter-attack upon the system of
nations is discounted, nationalism is seen as the sole solution to China’s
difficulties. It must, however, be understood that, whereas nationalism in
the West implies an intensification of the already definite national
consciousness of the peoples, nationalism in China might mean only as
little as the introduction of such an awareness of nationality.
Nationalism in China might, as a matter of logic, include the possibility
of improved personal relations between the Chinese and the nationals of
other states since, on the one hand, the Chinese would be relieved of an
intolerable sense of humiliation in the face of Western power, and, on the
other, be disabused of any archaic notions they might retain concerning
themselves as the sole civilized people of the earth.(70)

A brief historical reference may explain the apparent necessity of
nationalism in China. In the nineteenth century foreigners in China
generally suffered reverses when they came into conflict with a village, a
family, or a guild. But when they met the government, they were almost
always in a position to bully it. It was commonly of little or no concern
to the people what their government did to the barbarians; the whole
affair was too remote to be much thought about. We find, for example, that
the British had no trouble in obtaining labor auxiliaries in Canton to
fight with the British troops against the Imperial government at Peking in
1860; it is quite probable that these Cantonese, who certainly did not
think that they were renegades, had no anti-dynastic intentions. Chinese
served the foreign enemies of China at various times as quasi-military
constabulary, and served faithfully. Before the rise of Chinese
nationalism it was not beyond possibility that China would be partitioned
into four or five colonies appurtenant to the various great powers and
that the Chinese in each separate colony, if considerately and tactfully
treated, would have become quite loyal to their respective foreign
masters. The menace of such possibilities made the need of Chinese
nationalism very real to Sun Yat-sen; the passing of time may serve
further to vindicate his judgment.

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
closest conceivable ties—blood relationships. Sun Yat-sen’s nationalism
may represent a narrowing of this conception, and the substitution of the
modern Chinese race for Confucian humanity. In fairness to Sun Yat-sen it
must, however, be admitted that he liked to think, in Christian and
Confucian terms, of the brotherhood of man; one of his favorite
expressions was “under heaven all men shall work for the common good.”(71)

Nationalism was to Sun Yat-sen the prime condition of his movement and of
his other principles. The Communists of the West regard every aspect of
their lives significant only in so far as it is instrumental in the class
struggle. Sun Yat-sen, meeting them, was willing to use the term “class
struggle” as an instrument for Chinese nationalism. He thought of China,
of the vital and immediate necessity of defending and strengthening China,
and sacrificed everything to the effectuation of a genuine nationalism. To
him only nationalism could tighten, organize, and clarify the Chinese
social system so that China, whatever it was to be, might not be lost.

The early philosophers of China, looking upon a unicultural world, saw
social organization as the supreme criterion of civilization and humanity.
Sun Yat-sen, in a world of many mutually incomprehensible and hostile
cultures saw nationalism (in the sense of race solidarity) as the supreme
condition for the survival of the race-nation China. Democracy and social
welfare were necessary to the stability and effectiveness of this
nationalism, but the preservation and continuation of the race-nation was
always to remain the prime desideratum.




The Return to the Old Morality.


Sun Yat-sen quite unequivocally stated the necessity for establishing a
new Nationalist ideology in order to effectuate the purposes of China’s
regeneration. He spoke of the two steps of ideological reconstitution and
political reconstitution as follows: “In order today to restore our
national standing we must, first of all, revive the national spirit. But
in order to revive the national spirit, we must fulfill two conditions.
First, we must realize that we are at present in a very critical
situation. Second ... we must unite ... and form a large national
association.”(72) He evidently regarded the ideological reconstitution as
anterior to the political, although he adjusted the common development of
the two quite detailedly in his doctrine of tutelage.

He proposed three ideological methods for the regeneration of China, which
might again make the Chinese the leading society (nation) of the world.
There were: first, the return to the ancient Chinese morality; second, the
return to the ancient Chinese learning; and third, the adoption of Western
science.(73)

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
synthesis between the fundamental principles of Confucianism and the
demands of modern times, a synthesis which, beyond the borders of China,
can again become significant to all humanity. Sun Yat-sen combined in
himself the brazen consistency of a revolutionary and the great love of
humanity of a renewer. Sun Yat-sen has been the kindest of all the
revolutionaries of mankind. And this kindness was taken by him from the
heritage of Confucius. Hence his intellectual work stands as a connecting
bridge between the old and the modern ages. And it will be the salvation
of China, if it determinedly treads that bridge.”(74) And Tai Chi-tao, one
of Sun Yat-sen’s most respected followers, had said: “Sun Yat-sen was the
only one among all the revolutionaries who was not an enemy to Confucius;
Sun Yat-sen himself said that his ideas embodied China, and that they were
derived from the ideas of Confucius.”(75) The invocation of authorities
need not be relied upon to demonstrate the importance of Sun Yat-sen’s
demand for ideological reconstruction upon the basis of a return to the
traditional morality; he himself stated his position in his sixth lecture
on nationalism: “If we now wish to restore to our nation its former
position, besides uniting all of us into a national body, we must also
first revive our own ancient morality; when we have achieved that, we can
hope to give back to our nation the position which she once held.”(76)

What are the chief elements of the old morality? These are: 1) loyalty and
filial piety, 2) humanity and charity, 3) faithfulness and justice, and 4)
peace. These four, however, are all expressions of _humanity_, to which
_knowledge_ and _valor_ must be joined, and _sincerity_ employed in
expressing them.

The problem of loyalty was one very difficult to solve. Under the Empire
it was easy enough to consider the Emperor as the father of the great
society, and to teach loyalty to him. This was easy to grasp, even for the
simplest mind. Sun Yat-sen urged loyalty to the people, and loyalty to
duty, as successors to the loyalty once owed to the sovereign. He deplored
the tendency, which appeared in Republican times, for the masses to assume
that since there was no more Emperor, there was no more loyalty; and it
has, since the passing of Sun Yat-sen, been one of the efforts of the
Nationalists to build up a tradition of loyalty to the spirit of Sun
Yat-sen as the timeless and undying leader of modern China.

Sun Yat-sen was also deeply devoted to filial piety in China, which was—in
the old philosophy—simply a manifestation, in another direction, of the
same virtue as loyalty. He called filial piety indispensable, and was
proud that none of the Western nations had ever approached the excellence
of the Chinese in this virtue.(77) At the time that he said this, Sun
Yat-sen was accused of being a virtual Communist, and of having succumbed
to the lure of Soviet doctrines. It is at least a little strange that a
man supposedly infatuated with Marxism should praise that most
conservative of all virtues: filial piety!

Sun Yat-sen then commented on each of the other virtues, pointing out
their excellence in old China, and their necessity to modern China. In the
case of faithfulness, for example, he cited the traditional reliability of
the Chinese in commercial honor. Concerning justice, he pointed out that
the Chinese political technique was one fundamentally just; an instance of
the application of this was Korea, which was-allowed to enjoy peace and
autonomy as a Chinese vassal state for centuries, and then was destroyed
shortly after becoming a Japanese protectorate. Chinese faithfulness and
justice were obviously superior to that of the Japanese.

In politics the two most important contributions of the old morality to
the Nationalist ideology of Sun Yat-sen were (1) the doctrine of _wang
tao_, and (2) the social interpretation of history.

_Wang tao_ is the way of kings—the way of right as opposed to _pa tao_,
the way of might. It consisted, in the old ideology, of the course of
action of the kingly man, who ruled in harmony with nature and did not
violate the established proprieties of mankind. Sun Yat-sen’s teachings
afford us several applications of _wang tao_. In the first place, a group
which has been formed by the forces of nature is a race; it has been
formed according to _wang tao_. A group which has been organized by brute
force is a state, and is formed by _pa tao_. The Chinese Empire was built
according to _wang tao_; the British Empire by _pa tao_. The former was a
natural organization of a homogeneous race; the latter, a military outrage
against the natural order of mankind.(78)

_Wang tao_ is also seen in the relation between China and her vassal
states, a benevolent relationship which stood in sharp contrast, at times,
though not always, to the methods later to be used by the Europeans in
Asia.(79) Again, economic development on a basis of the free play of
economic forces was regarded as _wang tao_ by Sun Yat-sen, even though its
consequences might be adverse. _Pa tao_ appeared only when the political
was employed to do violence to the economic.(80) This doctrine of good and
bad aspects of economic relationships stands in distinct contrast to the
Communist theory. He believed that the political was frequently employed
to bring about unjust international economic relationships, and extenuated
adverse economic conditions simply because they were the free result of
the operations of a _laissez-faire_ economy.

Economically, the interpretation of history was, according to Sun Yat-sen,
to be performed through the study of consumption, and not of the means of
production. In this he was indebted to Maurice William—at least in
part.(81) The social interpretation of history is, however, associated not
only with economic matters, but with the ancient Chinese moral system as
well. Tai Chi-tao, whose work has most clearly demonstrated the
relationship between Confucianism and Sunyatsenism, points out in his
diagram of Sun Yat-sen’s ethical system that _humanity_ (_jên_) was to Sun
Yat-sen the key to the interpretation of history. We have already seen
that _jên_ is the doctrine of social consciousness, of awareness of
membership in society.(82) Sun Yat-sen, according to Tai Chi-tao, regarded
man’s development as a social animal, the development of his humanity, as
the key to history. This would include, of course, among other things, his
methods of production and of consumption. The distinction between Sun
Yat-sen and the Western Marxian thinkers lies in the fact that the latter
trace their philosophical genealogy back through the main currents of
Western philosophy, while Sun Yat-sen derives his from Confucius. Nothing
could be further from dialectical materialism than the socio-ethical
interpretation that Sun Yat-sen developed from the Confucian theories.

The rôle played by the old Chinese morality in the ideology of Sun Yat-sen
is, it is apparent, an important one. First, Sun Yat-sen believed that
Chinese nationalism and the regeneration of the Chinese people had to be
based on the old morality of China, which was superior to any other
morality that the world had known, and which was among the treasures of
the Chinese people. Second, he believed that, in practical politics as
well as national ideology, the application of the old virtues would be
fruitful in bringing about the development of a strong China. Third, he
derived the idea of _wang tao_, the right, the royal, the natural way,
from antiquity. He pointed out that violence to the established order—of
race, as in the case of the British Empire, of economics, as in the case
of the political methods of imperialism—was directly antithetical to the
natural, peaceful way of doing things that had led to the supreme
greatness of China in past ages. Fourth, he employed the doctrine of
_jên_, of social-consciousness, which had already been used, by the
Confucians, and formed the cornerstone of their teaching, as the key to
his interpretation. In regard to the individual, this was, as we have
seen, consciousness of social orientation; with regard to the group, it
was the development of strength and harmony. It has also been translated
_humanity_, which broadly and ethically, carries the value scheme with
which _jên_ is connected.

Even this heavy indebtedness to Chinese antiquity in adopting and adapting
the morality of the ancients for the salvation of their children in the
modern world, was not the total of Sun Yat-sen’s political traditionalism.
He also wished to renew the ancient Chinese knowledge, especially in the
fields of social and political science. Only after these did he desire
that Western technics be introduced.




The Return to the Ancient Knowledge.


Sun Yat-sen’s doctrine of the return to the ancient Chinese knowledge may
be divided into three parts. First, he praised the ancient Chinese
superiority in the field of social science, but distinctly stressed the
necessity of Western knowledge in the field of the physical and applied
sciences alone.(83) Second, he pointed out the many practical
accomplishments of the ancient Chinese knowledge, and the excellence and
versatility of Chinese invention.(84) Third, his emphasis upon the
development of talents in the material sciences hints at, although it does
not state, a theory of national wealth based upon labor capacity.

Sun Yat-sen said, “Besides reviving our ancient Chinese morality, we must
also revive our wisdom and ability.... If today we want to revive our
national spirit, we must revive not only the morality which is proper to
us, but we must revive also our own knowledge.”(85) He goes on to say that
the peculiar excellence of the ancient Chinese knowledge lay in the field
of political philosophy, and states that the Chinese political philosophy
surpassed the Western, at least in clearness.

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, was
neither discovered nor spoken of by any foreign political philosopher. It
is a peculiar intellectual treasure pertaining to our political
philosophy, which we must preserve.”(87) The endorsement is doubly
significant. In the first place, it demonstrates the fact that Sun Yat-sen
thought of himself as a rebuilder and not as a destroyer of the ancient
Chinese culture, and the traditional methods of organization and control.
In the second place, it points out that his Chinese background was most
clear to him, and that he was in his own mind the transmitter of the
Chinese heritage.

In speaking of Chinese excellence in the field of the social science, Sun
Yat-sen did not confine his discussion to any one time. Whenever he
referred to a political theory, he mentioned its Chinese origin if it were
one of those known to Chinese antiquity: anarchism, communism, democracy.
He never attacked Chinese intellectual knowledge for being what it was,
but only for what it omitted: physical science.(88) He was undoubtedly
more conservative than many of his contemporaries, who were actually
hostile to the inheritance.

The summary of Sun Yat-sen’s beliefs and position in respect to the
ancient intellectual knowledge is so well given by Tai Chi-tao that any
other statement would almost have to verge on paraphrase. Tai Chi-tao
wrote:


    Sun Yat-sen (in his teachings) completely includes the true ideas
    of China as they recur again and again from Yao and Shun,
    Confucius and Mencius. It will be clear to us, therefore, that Sun
    Yat-sen is the renewal of Chinese moral culture, unbroken for two
    thousand years ... we can see that Sun Yat-sen was convinced of
    the truth of his own words, and at the same time we can also
    recognize that his national revolution was based upon the
    re-awakening of Chinese culture. He wanted to call the creative
    power of China to life again, and to make the value of Chinese
    culture useful to the whole world, and in that way to realize
    cosmopolitanism.(89)


Accordingly, Sun Yat-sen’s doctrines may not only be regarded as having
been based upon the tacit premises of the Chinese intellectual milieu, but
as having been incorporated in them as supports. Sun Yat-sen’s theories
were, therefore, consciously as well as unconsciously Chinese.

Sun Yat-sen was proud of the accomplishment of the Chinese in physical and
applied knowledge. He praised Chinese craftsmanship and skill, and
extolled the talents of the people which had invented the mariner’s
compass, printing, porcelain, gunpowder, tea, silks, arches, and
suspension bridges.(90) He urged the revival of the talents of the
Chinese, and the return of material development. This teaching, in
conjunction with his advocacy of Western knowledge, leads to another
suggestive point.

Sun Yat-sen pointed out that _wealth_ was to the modern Chinese what
_liberty_ was to the Europeans of the eighteenth century—the supreme
condition of further progress.(91) The way to progress and wealth was
through social reorganization, and through the use of the capacities of
the people. It may be inferred, although it cannot be stated positively,
that Sun Yat-sen measured wealth not merely in metals or commodities, but
in the productive capacities of the country, which, as they depend upon
the labor skill of the workers, are in the last analysis cultural and
psychological rather than exclusively physical in nature.(92)

China, following the ancient morality, conscious of its intellectual and
social heritage, and of its latent practical talents, needed only one more
lesson to learn: the need of Western science.




Western Physical Science in the New Ideology.


The third element of the nationalist ideology proposed by Sun Yat-sen was
the introduction of Western science. It is upon this that his break with
the past arose; it is this that gives his ideology its partially
revolutionary character, for the ideology was, as we have seen, strongly
reconstitutional in two of its elements. Sun Yat-sen was, however, willing
to tear down if he could rebuild, and rebuild with the addition of Western
science. These questions immediately arise: why did he wish to add Western
science to the intellectual background of modern China? what, in Western
science, did he wish to add? to what degree did he wish Western science to
play its rôle in the development of a new ideology for China?

Sun Yat-sen did not have to teach the addition of Western science to the
Chinese ideology. In his own lifetime the terrific swing from arrogant
self-assurance to abject imitativeness had taken place. Sun Yat-sen said
that the Boxer Rebellion was the last surge of the old Chinese
nationalism, “But the war of 1900 was the last manifestation of
self-confidence thoughts and self-confidence power on the part of the
Chinese to oppose the new civilization of Europe and of America.... They
understood that the civilization of Europe and of America was really much
superior to the ancient civilization of China.”(93) He added that this
superiority was naturally evident in the matter of armaments. This
illustrates both consequences of the impact of the West—the endangered
position of the Chinese society, and the consequent instability of the
Chinese ideology.

Sun Yat-sen did not regard the introduction of Western science into
Chinese life as merely remedial in nature, but, on the contrary, saw much
benefit in it. This was especially clear to him as a physician; his
training led him to see the abominable practices of many of the Chinese in
matters of diet and hygiene.(94) He made a sweeping claim of Western
superiority, which is at the same time a sharp limitation of it in fields
which the conservative European would be likely to think of as
foremost—politics, ethics, religion. “Besides the matter of armaments, the
means of communication ... are far superior.... Moreover, in everything
else that relates to machinery or daily human labor, in methods of
agriculture, of industry, and of commerce, all (foreign) methods by far
surpass those of China.”(95)

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
introduction of Western social methods as well. He had lived long enough
in the West to lose some of the West-worship that characterized so many
Chinese and Japanese of his generation. He was willing, even anxious, that
the experimental method, by itself, be introduced into Chinese thought in
all fields,(96) but not particularly impressed with the general
superiority of Western social thought.

Sun Yat-sen’s own exposition of the reasons for his desiring to limit the
rôle played by Western science in China is quite clear.(97) In the first
place, Sun Yat-sen was vigorously in favor of adopting the experimental
method in attaining knowledge. He stood firmly for the pragmatic
foundation of knowledge, and for the exercise of the greatest care and
most strenuous effort in discovering it. Secondly, he believed in taking
over the physical knowledge of the Westerners, although—in his emphasis on
Chinese talent—he by no means believed that Western physical knowledge
would displace that of the Chinese altogether. “We can safely imitate the
material civilization of Europe and of America; we may follow it blindly,
and if we introduce it in China, it will make good headway.”(98) Thirdly,
he believed that the social science of the West, and especially its
political philosophy, might lead the Chinese into gross error, since it
was derived from a quite different ideology, and not relevant to Chinese
conditions. “It would be a gross error on our part, if, disregarding our
own Chinese customs and human sentiments, we were to try to force upon
(our people) a foreign type of social government just as we copy a foreign
make of machinery.”(99) Fourthly, even apart from the difference between
China and the West which invalidated Western social science in China, he
did not believe that the West had attained to anything like the same
certainty in social science that it had in physical science.(100) Fifthly,
Sun Yat-sen believed that the Chinese should profit by observing the
experiments and theories of the West in regard to social organization,
without necessarily following them.

The great break between Sun Yat-sen’s acceptance of Western physical
science and his rejection of Western social science is demonstrated by his
belief that government is psychological in its foundations. “Laws of human
government also constitute an abstract piece of machinery—for that reason
we speak of the machinery of an organized government—but a material piece
of machinery is based on nature, whereas the immaterial machinery of
government is based on psychology.”(101) Sun Yat-sen pointed out, although
in different words, that government was based upon the ideology and that
the ideology of a society was an element in the last analysis
psychological, however much it might be conditioned by the material
environment.

Of these three elements—Chinese morality, Chinese social and political
knowledge, and Western physical science—the new ideology for the modern
Chinese society was to be formed. What the immediate and the ultimate
forms of that society were to be, remains to be studied.




The Consequences of the Nationalist Ideology.


What are the consequences of this Nationalistic ideology? What sort of
society did Sun Yat-sen envision? How much of it was to be Chinese, and
how much Western? Were the Chinese, like some modern Japanese, to take
pride in being simultaneously the most Eastern of Eastern nations and the
most Western of Western or were they to seek to remain fundamentally what
their ancestors had been for uncounted centuries?

In the first place, Sun Yat-sen’s proposed ideology was, as we have seen,
to be composed of four elements. First, the essential core of the old
ideology, to which the three necessary revivifying elements were to be
added. This vast unmentioned foundation is highly significant to the
assessment of the nature of the new Chinese ideology. (It is quite
apparent that Sun Yat-sen never dreamed, as did the Russians, of
overthrowing the _entire_ traditional order of things. His three
modifications were to be added to the existing Chinese civilization.)
Second, he wished to revive the old morality. Third, he desired to restore
the ancient knowledge and skill of the Chinese to their full creative
energy. Fourth, he desired to add Western science. The full significance
of this must be realized in a consideration of Chinese nationalism. Sun
Yat-sen did not, like the Meiji Emperor, desire to add the whole front of
Western culture; he was even further from emulating the Russians in a
destruction of the existing order and the development of an entirely new
system. His energies were directed to the purification and reconstitution
of the Chinese ideology by the strengthening of its own latent moral and
intellectual values, and by the innovation of Western physical science and
the experimental method. Of the range of the ideology, of the
indescribably complex intellectual conditionings in which the many
activities of the Chinese in their own civilization were carried on, Sun
Yat-sen proposed to modify only those which could be improved by a
reaction to the excellencies of Chinese antiquity, or benefited by the
influence of Western science. Sun Yat-sen was, as Wilhelm states, both a
revolutionary and a reconstitutionary. He was reconstitutionary in the
ideology which he proposed, and a revolutionary by virtue of the political
methods which he was willing to sanction and employ in carrying the
ideology into the minds of the Chinese populace.

In the second place, Sun Yat-sen proposed to modify the old ideology not
only with respect to content but also with regard to method of
development. The Confucians had, as we have seen, provided for the
continual modification and rectification of the ideology by means of the
doctrine of _chêng ming_. It is a matter of dispute as to what degree that
doctrine constituted a scientific method for propagating knowledge.(102)
Whatever the method of the ancients, Sun Yat-sen proposed to modify it in
three steps: the acknowledgment of the pragmatic foundations of social
ideas, the recognition of the necessity for knowledge before action, and
the introduction of the experimental method. His pragmatic position shows
no particular indication of having been derived from any specific source;
it was a common enough tendency in old Chinese thought, from the
beginning; in advocating it, Sun Yat-sen may have been revolutionary only
in his championing of an idea which he may well have had since early
childhood. His stress upon the necessity of ideological clarity as
antecedent to revolutionary or any other kind of action is negatively
derived from Wang Yang-ming, whose statement of the converse Sun Yat-sen
was wont to attack. The belief in the experimental method is clearly
enough the result of his Western scientific training—possibly in so direct
a fashion as the personal influence of one of his instructors, Dr. James
Cantlie, later Sir James Cantlie, of Queen’s College, Hongkong. Sun
Yat-sen was a physician; his degree _Dr._ was a medical and not an
academic one; and there is no reason to overlook the influence of his
vocation, a Western one, in estimating the influence of the Western
experimental method.(103)

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 knowledge”)
and Confucius’ doctrine of ideological rectification (_chêng ming_).
Confucius advocated the establishment of a powerful ideology for the
purpose of extending ideological control and thereby of minimizing the
then pernicious effects of the politically active proto-nations of his
time. Sun Yat-sen, reared in a world subject to ideological control, saw
no real necessity for strengthening it; what he desired was to prepare
China psychologically for the development of a clear-cut conscious nation
and a powerful government as the political instrument of that nation. In
spite of the great Chinese emphasis which Sun pronounced in his ideology,
and in spite of his many close associations with old Chinese thought, his
governmental principles are in a sense diametrically opposed to
Confucianism. Confucius sought to establish a totalitarian system of
traditional controls which would perpetuate society and civilization
regardless of the misadventures or inadequacies of government. Sun Yat-sen
was seeking to build a strong liberal protective state within the
framework of an immemorial society which was largely non-political; his
doctrine, which we may call totalitarianism in reverse, tended to
encourage intellectual freedom rather than any rigid ideological
coördination. The mere fact that Sun Yat-sen trusted the old Chinese
ideology to the ordeal of free criticism is, of course, further testimony
to his belief in the fundamental soundness of the old intellectual
order—an order which needed revision and supplementation to guide modern
China through the perils of its destiny.

Before passing to a brief consideration of the nature of the society to be
developed through this nationalist ideology, it may be interesting to note
the value-scheme in the ideology. There was but one value—the survival of
the Chinese people with their own civilization. All other considerations
were secondary; all other reforms were means and not ends. Nationalism,
democracy, and _min shêng_ were each indispensable, but none was superior
to the supreme desideratum, Chinese survival. That this survival was a
vivid problem to Sun, almost any of his lectures will testify. Tai
Chi-tao, one of the inner circle of Sun Yat-sen’s disciples, summarized
the spirit of this nationalism when he wrote; “We are Chinese, and those
things that we have to change first lie in China. But if all things in
China have become worthless, if Chinese culture no longer has any
significance in the cultural history of the world, if the Chinese people
has lost its power of holding its culture high, we might as well wait for
death with bound hands—what would be the use of going on with
revolution?”(105) Sun Yat-sen made concessions to cosmopolitanism, which
he saw as ideal to be realized in the remote future. First and last,
however, he was concerned with his own people, the Chinese.

What was to be the nature of the society which would arise from the
knowledge and application of the new ideology? Sun planned to introduce
the idea of a race-nation into the Chinese ideology, to replace the
definite but formless we-you outlook which the Chinese of old China had
had toward outsiders almost indiscriminately.(106) The old anti-barbarian
sentiment had from time to time in the past been very powerful; Sun
Yat-sen called this nationalism also, not distinguishing it from the new
kind of nationalism which he advocated—a modern nationalism necessarily
connoting a plurality of equal nations. The self-consciousness of the
Chinese he wished to restore, although on a basis of justice and the
mutual recognition by the nations of each other’s right to exist. But this
nationalism was not to be a complete break with the past, for the new
China was to continue the traditional function of old China—of being the
teacher and protectress of Eastern Asia. It was the duty of China to
defend the oppressed among the nations, and to smite down the Great Powers
in their oppressiveness. We may suppose that this benevolence of the
Chinese race-nation would benefit the neighbors of China only so long as
those neighbors, quickened themselves by nationalist resurgences, did not
see something sinister in the benevolent manifest destiny of the Chinese.

It was a matter of policy, rather than of ideology, as to what the Chinese
nation was to include. There were possibilities of a conflict with the
Communists over the question of Outer Mongolia. Physically, Sun saw the
Mongols as one of the five component peoples of the Great Chung-hua
Republic. At another time he suggested that they might become assimilated.
He never urged the Mongols to separate from China and join the Soviet
Union, or even continue as a completely independent state.(107) There was
always the possibility of uncertainty in the case of persons who were—by
the five principle elements of race (according to Sun Yat-sen, blood,
livelihood, language, religion, and mores)(108)—members of the Chinese
race-nation but did not consider themselves such.

Chinese nationalism was to lead to cosmopolitanism. Any attempt to foster
cosmopolitanism before solving the national problem was not only Utopian
but perverse. The weakness of the Chinese had in great part been derived
from their delusions of world-order in a world that was greater than they
imagined, and the true solution to the Chinese question was to be found,
not in any vain theory for the immediate salvation of the world as a
whole, but in the diligent and patriotic activities of the Chinese in
their own country. China was to help the oppressed nations of the earth,
not the oppressed classes. China was to help all Asia, and especially the
countries which had depended upon China for protection, and had been
failed in their hour of need by the impotent Manchu Dynasty. China was,
indeed, to seek the coöperation of the whole world, and the promotion of
universal peace. But China was to do all this only when she was in a
position to be able to do so, and not in the meantime venture forth on any
splendid fantasies which would profit no people.

The survival of China was the supreme aim of Sun Yat-sen. How did he
propose that China, once conscious of itself, should control itself to
survive and go onwards to the liberation and enrichment of mankind? These
are questions that he answered in his ideology of democracy and of _min
shêng_.





CHAPTER III. THE THEORY OF DEMOCRACY.




Democracy in the Old World-Society.


In describing a few of the characteristics of the old ideology and the old
society which may assist the clarification of the principle of democracy,
it may prove useful to enter into a brief examination of what the word may
mean in the West, to refer to some of the ideas and institutions of old
China that were or were not in accord with the Western notion of
democracy, and, finally, to see what connection Sun Yat-sen’s theory of
democracy may have either with the Western term or with elements in the
Chinese background. Did Sun Yat-sen propound an entirely new theory as the
foundation of his theory of democracy for the Chinese race-nation, or did
he associate several hitherto unrelated ideas and systems to make a new
whole?

The European word _democracy_ may, for the purposes of this examination,
be taken to have two parts to its meaning; first, with regard to the
status of individuals in society; second, with respect to the allocation
of political power in society. In the former sense, democracy may refer to
an equalitarianism of status, or to a social mobility so easy and so
general as to encourage the impression that position is a consequence of
the behavior of the individual, and a fair gauge to his merit. In the
latter part of the meaning, democracy may refer to the identification of
the governed and the governors, or to the coincidence of the actions of
the governors with the wishes of the governed. Each of these
ideas—equalitarianism, free mobility, popular government, and
representative government—has been referred to as the essence of
democracy. One of them may lead to the discovery of a significance for
democracy relevant to the scheme of things in the old Chinese society.

Egalitarianism and mobility were both present in old Chinese society. The
Chinese have had neither an hereditary aristocracy equivalent to the
Western, nor a caste-system resembling that of India or Japan, since the
breakdown of the feudal system twenty-three centuries ago.(109) The
extra-legal egalitarianism of the Chinese has been so generally remarked
upon by persons familiar with that nation, that further discussion of it
here is superfluous. Birth has probably counted less in China than it has
in any other country in the world.

The egalitarianism of intercourse was a powerful aid to social mobility.
The Chinese never pretended to economic, political, or intellectual
equality; the mere statement of such a doctrine would have been sufficient
refutation of it to the members of the old society. Yet there were no
gradations of weight beyond educational, political, and economic
distinctions, and the organization of the old society was such that
mobility in these was relatively free. Movement of an individual either
upwards or downwards in the economic, political, or academic scale was
retarded by the influence of the family, which acted as a drag either way.
Movement was nevertheless continuous and conspicuous; a proof of this
movement is to be found in the fact that there are really no supremely
great families in China, comparable to the great names of Japan or of the
Euramerican nations. (The closest approximation to this is the _K’ung_
family, the family of Confucius; since the family is large, its eminence
is scarcely more than nominal and it has no political power.).

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 kinsman might win preferment, to the economic and
political advantage of the whole family group.

Social relations—in the narrowest sense of the word—were characterized by
an extreme attention to form as such, and great contempt for it otherwise.
Ritualism never became a chivalry or a cult of honor. There was always the
emphasis upon propriety and courtesy but, once the formalities were done
with, there was little social distinction between members of different
economic, political, or academic classes.(110)

In connection with control and representation, a great deal more can be
said. In the first place, the relations between the governing ideologue in
the Confucian teachings,(111) and the governed accepters of the ideology
in the Confucian system were to be discovered through _yüeh_.

_Yüeh_, commonly translated “music” or “harmony,” plays a peculiar rôle in
the Confucian teachings. It is the mass and individual emotional pattern,
as _li_ is the behavior pattern. If the people follow the proper behavior
pattern, their emotional pattern must also be good. Consequently, the
function of a truly excellent ruler was the scrutiny of _yüeh_. If he were
a man of superior penetration, he should be able to feel the _yüeh_ about
him, and thus discover the temper of the populace, without reference to
electoral machinery or any other government instrumentality. _Yüeh_ is to
be seen in the tone of voices, in the rhythm of behavior. If it is good,
it will act with increasing effect upon itself. If bad, it serves as a
warning to the authorities. As Prof. Hsü says, “For rulers and
administrators _yüeh_ has two uses; first, it enables them to ascertain
the general sentiment of the people toward the government and political
life; and second, it cultivates a type of individual attitude that is most
harmonious with the environment. The joint work of _li_ and _yüeh_ would
produce social harmony and social happiness—which is the ultimate aim of
the State.”(112)

_Yüeh_ is, however, a peculiar phenomenon, which can scarcely be called
either representation or control. It is an idea rooted in the curiously
pragmatic-mystical world-view of the Confucians, that same world-view
which elevated virtue almost to the level of a physical substance, subject
to the same sort of laws of disruption or transmission. Nothing like
_yüeh_ can be found in Western political thought; however significant it
may have been in China, any attempt to deal with it in a Western language
would have more than a touch of futility, because of the great chasm of
strangeness that separates the two intellectual worlds at so many places.

A more concrete illustration of the old Chinese ideas of popular control
may be found in the implications of political Confucianism, as Hsü renders
them:


    From the Confucian doctrine of stewardship, namely, that the king
    is an ordinary person selected by God upon his merit to serve as
    the steward of God in the control of the affairs of the people for
    the welfare of the people, there are deduced five theories of
    political democracy. In the first place, the government must
    respect public opinion. The will of the people is the will of God,
    and thus the king should obey both the will of the people and the
    will of God....

    In the second place, government should be based upon the consent
    of the governed....

    In the third place, the people have a duty as well as a right to
    carry on revolution as the last resort in stopping tyranny....
    Revolution is regarded as a natural blessing; it guards against
    tyranny and promotes the vitality of the people. It is in complete
    harmony with natural law.

    In the fourth place, the government exists for the welfare of the
    people.

    In the fifth place, liberty, equality and equity should be
    preserved. The State belong equally to all; and so hereditary
    nobility, hereditary monarchy, and despotism are deplored.
    Confucius and his disciples seem to advocate a democracy under the
    form of an elective monarchy or a constitutional monarchy....

    Local self-government is recognized in the Confucian system of
    government.... The Confucian theory of educational election
    suggests the distinctly new idea of representation.(113)


This summary could scarcely be improved upon although it represents a
considerable latitude of interpretation in the subject-matter of the
classics. The voice of the people was the voice of God. From other
political writers of antiquity—Mêng Tzŭ, Mo Ti, Han Fei Tzŭ and the
Legalists, and others—the Chinese received a variety of political
interpretations, none of which fostered the development of autocracy as it
developed in Europe.

The reason for this is simple. In addition to the eventual popular control
of government, and the necessity for the close attention of the government
to the wishes of the people, the classical writers, for the most part, did
not emphasize the position of government. With the increasing ideological
solidarity of the Chinese world, the increasing antiquity and authority of
tradition, and the stability of the social system, the Chinese states
withered away—never completely, but definitely more so than their
analogues in the West. There appeared, consequently, in China a form of
laissez-faire that surpassed that of Europe completely in thoroughness.
Not only were the economic functions of the state reduced to a minimum—so
was its police activity. Old China operated with a government in reserve,
as it were; a government which was nowhere nearly so important to its
subjects as Western governments commonly are. The government system was
one democratic in that it was rooted in a society without intransigeant
class lines, with a considerable degree of social mobility for the
individual, with the total number of individuals exercising a terrific and
occasionally overwhelming pressure against the political system. And yet
it was not the governmental system upon which old China might have based
its claim to be a democracy. It could have, had it so wished, claimed that
name because of the weakness or the absence of government, and the
presence of other social organizations permitting the individual a
considerable amount of latent pressure to exercise upon his social
environment.

This arose from the nature of the large non-political organizations which
sustained Chinese civilization even more than did the
educational-administrative authorities. It is obvious that, in theory, a
free and unassociated individual in a laissez-faire polity would be
defenseless against extra-politically organized persons. The equities of
modern democracy lie largely in the development of a check and balance
system of pressure groups, affording each individual adequate means of
exercising pressure on behalf of his various interests. It was this
function—the development of a just statement of pressure-groups—which the
old Chinese world-society developed for the sufficient representation of
the individual.

There was no illusion of complete personal liberty. Such a notion was
scarcely thinkable. Every individual had his family, his village,
and—although this was by no means universally true—his _hui_, whether one
or, less commonly, several. He was never left solitary and defenseless
against powerfully organized interests. No more intimate community of
interests could be discovered than that of a family, since the community
of interests there would verge on the total. Ancient Chinese society
provided the individual with mechanisms to make his interests felt and
effective, through the family, the village, and the association.

In the West the line of influence runs from the individual, who feels a
want, to the group which assists him in expressing it, to the government,
upon which the group exercises pressure, in order that the government may
use its power to secure what the first group wants from some other group.
The line runs, as it were, in the following manner:
individual-group-government-group. In China the group exercised its
pressure for the most part directly. The individual need not incorporate
himself in a group to secure the recognition and fulfillment of his
interests; he was by birth a member of the group, and with the group was
mobile. In a sense old Chinese society was thoroughly democratic.

On the basis of such a background, Sun Yat-sen did not believe that the
Chinese had too much government, but, rather, too little. He did not cry
for liberty; he denounced its excess instead. On the basis of the old
social organization, which was fluid and yet stable, he sought to create a
democracy which would pertain to the interests of the nation as a whole,
not to the interests of individuals or groups. These could go on in the
traditional manner. The qualifications implicit in Sun Yat-sen’s
championship of democracy must be kept in mind, and his acquaintance with
the democratic techniques of the old society be allowed for. Otherwise his
advocacy of the recognition of nationalist rights and his neglect or
denunciation of individual liberties might be taken for the dogma of a
lover of tyranny or dictatorship.

Old China possessed a considerable degree of egalitarianism, of social
mobility, of popular control, and of popular participation, through the
civil service, in what little government there was. In addition,
ideological control ensured a minimum of conflicts of interests and
consequently a maximum facility for self-expression without conflict with
other individuals, groups, or society as a whole. Finally, the protection
and advancement of individuals’ rights and interests were fostered by a
system of group relationships which bound virtually every individual into
a group and left none to fall, solitary, at the mercy of others who were
organized.

Why then did Sun Yat-sen advocate democracy? What were his justifications
for it, in a society already so democratic?




Five Justifications of a Democratic Ideology.


Sun Yat-sen, realizing the inescapable necessity of nationalism, did not
immediately turn to democracy as a necessary instrument for its promotion.
He hated the Manchus on the Dragon Throne—human symbols of China’s
subjugation—but at first considered replacing them with a new Chinese
dynasty. It was only after he had found the heirs of the Ming dynasty and
the descendants of Confucius to be unworthy that he turned to
republicanism and found democracy, with its many virtues.(114) He early
became enamored of the elective system, as found in the United States, as
the only means of obtaining the best governors.(115) In the final stage he
had departed so far from his earlier way of thinking that he criticized
Dr. Goodnow severely for recommending the re-introduction of a monarchy in
China.

Sun Yat-sen, as a good nationalist, made earnest efforts to associate his
doctrines with those of the sages and to avoid appearing as a proponent of
Western civilization. It is, consequently, not unusual to discover him
citing Confucius and Mencius on _vox populi vox dei_, and saying,

“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 one in favor of democracy.

His most cogent and perhaps most necessary argument was based on his
conception of national liberty as opposed to the liberty of the
individual. He delivered a spirited denunciation of those foreigners who
criticized the Chinese for being without liberty, and in the next breath
complained that the Chinese had no government, that they were “loose
sand.” (Another fashionable way of expressing this idea is by saying that
“China is a geographical expression.”) He said: “If, for instance, the
foreigners say that China is ‘loose sand,’ what do they finally mean by
that expression? They mean to say that each individual is free, that
everybody is free, that each one takes the maximum of liberty, and that,
as a result, they are ‘loose sand’.”(118) He pointed out that the Chinese
had not suffered from the loose autocracy in the Empire, and that they had
no historical justification for parroting the cry “Liberty!” simply
because the Westerners, who had really lacked it, had cried and fought for
it. He cited John Millar’s definition of liberty, given in _The Progress
of Science Relative to Law and Government_, 1787: “True liberty consists
in this: that the liberty of each individual is limited by the
non-infringement on the liberty of others; when it invades the liberty of
others, it is no longer liberty.”(119) Sun Yat-sen had himself defined
liberty as follows: “Liberty consists in being able to move, in having
freedom of action within an organized group.”(120) China, disorganized,
had no problem of individual liberty. There was, as a matter of fact, too
much liberty.(121) What the Chinese had to do was to sacrifice some of
their individual liberty for the sake of the organized nation. Here we
find a curious turn of thought of which several other examples may be
found in the _San Min Chu I_: Sun Yat-sen has taken a doctrine which in
the West applies to the individual, and has applied it to the nation. He
believes in liberty; but it is not the liberty of the individual which is
endangered in China. It is the liberty of the nation—which has been lost
before foreign oppression and exploitation. Consequently he preaches
national and not individual liberty. Individual liberty must be sacrificed
for the sake of a free nation.(122) Without discipline there is no order;
without order the nation is weak and oppressed. The first step to China’s
redemption is _min tsu_, the union (nationalism) of the people. Then comes
_min ch’üan_, the power of the people. The liberty of the nation is
expressed through the power of the people.

How is the power of the people to be exercised? It is to be exercised by
democratic means. To Sun Yat-sen, the liberty of the nation and the power
of the people were virtually identical. If the Chinese race gained its
freedom, that freedom, exercised in an orderly manner, could mean only
democracy. It is this close association of nationalism (_min tsu_) and
democracy (_min ch’üan_), this consideration of democracy as the
expression of nationalism, that forms, within the framework of the _San
Min Chu I_, what is probably the best nationalist argument for
democracy—best, that is, in being most coherent with the Three Principles
as a whole.

If the view of democracy just expressed be considered an exposition of the
fundamental necessity of democracy, the third argument may be termed the
dialectical or historical championship of democracy. Sun Yat-sen believed
in the existence of progress, and considered that there was an inevitable
tendency toward democracy: the overthrow of the Manchus was a result of
the “... world tide. That world current can be compared to the course of
the Yangtze or the Yellow River. The flow of the stream turns perhaps in
many directions, now toward the north, now toward the south, but in the
end flows toward the east in spite of all obstacles; nothing can stem it.
In the same way the world-tide passes ...; now it has arrived at
democracy, and there is no way to stem it.”(123) This belief in the
inevitability as well as the justice of his cause encouraged Sun, and has
lent to his movement—as his followers see it—something of the impressive
sweep that the Communists see in their movement.

Sun Yat-sen did not devise any elaborate scheme of dialectical materialism
or economic determinism to bolster his belief in the irreversibility of
the flow to democracy. With infinite simplicity, he presented an
exposition of democracy in space and time. In time, he saw a change from
the rule of force to theocracy, then to monarchy, and then to democracy;
this change was a part of the progress of mankind, which to him was
self-evident and inevitable.(124) In space he perceived that increasingly
great numbers of people threw off monarchical rule and turned to
democracy. He hailed the breakdown of the great empires, Germany and
Russia, as evidence of the power of democracy. “... if we observe (things)
from all angles, we see that the world progresses daily, and we realize
that the present tide has already swept into the age of democracy; and
that no matter how great drawbacks and failures may be, _democracy will
maintain itself in the world for a long time_ (_to come_). For that
reason, thirty years ago, we promoters of the revolution, _resolved that
it was impossible to speak of the greatness of China or to carry out the
revolution without advocating democracy_.”(125)

A fourth argument in favor of democracy, and one which cannot be expanded
here, since it involves reference to Sun Yat-sen’s practical plans for the
political regeneration of China, was his assertion that democracy was an
adjunct to appropriate and effective public administration. Sun Yat-sen’s
plans concerning the selection of officials in a democratic state showed
that he believed the merging of the Chinese academic-civil service
technique with Western democracy would produce a paragon among practicable
governments.

Fifthly and finally, Sun regarded democracy as an essential modernizing
force.(126) In the introduction of Western material civilization, which
was always an important consideration to his mind, he felt that a certain
ideological and political change had to accompany the economic and
technological revolution that—in part natural and in part to be stimulated
by nationalist political interference—was to revolutionize the _min shêng_
of China, the economic and social welfare of the Chinese people. While
this argument in favor of democracy is similar to the historical argument,
it differs from the latter in that Sun Yat-sen saw the technique of
democracy influencing not only the political, but the economic and social,
life of the people as well. The growth of corporate responsibility, the
development of a more rigid ethical system in matters of finance, the
disappearance of too strict an emphasis upon the personal element in
politics (which has clouded Chinese politics with a fog of conspiracy and
intrigue for centuries), a trust in mathematics (as shown in reliance upon
the voting technique for ascertaining public opinion), and the development
of a new kind of individual aggressiveness and uprightness were among the
changes which, necessary if China was to compete in the modern world,
democracy might assist in effecting. While these desiderata do not seem
large when set down in the vast field of political philosophy, they are of
irritating importance in the inevitable trivalities upon which so much of
day-to-day life depends, and would undoubtedly improve the personal tone
of Sino-Western relations. Sun never divorced the theoretical aspects of
his thought from the practical, as has been done here for purposes of
exposition, and even the tiniest details of everyday existence were the
objects of his consideration and criticism. In itself, therefore, the
modernizing force of democracy, as seen in Sun’s theory, may not amount to
much; nevertheless, it must not be forgotten.(127)

Democracy, although secondary in point of time to his theory, is of great
importance in Sun’s plans for the political nature of the new China. He
justified democracy because it was (1) an obligation laid upon modern
China by the sages of antiquity; (2) a necessary consequence of
nationalism, since nationalism was the self-rule of a free people, and
democracy the effectuation of that self-rule, and democracy the
effectuation of that self-rule; (3) the government of the modern age;
China, along with the rest of the world, was drawn by the tide of progress
into the age of democratic achievement; (4) the political form best
calculated for the obtaining of good administration; and (5) a modernizing
force that would stir and change the Chinese people so as to equip them
for the competitions of the modern world.

In the lecture in which he criticized the inadequacies of democracy as
applied in the West, Sun Yat-sen made an interesting comment on the
proletarian dictatorship which had recently been established in Russia.
“Recently Russia invented another form of government. That government is
not representative; it is _absolute popular government_. In what does that
absolute popular government really consist? As we know very little about
it, we cannot judge it aright, but we believe that this (absolute popular
government) is _evidently much better than a representative
government_.”(128) He went on immediately to say that the Three Principles
were what China needed, and that the Chinese should not imitate the
political systems advocated in Europe and America, but should adapt
democracy in their own way. In view of his objection to a permanent class
dictatorship, as opposed to a provisional party dictatorship, and the very
enthusiastic advocacy of democracy represented by the arguments described
above, it appears unlikely in the extreme that Sun Yat-sen, had he lived
beyond 1925, would have abandoned his own plan of democracy for China in
favor of “absolute popular government.” The phrase was, at the time, since
Sun Yat-sen was seeking Russian assistance, expedient for a popular
lecture. Its importance might easily be exaggerated.




The Three Natural Classes of Men.


Having in mind the extreme peril in which the Chinese race-nation stood,
its importance in a world of Western or Western-type states, and seeing
nationalism as the sole means of defending and preserving China, Sun
Yat-sen demanded that the Chinese ideology be extended by the acquisition
of knowledge. If this modernizing and, if a neologism be permitted,
stateizing process were to succeed, it must needs be fostered by a
well-prepared group of persons within the society.

In the case of the Confucian social theory, it was the scholars who took
the ideology from the beliefs and traditions of the agrarian masses or
whole people, rectified it, and gave it back to them. This continuous
process of ideological maintenance by means of conformity (_li_) and, when
found necessary, rectification (_chêng ming_) was carried on by an
educational-political system based upon a non-hereditary caste of
academician-officials called _Mandarins_ by the early Western travellers.
In the case of those modern Western states which base their power upon
peculiar ideologies, the philosophy-imposing caste has been a more or less
permanent party- or class-dictatorship. Superficially, the
party-dictatorship planned by Sun Yat-sen would seem to resemble these.
His theory, however, presents two bases for a class of ideologues: one
theoretical, and presumably based upon the Chinese; and one applied, which
is either of his own invention or derived from Western sources. The class
of ideological reformers proposed in what may be called the applied aspect
of his theory was to be organized by means of the party-dictatorship of
the Kuomintang. His other basis for finding a class of persons whose
influence over the ideology was to be paramount was more theoretical, and
deserves consideration among the more abstract aspects of his doctrines.

He hypothecated a tripartite division of men:


    Men may be divided into three classes according to their innate
    ability or intelligence. The first class of men may be called
    _hsien chih hsien cho_ or the “geniuses.” The geniuses are endowed
    with unusual intelligence and ability. They are the creators of
    new ideas, fathers of invention, and originators of new
    achievements. They think in terms of group welfare and so they are
    the promoters of progress. Next are the _hou chih hou cho_ or the
    “followers.” Being less intelligent and capable than the _hsien
    chih hsien cho_, they do not create or invent or originate, but
    they are good imitators and followers of the first class of men.
    The last are the _pu chih pu cho_, or the “unthinking,” whose
    intelligence is inferior to that of the other two classes of men.
    These people do what the others instruct them to do, but they do
    not think about it. In every sphere of activity all three classes
    of men are present. In politics, for example, there are the
    creators or inventors of new ideas and movements, then the
    propagators of these ideas and movements, and lastly the mass of
    men who are taught to practice these ideas.(129)


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 existed, and which he did not wish to foster, in
his own country. He continued instead the consistent theory of an
aristocracy of intellect, such as had controlled China before his coming.

The aristocracy of intellect is not to be judged, however, by the old
criteria. Under the old regime, a scholar-ruler was one who deferred to
the wisdom of the ancients, who was fit to perpetuate the mysteries of the
written language and culture for the benefit of future ages, and who was
meanwhile qualified by his training to assume the rôle of counsellor and
authority in society. In the theory of Sun Yat-sen, the genius leader is
not the perpetuator but the discoverer. He is the social engineer. His
work is similar to that of the architect who devises plans for a building
which is to be built by workers (the unthinking) under the guidance of
foremen (the followers).(130) In this guise, the new intellectual
aristocrat is a figure more akin to the romantic Western pioneers and
inventors than to the serene, conservative scholars of China in the past.

The break with Western thought comes in Sun’s distinguishing three
permanent, natural classes of men. Though in their aptitudes the _hsien
chih hsien cho_ are more like modern engineers than like archaic literary
historians, they form a class that is inevitably the ruling class. To
Marxism this is anathema; it would imply that the Communist party is
merely the successor of the bourgeoisie in leading the unthinking masses
about—a more benevolent successor, to be sure, but still a class distinct
from the led proletariat of the intellect. To Western democratic thought,
this distinction would seem at first glance to invalidate any future
advocacy of democracy. To the student interested in contrasting
ideological control and political government, the tripartite division of
Sun Yat-sen is significant of the redefinition in modern terms, and in an
even more clear-cut manner, of the Confucian theory of scholarly
leadership.

How were the geniuses of the Chinese resurgence to make their knowledge
useful to the race-nation? How could democracy be recognized with the
leadership and ideological control of an intellectual class? To what
degree would such a reconciliation, if effected, represent a continuation,
in different terms, of the traditions and institutions of the old Chinese
world? Questions such as these arise from the fusion of the old traditions
and new necessities.




Ch’üan and Nêng.


The contrast between _ch’üan_ and _nêng_ is one of the few aspects of Sun
Yat-sen’s theory of democracy which persons not interested in China may,
conceivably, regard as a contribution to political science. There is an
extraordinarily large number of possible translations for each of these
words.(131) A version which may prove convenient and not inaccurate, can
be obtained by translating each Chinese term according to its context.
Thus, a fairly clear idea of _ch’üan_ may be obtained if one says that,
applied to the individual, it means “power,” or “right,” and when applied
to the exercise of political functions, it means “sovereignty” or
“political proprietorship.” _Nêng_, applied to the individual, may mean
“competency” (in the everyday sense of the word), “capacity” or “ability
to administer.” Applied to the individual, the contrast is between the
ability to have political rights in a democracy, and the ability to
administer public affairs. Applied to the nation, the contrast is between
sovereignty and administration.(132)

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 rule will not necessarily govern.
Within the framework of a democratic constitution, they will be able to
express their wishes, and make those wishes effective; but it will be
impossible for them to interfere in the personnel of government, whether
merely administrative or in the highest positions. It will be forever
impossible that a “swine-representative” should be elected, or that one of
those transient epochs of carpet-baggery, which appear from time to time
in most Western democracies, should corrupt the government. By means of
the popular rights of initiative, referendum, election and recall, the
people will be able to control their government in the broad sweep of
policy. The government will be beyond their reach insofar as petty
political interference, leading to inferiority or corruption, is
concerned.

In the second place, the benefits of aristocracy will be obtained without
its cost. The government will be made up of men especially fit and trained
to govern. There will, hence, be no difficulty in permitting the
government to become extraordinarily powerful in contrast with Western
governments. Since the masses will be able to choose between a wide
selection of able leaders, the democracy will be safeguarded.

Sun Yat-sen regarded this as one of the cardinal points in his doctrines.
In retaining the old Chinese idea of a scholar class and simultaneously
admitting Western elective and other democratic techniques, he believed
that he had found a scheme which surpassed all others. He saw the people
as stockholders in a company, and the administrators as directors; he saw
the people as the owner of an automobile, and the administrators as the
chauffeur.

A further consequence of this difference between the right of voting and
the right of being voted for, but one to which Sun Yat-sen did not refer,
necessarily arises from his postulation of a class of geniuses leading
their followers, who control the unthinking masses. That is the continuity
which such a group of ideological controllers would impart to a democracy.
Sun Yat-sen, addressing Chinese, took the Chinese world for granted. A
Westerner, unmindful of the background, might well overlook some
comparatively simple points. The old system, under which the Empire was a
sort of educational system, was a familiar feature in the politics which
Sun Yat-sen criticized. In arguing for the political acceptance of
inequality and the guarantee of government by a select group, Sun was
continuing the old idea of leadership, modifying it only so far as to make
it consistent with democracy. Under the system he proposed, the two great
defects of democracy, untrustworthiness and lack of continuity of policy,
would be largely eliminated.




The Democratic Machine State.


Throughout pre-modern Chinese thought there runs the idea of personal
behavior and personal controls. The Chinese could not hypostatize in the
manner of the West. Looking at men they saw men and nothing more.
Considering the problems and difficulties which men encountered, they
sought solutions in terms of men and the conditioning intimacies of each
individual’s life. The Confucian Prince was not so much an administrator
as a moral leader; his influence, extending itself through imitation on
the part of others, was personal and social rather than political.(134) In
succeeding ages, the scholars thought of themselves as the leaven of
virtue in society. They stressed deportment and sought, only too
frequently by means of petty formalities, to impress their own excellence
and pre-eminence upon the people. Rarely, if ever, did the
scholar-official appeal to formal political law. He was more likely to
invoke propriety and proceed to exercise his authority theoretically in
accordance with it.

Sun Yat-sen did not feel that further appeal to the intellectual leaders
was necessary. In an environment still dominated by the past, an
exhortation for the traditional personal aspect of leadership would
probably have appeared as a centuries-old triteness. The far-seeing men,
the geniuses that Sun saw in all society, owed their superiority not to
artificial inequality but to natural inequality;(135) by their ability
they were outstanding. Laws and customs could outrage this natural
inequality, or conceal it behind a legal facade of artificial inequality
or equally artificial equality. Laws and customs do not change the facts.
The superior man was innately the superior man.

Nevertheless, the geniuses of the Chinese revolution could not rely upon
the loose and personal system of influence hitherto trusted. To organize
Chinese nationalism, to give it direction as well as force, the power of
the people must be run through a machine—the 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 the
applied political science of Sun Yat-sen).

Sun was careful, moreover, to explain that his analogy between industrial
machinery and political machinery was merely an analogy. He said, “The
machinery of the government is entirely composed of human beings. All its
motions are brought about by men and not by material objects. Therefore,
there is a very great difference between the machinery of the government
and the manufacturing machine ... the machinery of the government is moved
by human agency whereas the manufacturing machine is set in motion by
material forces.”(137)

Even after allowance has been made for the fact that Sun Yat-sen did not
desire to import Western governmental machinery, nor even to stress the
machine and state analogy too far, it still remains extraordinarily
significant that he should have impressed upon his followers the necessity
of what may be called a mechanical rather than an organic type of
government. The administrative machine of the Ch’ing dynasty, insofar as
it was a machine at all, was a chaotic mass of political authorities
melting vaguely into the social system. Sun’s desire to have a clear-cut
machine of government, while not of supreme importance in his ideological
projects, was of great significance in his practical proposal. In his
theory the state machine bears the same resemblance to the old government
that the Chinese race-nation bears to the now somewhat ambiguous civilized
humanity of the Confucians. In both instances he was seeking sharper and
more distinct lines of demarcation.

In putting forth his proposals for the reconstitution of the Chinese
government he was thinking, in speaking of a state-machine, of the more or
less clearly understood juristic states of the West.(138) His concrete
proposals dealing with the minutiae of administrative organization, his
emphasis on constitution and law, and his interest in the exact allocation
of control all testify to his complete acceptance of a sharply delimited
state. On the other hand, he was extraordinary for his time in demanding
an unusual extent, both qualitative and quantitative, of power for the
state which he wished to hammer out on the forges of the nationalist
social and political revolution.

In summarizing this description of the instrument with which Sun Yat-sen
hoped to organize the intellectual leaders of China so as to implement the
force of the revolution, it may be said that it was to be a state-machine,
as opposed to a totalitarian state, based upon Western juristic theory in
general but organized out of the materials of old Chinese political
philosophy and the Imperial experience in government.(139) The state
machine was to be built along lines which Sun Yat-sen laid out in some
detail. Yet, even with his elaborate plans already prepared, and in the
midst of a revolution, he pointed out the difficulty of political
experimentation, in the following words:


    ... the progress of human machinery, as government organizations
    and the like, has been very slow. What is the reason? It is that
    once a manufacturing machine has been constructed, it can easily
    be tested, and after it has been tried out, it can easily be put
    aside if it is not good, and if it is not perfect, it can easily
    be perfected. But it is very difficult to try out a human machine
    and more difficult still to perfect it after it has been tried
    out. It is impossible to perfect it without bringing about a
    revolution. The only other way would be to regard it as a useless
    material machine which can easily be turned into scrap iron. But
    this is not workable.(140)




Democratic-Political Versus Ideological Control.


Sun Yat-sen accepted an organization of society based upon intellectual
differences, despite his belief in the justifiability and necessity of
formal democracy, and his reconciliation of the two at first contradictory
theses in a plan for a machine state to be based upon a distinction
between _ch’üan_ and _nêng_. It may now be asked, why did Sun Yat-sen,
familiar with the old method of ideological control, and himself proposing
a new ideology which would not only restore internal harmony but also put
China into harmony with the actual political condition of the world,
desire to add formal popular control to ideological control?

The answer is not difficult, although it must be based for the most part
on inference rather than on direct citation of Sun Yat-sen’s own words. In
the consideration of the system of ideological control fostered by the
Confucians, ideological control presented two distinct aspects: the
formation of the ideology by men, and control of men by the ideology. The
ideology controlled men; some men sought to control the ideology; the
whole ideological control system was based upon the continuous interaction
of cause and effect, wherein tradition influenced the men who sought to
use the system as a means of mastery, while the same men succeeded in a
greater or less degree in directing the development of the ideology.

In the old Chinese world-society the control of the ideology was normally
vested in the _literati_ who were either government officials or hoped to
become such. The populace, however, acting in conformity with the
ideology, could overthrow the government, and, to that extent, consciously
control the content and the development of the ideology. Moreover, as the
efficacy of an ideology depends upon its greater acceptance, the populace
had the last word in control of the ideology both consciously and
unconsciously. Politics, however, rarely comes to the last word. In the
normal and ordinary conduct of social affairs, the populace was willing to
let the _literati_ uphold the classics and modify their teachings in
accordance with the development of the ideology—in the name of _chêng
ming_. The old ideology was so skilfully put together out of traditional
elements that are indissociable from the main traits of Chinese culture,
together with the revisions made by Confucius and his successors, that it
was well-nigh unchallengeable. The whole Confucian method of government
was based, as previously stated, on the control of men through the control
of their ideas by men—and these latter men, the ideologues, were the
scholar administrators of successive dynasties. The identification of the
_literati_ and officials, the respect in which learning was held, the
general distribution of a leaven of scholars through all the families of
the Empire, and the completeness—almost incredible to a Westerner—of
traditional orthodoxy, permitted the interpreters of the tradition also to
mould and transform it to a considerable degree. As a means of adjusting
the mores through the course of centuries, interpretation succeeded in
gradually changing popular ideas, where open and revolutionary heterodoxy
would have failed.

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 to men or as to realms of thought. Its control had never, of
course, been complete, for in that case all institutions of government
would have become superfluous in China and would have vanished; but its
deficiencies in past ages had never been so great; either with reference
to insubordinate individuals or in regard to unassimilable ideas, as they
were in modern times.

Hence the province of government had to be greatly extended. The control
of men by the ideology was incomplete wherever the foreign culture had
really struck the Chinese—as, for instance, in the case of the
newly-developed Chinese proletariat, which could not follow the Confucian
precepts in the slums of twentieth-century industry. The family system,
the village, and the guild were to the Chinese proletarians mere shadows
of a past; they were faced individually with the problems of a foreign
social life suddenly interjected into that of the Chinese. True instances
of the interpenetration of opposites, they were Chinese from the still
existing old society of China suddenly transposed into an industrial world
in which the old ideology was of little relevance. If they were to remain
Chinese they had to be brought again into the fold of the Chinese
ideology; and, meanwhile, instead of being controlled ideologically, they
must be controlled by the sharp, clear action of government possessing a
monopoly of the power of coercion. The proletarians were not, indeed, the
only group of Chinese over whom the old ideology had lost control. There
were the overseas Chinese, the new Chinese finance-capitalists, and others
who had adjusted their personal lives to the Western world. These had done
so incompletely, and needed the action of government to shield them not
only from themselves and from one another, but from their precarious
position in their relations with the Westerners.

Other groups had not completely fallen away from the ideology, but had
found major sections of it to be unsuitable to the regulation of their own
lives. Virtue could not be found in a family system which was slowly
losing its polygynous character and also slowly giving place to a sort of
social atomism; the intervention of the machine state was required to
serve as a substitute for ideological regulation until such a time as the
new ideology should have developed sufficiently to restore relevance to
traditions.

Indeed, throughout all China, there were few people who were not touched
to a greater or less degree by the consequences of the collision of the
two intellectual worlds, the nationalistic West and the old Chinese
world-society. However much Chinese might desire to continue in their
traditional modes of behavior, it was impossible for them to live happy
and progressive lives by virtue of having memorized the classics and paid
respect to the precepts of tradition, as had their forefathers. In all
cases where the old ideas failed, state and law suddenly acquired a new
importance—almost overwhelming to some Chinese—as the establishers of the
new order of life. Even etiquette was established by decree, in the days
of the parliamentary Republic at Peking; the age-old assurance of Chinese
dress and manners was suddenly swept away, and the government found itself
forced to decree frock-coats.

Successive governments in the new China had fallen, not because they did
too much, but because they did too little. The sphere of state activity
had become enormous in contrast to what it had been under more than a
score of dynasties, and the state had perforce to intervene in almost
every walk of life, and every detail of behavior. Yet this intervention,
although imperative, was met by the age-old Chinese contempt for
government, by the determined adherence to traditional methods of control
in the face of situations to which now they were no longer relevant. It
was this paradox, the ever-broadening necessity of state activity in the
face of traditional and unrealistic opposition to state activity, which
caused a great part of the turmoil in the new China. Officials made
concessions to the necessity for state action by drafting elaborate codes
on almost every subject, and then, turning about, also made concessions to
the traditional non-political habits of their countrymen by failing to
enforce the codes which they had just promulgated. The leaders of the
Republic, and their followers in the provinces, found themselves with laws
which could not possibly be introduced in a nation unaccustomed to law and
especially unaccustomed to law dealing with life in a Western way; thus
baffled, but perhaps not disappointed, the pseudo-republican government
officials were content with developing a shadow state, a shadow body of
law, and then ignoring it except as a tool in the vast pandemonium of the
tuchunates—where state and law were valued only in so far as they served
to aggrandize or enrich military rulers and their hangers-on.

This tragic dilemma led Sun Yat-sen to call for a new kind of state, a
state which was to be democratic and yet to lead back to ideological
control. The emergency of imperialism and internal impotence made it
imperative that the state limit its activities to those provinces of human
behavior in which it could actually effectuate its decrees, and that,
after having so limited the field of its action, it be well-nigh
authoritarian within that field. Yet throughout the whole scheme, Sun
Yat-sen’s deep faith in the common people required him to demand that the
state be democratic in principle and practice.

It may begin to be apparent that, at least for Sun Yat-sen, the control of
the race-nation by the ideology was not inconsistent with the political
control of the race-nation by itself. In the interval between the old
certainty and the new, political authority had to prevail. This authority
was to be directed by the people but actually wielded by the geniuses of
the revolution. The new ideology was to emerge from the progress of
knowledge not, as before, among a special class of literary persons, but
through all the people. It was to be an ideology based on practical
experience and on the experimental method, and consequently, perhaps, less
certain then the old Confucian ideology, which was in its foundations
religious. To fill in the gaps where uniformity of thought and behavior,
on the basis of truth, had not been established, the state was to act, and
the state had to be responsible to the people.

At this point it may be remembered that Sun Yat-sen was among the very few
Chinese leaders of his day who could give the historians of the future any
valid reasons for supposing that they believed in republican principles.
Too many of the militarists and scholar-politicians of the North and South
paid a half-contemptuous lip-service to the republic, primarily because
they could not agree as to which one of them should have the Dragon
Throne, or, at the least, the honor of restoring the Manchu Emperor—who
stayed on in the Forbidden City until 1924.(141) Sun Yat-sen had a deep
faith in the judgment and trustworthiness of the uncounted swarms of
coolies and farmers whom most Chinese leaders ignored. He was perhaps the
only man of his day really loved by the illiterate classes that knew of
him, and was always faithful to their love. Other leaders, both Chinese
and Western, have praised the masses but refused to trust them for their
own good. Sun’s implicit belief in the political abilities of the common
people in all matters which their knowledge equipped them to judge, was
little short of ludicrous to many of his contemporaries, and positively
irritating to some persons who wished him well personally but did not—at
least privately—follow all of his ideas.

To return to the consideration of the parts played by ideology and popular
government in social control: there was another point of great difference
between the old ideology and the new. The old was the creation, largely,
of a special class of scholars, who for that purpose ranked highest in the
social hierarchy of old China. Now even though the three natural classes
might continue to be recognized in China, the higher standard of living
and the increased literacy of the populace was to enlarge the number of
persons participating in the life of ideas. The people were to form the
ideology in part, and in part control the government under whose control
the revolutionary geniuses were to form the rest of the ideology, and
propagate it through a national educational program. In all respects the
eventual control was to rest with the people of the Chinese race-nation,
united, self-ruling, and determined to survive.

How, then, does the pattern of _min ch’üan_ fit into the larger scheme of
the continuation of Confucian civilization and ideological control? First,
the old was to continue undisturbed where it might. Second, those persons
completely lost to the discipline of the old ideology must be controlled
by the state. Third, those areas of behavior which were disturbed by the
Western impact required state guidance. Fourth, the machine state was to
control both these fields, of men, and of ideas, and within this limited
field was to be authoritarian (“an all-powerful state”) and yet democratic
(“nevertheless subject to the control of the people”). Fifth, the ideology
was to arise in part from the general body of the people. Sixth, the other
parts of it were to be developed by the intellectuals, assisted by the
government, which was to be also under the control of the people. Seventh,
since the world was generally in an unstable condition, and since many
wrongs remained to be righted, it was not immediately probable that the
Chinese would settle down to ideological serenity and certainty, and
consequently State policy would still remain as a governmental question,
to be decided by the will of the whole race-nation.

To recapitulate, then the people was to rule itself until the reappearance
of perfect tranquility—_ta t’ung_—or its nearest mundane equivalent. The
government was to serve as a canalization of the power of the Chinese
race-nation in fighting against the oppressor-nations of the world for
survival.

The last principle of the nationalist ideology remains to be studied. _Min
tsu_, nationalism, was to provide an instrumentality for self-control and
for external defense in a world of armed states. But these two would
remain ineffectual in a starved and backward country, if they were not
supplemented by a third principle designed to relieve the physical
impotence of the nation, to promote the material happiness of its
individual members and to guarantee the continued survival of the Chinese
society as a whole. Union and self-rule could be frustrated by starvation.
China needed not only to become united and free as a nation; it had also
to become physically healthy and wealthy. This was to be effected through
_min shêng_, the third of the three principles.





CHAPTER IV. THE THEORY OF _MIN SHÊNG_.




_Min Shêng_ in the Ideology.


The principle of _min shêng_ has been the one most disputed. Sun Yat-sen
made his greatest break with the old ideology in promulgating this last
element in his triune doctrine; the original Chinese term carried little
meaning that could be used in an approach to the new meaning that Sun
Yat-sen gave it. He himself stated that the two words had become rather
meaningless in their old usage, and that he intended to use them with
reference to special conditions in the modern world.(142) He then went on
to state the principle in terms so broad, so seemingly contradictory, that
at times it appears possible for each man to read in it what he will, as
he may in the Bible. The Communists and the Catholics each approve of the
third principle, but translate it differently; the liberals render it by a
term which is not only innocuous but colorless.(143) Had Sun Yat-sen lived
to finish the lectures on _min shêng_, he might have succeeded in rounding
off his discussion of the principle.

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 not
altogether unprofitable. By means of a reconsideration of the first two
principles, and of the structure and meaning of the three principles as a
whole, it is possible to surmise, if not to establish, the meaning of _min
shêng_, that is, to discover it through a sort of political triangulation:
the first two principles being given, to what third principle do they
lead?

This latter method may be taken first, since it will afford a general view
of the three principles which will permit the orientation of _min shêng_
with reference to the nationalist ideology as a whole, and prepare the
student for a solution of some of the apparent contradictions which are to
be found in the various specific definitions of _min shêng_.

Accepting the elementary thesis of the necessary awakening of the
race-nation, and its equally necessary self-rule, both as a nation
_vis-à-vis_ other nations, and as a world by itself, one may see that
these are each social problems of organization which do not necessarily
involve the physical conditions of the country, although, as a matter of
application, they would be ineffectual in a country which did not have the
adequate means of self-support. Sun Yat-sen was interested in seeing the
Chinese people and Chinese civilization survive, and by survival he meant
not only the continuation of social organization and moral and
intellectual excellence, but, more than these, the actual continued
existence of the great bulk of the population. The most vital problem was
that of the continued existence of the Chinese as a people, which was
threatened by the constant expansion of the West and might conceivably
share the fate of the American Indians—a remnant of a once great race
living on the charity of their conquerors. Sun Yat-sen expressly
recognized this problem as the supreme one, requiring immediate
attention.(144) Nationalism and democracy would have no effect if the race
did not survive to practise them.

The old Chinese society may be conceived as a vast system of living men,
who survived by eating and breeding, and who were connected with one
another in time by the proper attention to the ancestral cults, and in
space by a common consciousness of themselves as the standard-bearers of
the civilization of the world. Sun Yat-sen, although a Christian, was not
unmindful of this outlook; he too was sensible of the meaning of the
living race through the centuries. He dutifully informed the Emperor T’ai
Tsung of Ming that the Manchus had been driven from the throne, and some
years later he expressed the deepest reverence for the ancestral
cult.(145) But in facing the emergency with which his race was confronted,
Sun Yat-sen could not overlook the practical question of physical
survival.

He was, therefore, materialistic in so far as his recognition of the
importance of the material well-being of the race-nation made him so. At
this point he may be found sympathetic with the Marxians, though his
ideology as a whole is profoundly Chinese. The destitution, the economic
weakness, the slow progress of his native land were a torture to his
conscience. In a world of the most grinding poverty, where war,
pestilence, and famine made even mere existence uncertain, he could not
possibly overlook the problem of the adequate material care of the vast
populace that constituted the race-nation.

_Min shêng_, accordingly, meant primarily the survival of the race-nation,
as nationalism was its awakening, and democracy its self-control. No one
of these could be effective without the two others. In the fundamentals of
Sun Yat-sen’s ideology, the necessity for survival and prosperity is
superlative and self-evident. All other features of the doctrine are, as
it were, optional. The first two principles definitely required a third
that would give them a body of persons upon which to operate; they did not
necessarily require that the third principle advance any specific
doctrine. If this be the case, it is evident that the question of the
content of _min shêng_, while important, is secondary to the first
premises of the _San Min Chu I_. The need for a third principle—one of
popular subsistence—in the ideology is vital; the _San Min Chu I_ would be
crippled without it.




The Economic Background of _Min Shêng_.


What was the nature of the background which decided Sun Yat-sen to draw an
economic program into the total of his nationalist ideology for the
regeneration of China through a nationalist revolution? Was Sun Yat-sen
dissatisfied with the economic order of the old society? Was he interested
in a reconstitution of the economic system for the sake of defense against
Western powers?

He was unquestionably dissatisfied with the economic order of things in
the old society, but it was a dissatisfaction with what the old order had
failed to achieve rather than a feeling of the injustice of the Chinese
distributive system. He was bitter against a taxation system which worked
out unevenly,(146) and against the extortions of the internal-transit
revenue officials under the Empire.(147) He was deeply impressed by his
first encounter with Western mechanical achievement—the S. S. _Grannoch_,
which took him from Kwangtung to Honolulu.(148) But he had served in the
shop of his brother as a young boy,(149) and knew the small farm life of
South China intimately. On the basis of this first-hand knowledge, and his
many years of association with the working people of China, he was not
likely to attack the old economic system for its injustice so much as for
its inadequacy.(150)

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-usurers.(151) The disturbances which hurt the economic condition
of the country, and thereby led to greater disturbances, had involved
China in a vicious cycle of decline which could scarcely be blamed on any
one feature or any one group in the old economy. The essential fault lay
with the condition of the country as a whole, directly affected by the
economic consequences of Western trade and partial industrialization.(152)

Sun Yat-sen’s positive dissatisfaction with the economy of his time arose
from the position which he felt China had in the modern business world. He
believed that, by virtue of the economic oppression of the Chinese by the
Western powers, China had been degraded to the position of the lowest
nation on earth—that the Chinese were even more unfortunate than “slaves
without a country,” such as the Koreans and the Annamites.(153) The
particular forms of this oppression, and Sun Yat-sen’s plans for meeting
it, may be more aptly described in the consideration of his program of
economic national regeneration.(154) The Chinese nation occupied the
ignominious position of a sub-colony or—as Sun himself termed it—“a
hypo-colony”; “Our people are realizing that to be a semi-colony is a
national disgrace; but our case is worse than that; our country is in the
position of a sub-colony (since it is the colony of all the Great Powers
and not merely subject to one of them), a position which is inferior to an
ordinary colony such as Korea and Annam.”(155)

What, then, were the positive implications of the principle of _min shêng_
in the nationalist ideology?




The Three Meanings of _Min Shêng_.


First, _min shêng_ is the doctrine leading the nationalist democracy on
its road to a high position among the nations of the earth; only through
the material strength to be found in _min shêng_ can the Chinese attain a
position by which they can exert the full force of their new-formed state
against the invaders and oppressors, and be able to lift up the populace
so that democracy will possess some actual operative meaning. _Min shêng_
is “... the center of politics, of economics, of all kinds of historical
movements; it is similar to the center of gravity in space.”(156) It
provides the implementation of nationalism and democracy.

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, _min shêng_, as the doctrine of enrichment, was also the doctrine
of economic justice. If the nation was to become economically healthy, it
could only do so on the basis of the proper distribution of property among
its citizens. Its wealth would not bring about well-being unless it were
properly distributed.

More briefly, _min shêng_ may be said to be the thesis of the
indispensability of: 1) a national economic revolution against imperialism
and for democracy; 2) an industrial revolution for the enrichment of
China; and 3) a prophylactic against social revolution.

The significance of _min shêng_ as the economic implementation of
nationalism and democracy is clear enough to require no further
discussion. Its significance as a doctrine for the promotion of the
industrial revolution is considerable, and worth attention.

Western science was to sow the seed. _Min shêng_ economy was to reap the
harvest. By means of the details in Sun Yat-sen’s programs which he
believed sufficient for the purposes, the modernization of China, which
was to be a consequence of Western science in the ideology, was to lead at
the same time to the actual physical enrichment of the economic goods and
services of the country. The advocacy of industrial development is, of
course, a commonplace in the Western world, but in China it was strikingly
novel. Sun Yat-sen did not regard industrialism as a necessary evil; he
considered it a positive blessing, as the means of increasing the material
welfare of the Chinese people.

Time and time again, Sun Yat-sen emphasized the necessity of
modernization. His theory of nationalism led him to urge the introduction
of Western physical science into the ideology. His theory of democracy was
justified in part by the fact that democracy was to be regarded as a
modernizing force. Now his principle of _min shêng_ was also to lead to
that great end—the modernization of China to a degree to permit the
race-nation to regain in the modern world, which encompassed the whole
planet, the position it had once had in the smaller world of Eastern Asia.

The wealth of old China had been one of the factors enabling it to resist
destruction at the spear-points of its barbarian conquerors. Sun Yat-sen
knew this, and knew also that the position of the United States—which had
probably the greatest concentration of social and physical wealth and
power under one political system that the world had ever known—made that
nation impregnable in the modern world. Seeing that wealth was not only a
blessing to individuals, but to nations as well, he was anxious that his
beloved China should be guarded and assisted by the strength that the
ideology of _min shêng_, once accepted and effectuated, could give it.

_Min shêng_ is more than a vague aspiration for national welfare. The
general theory of nationalism and democracy required an additional point
to make them effective in the realities of international politics, and
_min shêng_ was to supply the hygienic and economic strength that the
Chinese race-nation needed for competition and survival; but it was to do
more.

_Min shêng_ is at the same time the last step of Chinese resistance and
the first of Chinese submission to Western culture. In seeking an economic
policy and an ideology which would lead to increased wealth of the nation,
the Chinese were preparing to resist the West with its own weapons. _Min
shêng_ is a submission in that it is a deliberate declaration of
industrial revolution.

It is beside the point to consider the ideological bases of the Western
industrial revolution. It was perhaps neither a voluntary nor a deliberate
process at all; no man in the first few decades of the nineteenth century
could have foretold what the end of a process of mechanization would
bring, or was likely to advocate the intentional following of a policy
which would transform the orientation and organization of man more
thoroughly than had any previous religious, political, and economic
transition. The industrial revolution of Euramerica, when viewed from the
outside, presents the appearance of a colossal accident, whether for good
or for bad, which was but half-perceived by the participants in it. Even
today, when the ideology and the institutional outline of the
agrarian-handicraft past is fading swiftly away in the new brilliance of
Western machine-culture, the new certainty, the new order have not yet
appeared. The great transition works its way beyond the knowledge or the
intervention of individual men.

This was decidedly not the case in China. Industrialism was something
which could be studied from the outside, which could be appraised, and
then acclaimed or resisted. Emperor Meiji and his Genro, with a flash of
intuition or an intellectual penetration almost unparalleled in the
political history of the world, guided Japan into the swift current of
mechanical progress; the island empire swept ahead of Asia, abreast of the
most powerful states of the world. The Chinese court, under the resolute,
but blind, guidance of the Empress Dowager, made a few feeble gestures in
favor of modernization, but vigorously opposed any change which might
seriously modify the order of Chinese society or the position of the
Manchus. In the shadow of the foreign guns, industrialism crept into
China, along the coasts and up the banks of the navigable rivers. One
might suppose that the Chinese were in a position to choose, deliberately,
for or against industrialism. They were not; in China, as in the West, the
machine age first appeared largely as an accident.

It is here that the significance of Sun Yat-sen’s _min shêng_ becomes
apparent. Above all other subsidiary meanings, it is a deliberate
declaration of the industrial revolution. Modernism had been an accident;
Sun Yat-sen wished to transform it into a program. What would be the
ideological consequences of such an attitude?

In the first place, a plan was indicated for almost every type of human
behavior. Sun Yat-sen himself drafted a preliminary scheme for a modern
manufacturing and communications system.(158) The road that China was to
take would not be the miserable, halting progress of industrialism,
complicated by delays and wars, which the West had known in the painful
centuries of readjustment from the medieval to modern civilization; China
would not stumble forward, but would deliberately select the swiftest and
easiest way to a sound industrialism, and then take it.

_Min shêng_ thus not only provides the Chinese with a way to make their
nationalism, their democracy, and their stateification felt in the hour of
their ultimate triumph; it gives them something to do to bring about that
triumph.

On the basis of the outlines of the ideology and the social system that
Sun Yat-sen proposed, viewed from the perspective of the old Confucian
world-society, the reader will realize that this declaration of the
industrial revolution is the boldest of Sun Yat-sen’s acts, and that the
meaning of _min shêng_ as a program of complete modernization and
reconstruction is superior to other possible meanings it may have, in
regard to theoretical national or social revolution. There is nothing
remote or philosophical about the significance of _min shêng_ when so
viewed; it is a plan to which a Lenin or a Henry Ford might subscribe with
equal fervor—although a Tagore would deplore it. It is here that Sun
Yat-sen appears as the champion of the West against the traditional
technological stagnation of China. Yet just there, at the supreme point of
his Westernism, we must remember what he was fighting for: the life of a
race-nation and a civilization that was contradictory to the West. The
stability of Confucianism could not serve as a cloak for reaction and
stagnant thought. For its own good, nay, its own life, Chinese
civilization had to modernize (i. e., Westernize economically) in order to
compete in a West-ruled world. But what, more specifically, was the
socio-economic position of Sun Yat-sen? Was he a Marxian? Was he a
liberal? Was he neither?




Western Influences: Henry George, Marxism and Maurice William.


As previously stated there are three parts which may be distinguished in
the ideology of the principle of _min shêng_. _Min shêng_ is, first, the
economic aspect of the national revolution—the creation of an active
race-nation of China implementing its power by, second, technological
revolution. Third, it connotes also the necessity of a social revolution
of some kind. Western commentators have been prone to ignore the
significance of _min shêng_ in the first two of these meanings, and have
concentrated on disputation concerning the third part. The question of the
right system of distribution has become so prominent in much Western
revolutionary thought that, to many, it sums up the whole moral issue
concerning what is good and bad in society.(159) They are uninterested in
or ignorant of the great importance that the first two aspects of _min
shêng_ possess for the Chinese mind. The third part, the application of
_min shêng_ to the problems that are in the West the cause of social
revolution, and to the possible application of social revolution to China,
is important, but is by no means the complete picture.

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 point to be remembered is that Westerners are prone to overlook
this background and see only the Western influences which they are in such
a good position to detect. Sun Yat-sen’s mind grew and changed. His
preferences in Western beliefs changed frequently. A few Westerners,
seeing only this, are apt to call Sun unstable and devoid of reason.(160)

It would, indeed, be strange to find any Western political or ideological
leader who thought in precisely the same terms after the world war and the
Russian revolution as before. Sun Yat-sen was, like many other
receptive-minded leaders, sensitive to the new doctrines of Wilson and
Lenin as they were shouted through the world. He was, perhaps, less
affected by them than Western leaders, because his ideology was so largely
rooted in the ideology of old China.

Apart from the winds of doctrine that blew through the world during Sun’s
life-period, and the generally known Western influences to which he was
exposed,(161) there were three writers whose influence has been supposed
to have been critical in the development of his thinking. These three were
Henry George, Karl Marx, and Maurice William of New York. A much greater
amount of material is needed for a detailed study of the influences of
various individual theories on Sun Yat-sen than for a general exposition
of his political doctrines as a whole. At the present time scarcely enough
has been written to permit any really authoritative description of the
relations between the ideology of Sun Yat-sen and the thought of these
three men. It is possible, nevertheless, to trace certain general outlines
which may serve to clarify the possible influence that was exercised on
Sun, and to correct some current misapprehensions as to the nature and
extent of that influence.

Sun Yat-sen’s opposition to the “unearned increment” shows the influence
of the thought of Henry George. Sun proposed an ingenious scheme for the
government confiscation of unearned increment in an economy which would
nevertheless permit private ownership of land. (Incidentally, he terms
this, in his second lecture on _min shêng_, “communism,” which indicates a
use of the word different, in this respect at least, from the conventional
Western use.)(162) The land problem was of course a very old one in China,
although accentuated in the disorders resulting from the impact of the
West. There can be little question that Sun’s particular method of solving
the problem was influenced by the idea of unearned increment.

He knew of Henry George in 1897, the year the latter died,(163) and
advocated redistribution of the land in the party oath, the platform, and
the slogans of the _Tung Meng Hui_ of 1905.(164) Since, even at the time
of the Canton-Moscow Entente, his land policy never approached the
Marxist-Leninist program of nationalization or collectivization of land,
but remained one of redistribution and confiscation of unearned increment,
it is safe to say that Sun kept the theory of George in mind, although he
by no means followed George to the latter’s ultimate conclusions.(165) It
may thus be inferred that the influence of Henry George upon the
nationalist ideology of Sun Yat-sen was slight, but permanent. An idea was
borrowed; the scheme of things was not.

Sun Yat-sen encountered Marxism for the first recorded time in London in
1897, when he met a group of Russian revolutionaries and also read in the
subject. The fact that Sun was exposed to Marxism proves little except
that he had had the opportunity of taking up Marxism and did not do
so.(166) Again, the _Tung Meng Hui_ manifesto of 1905 may have been
influenced by Marxism. It was not, however, until the development of his
_Three Principles_ that the question of Marxian influence was raised. Sun
Yat-sen made his first speech on the _Principles_ in Brussels in the
spring of 1905.(167) By 1907 the three principles had taken on a clear
form: nationalism, democracy, and _min shêng_, which the Chinese of that
time seem to have translated _socialism_ when referring to it in Western
languages.(168)

The most careful Marxian critic of Sun Yat-sen, writing of the principle
of _min shêng_ and its two main planks, land reform and state capitalism,
says: “This very vague program, which does not refer to class interests
nor to the class struggle as the means of breaking privileged class
interests, was objectively not socialism at all, but something else
altogether: Lenin coined the formula, ‘subjective socialism,’ for
it.”(169) He adds, later: “Hence Sun’s socialism meant, on the lips of the
Chinese bourgeoisie, nothing but a sort of declaration for a ‘social’
economic policy, that is, a policy friendly to the masses.”(170) T’ang
Liang-li declares that the third principle at this time adopted “a frankly
socialistic attitude,”(171) but implies elsewhere that its inadequacy was
seen by a Chinese Marxist, Chu Chih-hsin.(172) This evidence, as far as it
goes, shows that Sun Yat-sen had had the opportunity to become acquainted
with Marxism, and that even on the occasion of the first formulation of
the principle of _min shêng_ he used none of its tenets. The revolutionary
critic, T’ang Liang-li, who, a devoted and brilliant Nationalist in
action, writes with a sort of European left-liberal orientation, suggests
that the Third Principle grew with the growth of capitalist industrialism
in China.(173) This is true: economic maladjustment would emphasize the
need for ideological reconstruction with reference to the economy. There
is no need to resort to Marxian analysis.

That the third principle meant something to Sun Yat-sen is shown by the
fact that when Sung Chiao-jen, who a few years later was to become one of
the most celebrated martyrs of the revolution, suggested in the period of
the first provisional Republic at Nanking that the Third Principle had
better be omitted altogether, Sun was enraged, and declared that if _min
shêng_ were to be given up, the whole revolution might as well be
abandoned.(174)

Since _min shêng_, in its third significance, that of the development of a
socially just distributive system, was not Marxian nor yet unimportant, it
may be contrasted once again with the communist doctrines, and then
studied for its actual content. In contrasting it with Marxism, it might
be of value to observe, first, the criticism that the Marxians levy
against it, and second, the distinctions that nationalist and European
critics make between _min shêng_ and communism.

Dr. Karl Wittfogel, the German Marxist whose work on Sun Yat-sen is the
most satisfactory of its kind, points out the apparent contradictions in
the _San Min Chu I_: on the one hand, statements which are not only
objectively but subjectively friendly to capitalism (on the excellence of
the Ford plant; on the necessity for the coöperation of capital and
labor)—on the other, the unmerciful condemnation of capitalism; on the one
hand, the declaration that there is no capitalism in China—on the other,
that capitalism must be destroyed as it appears; on the right, the
statement that communism and _min shêng_ are opposed—on the left, that the
communist doctrines are a subsidiary part of the ideology of _min
shêng_.(175) How, asks Wittfogel, does this all fit together? He answers
by pointing out the significance of Sun’s theses when considered in
relation to the dialectical-materialist interpretation of recent Far
Eastern history:


    His three principles incorporate

    in their _development_ the objective change in the socio-economic
                situation of China,
    in their _contradictions_ the real contradictions of the Chinese
                revolution,
    in their _latest tendencies_ the transposition of the social
                center of gravity of the revolution, which sets the
                classes in action, and whose aim is no longer a
                bourgeois capitalist one, but proletarian-socialist
                and peasant agrarian-revolutionary.

    Sun Yat-sen is according to this not only the hitherto most
    powerful representative of the bourgeois-national,
    anti-imperialist revolutions of awakening Asia; he points at the
    same time outwards over the bourgeois class limitations of the
    first step of the Asiatic movement for liberation. To deny this
    were portentuous, even for the proletarian communist movement of
    Eastern Asia.(176)


The modifications which the Marxians have introduced into their programs
with respect to the class struggle in colonial countries do not imply a
corresponding modification of their ideology. The determinism adopted from
Hegel, the economic interpretation of history—these and other dogmas are
held by the Marxians to be universally valid despite their Western origin.

We have seen what Sun’s chief Marxian exegete thinks of him. Now it may be
worth while to consider the actual relations of Sun’s doctrines with some
of those in Marxism. In the first place, Sun Yat-sen, during his stay in
Shanghai, 1919-1922 (with interruptions), was very much interested in
Communism and friendly to the Russian people, but not at all inclined to
adopt its ideology.(177)

In reference to specific points of the Communist ideology, Sun Yat-sen was
indebted to the Communists for the application of the principle of
nationalism, as a means of propaganda, as anti-imperialism, although, as
we have seen, it was fundamentally a thesis for the readjustment of the
Chinese society from the ideological basis of a world-society over to a
national state among national states.(178) Second, his habit of taking
Western doctrines and applying them to the Chinese nation instead of to
Chinese individuals, led him to apply nationalism to the class war of the
oppressed nations against the oppressing nations. There was no
justification of intra-national class war in the nationalist ideology of
Sun Yat-sen.(179) In his doctrine of democracy, his application of a
class-system based on intellect was a flat denial of the superior
significance of the Marxian economic-class ideology, as was his favoring
of the development of a five-power liberal government through _ch’üan_ and
_nêng_ in place of a dictatorship of the proletariat operating through
soviets. Finally, in relation to _min shêng_, his use of the Confucian
philosophy—the interpretation of history through _jên_—was a contradiction
of the materialist interpretation of history by the Marxians. It also
contradicted the class struggle; the loyalty of the Chinese to the
race-nation was to be the supreme loyalty; it was to develop from the _ta
chia_, the great family of all Chinese; and class lines within it could
not transcend its significance. Furthermore, purely as a matter of
economic development, Sun Yat-sen regarded the class struggle as
_pathological_ in society. He said, “Out of his studies of the social
question, Marx gained no other advantage than a knowledge of the diseases
of social evolution; he failed to see the principle of social evolution.
Hence we can say that Marx was a pathologist rather than a physiologist of
society.”(180) Finally, he did not accept the Marxian theory of surplus
value or of the inevitable collapse of capitalism. He even spoke of
capitalism and socialism as “two economic forces of human civilization”
which might “work side by side in future civilization.”(181)

All in all, it may safely be said that Sun Yat-sen’s ideology, as an
adjustment of the old Chinese ideology to the modern world, was not
inspired by the Marxist; that through the greater part of his life, he was
acquainted with Marxism, and did not avail himself of the opportunities he
had for adopting it, but consistently rejected it; and that while the
Communists were of great use to him in the formulation and implementation
of his program, they affected his ideology, either generally or with
reference to _min shêng_, imperceptibly if at all.

This conclusion is of significance in the estimation of the influence of
Maurice William upon the thought of Sun Yat-sen. It is, briefly, the
thesis of Dr. William that it was his own book which saved China from
Bolshevism by making an anti-Marxian out of Sun after he had fallen prey
to the Bolshevist philosophy. Dr. William writes of the lectures on
Nationalism and Democracy; “In these lectures Dr. Sun makes clear that his
position is strongly pro-Russian and pro-Marxian, that he endorses the
class struggle, repudiates Western democracy, and advocates China’s
coöperation with Bolshevist Russia against capitalist nations.”(182) Dr.
William then goes on to show, quite convincingly, that Sun Yat-sen, with
very slight acknowledgments, quoted William’s _The Social Interpretation
of History_ almost verbatim for paragraph after paragraph in the lectures
on _min shêng_.

It would be unjust and untruthful to deny the great value that William’s
book had for Sun Yat-sen, who did quote it and use its arguments.(183) On
the other hand, it is a manifest absurdity to assume that Sun Yat-sen,
having once been a communist, suddenly reversed his position after reading
one book by an American of whom he knew nothing. Even Dr. William writes
with a tone of mild surprise when he speaks of the terrific _volte-face_
which he thinks Sun Yat-sen performed.

There are two necessary comments to be made on the question of the
influence of Maurice William. In the first place, Sun Yat-sen had never
swerved from the interpretation of history by _jên_, which may be
interpreted as the humane or social interpretation of history. Enough of
the old Chinese ideology has been outlined above to make clear what this
outlook was.(184) Sun Yat-sen, in short, never having been a Marxian, was
not converted to the social interpretation of history as put forth by Dr.
William. He found in the latter’s book, perhaps more clearly than in any
other Western work an analysis of society that coincided with his own,
which he had developed from the old Chinese philosophy and morality as
rendered by Confucius. Consequently he said of William’s rejection of the
materialistic interpretation of history, “That sounds perfectly reasonable
... the greatest discovery of the American scholar _fits in perfectly_
with the (third) principle of our Party.”(185) The accomplishment of
Maurice William, therefore, was a great one, but one which has been
misunderstood. He formulated a doctrine of social evolution which tallied
perfectly with Chinese ideology, and did this without being informed on
Chinese thought. He did not change the main currents of Sun’s thought,
which were consistent through the years. He did present Sun with several
telling supplementary arguments in Western economic terms, by means of
which he could reconcile his interpretation of social history not only
with Confucian _jên_ but also with modern Western economics.

The other point to be considered in relation to Maurice William is a
matter of dates. The thesis of Maurice William, that Sun Yat-sen, after
having turned Marxian or near-Marxian, was returned to democratic liberal
thought by William’s book, is based on contrast of the first twelve
lectures in the _San Min Chu I_ and the last four on _min shêng_. Dr.
William believes that Sun read his book in the meantime and changed his
mind. A Chinese commentator points out that Sun Yat-sen referred to _The
Social Interpretation of History_ in a speech on January 21, 1924; his
first lecture on the _San Min Chu I_ was given January 24, 1924.(186)
Hence, in the twelve lectures that Dr. William interprets as Marxian, Sun
Yat-sen was speaking from a background which included not only Marxism,
but _The Social Interpretation of History_, as well.

Only on the third part does the influence of the Western thinkers appear
unmistakably. Henry George gave Sun Yat-sen the idea of the unearned
increment, but Sun Yat-sen, instead of accepting the whole body of
doctrine that George put forth, simply kept this one idea, and built a
novel land-policy of his own on it. Marxism may have influenced the verbal
tone of Sun Yat-sen’s lectures, but it did not affect his ideology,
although it shows a definite imprint upon his programs. Maurice William
gave Sun Yat-sen a set of arguments in modern economic terms which he
attached to his ideological thesis of the _jên_ interpretation of history,
which he based upon Confucianism. There is no evidence to show that at any
time in his life Sun Yat-sen abandoned his Chinese ideological orientation
and fell under the sway of any Western thinker. The strong consistency in
the ideology of Sun Yat-sen is a consistency rooted in the old Chinese
ideology. On minor points of doctrine he showed the influence of the West;
this influence cannot be considered solely by itself. The present
discussion of Western influences may, by its length, imply a
disproportionate emphasis of Western thought in the political doctrines of
Sun Yat-sen, but in a work written primarily for Westerners, this may be
found excusable.




_Min Shêng_ as a Socio-Economic Doctrine.


If one were to attempt to define the relations of the _min shêng_ ideology
to the various types of Western economic doctrines at present current,
certain misapprehensions may be eliminated at the outset. First:
Capitalism in its Western form was opposed by Sun Yat-sen; _min shêng_ was
to put through the national economic revolution of enrichment through a
deliberately-planned industrialization, but in doing so was to prevent
China from going through all the painful stages which attended the growth
of capitalism in the West. “We want,” said Sun Yat-sen, “a preventive
remedy; a remedy which will thwart the accumulation of large private
capitals and so preserve future society from the great inconvenience of
the inequality between rich and poor.”(187) And yet he looked forward to a
society which would ultimately be communistic, although never in its
strict Marxian sense. “We may say that communism is the ideal of
livelihood, and that the doctrine of livelihood is the practical
application of communism; such is the difference between the doctrine of
Marx and the doctrine of the Kuomintang. In the last analysis, there is no
real difference in the principles of the two; where they differ is in
method.”(188) This is sufficient to show that Sun Yat-sen was not an
orthodox Western apologist for capitalism; as a Chinese, it would have
been hard for him to be one, for the logically consistent capitalist
ideology is one which minimizes all human relationships excepting those
individual-contractual ones based on money bargains. The marketing of
goods and services in such a way as to disturb the traditional forms of
Chinese society would have been repugnant to Sun Yat-sen.

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 of
socialism, anarchism and syndicalism, since the ingredients of these
ideologies of the West and that of Sun Yat-sen, while coincident on some
points, cannot be fitted together.

Superficially, there is a certain resemblance between the ideology of the
_San Min Chu I_ and that of Fascism. The resemblances may be found in the
emphasis on the nation, the rejection of the class war and of Marxism, the
upholding of tradition, and the inclusion of a doctrine of intellectual
inequality. But Sun Yat-sen seeks to reconcile all this with democracy in
a form even more republican than that of the United States. The scheme of
_min ch’üan_, with its election, recall, initiative and referendum, and
with its definite demands of intellectual freedom, is in contradiction to
the teachings of Fascism. His condemnation of Caesarism is unequivocal:
“Therefore, if the Chinese Revolution has not until now been crowned with
success, it is because the ambitions for the throne have not been
completely rooted out nor suppressed altogether.”(189) With these
fundamental and irreconcilable distinctions, it is hard to find any
possibility of agreement between the _San Min Chu I_ and the Fascist
ideologies, although the transitional program of the _San Min Chu I_—in
its advocacy of provisional party dictatorship, etc.—has something in
common with Fascism as well as with Communism as applied in the Soviet
Union.

A recent well-received work on modern political thought describes a
category of Western thinkers whose ideas are much in accord with those
contained in the _min shêng_ ideology.(190) Professor Francis W. Coker of
Yale, after reviewing the leading types of socialist and liberal thought,
describes a group who might be called “empirical collectivists.” The men
to whom he applies this term reject socialist doctrines of economic
determinism, labor-created value, and class war. They oppose, on the other
hand, the making of a fetish of private ownership, and recognize that the
vast mass of ordinary men in modern society do not always receive their
just share of the produce of industry. They offer no single panacea for
all economic troubles, and lay down no absolute and unchallengeable dogma
concerning the rightness or wrongness of public or private ownership.(191)
Professor Coker outlines their general point of view by examining their
ideas with reference to several conspicuous economic problems of the
present day: public ownership; labor legislation; regulation of prices;
taxation; and land policies.(192)

According to Coker, the empirical collectivist is not willing to forgo the
profit motive except where necessary. He is anxious to see a great part of
the ruthlessness of private competition eliminated, and capital generally
subjected to a regulation which will prevent its use as an instrument of
harm to the community as a whole. While not committed to public ownership
of large enterprises as a matter of theory, he has little objection to the
governmental operation of those which could, as a matter of practical
expediency, be managed by the state on a nonprofit basis.

Sun Yat-sen’s position greatly resembles this, with respect to his more
immediate objectives. Speaking of public utilities, he said to Judge
Linebarger: “There are so many public utilities needed in China at the
present time, that the government can’t monopolize all of them for the
advantage of the masses. Moreover, public utilities involve risks which a
government cannot afford to take. Although the risks are comparatively
small in single cases, the entire aggregate of such risks, if assumed by
the government, would be of crushing proportions. Private initiative and
capital can best perform the public utility development of China. We
should, however, be very careful to limit the control of these public
utilities enterprises, while at the same time encouraging private
development as much as possible.”(193) Sun had, however, already spoken of
nationalization: “I think that when I hold power again, we should
institute a nationalization program through a cautious and experimental
evolution of (1) public utilities; (2) public domains; (3) industrial
combines, syndicates, and cartels; (4) coöperative department stores and
other merchandising agencies.”(194) It must be remembered that there were
two considerations back of anything that Sun Yat-sen said concerning
national ownership: first, China had already ventured into broad national
ownership of communications and transport, even though these were in bad
condition and heavily indebted; second, there was no question of
expropriation of capital, but rather the free alternative of public and
private industry. An incidental problem that arises in connection with the
joint development of the country by public and by private capital is the
use of foreign capital. Sun Yat-sen was opposed to imperialism, but he did
not believe that the use of foreign capital at fair rates of interest
constituted submission to imperialism. He said, in Canton, “ ... we shall
certainly have to borrow foreign capital in order to develop means of
communication and transportation, and we cannot do otherwise than have
recourse to those foreigners who are men of knowledge and of experience to
manage these industries.”(195) It may thus be said that Sun Yat-sen had no
fixed prejudice against private capital or against foreign capital, when
properly and justly regulated, although in general he favored the
ownership of large enterprises by the state.

Second—to follow again Professor Coker—the Western empirical collectivists
favor labor legislation, and government intervention for the protection of
the living standards of the working classes. This, while it did not figure
conspicuously in the theories of Sun Yat-sen,(196) was a striking feature
of all his practical programs.(197) In his address to Chinese labor, on
the international Labor Day, 1924, he urged that Chinese labor organize in
order to fight for its own cause and that of national liberation. It had
nothing to fear from Chinese capitalism, but everything from foreign
imperialistic capitalism.(198) Sun did not make a special hero class out
of the workers; he did, however, advocate their organization for the
purpose of getting their just share of the national wealth, and for
resistance to the West and Japan.

Third, the empirical collectivist tends to advocate price-control by the
state, if not over the whole range of commodities, at least in certain
designated fields. Sun was, has been stated, in favor of the regulation of
capital at all points, and of public ownership in some. This naturally
implies an approval of price-control. He more specifically objected to
undue profits by middlemen, when, in discussing salesmen, he said: “Under
ideal conditions, society does not need salesmen or any inducement to buy.
If a thing is good, and the price reasonable, it should sell itself on its
own merits without any salesmanship. This vast army of middlemen should
hence be made to remember that they should expect no more from the
nonproductive calling in which they are engaged than any other citizen
obtains through harder labor.”(199) In this, too, _min shêng_ coincides
with empirical collectivism; the coincidence is made easy by the relative
vagueness of the latter.

Fourth, in the words of Mr. Coker, “many collectivists look upon taxation
as a rational and practical means for reducing extreme differences in
wealth and for achieving other desired economic changes.”(200) Sun Yat-sen
agrees with this definitely; his land policy is one based upon taxation
and confiscation of the amount of the unearned increment (which, not
involving the confiscation of the land itself, is perhaps also taxation),
and proposes to apply taxes extensively. Quite apart from the question of
distributive justice, a heavy tax burden would be necessary in a country
which was being rigorously developed.

Fifth, empirical collectivists believe in land control, not only in the
cities, but in the open country as well, as a matter of agrarian reform.
We have seen that the land figured extensively in the ideology of _min
shêng_, and shall observe that Sun Yat-sen, in his plans for _min shêng_,
stressed the importance of proper control of land.

In summing up the theory of distributive justice which forms a third part
of the principle of _min shêng_, one may say that, as far as any
comparison between a Chinese and a Western idea is valid, the positive
social-revolutionary content of _min shêng_ coincides with the doctrines
of that group of Western politico-economic writers whom Coker calls
empirical collectivists. The correspondence between the two may not be a
mere coincidence of names, for in considering Sun Yat-sen’s _min shêng_,
one is struck by the empirical, almost opportunistic, nature of the
theory. A great part of the activity of the Chinese, whether material or
intellectual, has been characterized by a sort of opportunism; not
necessarily an opportunism of insincerity, it may be more aptly described
as a tendency to seek the golden mean, the reasonable in any situation. It
is this habit of compromise with circumstance, this bland and happy
disregard of absolutes in theory, which has preserved—with rare
exceptions—the Chinese social mind from the torment of any really bitter
and profound religious conflict, and which may, in these troubled times,
keep even the most irreconcilable enemies from becoming insane with
intolerance. This fashion of muddling through, of adhering to certain
traditional general rules of reasonableness, while rendering lip-service
to the doctrines of the moment, has been the despair of many Western
students of China, who, embittered at the end, accuse the Chinese of
complete insincerity. They do not realize that it is the moderateness of
the Confucian ideology, the humane and conciliatory outlook that centuries
of cramped civilized life have given the Chinese, that is the basis of
this, and that this indisposition to adopt hard and fast systems has been
one of the ameliorating influences in the present period of serious
intellectual antagonisms. Generalizations concerning China are rarely
worth much. It may be, however, that the doctrine of _min shêng_, with
respect to its positive socio-economic content, may appear vague to the
Western student, and that he may surmise it to be a mere cloak for
demagogues. It could easily do that in the West, or in the hands of
insincere and unscrupulous leaders. In China, however, it need not
necessarily have been formulated more positively than it was, because, as
we have seen, the intellectual temper of the Chinese makes any strict
adherence to a schedule or a plan impossible. It is easy, always, to
render the courtesies; it is hard to follow the specific content. Sun
Yat-sen apparently realized this, and wished to leave a general body of
doctrine which could be followed and which would not be likely to be
violated. In any case, the theses of _min shêng_, both ideologically and
programmatically, can scarcely be contrasted with the detailed schedules
of social revolution to be found in the West.

Sun Yat-sen’s frequent expressions of sympathy with communism and
socialism, and his occasional identification of the large principles of
_min shêng_ with them, are an indication of his desire for ultimate
collectivism. (It may be remarked, in passing, that Sun Yat-sen used the
word _collectivist_ in a much more rigid sense than that employed by
Coker.) His concessions to the economic situation of his time, the
pragmatic, practical method in which he conceived and advocated his plans,
are a manifestation of the empirical element in his collectivism.

_Ming shêng_ cannot, however, be thought of as another Western doctrine
for national economic strength, national economic reconstitution, and
national distributive justice; it is also a program for the improvement of
the morale of the people.

How is the _min shêng_ doctrine to fit in with the essentially
conservative spirit of the nationalist ideology? If, as Sun proposed, the
new ideology is to be compounded of the old morality, the old knowledge,
and modern physical science, how is _min shêng_, referring to social as
well as material programs, to be developed in harmony with the old
knowledge? In the terminology of ultramodern Western political science,
the ethical, the moral, and the emotional are likely to appear as words of
derision. In a milieu characterized by the curiously warmblooded social
outlook of the Confucians, such terms are still relevant to reality, still
significant in the lives of men. The sentimental is intangible in
politics; for that reason it is hard to fit into contemporary thought, but
though it cannot be measured and fully understood, its potency cannot be
disregarded; and for Sun Yat-sen it was of the utmost importance.




_Min Shêng_ as an Ethical Doctrine.


Reference has been made to the Confucian doctrine of _jên_, the
fellow-feeling of all mankind—each man’s consciousness of membership in
society. This doctrine was formulated in a society unacquainted with Greek
logic, nor did it have the strange European emphasis upon sheer
intellectuality which has played its way through Western thought. Not, of
course, as profoundly introspective as Christianity, nor appealing so
distinctly to the mystical in man’s nature, it was nevertheless concerned
with man’s inner life, as well as with the ethics of his outward behavior.
The Confucian was suffused throughout with the idea of virtue; the moral
and the physical were inextricably intertwined. Its non-logical content
scarcely approached the form of a religion; commentators on the old
ideology have not called it religious, despite the prominence of beliefs
in the supernatural.(201) The religion of the Chinese has been
this-worldly,(202) but it has not on that account been indifferent to the
subjective aspects of the moral life.(203)

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
application of the old social ethos.

It is in this last significance, rather than in any of its practical
meanings of recovery, development, and reform, that Sun Yat-sen spoke most
of it to one of his followers.(204) He was concerned with it as a moral
force. His work was, among other things, a work of moral transformation of
individual motives.(205) _Min shêng_ must, in addition to its other
meanings be regarded as an attempt to extend the Chinese ideology to
economic matters, to lead the Chinese to follow their old ethics. Sun
Yat-sen had ample time in his visits to the West to observe the ravages
that modern civilization had inflicted upon the older Western moral life,
and did not desire that China should also follow the same course. The
humanity of the old tradition must be kept by the Chinese in their venture
into the elaborate and dangerous economy of modern life; the machine
civilization was needed, and was itself desirable,(206) but it could not
overthrow the humane civilization that preceded it and was to continue on
beneath and throughout it.

In this manner a follower of Sun Yat-sen seeks to recall his words: “I
should say that _min shêng_ focuses our ethical tradition even more than
the other two principles; after a Chinese has become nationalistic and
democratic, he will become socialized through the idea of his own
personality as an instrument of good for human welfare. In this proud
feeling of importance to and for the world, egotism gives way to
altruism.... So, I say again that _min shêng_ is an ethical endeavor ...
this, the final principle (and yet, the first principle which I
discovered, in the bitterness and poverty of my boyhood days), will come
imperceptibly into our lives.”(207)

In a philosophy for intellectuals such attitudes need not, perhaps, be
reckoned with; in an ideology for revolution and reconstitution, perhaps
they should. Sun Yat-sen conceived of his own work and his ideology not
only as political acts but as moral forces; _min shêng_ was at once to
invigorate the national economy, to industrialize the material
civilization, and to institute distributive justice, and in addition to
this, it was to open a new, humane epoch in economic relations. That is
why the term, instead of being translated, is left in the Chinese: _min
shêng_.





CHAPTER V. THE PROGRAMS OF NATIONALISM.




Kuomintang.


Sun Yat-sen was a political leader as well as a political philosopher. His
growth as a thinker was intimately associated with the development of his
political activities. It would be difficult to say which came first,
either in time or in importance, in his life—his teachings or his work. At
times the line between the two becomes vague. Sun made vital commitments
concerning his ideology in furthering his revolutionary work. These have
to be sifted out from other utterances bearing only upon the immediate
situation. This is not easy, but neither is it impossible. Lyon Sharman
wrote, “It might be cogently argued that, in dealing with an easily
absorbent, propagandist mind like Sun Yat-sen’s one should not look to the
shifting ideas for his real opinions, but to those formulations which he
clung to tenaciously all his life.”(208)

The ideology of the _San Min Chu I_ provides a broad scheme of terms and
values by means of which the Chinese of the twentieth century could orient
themselves simultaneously in the modern world and in the continuing world
of Confucian civilization. Between this philosophy and the necessity of
immediate practical action there stands an intermediate step—that of the
plans. The plans provide a theory of means leading to the establishment of
the ends set up in the ideology. The ideology, left on paper by itself,
could not bring about China’s salvation; it had to be spread and
implemented with political action. Sun Yat-sen planned the programs and
activities of the Chinese revolutionaries in some detail; he proposed
policies reaching far out into the future. While, since his death, these
plans have been modified to a greater or less degree,(209) they have not
lost all relevance to the course of affairs in China, and, in any case,
possess an interest of their own in the history of political thought, as
illustrating the political doctrines to which Sun Yat-sen’s ideology led
him. The first problem the plans had to include was that of providing a
tool by which they could be set in motion.

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 days when he was struggling against the Manchu monarchy
almost singlehanded. Gradually this group increased and became a
federation of the great secret orders which had resisted the Manchus for
centuries. It developed into a modern parliamentary party under the name
_Kuomintang_—literally _nation people party_—with the inauguration of the
first republic, but was soon driven underground by the would-be emperor
Yüan Shih-k’ai. It emerged again in South China at the end of the World
War, was reorganized after the Communist model (so far as intra-party
organization was concerned) before the death of Sun Yat-sen, led the
revolution to the North, and, now, though somewhat less united than
before, rules the greater part of China in the name of the Three
Principles.(210)

Confucius preached the slow transformation of society by means of an
intellectual leaven, scholar class, which, by re-forming and clarifying
the ideology, could gradually minimize conflict among men and bring about
an epoch of concord in which all men would live by reason as found in
tradition. The function of the Kuomintang was, in Sun’s mind, only
remotely similar. The Kuomintang was designed to intervene in a chaos of
wars and corrupt politics, to propagate the nationalist ideology, and
avert a tragic fate which would otherwise be inevitable—the disappearance
of China from the map of the world, and the extinction not only of Chinese
civilization but—as Sun Yat-sen thought—of the Chinese race as well.

In the days before the downfall of the monarchy, and for the few years of
defeat under the first republic, the Kuomintang was not highly organized.
Sun Yat-sen’s genius for leadership, and the fervor of his adherents—which
can be understood only at first-hand, and cannot be explained in rational
terms—were sufficient to hold the party together. But there was far too
much discord as to final principles as well as to points of immediate
action, and party activities were not so specialized as to permit maximum
efficiency.(211) Furthermore, there was the question of the relations of
the party and the state. It was somewhat absurd for the partizans of Sun
Yat-sen, having brought about the revolution, to stand back and let
whomever would walk away with it. The party’s power had ebbed with its
success in 1911. There had to be some way of keeping the party in power
after it had achieved the overthrow of its enemies, and won the
revolutionary control of the country. Reorganization was definitely
necessary if party effectiveness were to be raised to the point of
guaranteeing the success of the next revolution—which Sun did not live to
see—and party supremacy to the point of assuring the Nationalists control
of the government after the revolution had been accomplished.

Reorganization was effected through the assistance of the Communists
during the period of the Canton-Moscow entente (1923-1927).(212) Under the
leadership of the extraordinarily able Michael Borodin, the Soviet
advisers sent from Russia completely re-shaped the internal structure of
the Kuomintang and won for themselves positions of considerable confidence
and influence, which they lost only when they attempted to transform the
principles and objectives of the Party as thoroughly as they had the
organization.

The Kuomintang of today, which is irreconcilably opposed to Marxism, still
bears the imprint of Communist design.(213) Though the working details of
the Party organization do not, for the most part, appear directly relevant
to the principle of _min ch’üan_ of Sun Yat-sen, the arrangements for
Party control illustrate the curious compromise between Chinese and
Western democratic patterns, on the one hand, and the revolutionary
requirements of absolutism, on the other, which have made Chinese
republicanism seem a sham, if not a farce, to Western scholars who expect
to find in China the same openness and freedom in democratic government to
which they are accustomed at home.

During the life-time of Sun there was no question of an elective headship
for the Party. In spite of the fact that the party stood for democracy, it
seemed impossible that any alternative to Sun Yat-sen himself should be
considered. Sun Yat-sen’s complete willingness to continue as head of the
Party without troubling to have himself elected from time to time has been
variously interpreted: his friends term it the humble and natural
recognition of a celebrated fact; his enemies regard it as the
hallucination of an egotism as distorted as it was colossal. The truth
would appear to be that Sun regarded the initiation and the guidance of
the Nationalist revolution as his particular mission in life. He was, in a
sense, the intellectual proprietor of the Three Principles. Unselfish in
all personal matters, he had few doubts of his own capacity when he had
discovered what he believed to be his duty, and unquestioningly set out to
perform it. In the lawlessness and tumult of the revolution, it would have
seemed absurd for Sun Yat-sen to submit to the periodical formula of
reëlection for the sake of any merely theoretical harmony of action and
theory.

Not only was Sun Yat-sen the leader of the Party; he was not even to have
a successor. The first revised constitution of the Kuomintang provided for
his life-time headship; the second stipulated that the post of _Tsung Li_
should never be filled by any other person. As _Tsung Li_—the Party
Leader, it is still customary to refer to Sun Yat-sen in China today.
This, again, was not the display of a superhuman vanity so much as a
practical requirement designed to offset the possibility of conflict and
intrigue among the most conspicuous party chiefs, which would quite
probably arise should the question of a succession to Sun Yat-sen ever be
mentioned. There was, of course, the element of respect in this
gesture—the implication that the magistral chair of Sun Yat-sen was too
high a place for any common man to sit.

So far as leadership was concerned the Kuomintang was an autocracy until
the death of Sun Yat-sen. In all other party matters attempts were made to
cultivate democratic form and instil democratic morale. The prudence of
this choice may seem to have been borne out by the course of history,
since the Communists did not become ambitious, nor the Nationalists
jealous, to the point of open conflict until after the death of Sun
Yat-sen. Western thought will have to make extensive allowances before it
can comprehend a democratic Party which operated under the unquestioned
authority of a single man, without recourse to the formula of a plebiscite
or election to a boss-ship in the form of a nominal post made significant
only by the personal conspicuousness of the incumbent.

Had Karl Marx lived to work in the Russian Revolution, he might have
occupied a position analogous to that which Sun Yat-sen did in the
Chinese. In other respects the new Kuomintang organization was remarkably
like the Communist. There was the extraordinarily complex, but somehow
effective, mechanism of a Party Congress, a Central Executive Committee,
and a Standing Committee. There was a Political Bureau and an agency for
overseas agitation. There were also the wide ramifications of an extensive
net work of auxiliary organizations designed to draw strength from every
popular enthusiasm, and deflect it to the cause of the Nationalist
revolution. In due time these agencies were turned about and swung into
action against the Communists who had attempted to master them.

The precise details of Kuomintang organization need not be described. In
general the pattern of authority proceeded from the whole membership, by a
sequence of indirect elections, to the inner group of the Central
Executive Committee, a body which possesses as much power in China as does
its Soviet prototype.(214) An instance of its power may be given:
representatives are sent by the _tang pu_ (Party Branches) to the Party
Congress; in the event that delegates do not or cannot come, the C. E. C.
has the power of appointing persons to serve _pro tempore_ as the
representatives of the otherwise unrepresented branches. Since the same
committee examines delegates’ credentials, it is apparent that the
trustworthiness of the Party Congress can be assured in the same manner
that, to the understanding of the present author, the earlier All-Union
Congresses of Soviets and the C. P. were assured in the Russian
Revolution. The pattern given the Kuomintang by the Russians gave the
Party a strong central control able to assure orthodoxy within the Party;
for some years, as a matter of history, differences of opinion within the
Party could only be expressed by schism (as in the case of the
“Kuomintang” of Wang Ch’ing-wei). While the aim of the Party was
democracy, it cannot be said truthfully that democracy worked in a
militant Party engaged in turning an anarchy into a revolution. The
requirements of revolutionary endeavor, among other things, seem to
include an iron-handed leadership of the right sort. Such leadership
could, in the Sun Yat-sen ideology, be justified by reference to the three
stages of the revolution.

The Kuomintang remained, so far as leadership was concerned, the creature
of Sun Yat-sen. In structure it was extensively reorganized to resemble
the Communist hierarchy found in Russia, with the administrative and
legislative systems united into grades of conferences and committees. The
Kuomintang also took over the Communist system of a registered and
disciplined membership. To the time of the reorganization in 1923-1924,
the Party had apparently admitted and expelled members in the informal,
but effective, manner employed by the old Chinese _hui_—associations;
guilds; or “tongs”—for centuries.(215) Without a complete system of
personnel book-keeping, it was impossible to keep adequate records of the
performance of each member and comb through the membership for the purpose
of eliminating undesirables and inactives. At the time of the
reorganization the membership was required to be reënrolled; in many cases
certificates of membership were granted (in physical appearance resembling
a European passport) which, in view of the Party power, entailed a
considerable grant of privileges with the more or less corresponding
burden of duties. Party finances notably improved. In time this systematic
method of recording membership was applied for the purposes of ousting
persons with Communist or pro-Communist views, or eliminating individuals
too friendly with foreign interests believed antagonistic to the Party or
its purposes. “Party purges” have been frequent and drastic since the
organization of a complete membership record.

The Kuomintang, as it was re-formed just before its swift rise to power
and as it has essentially remained since, was a well-organized body of
persons, subject to varying degrees of Party discipline, and trained in
the methods of propaganda. The leadership was in the hands of Sun Yat-sen
and, after his death, in the hands of his most trusted military and
political aides. The membership, drawn from all parts of China and the
world, was made up of persons from almost every class in society;
representation was on the Russian plan, tending to centralize power in the
C. E. C.(216) Intra-party democracy was not, for the most part, put into
practice because of the disturbed political and economic conditions. The
Party and its predecessors have, in the forty-odd years of their combined
existence, been facing what amounted to a state of perpetual emergency.
Sometimes badly, but more often effectively, they have struggled to
establish a state which in turn can found the democratic ideology of Sun
upon which the democracy of the future must, they believe, be based.

Sun did not state definitely that the Party was to be dissolved after the
task of its dictatorship was completed, and China had won a stable
democratic government. That decision, of perpetuating the Party as one of
many competing parties in the new democracy, or of abolishing it
altogether, was presumably to be left to the Party leaders of the time. A
precedent may be found in the behavior of Sun himself after the
establishment of the Republic in 1912; he continued the Nationalist Party
as one of the chief parties in the parliamentary republic. Yüan Shih-k’ai
soon drove it underground again. From this it might be possible to
conclude that the Party having done with its trusteeship, need not commit
suicide as a party, but could continue in some form or another.

The Kuomintang forms the link between the theories of Sun and the
realities of the revolutionary struggle; it ties together his plans for a
new democracy in China and his strategies in the conflicts of the moment.
First instrument of the ideology, it bears the burden of bringing about
the revolution, and bringing the country to the stage of testing the
administrative and political theories of the founder, and simultaneously
inculcating the democratic principle in the minds of those who are to bear
the heritage of Chinese organization and culture on to the future.

The genius of Sun Yat-sen, the Communist gift of organization, and the
fervor of the membership brought about the defeat or submission—however
nominal the latter may have been—of the warlords. By what stages,
according to the theory of Sun Yat-sen, could national unity be realized?
What, given power, should the Kuomintang do to guarantee the success of
the revolution?




The Dragon Throne and State Allegiance.


The first task which the Kuomintang, once established, had to perform was
a necessary preliminary to the other portions of its work—such as the
leading of the first steps against the Western inroads, the opening up of
the democratic technique of government, and the initiation of the first
phases of _min shêng_. That task was to awaken the Chinese to the fact
that they were a nation, and not only a nation, but an abused and
endangered one as well.

We have seen that Sun Yat-sen regarded nationalism as a precious treasure
which the Chinese had lost.(217) He had said, many years before, in his
_Kidnapped in London_, that the Manchus had followed a deliberate policy
of intellectual suppression designed to extinguish or divert Chinese
nationalism, and to make the great masses of Chinese on whom the Manchu
power depended oblivious to the fact that they were the humiliated slaves
of alien conquerors.(218) Again, in the third lecture on nationalism, he
said that while the Emperors Kang Hsi and Ch’ien Lung were at least honest
in acknowledging themselves to be Manchus, extenuating their presence on
the Dragon Throne by claiming the imperial hero-sages, Shun and Wen Wang,
of antiquity as fellow-barbarians, the Manchu Emperors after Ch’ien Lung
did everything they could to suppress Chinese nationalist ideas. They even
did not hesitate to revise the classics of history in order to obliterate
whatever historical consciousness the Chinese may have had of
themselves.(219) Sun Yat-sen pointed out that the strong
group-consciousness of the Jews has kept Judea living through the
centuries, even though the Jewish state was obliterated and the Jews
themselves scattered to the four winds. He also praised the Poles,(220)
who were subjugated by aliens as were the Chinese, but kept their
nationalist ideas and were consequently restored as an honored nation
after the world war. Hence, the first step in the program of Chinese
nationalism was to be the creation of a consciousness of that nationalism.
If the Chinese did not regain their nationalism, “that precious treasure
which makes possible the subsistence of humanity,”(221) they might meet
the fate of the Miao tribes whom the Chinese had pushed back into desolate
lands and who faced an ignominious extinction.

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, and
not even an equal to the other nations. This idea had to be developed into
a force.

Sun Yat-sen wrote, of the significance of philosophy in action: “What is a
principle? A principle is an idea, a belief, a force. As a rule, when men
search for the truth of a thesis, they first reflect upon it, then their
reflections grow into a belief, and that belief becomes a force. Hence in
order to be firmly established, a principle must pass through the
different stages of idea, belief, and force.”(222) No more definite
statement of the ideological consequences of thought could be found. Sun
Yat-sen appreciated this, and realized that, in the carrying out of his
ideology, the first necessity was the adoption of the ideology itself. All
other steps must be secondary. The grouping of the important steps in the
fulfillment of the program of nationalism may have differed from time to
time,(223) but the actual work of Sun Yat-sen was based upon the method
indicated: the establishment of at least the preliminary notions of the
ideology as a prerequisite to effective social action. (In this
connection, and in anticipation of further discussion, it might be pointed
out that the advantage of the Moscow-Canton entente was not one gained
from the superior appeal of the Communist ideology, but from the superior
agitation techniques which the Nationalists learned from the Communists,
and which enabled them to bring into play the full latent social force in
Sun Yat-sen’s ideas.) But if mere national-consciousness were insufficient
of itself, what else was needed?

Loyalty was necessary. Being aware of themselves as Chinese would not help
them, unless they united and were loyal to that union. “To say that what
the ancients understood by loyalty was loyalty toward the emperor, and
that, since we no longer have an emperor, we (need no longer) speak of
loyalty, and to believe that we can act as we please—that is a grave
error.”(224) Sun Yat-sen thus points out one of the most tragically
perplexing of the problems of the new China.

He was urging return to the ancient morality. The ancient code of loyalty
was one built up to the emperor. Although the emperor did not have much
power, in comparison with some despots who have changed history, he was
nevertheless the man at the apex of society. The Confucian society was one
built in general upon the grand design of an enormous family; a design
which was, nevertheless, flexible enough to permit the deposition of a
wicked or mad emperor—something which the Japanese order of things could
not in theory, although it did in fact, tolerate. Filial piety was piety
toward one’s own family head; loyalty was piety toward the family head of
all civilized society.

Many writers have pointed out the discord and unhappiness which the
abolition of the Empire brought to many Chinese. Their code of honor was
outraged; the embodiment of their social stability was gone.(225) The
critics who made the comment could not, of course, deny the general trend
away of political organization throughout the world from monarchy. They
did question the competence of the Chinese to make the readjustment at the
present stage of their history, or believed that the Chinese could not
preserve their traditional civilization under a governmental system which
was alien to the form if not to the spirit of the Chinese tradition.
Although their criticisms may be influenced too heavily by an antiquarian
appreciation of the excellencies of the Chinese Imperial system, or a
desire to preserve China as a sort of vast museum with all its
quaintnesses of yesteryear, there is some point to what they say, since
the transition to national-state allegiance was not an easy one. There
were two factors involved in it, besides the tremendousness of the
educational task of convincing almost half a billion people that they were
no longer ruled by a properly deputized agent of the universe, but were
quite free to manage their world as they collectively saw fit. These
factors were, first, the necessity of preventing any possible resurrection
of the Dragon Throne, and second, the inculcation of allegiance to an
intangible state.

Sun Yat-sen pointed out the enormous waste of blood and wealth involved in
the change from one dynasty to another, when the highest post in the whole
world was suddenly left open for the strongest man to seize. Republicanism
would consequently tend to prevent civil wars in the future;(226) the
cumbersome, murderous old method of expressing the popular will, as the
Confucian ideology provided, was to be done away with, and peaceful
changes of political personnel developed. He asserted that the T’ai P’ing
rebels, of whose memory he was fond, had failed in their fierce attempt to
establish a fantastic pseudo-Christian, proletarian, collectivistic
dynasty in the sixth and seventh decade of the nineteenth century because
of the dispute that arose within their ranks as to leadership.(227) He
also pointed out that many of the militarists under the Republic knew well
that the Dragon Throne was empty, but did not know that it was gone.

The story of the eradication of monarchy from Chinese society is an
interesting one, relevant to the question of the old and the new loyalty.
Sun Yat-sen’s full force was thrown at first against the Manchus. He
taught the other two principles of democracy and _min shêng_, but in his
earlier years he attracted most attention by his anti-Manchu activities.
Now, in allowing the principle of nationalism to do the work of the
principle of democracy, Sun Yat-sen was using the anti-dynastic
revolutionary potentialities of the situation to push along an
anti-monarchical movement. The Chinese constitutional arrangement was
such, under the Manchus, that a foreign monarch, who was a sovereign in
his own right, quite apart from China, sat on the Chinese throne. The
Manchu Emperor occupied the Dragon Throne. Many were willing to rebel
against a Manchu; they might have hesitated had an indigenous prince
occupied that position.

On the occasion of the establishment of the first Republic, in 1912, the
Manchu Emperor was allowed to continue residence in Peking. Retaining his
dynastic title and the use of the Forbidden City, he was to receive a
stipend from the Chinese Republic and to be entitled to all the privileges
normally accorded a foreign emperor by international law. There is a
remote possibility, although the truth of this surmise cannot be
substantiated, that he was left there as a sort of scarecrow, to prevent
anyone from seizing the throne. Constitutional difficulties would have
arisen if a pensioned Manchu Emperor and a native caesarian Emperor were
to attempt to occupy the same throne.

This peculiar arrangement does not seem to have helped matters much. There
was not enough pro-Manchu sentiment to support any restoration movement on
a large scale, such as a reactionary insurrection, and the personal
unpopularity of the one man, Yüan Shih-k’ai, who, as dictator of the first
Republic (1912-1916), sought the throne, was enough to keep any active
monarchical movement from succeeding. The one attempt of the Manchu
partizans, in 1917, failed utterly.

That is not to say that the Dragon Throne was not missed. A general
relaxation of political ethics was observable. The old tradition could not
easily be reconciled to a juristic notion from outside. Sun Yat-sen sought
most eagerly to impress upon the Chinese the necessity for state
allegiance in place of monarchical devotion: “At present everybody says
that morality was overthrown with the advent of the republic. The main
reason is right here. Reasonably speaking we must practice loyalty even
under a republican regime, not loyalty to a sovereign, but loyalty toward
the nation, loyalty toward the people, loyalty toward our four hundred
million men. Of course, loyalty toward four hundred million men is
something much more exalted than loyalty toward one single man. Hence we
must preserve the excellent virtue of loyalty.”(228) A curious emphasis on
the physical object of loyalty is present here. The Chinese, having no
background of Western juristic hypostatizations, were unable to be
faithful to a legal fiction; expressing state allegiance, Sun Yat-sen had
to put it in its most tangible form, that of a concord of human beings.

Nevertheless, under the republic, the old virtue of personal loyalty
should not interfere with state allegiance. Sun Yat-sen was willing and
anxious that the Chinese should consider their loyalty as being directed
to the nation; he did not wish that the officials of the nation, as men,
should get it. In that case the very purpose of democracy would be
defeated, and a monarchy or an oligarchy set up with the formulae of a
democracy. Sun Yat-sen was as radically republican as any early American.
“In regard to the government of the nation, fundamentally, it is the
people who have the power, but the administration of the government must
be entrusted to experts who have the capacity. We need not regard those
experts as stately and honorable presidents and ministers, but merely as
chauffeurs of automobiles, as sentinels who guard the gate, as cooks who
prepare the food, as doctors who attend to sicknesses, as carpenters who
build houses, as tailors who make clothes.”(229) State allegiance had to
be directed between the Scylla of a monarchical restoration and the
Charybdis of nominally republican personal government. The old form had to
be discarded, and the old habits turned in a new direction, but not in the
easiest direction that they might take.

The problem of the supplanting of the Dragon Throne by a state was not an
easy one. In the preparation of the Chinese people for the initiation of
an active program of nationalism, the first elements of the nationalist
ideology had to be inculcated. This involved race-consciousness. But the
idea of race-consciousness and national-consciousness could not be exerted
as a force unless the conscious union of the Chinese race-nation was
accompanied by the erection of a powerful democratic state, and unless
this state fell heir to the loyalty which had once been shown the Throne,
or even a higher loyalty. This loyalty had to be based on the two
suppositions that the Empire was gone forever, and that personal loyalty,
even under the forms of a republic, should not be allowed to take its
place. Only with a genuine state-allegiance could the Chinese advance to
their national salvation.




Economic Nationalism.


The ideological establishment of a race-national outlook would have
far-reaching consequences that might well continue working themselves out
for centuries. The immediate exercise of this sense of unity was to be
developed through a loyalty to state allegiance, which would also of
itself be significant. These two new patterns—the one ideological, and the
other institutional—running through the Chinese society and social mind
were vitally necessary. But after the institutional habit of
state-allegiance had been developed, what was the new democratic state,
the instrument of the awakened race-nation, to do in the way of practical
policies to give effect to the new consciousness and strength of Chinese
nationalism?

Sun Yat-sen, whose principles tended to develop themselves in terms of
threes,(230) cited three perils constituting a threat to the Chinese
society. The first was the peril to the Chinese race, which was faced with
the possibility of decline in an expanding Western World and might even
become vestigial or extinct. This peril was to be fought with
race-nationalism. The second was the peril to the Chinese polity, the
danger that China might become politically appurtenant to some foreign
power of group of powers. This was to be fought with democratic
race-nationalism. And the last, and most insidious, was the peril to the
Chinese economy, the looting of China by the unfair economic measures of
the great powers, to be met by a nationalist economic program. Sun Yat-sen
was most apprehensive of the combined strength of these three pressures:
“... I fear that our people are in a very difficult position; and I fear
that we may perish in the near future. We are threatened by the three
forces I have mentioned: namely, the increase of foreign population, the
political force, and the economic force of the foreigners.”(231)

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 the development of that
portion of foreign capital which he regarded as fairly employed in China,
and spent a great part of his life in seeking to introduce capital from
outside. He did, however, make a distinction between the just operation of
economic forces, and the unjust combination of the economic with the
politically oppressive. Foreign capital in China was not oppressive
because it was capital; it was oppressive because it held a privileged
position, and because it was reinforced by political and military
sanctions. There is no implication in Sun Yat-sen’s works that the
operations of finance, when not unjustly interfered with by political
action, could, even when adverse to China, be regarded as wrong of
themselves.

In what ways, then, did foreign capital so invest its position with unjust
non-economic advantages that it constituted a burden and an oppression?
There were, according to Sun Yat-sen, six headings under which the various
types of economic incursion could be classified, with the consequence that
a total of one billion two hundred million Chinese dollars were unjustly
exacted from the Chinese economy every year by the foreigners.

First, the control of the Customs services having, by treaty, been
surrendered by China, and a standard _ad valorem_ tariff having also been
set by treaty, the Chinese had to leave their markets open to whatever
foreign commerce might choose to come. They were not in a position to
foster their new modern industries by erecting a protective tariff, as had
the United States in the days of its great industrial development.(233)
China’s adverse balance in trade constituted a heavy loss to the already
inadequate capital of the impoverished nation. Furthermore, the amount of
the possible revenue which could be collected under an autonomous tariff
system was lost. Again, foreign goods were not required, by treaty
stipulation, to pay the internal transit taxes which Chinese goods had to
pay. As a result, the customs situation really amounted to the development
of a protective system for foreign goods in China, to the direct financial
loss of the Chinese, and to the detriment of their industrial development.
He estimated that half a billion dollars, Chinese, was lost yearly,
through this politically established economic oppression.(234) Obviously,
one of the first steps of Chinese economic nationalism had to be tariff
autonomy.

Second, the foreign banks occupied an unfair position in China. They had
won a virtual monopoly of banking, with the consequence that the Chinese
banks had to appear as marginal competitors, weak and unsound because the
people were “poisoned by economic oppression.”(235) The foreign banks
issued paper money, which gave them cost-free capital; they discounted
Chinese paper too heavily; and they paid either no or very little interest
on deposits. In some cases they actually charged interest on deposits. A
second step of economic nationalism had to be the elimination of the
privileged position of the foreign banks, which were not subject to
Chinese jurisdiction, and were thus able to compete unfairly with the
native banks.

Third, economic oppression manifested itself in transportation, chiefly by
water. The economic impotence of the Chinese made them use foreign bottoms
almost altogether; the possible revenue which could be saved or perhaps
actually gained from the use of native shipping was lost.

Fourth, the Western territorial concessions constituted an economic
disadvantage to the Chinese. Wrested from the old Manchu government, they
gave the foreigners a strangle-hold on the Chinese economy. Besides, they
represented a direct loss to the Chinese by means of the following items:
taxes paid to the foreign authorities in the conceded ports, which was
paid by the Chinese and lost to China; land rents paid by Chinese to
foreign individuals, who adopted this means of supplementing the tribute
levied from the Chinese in the form of taxes; finally, the unearned
increment paid out by Chinese to foreign land speculators, which amounted
to an actual loss to China. Under a nationalist economic program, not only
would the favorable position of the foreign banks be reduced to one
comparable with that of the Chinese banks, but the concessions would be
abolished. Taxes would go to the Chinese state, the land rent system would
be corrected, and unearned increment would be confiscated under a somewhat
novel tax scheme proposed by Sun Yat-sen.

Fifth, the Chinese lost by reason of various foreign monopolies or special
concessions. Such enterprises as the Kailan Mining Administration and the
South Manchuria Railway were wholly foreign, and were, by privileges
politically obtained, in a position to prevent Chinese competition. This
too had to be corrected under a system of economic nationalism. The new
state, initiated by the Kuomintang and carried on by the people, had to be
able to assure the Chinese an equality of economic privilege in their own
country.

Sixth, the foreigners introduced “speculation and various other sorts of
swindle” into China.(236) They had exchanges and lotteries by which the
Chinese lost tens of millions of dollars yearly.

Under these six headings Sun Yat-sen estimated the Chinese tribute to
Western imperialism to be not less than one billion two hundred millions a
year, silver. There were, of course, other forms of exaction which the
Westerners practised on the Chinese, such as the requirement of war
indemnities for the various wars which they had fought with China.
Furthermore, the possible wealth which China might have gained from
continued relations with her lost vassal states was diverted to the
Western powers and Japan. Sun Yat-sen also referred to the possible losses
of Chinese overseas, which they suffered because China was not powerful
enough to watch their rights and to assure them equality of opportunity.

Sun Yat-sen did not expect that forces other than those which political
nationalism exerted upon the economic situation could save the Chinese.
“If we do not find remedies to that big leakage of $1,200,000,000.00 per
year, that sum will increase every year; there is no reason why it should
naturally decrease of its own accord.”(237) The danger was great, and the
Chinese had to use their nationalism to offset the imperialist economic
oppression which was not only impoverishing the nation from year to year,
but which was actually preventing the development of a new, strong, modern
national economy.

What is the relation of the sub-principle of economic nationalism to the
principle of _min shêng_?(238) Economic nationalism was the preliminary
remedy. The program of _min shêng_ was positive. It was the means of
creating a wealthy state, a modern, just economic society. But the old
oppressions of imperialism, lingering on, had to be cleared away before
China could really initiate such a program. Not only was it the duty of
the Chinese national and nationalist state to fight the political methods
of Western imperialism; the Chinese people could help by using that old
Asiatic weapon—the boycott.

Sun Yat-sen was pleased and impressed with the consequences of Gandhi’s
policy of non-coöperation. He pointed out that even India, which was a
subject country, could practise non-coöperation to the extreme discomfort
of the British. The creation of race-nationalism, and of allegiance to a
strong Chinese state, might take time. Non-coöperation did not. It was a
tool at hand. “The reason why India gained results from the
non-coöperation policy was that it could be practised by all the
citizens.”(239) The Chinese could begin their economic nationalist program
immediately.

Sun Yat-sen pointed out that the basis for the weakness of China, and its
exploitation by the foreigners, was the inadequacy of the Chinese
ideology. “The reason why we suffer from foreign oppression is our
ignorance; we ‘are born in a stupor and die in a dream’.”(240) Conscious
of the peril of the foreign economic oppression, the Chinese had to exert
economic nationalism to clear the way for the positive initiation of a
program of _min shêng_. In practising economic nationalism, there were two
ways that the Chinese could make the force of their national union and
national spirit felt: first, through the actual advancement of the
programs of the whole of nationalism and the progress of the political and
economic condition of the country; second, through non-coöperation, “... a
negative boycott which weakens the action of imperialism, protects
national standing, and preserves from destruction.”(241)




Political Nationalism for National Autonomy.


After the first steps of resistance to economic oppression, the Chinese
nationalists would have to launch a counter-attack on the political
oppression practised upon China by the Western powers. In his discussion
of this, Sun Yat-sen described, though briefly, the past, the
contemporary, and the future of that oppression, and referred to its
methods. His theory also contained three answers to this oppression which
need to be examined in a consideration of his theoretical program of
Chinese nationalism: first, the question of China’s nationalist program of
political anti-imperialism; second, the nature of the ultimate development
of nationalism and a national state; and third, the theory of the class
war of the nations. In view of the fact that this last is a theory in
itself, and one quite significant in the distinction between the doctrines
of Sun Yat-sen and those of Marxism-Leninism, it will be considered
separately. The first two questions of the program of nationalism are,
then: what is to be the negative action for the advancement of China’s
national political strength, in opposing the political power of the West?
and what is to be the positive, internal program of Chinese nationalism?

As has been stated Sun Yat-sen used the anti-dynastic sentiment current in
the last years of the Manchus as an instrument by means of which he could
foster an anti-monarchical movement. The great significance of his
nationalism as a nationalism of Chinese _vis-à-vis_ their
Oriental-barbarian rulers quite overshadowed its importance as a teaching
designed to protect China against its Western-barbarian exploiters. The
triumph of the Republicans was so startling that, for a time, Sun Yat-sen
seems to have believed that nationalism could develop of itself, that the
Chinese, free from their Manchu overlords, would develop a strong
race-national consciousness without the necessity of any political or
party fostering of such an element in their ideology. Afire with all the
idealism of the false dawn of the first Republic, Sun Yat-sen dropped the
principle of nationalism from his program, and converted his fierce
conspiratorial league into a parliamentary party designed to enter into
amicable competition with the other parties of the new era.(242) This
pleasant possibility did not develop. The work of nationalism was by no
means done. The concept of state-allegiance had not entered into the
Chinese ideology as yet, and the usurper-President Yüan Shih-k’ai was able
to gather his henchmen about him and plan for a powerful modern Empire of
which he should be forced by apparently popular acclamation to assume
control.

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
pouring into Peking for illegitimate purposes, and accepted by a
prostituted government of politicians. With the continuation of the
unfavorable financial policy of the powers, and the continuing remoteness
of any really helpful loans, he began to think that the Chinese had to
rely on their own strength for their salvation.(244) Second, he realized
that the foreigners in China were not generally interested in a strong,
modern Chinese state if that state were to be developed by Chinese and not
by themselves. Sun had understood from the beginning that the great aim of
nationalism was to readjust the old world-society to nationhood in the
modern world; he had not, perhaps, realized that the appearance of this
nationhood was going to be opposed by foreigners.(245) When he came to
power in 1912, he thought that the immediate end of nationalism—liberation
of China from Manchu overlordship—had been achieved. He was preoccupied
with the domestic problems of democracy and _min shêng_. When, however,
the foreign powers refused to let his government at Canton exercise even
the limited authority permitted the Chinese by the treaties over their own
customs service, and did not let Sun take the surplus funds allowed the
Chinese (after payment of interest due on the money they had lent various
Chinese governments), his appreciation of the active propagation of
nationalism was heightened. He realized that the Chinese had to fight
their own battles, and that, while they might find individual friends
among the Westerners, they could scarcely hope for a policy of the great
powers which would actually foster the growth of the new national
China.(246) Simultaneously, he found his advocacy of a nationalist program
receiving unexpected support from the Soviet Union. His early contacts
with the Russians, who were the only foreigners actually willing to
intervene in his behalf with shipments of arms and money, made him
interested in the doctrines lying behind their actions, so inconsistent
with those of the other Western powers. In the Communist support of his
nationalism as a stage in the struggle against imperialism, he found his
third justification of a return, with full emphasis, to the program of
nationalism.

Hence, at the time that he delivered his sixteen lectures, which represent
the final and most authoritative stage of his principles, and the one with
which the present work is most concerned, he had returned to an advocacy
of nationalism after a temporary hope that enough work had been done along
that line. In expelling the alien Manchu rulers of China, he had hoped
that the old Chinese nationalism might revive, as soon as it was free of
the police restrictions had placed on race-national propaganda by the
Empire. He had found that this suspension of a nationalist campaign was
premature because nationalism had not firmly entrenched itself in the
Chinese social mind. In the first place, state allegiance was weak;
usurpers, dictators and military commandants strode about the Chinese
countryside with personal armies at their heels. Secondly, the foreign
powers, out of respect to whom, perhaps, a vigorous patriotic campaign had
not been carried out, did not show themselves anxious to assist China—at
least, not as anxious as Sun Yat-sen expected them to be. Third, the
inspiration offered by a power which, although temporarily submerged, had
recently been counted among the great powers of the world, and which had
rejected the aggressive policy which the rest of the Western nations, to a
greater or less degree, pursued in the Far East, was sufficient to
convince Sun Yat-sen of the justice of the doctrines of that power. Soviet
Russia did not stop with words; it offered to associate with China as an
equal, and the Soviet representative in Peking was the first diplomat to
be given the title of ambassador to China.

The sharpening of the nationalist policy into a program of
anti-imperialism seems to have been the direct result of the Communist
teachings, one of the conspicuous contributions of the Marxians to the
programmatic part of the theories of Sun Yat-sen. As earlier stated, their
ideology influenced his almost not all. Their programs, on the other hand,
were such an inspiration to the Chinese nationalists that the latter had
no hesitation in accepting them. Hu Han-min, one of the moderate
Kuomintang leaders, who would certainly not go out of his way to give the
Communists credit which they did not deserve, stated unequivocally that
the Chinese did not have the slogan, “Down with Imperialism!” in the 1911
revolution, and gave much credit to the Bolsheviks for their
anti-imperialist lesson to the Chinese.(247)

In describing the political aggression of the Western states upon the
Chinese society, Sun Yat-sen began by contrasting the nature of the
inter-state vassalage which the peripheral Far Eastern states had once
owed to the Chinese core-society. He stated that the Chinese did not
practise aggression on their neighbors, and that the submission of the
neighboring realms was a submission based on respect and not on
compulsion. “If at that time all small states of Malaysia wanted to pay
tribute and adopt Chinese customs, it was because they admired Chinese
civilization and spontaneously wished to submit themselves; it was not
because China oppressed them through military force.”(248) Even the
position of the Philippines, which Sun Yat-sen thought a very profitable
and pleasant one under American rule, was not satisfactory to the
Filipinos of modern times, who, unlike the citizens of the vassal states
of old China, were dissatisfied with their subordinate positions.(249)

He pointed out that this benevolent Chinese position was destroyed as the
West appeared and annexed these various states, with the exception of
Siam. He then emphasized that this may have been done in the past with a
view to the division of China between the various great powers.(250)

This partitioning had been retarded, but the danger was still present. The
Chinese revolution of 1911 may have shown the powers that there was some
nationalism still left in China.(251)

The military danger was tremendous. “Political power can exterminate a
nation in a morning’s time. China who is now suffering through the
political oppression of the powers is in danger of perishing at any
moment. She is not safe from one day to the other.”(252) Japan could
conquer China in ten days. The United States could do it in one month.
England would take two months at the most, as would France. The reason why
the powers did not settle the Chinese question by taking the country was
because of their mutual distrust; it was not due to any fear of China. No
one country would start forth on such an adventure, lest it become
involved with the others and start a new world war.(253)

If this were the case, the danger from diplomacy would be greater even
than that of war. A nation could be extinguished by the stroke of a pen.
The Chinese had no reason to pride themselves on their possible military
power, their diplomacy, or their present independence. Their military
power was practically nil. Their diplomacy amounted to nothing. It was not
the Chinese but the aggressors themselves that had brought about the
long-enduring stalemate with respect to the Chinese question. The
Washington Conference was an attempt on the part of the foreigners to
apportion their rights and interests in China without fighting. This made
possible the reduction of armaments.(254) The present position of China
was not one in which the Chinese could take pride. It was humiliating.
China, because it was not the colony of one great power, was the
sub-colony of all. The Chinese were not even on a par with the colonial
subjects of other countries.

The shameful and dangerous position thus outlined by Sun could be remedied
only by the development of nationalism and the carrying-on of the struggle
against imperialism.

Anti-imperialism was the fruit of his contact with the Bolsheviks. His
nationalism had approached their programs of national liberation, but the
precise verbal formulation had not been adopted until he came in contact
with the Marxian dialecticians of the Third International. His
anti-imperialism differed from theirs in several important respects. He
was opposed to political intervention for economic purposes; this was
imperialism, and unjust. The economic consequences of political
intervention were no better than the intervention itself. Nevertheless, at
no time did he offer an unqualified rejection of capitalism. He sought
loans for China, and distinguished between capital which came to China in
such a manner as to profit the Chinese as well as its owners, and that
which came solely to profit the capitalists advancing it, to the economic
disadvantage of the Chinese. In his ideology, Sun Yat-sen never appears to
have accepted the Marxian thesis of the inevitable fall of capitalism, nor
does he seem to have thought that imperialism was a necessary and final
stage in the history of capitalism.

In short, his program of anti-imperialism and the foreign policy of
Chinese political nationalism, seem to be quite comparable to the policy
held by the Soviets, apart from those attitudes and activities which their
peculiar ideology imposed. In practical matters, in affairs and actions
which he could observe with his own eyes, Sun Yat-sen was in accord with
the anti-imperialism of Soviet Russia and of his Communist advisers. In
the deeper implications of anti-imperialism and in the pattern of the
Marxian-Leninist ideology underlying it in the U.S.S.R., he showed little
interest. Ideologically he remained Chinese; programmatically he was
willing to learn from the Russians.

The internal program of his nationalism was one which seems to have been
influenced by the outlook developed by himself. His vigorous denunciation
of Utopian cosmopolitanism prevents his being considered an
internationalist. He had, on the occasion of the institution of the first
Republic, been in favor of the freedom of nations even when that freedom
might be exercised at the expense of the Chinese. The Republic might
conceivably have taken the attitude that it had fallen heir to the
overlordship enjoyed by the Manchu Empire, and consequently refused
representation to the Mongols, Manchus, Tibetans, and Mohammedans. It was,
however, called the Republic of Chung Hua (instead of the Republic of
Han), and a five-striped flag, representing its five constituent “races,”
was adopted. Sun Yat-sen later gave a graphic description of the
world-wide appeal of Woodrow Wilson’s principle of national
self-determination. He did not think that the principle, once enunciated,
could be recalled; and stated that the defeat of the minor and colonial
nations at the Versailles Conference, which drafted a very unjust treaty,
was an instance of the deceitfulness of the great powers.

His nationalism did not go so far as to permit his endorsing the entrance
of the People’s Republic of Outer Mongolia into the Soviet Union. This
doctrine of nationalism as a correlative of democratic national autonomy
was his second principle, that of democracy; his first principle, that of
race-nationalism, had other implications for the destiny of Mongolia. His
positive program of nationalism was dedicated, in its “political”
exercise, to the throwing-off of the imperialist bondage and the exercise
of the self-rule of the Chinese people.

It is only if one realizes that these three sub-principles of nationalism
were re-emphases of the three principles that their position in the theory
of the nationalist program becomes clear. Nationalism was to clear the way
for _min shêng_ by resisting the Western economic oppression of the
Chinese, and thus allowing the Chinese to enrich themselves. Nationalism
was to strike down the political oppression of imperialism by eradicating
the political holds of the West upon China, and thus allowing the Chinese
people to rule itself. So long as China was at the mercy of Western power,
any self-government that the Chinese might attempt would have to be
essayed at the sufferance of the aggressors. Finally, nationalism was to
reinforce itself by the application of race-nationalism to race-kinship;
China was not only to be self-ruling—it was to help the other nations of
Asia restore their autonomy and shield them with its tutelary benevolence.

When one considers that to Sun Yat-sen democracy and autonomy are
inextricably associated, the full significance of his stressing
nationalism as a means to democracy appears. The Chinese people could not
rule themselves if they were to be intimidated by the Western powers and
Japan. They could not rule themselves completely if large portions of them
were under alien jurisdiction in the treaty ports. These forms of
political oppression were wounds in the body of Chinese society. Chinese
nationalism, associated with democracy, required that the whole Chinese
people be associated in one race-nation and that this race-nation rule
itself through the mechanism of a democratic state.

Here the code of values imposed by Sun Yat-sen’s thinking in terms of the
old ideology becomes apparent. The development of nationalism in China,
while it threatened no one outside and sought only for the justification
of China’s interests at home, was an accentuation of the existence of the
race-nation. The race-nation, freeing itself (political nationalism) and
ruling itself (democracy), was to become more conscious of itself. Sun
implicitly denied the immediate necessity for a general world-authority;
perhaps he did so because he realized that in the present world, any
supreme authority would be predominantly Western. The Chinese race-nation,
once politically free, had a definite duty to perform on behalf of its
peripheral states and on behalf of the suppressed states of the whole
world. The first demand, however, was for the freedom of China; others
could not be helped by China until China herself was free.

The political application of nationalism envisaged (1) the elimination of
existing foreign political control (imperialism) in China; (2) the
strengthening of the country to such a degree that it would no longer be a
hypo-colony or sub-colony, and would not have to live under the constant
threat of invasion or partition; and (3) the resulting free exercise of
self-rule by the Chinese people, through a nationalist democracy, so
arranged that self-rule of China did not conflict with the equal right of
self-rule of other peoples but, on the contrary, helped them.




The Class War of the Nations.


Now come to a consideration of the second part of the sub-principle of
political nationalism. This is the theory held by Sun concerning the class
war of the nations. It serves to illustrate three points in Sun Yat-sen’s
thought: first, that Sun never permitted a Western theory to disturb the
fundamentals of Chinese ideology as he wished to re-orient it; second,
that Sun frequently took Western political theories which had been
developed in connection with the relations of individuals and applied them
to the relations of nations; and third, that Sun was so much impressed
with the cordiality and friendship proffered him by the Communists that he
sought to coöperate with them so far as his Chinese ideology permitted
him.(255)

One notes that the question of distributive justice is not as pressing in
China as it is in the modern West. One also observes that the old Chinese
ideology was an ideology of the totalitarian society, which rejected any
higher allegiance of states or of classes. And one sees that Sun Yat-sen,
in proposing a democracy, suggested an ideology which would continue the
old Chinese thesis of eventual popular sovereignty as reconciled with
administration by an intellectually disciplined elite. Each of these three
points prevented Sun from endorsing the intra-national class struggle.

He regarded the class struggle, not—as do the Marxians—as a feature of
every kind of economically unequal social organization, but as a
pathological development to be found in disordered societies. He
considered the Marxian teachings in this respect to be as different from
really adequate social doctrines as pathology is from physiology in
medical science. The mobility of the old Chinese society, combined with
the drags imposed by family, village, and _hui_, had resulted in a social
order which by and large was remarkably just. By presenting the principle
of _min shêng_ as a cardinal point in an ideology to be made up of old
Chinese morality, old Chinese knowledge, and Western science, he hoped to
avoid the evils of capitalism in the course of ethically sound enrichment,
development and arrangement of China’s economy.

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
offering him help. This convinced him as no theory could have. He regarded
Russia as a new kind of power, and ascribed the general hatred for the
Soviet to their stand against capitalism and imperialism: “Then all the
countries of the world grew afraid of Russia. This fear of Russia, which
the different countries entertain at present, is more terrible than the
fear they formerly held, because this policy of peace not only overthrew
the Russian imperialism, but (purposed) to overthrow also imperialism in
the (whole world).”(256) This fight against imperialism was a good work in
the mind of Sun Yat-sen.

In considering the principles of Sun more than a decade after they were
pronounced, one cannot permit one’s own knowledge of the events of the
last eleven years to make one demand of Sun Yat-sen a similar background.
That would amount to requiring that he be a prophet. At the time when he
spoke of the excellence of Russia he had no reason to question the good
faith of the Communists who were helping him. It is conceivable that even
the Bolsheviks who were aiding and advising the Nationalists did not
realize how soon the parting of the ways would come, how much the two
ideologies differed from one another, how much each of the two parties
endangered the other’s position. At the time Sun spoke, the Communists
were his allies in the struggle against imperialism; they had agreed from
the beginning that China was a country not suited to communism; and Sun
Yat-sen, relying on them not to use him in some wider policy of theirs,
had no cause to mistrust or fear them. What has happened since is history.
Sun Yat-sen can scarcely be required to have predicted it. His comments on
imperialism, therefore, must be accepted at face value in a consideration
of the nationalist program in his theories.

The method by means of which Sun reconciled his denial of the superiority
of class to nation is an interesting one, profoundly significant as a clue
to the understanding of his thought. He estimates the population of the
world at 1500 million. Now, of this total 400 million are members of the
white race, who constitute the most powerful and prosperous people in the
modern world. “This white race regards (its 400,000,000 representatives)
as the unit which must swallow up the other, colored races. Thus the Red
tribes of America have already been exterminated.... The Yellow Asiatic
race is now oppressed by the Whites, and it is possible that it will be
exterminated before long.”(257) Thus, as Sun viewed it, imperialism before
the war was racial as well as economic. The White Peril was a reality.
This emphasis on the doctrine of race shows the emphasis that Sun put upon
race once he had narrowed down the old world-society to the Chinese
race-nation. The most vigorous _Rassenpolitiker_, such as Homer Lea or
Lothrop Stoddard,(258) would approve heartily of such a system of
calculation in politics. Sun Yat-sen differed with them, as he differed
with the Marxians, and with the race-theorists in general, by not
following any one Western absolute to the bitter end, whether it was the
class war or the race struggle.

Russia fitted into this picture of race struggle. One hundred and fifty
million Russians left the camp of the 400 million white oppressors, and
came over to the just side of the 1100 million members of oppressed
nations. Consequently the figures came out somewhat more favorably for the
oppressed, in spite of the fact that the imperialist powers were still
economically and militarily supreme. Sun Yat-sen quoted an apocryphal
remark of Lenin’s: “There are in the world two categories of people; one
is composed of 1,250,000,000 men and the other of 250,000,000 men. These
1,250,000,000 men are oppressed by the 250,000,000 men. The oppressors act
against nature, and in defiance of her. We who oppose _might_ are
following her.”(259) Sun regarded the Russian Revolution as a shift in the
race-struggle, in which Russia had come over to the side of the oppressed
nations. (He did, of course, refer to Germany as an oppressed nation at
another time, but did not include, so far as we can tell, the German
population in the thesis under consideration.)

On this basis China was to join Russia in the class struggle of the
nations. The struggle was to be between the oppressed and the oppressors
among the nations, and not between the races, as it might have been had
not Russia come over to the cause of international equality.(260) After
the class struggle of the nations had been done with, the time for the
consideration of cosmopolitanism would have arrived.

In taking class lines in a scheme of nations, Sun was reconciling the
requirements of the old ideology and the international struggle against
imperialism. It is characteristic of his deep adherence to what he
believed to be the scheme of realities in political affairs that he did
not violate his own well-knit ideology in adopting the Marxian ideology
for the anti-imperialist struggle, but sought to preserve the marvellous
unity of his own society—a society which he believed to have been the most
nearly perfect of its time. The race-interpretation of the international
class struggle is at one and the same time an assertion of the natural and
indestructible unity of Chinese society, and the recognition of the fact
that China and Russia, together with the smaller nations, had a common
cause against the great advances of modern imperialism.




Racial Nationalism and Pan-Asia.


The dual orientation of Sun Yat-sen’s anti-imperialist programs has
already been made partly evident in the examination of this belief in a
class war of the nations. A much more nearly complete exposition of this
doctrine, although with the emphasis on its racial rather than on its
economic aspects, is to be found in the third sub-principle of the
nationalist program: the race-national aspect of the national revolution.
Each of the three principles was to contribute to this implementation of
nationalism. _Min shêng_ was to provide the foundation for economic
nationalism. Democracy was to follow and reinforce political nationalism,
which would clear away the political imperialism and let the Chinese,
inculcated with state-allegiance, really rule themselves.

At the end of his life, even after he had delivered the sixteen lectures
on the three principles, Sun Yat-sen issued another call for the
fulfillment in action of his principle of nationalism. This, too, praised
Russia and stressed the significance of the defection of Russia from the
band of the white oppressing powers; but it is important as showing the
wider implications of Sun Yat-sen’s race-national doctrines. During the
greater part of his life, Sun spoke of the Chinese race-nation alone. His
racial theory led him into no wider implications, such as the political
reality of race kinship. In this last pronouncement, he recognized the
wide sweep of consequences to which his premises of race-reality had led
him. This call was issued in his celebrated Pan-Asiatic Speech of November
28, 1924, given in Kobe, Japan.(261)

The content of the speech is narrower than the configuration of auxiliary
doctrines which may be discussed in connection with it. These are: the
race orientation of the Chinese race-nation; the possibility of Pan-Asia;
and the necessary function of the future Chinese society as the protector
and teacher of Asia, and of the whole world. These points in his
theoretical program were still far in the future when he spoke of them,
and consequently did not receive much attention. In the light of the
developments of the last several years, and the continued references to
Sun’s Pan-Asia which Japanese officials and propagandists have been
making, this part of his program requires new attention.

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 the
purpose of national defense. He praises Japan, Turkey, and the Soviet
Union as leaders of the oppressed class of nations and predicts that the
time will come when China will resume the position she once had of a great
and benevolent power. He distinguishes, however, between the position of
China in the past and Great Britain and the United States in the present.
“If we look back two thousand five hundred years, we see that China was
the most powerful people of the world. It then occupied the position which
Great Britain and the United States do today. But while Great Britain and
the United States today are only two of a series of world powers, China
was then the only world power.”(264) Sun also refers to the significant
position of Turkey and Japan as the two bulwarks of Asia, and emphasizes
the strangely just position of Russia.

In his earlier days Sun Yat-sen had been preoccupied with Chinese
problems, but not so much so as to prevent his taking a friendly interest
in the nationalist revolutions of the Koreans against the Japanese, and
the Filipinos against the Americans. This interest seems to have been a
personally political one, rather than a preliminary to a definition of
policy. He said to the Filipinos: “Let us know one another and we shall
love each other more.”(265) The transformation of the ideology in China
did not necessarily lead to the development of outside affiliations. The
Confucian world-society, becoming the Chinese race-nation, was to be
independent.

In the development of his emphasis upon race kinship on the achievement of
race-nationalism, Sun Yat-sen initiated a program which may not be without
great meaning in the furthering of the nationalist program. He showed that
the Chinese race-nation, having racial affinities with the other Asiatic
nations, was bound to them nationally in policy in two ways: racially,
and—as noted—anti-imperialistically. This theory would permit the Chinese
to be drawn into a Pan-Asiatic movement as well as into an
anti-imperialist struggle. This theory may now be used as a justification
for either alternative in the event of China’s having to choose aides in
Russo-Japanese conflict. China is bound to Russia by the theory of the
class war of the nations, but could declare that Russia had merely devised
a new form for imperialism. China is bound to Japan by the common heritage
of Asiatic blood and civilization, but could declare that Japan had gone
over to the _pa tao_ side of Western imperialism, and prostituted herself
to the status of another Westernized-imperialized aggressive power.
Whatever the interpretations of this doctrine may be, it will afford the
Chinese a basis for their foreign policy based on the _San Min Chu I_.

When Sun Yat-sen spoke, Russia and China had not fought over the Chinese
Eastern Railway and the Chinese Communist problem, nor had Japan and China
entered into the Manchurian conflict. He was therefore in no position to
see that his expressions of approval for Pan-Asianism and for pro-Soviet
foreign policy might conflict. In one breath he praised Japan as the
leader and inspirer of modern Asia, and lauded Russia as the pioneer in a
new, just policy on the part of the Western powers. He saw little hope
that the example of the Soviet Union would be followed by any other
Western power, although he did state that there was “ ... in England and
America a small number of people, who defend these our ideals in harmony
with a general world movement. As far as the other barbarian nations are
concerned, there might be among them people who are inspired by the same
convictions.”(266) The possibility of finding allies in the West did not
appear to be a great one to Sun Yat-sen.

Sun did something in this speech which he had rarely hitherto done. He
generalized about the whole character of the East, and included in that
everything which the Westerners regarded as Eastern, from Turkey to Japan.
We have seen that the Chinese world of Eastern Asia had little in common
with the middle or near East. In this speech Sun accepted the Western idea
of a related Orient and speaks of Asiatic ideals of kindliness and
justice. This is most strange. “If we Asiatics struggle for the creation
of a pan-Asiatic united front, we must consider ... on what fundamental
constitution we wish to erect this united front. We must lay at the
foundations whatever has been the special peculiarity of our Eastern
culture; we must place our emphasis on moral value, on kindliness and
justice.”(267) This Pan-Asian doctrine had been the topic of frequent
discussion by Japanese and Russians. The former naturally saw it as a
great resurgency of Asia under the glorious leadership of the Japanese
Throne. The Russians found pan-Asianism to be a convenient instrument in
the national and colonial struggle against imperialism for communism.

Sun Yat-sen joined neither of these particular pan-Asiatic outlooks. The
foreign policy of the Chinese race-nation was to fight oppressors, and to
join the rest of Asia in a struggle against white imperialist domination.
But—here is the distinction—how was China to do these things? Sun Yat-sen
never urged the Chinese to accept the leadership of the Western or
Japanese states, however friendly they might be. China was to follow a
policy of friendship and coöperation with those powers which were friendly
to her and to the cause of justice throughout the world. Sun praised the
old system of Eastern Asia, by which the peripheral states stood in
vassalage to China, a vassalage which he regarded as mutually voluntary
and not imperialistic in the unpleasant sense of the word.

In the end, he believed Chinese society should resume the duty which it
had held for so many centuries in relation to its barbarian neighbors.
China should be rightly governed and should set a constant instance of
political propriety. Sun even advocated ultimate intervention by the
Chinese, a policy of helping the weak and lifting up the fallen. He
concluded his sixth lecture on nationalism by saying: “If we want to
‘govern the country rightly and pacify the world,’ we must, first of all,
restore our nationalism together with our national standing, and unify the
world on the basis of the morality and peach which are proper (to us), in
order to achieve an ideal government.”(268)

We may conclude that his racial sub-principle in a program of nationalism
involved: 1) orientation of Chinese foreign policy on the basis of blood
kinship as well as on the basis of class war of the nations; 2) advocacy
of a pan-Asiatic movement; and 3) use of China’s resurgence of national
power to restore the benevolent hegemony which the Chinese had exercised
over Eastern Asia, and possibly to extend it over the whole world.




The General Program of Nationalism.


It may be worthwhile to attempt a view of the nationalist program of Sun
Yat-sen as a whole. The variety of materials covered, and the intricate
system of cross-reference employed by Sun, make it difficult to summarize
this part of his doctrines on a simple temporal basis. The plans for the
advancement of the Chinese race-nation do not succeed each other in an
orderly pattern of future years, one stage following another. They mirror,
rather, the deep conflict of forces in the mind of Sun, and bring to the
surface of his teachings some of the almost irreconcilable attitudes and
projects which he had to put together. In the ideological part of his
doctrines we do not find such contrasts; his ideology, a readjustment of
the ideology of old China, before the impact of the new world, to
conditions developing after that impact, is fairly homogeneous and
consistent. It does not possess the rigid and iron-bound consistency
required to meet the logic of the West; but, in a country not given to the
following of absolutes, it was as stable as it needed to be. His programs
do not display the same high level of consistency. They were derived from
his ideology, but, in being derived from it, they had to conform with the
realities of the revolutionary situation in words addressed to men in that
situation. As Wittfogel has said, the contradictions of the actual
situation in China were reflected in the words of Sun Yat-sen; Marxians,
however, would suppose that these contradictions ran through the whole of
the ideology and plans. It may be found that in the old security
transmitted by Sun from the Confucian ideology to his own, there is little
contradiction; in his programs we shall find much more.

This does not mean, of course, that Sun Yat-sen planned things which were
inherently incompatible with one another. What he did do was to advocate
courses of action which might possibly have all been carried out at the
same time, but which might much more probably present themselves as
alternatives. His ardor in the cause of revolution, and his profound
sincerity, frequently led him to over-assess the genuineness of the
cordial protestations of others; he found it possible to praise Japan,
Turkey, and the Soviet Union in the same speech, and to predict the
harmonious combination, not only of the various Asiatic nationalisms with
each other, but of all the nations of Asia with Western international
communism. The advantage, therefore, of the present treatment, which seeks
to dissever the ideology of Sun Yat-sen from his plans, may rest in large
part upon the fact that the ideology, based in the almost timeless scheme
of things in China, depended little upon the political situations of the
moment, while his plans, inextricably associated with the main currents of
the contemporary political situation, may have been invalidated as plans
by the great political changes that occurred after his death. That is not
to say, however, that his plans are no longer of importance. The Chinese
nationalists may still refer to them for suggestions as to their general
course of action, should they wish to remain orthodox to the teachings of
Sun. The plans also show how the ideology may be developed with reference
to prevailing conditions.

Clearly, some changes in the plans will have to be made; some of the
changes which have been made are undoubtedly justified. Now that war
between the Soviet Union and Japan has ceased to be improbable, it is
difficult to think of the coördination of a pan-Asiatic crusade with a
world struggle against imperialism. Chinese nationalists, no longer on
good terms with the Japanese—and on worse terms with the Communists—must
depend upon themselves and upon their own nation much more than Sun
expected. At the time of his death in 1925 the Japanese hostility to the
Kuomintang, which became so strikingly evident at Tsinanfu in 1928-9, and
the fundamental incompatibility of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party
of China, had not manifested themselves. On the other hand, he could not
have foreseen that the imperialist nations, by no means cordial to the
Chinese Nationalists, would become as friendly to the Chinese nationalism
as they have. The United States, for instance, while not acting positively
against the political restrictions of Western imperialism (including its
own) in China, has been friendly to the Nanking government, and as far as
a rigid policy of neutrality permitted it, took the side of China against
Japan in the Manchurian conflict in and after 1931. Such developments
cannot easily be reconciled to the letter of the plans of Sun Yat-sen,
and, unless infallibility is expected of him, there is no reason why they
should.

His plans possess an interest far more than academic. It is not the
province of this work to judge the degree to which the Nationalists
carried out the doctrines of Sun, nor to assess the relative positions of
such leaders as Chiang Chieh-shih and Wang Ching-wei with respect to
orthodoxy. The plans may be presented simply as a part of the theory of
Sun Yat-sen, and where there is possibility of disagreement, of his theory
in its final and most authoritative stage: the sixteen lectures of 1924,
and the other significant writings of the last years of his life.

The first part of his plans for China—those dealing with the applications
of nationalism—may be more easily digested in outline form:


    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 program.

    2. The Kuomintang should foster the ideology of nationalism and
    arouse the Chinese people to the precarious position of their
    country. In order to make nationalism politically effective, state
    allegiance had to supplant the old personal allegiance to the
    Dragon Throne, or the personal allegiance to the neo-feudal
    militarists.

    3. Nationalism should be exerted economically, to develop the
    country in accord with the ideology of _min shêng_ and to clear
    away imperialist economic oppression which interfered with both
    nationalism and _min shêng_.

    4. Nationalism had to be exerted politically, for two ends:
    Chinese democracy, and Chinese autonomy, which Sun often spoke of
    as one. This had to be done by active political resistance to
    aggression and by the advancement of a China state-ized and
    democratic.

    5. Nationalism had also to be exercised politically, in another
    manner: in the class war of the nations. China should fight the
    racial and economic oppression of the ruling white powers, in
    common with the other oppressed nations and the one benevolent
    white nation (Soviet Russia).

    6. Nationalism had to reinforce itself through its racial
    kinships. China had to help her fellow Asiatic nations, in a
    pan-Asia movement, and restore justice to Asia and to the world.


This recapitulation serves to show the curious developments of Sun
Yat-sen’s nationalist program. Originally based upon his ideology, then
influenced by the race-orientation of a good deal of his political
thought, and finally reconciled to the programmatic necessities of his
Communist allies, it is surprising not in its diversity but in its
homogeneity under the circumstances. This mixture of elements, which
appears much more distinctly in Sun’s own words than it does in a
rephrasing, led some Western students who dealt with Sun to believe that
his mind was a cauldron filled with a political witch-brew. If it is
remembered that the points discussed were programmatic points, which
changed with the various political developments encountered by Sun and his
followers, and not the fundamental premises of his thought and action
(which remained surprisingly constant, as far as one can judge, throughout
his life), the inner consistency of Sun Yat-sen will appear. These plans
could not have endured under any circumstances, since they were set in a
particular time. The ideology may.

In turning from the nationalist to the democratic plans of Sun Yat-sen, we
encounter a distinct change in the type of material. Orderly and precise
instead of chaotic and near-contradictory, the democratic plans of Sun
Yat-sen present a detailed scheme of government based squarely on his
democratic ideology, and make no concessions to the politics of the
moment. Here his nationalism finds its clearest expression. The respective
autonomies of the individual, the clan, the _hsien_ and the nation are
accounted for; the nature of the democratic nationalist state becomes
clear. Programmatically, it is the clearest, and, perhaps, the soundest,
part of Sun’s work.





CHAPTER VI. THE PROGRAMS OF DEMOCRACY.




The Three Stages of Revolution.


Sun Yat-sen’s doctrine of the three stages of revolution attracted a
considerable degree of attention. By the three stages of the revolution he
meant (1) the acquisition of political power by the teachers of the new
ideology (the revolution), (2) the teaching of the new ideology
(tutelage), and (3) the practice of government by the people in accord
with the new ideology (constitutional democracy). Enough of Sun Yat-sen’s
teaching concerning the new ideology has been shown to make clear that
this proposal is merely a logical extension of his doctrine of the three
classes of men.

Western writers who have acquainted themselves with the theory seem, in
some instances, inclined to identify it with the Marxist theory of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, into which the proletarian revolution is
to be divided into three stages—the conquest of political power by the
masses; the dictatorship of the proletariat; and the inauguration (in the
remote future) of the non-governmental class-less society.(269) It
scarcely seems necessary to go so far afield to discover the origin of the
theory. As a matter of record, Sun Yat-sen made his earliest recorded
announcement of this theory in 1905, when he was not at all under the
influence of Marxism, although he was acquainted with it.(270) Finally,
the theory forms so necessary a link between his theory of Kuomintang
control of the revolution, and his equally insistent demand for ultimate
democracy, that it may be regarded as a logically necessary part of his
complete plan. The coincidence between his and the Marxian theories would
consequently appear as a tribute to his acumen; this was the view that the
Communists took when they discovered that Sun Yat-sen was afraid of the
weaknesses of immediate democracy in a country not fit for it.

One might also observe that, once the premise of revolution for a purpose
is accepted, the three stages fit well into the scheme of age-old
traditional political thought advocated by the Confucians. Confucius did
not see the value of revolution, although he condoned it in specific
instances. He did, however, believe in tutelage and looked forward to an
age when the ideology would have so impregnated the minds of men that _ta
t’ung_ (the Confucian Utopia) would be reached, and, presumably,
government would become superfluous. That which Sun sought to achieve by
revolution—the placing of political power in the hands of the ideological
reformers (or, in the case of the Marxist theory, the proletariat,
actually the Communist party, its trustee)—Confucius sought, not by
advocating a general conspiracy of scholars for an oligarchy of the
intellectuals, but the more peaceful method of urging princes to take the
advice of scholars in government, so that the ideology could be
established (by the introduction of “correct names,” _chêng ming_) and
ideological control introduced.

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
issued in 1924:


    3. The next element of reconstruction is democracy. To enable the
    people to be competent in their knowledge of politics, the
    government should undertake to train and guide them so that they
    may know how to exercise their rights of election, recall,
    initiative, and referendum....

    5. The order of reconstruction is divided into three periods, viz.

    (_a_) Period of Military Operations;
    (_b_) Period of Political Tutelage;
    (_c_) Period of Constitutional Government.

    6. During the period of military operations the entire country
    should be subject to military rule. To hasten the unification of
    the country, the Government to be controlled by the Kuomintang
    should employ military force to conquer all opposition in the
    country and propagate the principles of the Party so that the
    people may be enlightened.

    7. The period of political tutelage in a province should begin and
    military rule should cease as soon as order within the province is
    completely restored....


He then goes on to describe the method by which tutelage shall be applied,
and when it should end. It should end, Sun declares, in each _hsien_
(district; township) as the people of the _hsien_ become self-governing,
through learning and practice in the democratic techniques. As soon as all
the _hsien_ within a province are self-governing, the provincial
government shall be released to democratic control.


    23. When more than one half of the provinces in the country have
    reached the constitutional government stage, _i. e._ more than one
    half of the provinces have local self-government full established
    in all their districts, there shall be a National Congress to
    decide on the adoption and promulgation of the Constitution....

    (_Signed_) SUN WEN

    12th day, 4th month, 13th year of the Republic (April 12,
    1924).(271)


Sun Yat-sen was emphatic about the necessity of a period of tutelage. The
dismal farce of the first Republic in 1912, when the inexperience and
apathy of the people, coupled with the venality of the militarists and
politicians, very nearly discredited Chinese democracy, convinced Sun
Yat-sen that effective self-government could be built up only as the
citizens became ready for it. A considerable number of the disputes
concerning the theory of self-government to be employed by the
policy-making groups of the National (Kuomintang-controlled) Government
have centered on the point of criteria for self-government. Even with the
insertion of a transition stage, and with a certain amount of tutelage,
difficulties are being encountered in the application of this theory of
the introduction of constitutional government as soon as the people in a
_hsien_ are prepared for it. Other considerations, military or political,
may make any venture beyond the secure confines of a benevolent Party
despotism dangerous; and the efficacy of tutelage can always be
questioned. The period of tutelage was set for 1930-1935; it is possible,
however, that the three stages cannot be gone through as quickly as
possible, since the Japanese invasions and the world economic depression
exercised a thoroughly disturbing influence throughout the country.

A final point may be made with regard to the three stages of the
revolution as Sun Yat-sen planned them. Always impetuous and optimistic in
revolutionary endeavor, Sun Yat-sen expected that the military conquest
would be rapid, the period of tutelage continue a few years, and
constitutional democracy endure for ages, until in the end _ta t’ung_
should reign upon earth. The transition period was not, as in the theory
of the Confucians and the Marxians, an indefinite period beginning with
the present and leading on down to the age of the near-perfection of
humanity. It was to Sun Yat-sen, in his more concrete plans, an interval
between the anarchy and tyranny of the warlord dictatorships and the
coming of Nationalist democracy. It was not a scheme of government in
itself.

To recapitulate: Sun Yat-sen believed that revolution proceeded or should
proceed by three stages—the (military) revolution proper; the period of
tutelage; and the period of constitutional democracy. His theory resembles
the Communist, although it provides for a dictatorship of the patriotic
elite (Kuomintang) and not of any one class such as the proletariat; it
also resembles the Confucian with respect to the concepts of tutelage and
eventual harmony. Military conquest was to yield swiftly to tutelage;
tutelage was to lead, _hsien_ by _hsien_, into democracy. With the
establishment of democracy in more than one-half of the provinces,
constitutional government was to be inaugurated and the expedient of Party
dictatorship dispensed with.

This theory, announced as early as 1905, Sun did not insist upon when the
first Republic was proclaimed in 1912, with the tragic results which the
history of that unfortunate experiment shows. In the experience derived
from that great enthusiasm, Sun appreciated the necessity of knowledge
before action. He was willing to defer the enjoyment of democracy until
the stability of the democratic idea in the minds of the people was such
that they could be entrusted with the familiar devices of Western
self-government.

What kind of a democratic organization did Sun Yat-sen propose to develop
in China on the basis of his Nationalist and democratic ideology? Having
established the fundamental ideas of national unity, and the national
self-control, and having allowed for the necessity of an instrument of
revolution—the Kuomintang—and a process of revolution—the three stages,
what mechanisms of government did Sun advocate to permit the people of
China to govern themselves in accord with the Three Principles?




The Adjustment of Democracy to China.


It is apparent that, even with tutelage, the democratic techniques of the
West could impair the attainment of democracy in China were they applied
in an unmodified form, and without concession to the ideological and
institutional backgrounds of the Chinese. The Westerner need only
contemplate the political structure of the Roman Republic to realize how
much this modern democracy is the peculiar institution of his race, bred
in his bone and running, sacred and ancient, deep within his mind. The
particular methods of democracy, so peculiarly European, which the
modern—that is, Western or Westernized—world employs, is no less alien to
the imperial anarchy of traditional China than is the Papacy. Sun Yat-sen,
beholding the accomplishments of the West in practical matters, had few
illusions about the excellence of democratic shibboleths, such as
parliamentarism or liberty, and was profoundly concerned with effecting
the self-rule of the Chinese people without leading them into the
labyrinth of a strange and uncongenial political system.

In advocating democracy he did not necessarily advocate the adoption of
strange devices from the West. While believing, as we have seen, in the
necessity of the self-rule of the Chinese race-nation, he by no means
desired to take over the particular parliamentary forms which the West had
developed.(272) He criticised the weakness of Western political and social
science as contrasted with the strength of Western technology: “It would
be a gross error to believe that just as we imitate the material sciences
of the foreigners, so we ought likewise to copy their politics. The
material civilization of the foreigners changes from day to day; we
attempt to imitate it, and we find it difficult to keep step with it. But
there is a vast difference between the progress of foreign politics and
the progress of material civilization; the speed of (the first) is very
slow.”(273) And he said later, in speaking of the democracy of the first
Republic: “China wanted to be in line with foreign countries and to
practice democracy; accordingly she set up her representative government.
But China has not learned anything about the good sides of representative
governments in Europe and in America, and as to the bad sides of these
governments, they have increased tenfold, a hundredfold in China, even to
the point of making swine, filthy and corrupt, out of government
representatives, a thing which has not been witnessed in other countries
since the days of antiquity. This is truly a peculiar phenomenon of
representative government. Hence, China not only failed to learn well
anything from the democratic governments of other countries, but she
learned evil practices from them.”(274) This farce-democracy was as bad as
no government at all. Sun Yat-sen had to reject any suggestion that China
imitate the example of some of the South American nations in borrowing the
American Constitution and proclaiming a “United States of China.” The
problem was not to be solved so easily.

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 the reconciliation of particular interests within the nation.
Special interests already found their outlet in the recognized social
patterns—so reminiscent of the institutions envisaged by the pluralists—of
the ancient order. In the second place, China was already a society which
was highly organized socially, although politically in ruins; the
democratic government that Sun Yat-sen planned had infinitely less
governing to do than did Western governments. The new Nationalist
government had to fit into rather than supplant the old order. As a
consequence of these distinctions, one may expect to find much less
emphasis on the exact methods of popular control of the government than
one would in a similar Western plan; and one must anticipate meeting the
ancient devices and offices which the usage of centuries had hallowed and
made true to the Chinese.

One may find that democracy in China is not so radical a novelty as it
might at first thought be esteemed. A figure of speech, which somewhat
anticipates the exposition, may serve to prepare one for some of the
seeming omissions of Sun Yat-sen’s plan for a democracy. The suggestion is
this: that the democracy of Sun Yat-sen is, roughly, a modernization of
the old Imperial system, with the Emperor (as the head of the academic
civil service) removed, and the majority placed in his stead. Neither in
the old system nor in the new were the minorities the object of profound
concern, for, to the Chinese, the notion of a minority (as against the
greater mass of the tradition-following people) is an odd one. The rule of
the Son of Heaven (so far as it was government at all) was to be replaced
by the rule of the whole people (_min_, which is more similar to the
German _Volk_ than the English _people_). The first Sun Yat-sen called
monarchy; the second, democracy.

The old ideology was to yield to the new, but even the new as a review of
it has shown, was not broad enough completely to supplant the old. The
essential continuity of Chinese civilization was not to be broken.
Democracy as a Western institution could be nothing more than a sham, as
the parliaments at Peking had showed; democracy in China had to be not
only democracy, but Chinese as well.

It is not, therefore, extraordinarily strange to find the ancient
institutions of the Empire surviving by the side of the most extreme
methods of popular government. The censorate and the referendum, the
examination system and the recall, all could work together in the
democracy planned by Sun Yat-sen. Even with the idea of popular rule
adopted in the formal Western manner, Sun Yat-sen proposed to continue the
idea of natural and ineradicable class differences between men. The
Chinese democracy was not to be any mere imitation of the West; it was to
be the fundamentally new fusion of Chinese and Western methods, and
offered as the solution for the political readjustment of the Chinese
society in a world no longer safe for it.




The Four Powers.


Sun Yat-sen divided all men into three categories: the geniuses, the
followers, and the unthinking. To reconcile this theory of natural
inequality with democracy, he distinguished between _ch’üan_, the right to
rule as sovereign, and _nêng_, the right to administer as an official. He
furthermore considered the state similar to a machine. How should the
unthinking, who would possess _ch’üan_, the right to rule, be granted that
right without attempting to usurp _nêng_?

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 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 of the
_San Min Chin I_ does not even term it democracy, but neo-democracy
instead.(275)

The Four Powers represent an almost extreme limit of popular control. Sun
Yat-sen divided the four into two groups: the first two are powers of the
people over the administrators—the power of election and the power of
recall; the second two are powers of the people over the laws—the power of
initiative and the power of referendum. Having secured the government from
undue interference, Sun Yat-sen had no reluctance in giving these powers
to the people. He said: “As for our China, since she had no old democratic
system, she ought to be able to make very good use of this most recent and
excellent invention.”(276)

These four powers are perhaps the most Western element in the whole theory
of Sun. History does not record the technique by which the Chinese chose
Yao to be their Emperor, and even where actions comparable to elections
were performed, it was not by use of the ballot-box or the voting machine,
or drilling on an appointed field. The Chinese way of getting things done
never tended that much to formality. A man who wanted to be a village head
might be quietly chosen head by a cabal of the most influential persons,
or at a meeting of many of the villagers. He might even decide to be head,
and act as head, in the hope that people would pay attention to him and
think that he was head. The Four Powers represent a distinct innovation in
Chinese politics for, apart from a few ridiculous comic-opera performances
under the first Republic, and the spurious plebiscite on the attempted
usurpation of Yüan Shih-k’ai, the voting method has been a technique
unknown in China. It is distinctly Western.

Another distinction may be made with a certain degree of reservation and
hesitancy. It is this: the Chinese, without the elaborate system of
expedient fictions which the West terms juristic law, were and are unable
to conceive of corporate action. A law passed by the Peking parliament was
not passed by the dictator in parliament, or the people in parliament; it
was simply passed by parliament, and was parliament’s responsibility. The
only kind of law that the people could pass would be one upon which they
themselves had voted.

Seen in this light, the Four Powers assume a further significance greater
than the Western political scientist might attribute to them. In America
there is little difference between a law which the people of Oregon pass
in the legislature, and one which they pass in a referendum. To the
Chinese there is all the difference in the world. The one is an act of the
government, and not of the people; the other, the act of the people, and
not of the government. The people may have powers over the government, but
never, by the wildest swing of imagination, can they discover themselves
personified in it. A Chinese democracy is almost a dyarchy of majority and
officialdom, the one revising and checking the other.

Sun Yat-sen did not comment on the frequency with which he expected these
powers to be exercised, nor has the political development of democratic
China gone far enough to afford any test of experience; it is consequently
impossible to state whether these powers were to be, or shall be,
exercised constantly as a matter of course, or whether they shall be
employed by the people only as courses for emergency action, when the
government arouses their displeasure. The latter seems the more probable,
in view of the background of Chinese tradition, and the strong
propensities of the Chinese to avoid getting involved in anything which
does not concern them immediately and personally. This probability is made
the more plausible by the self-corrective devices in the governmental
system, which may seem to imply that an extensive use of the popular
corrective power was not contemplated by Sun Yat-sen.

Sun Yat-sen said:


    Now we separate power from capacity and we say _that the people
    are the engineers and the government is the machine_. On the one
    hand, we want the machinery of the government to be all-powerful,
    able to do anything, and on the other hand we want the engineer,
    the people, to have great power so as to be able to control that
    all-powerful machine.

    But what must be the mutual rights of the people and of the
    government in order that they might balance? We have just
    explained that. On the people’s side there should be the four
    rights of _election_, _recall_, _initiative_, and _referendum_. On
    the government’s side there must be five powers.... If the four
    governing powers of the people control the five administrative
    powers of the government, then we shall have _a perfect
    political-democratic machine_....(277)




The Five Rights.


Sun Yat-sen implemented his theory of democracy by assigning Four Powers
to the people and Five Rights to the government. This latter doctrine is
one of the most disputed points in his proposal. Some writers see in it
nothing more than a crass conjunction of the theory of Montesquieu and the
practices of the Chinese Imperial system.(278) His followers are disposed
to regard the doctrine of the Five Rights as the product of intrepid
imagination, which succeeded in reconciling the traditional scheme of
Chinese things with the requirements of modern self-government.

Sun made the point that both Chinese and Western governments had in the
past had tripartite governments. He illustrated this by a diagram:(279)


    CONSTITUTION OF CHINA

    The Examining Power (_Kao Shih ch’üan_)
    The Imperial Power (_Chun ch’üan_)
      The Legislative Power
      The Executive Power
      The Judicial Power
    The Power to Impeach (_Tan k’ê ch’üan_)

    FOREIGN CONSTITUTIONS

    The Legislative Power combined with the Power to Impeach
    The Executive Power combined with the Examining Power
    The Judicial Power


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 power than did its Imperial predecessor, and
nevertheless be subject to the will of the majority of the four hundred
odd million sovereigns. Contemplated in this manner, the Five Rights are
an amalgamation of the Western theory upon the Chinese, and significant as
a novelty in democratic administrative theory rather than as institutions
altering the fundamental premises and methods of democracy.

If, however, a further step is taken, and the Five Powers are associated
with Sun Yat-sen’s doctrine of the three naturally unequal classes of men,
they assume a somewhat less superficial significance. If the rule of the
people is placed over the administration by the geniuses, the geniuses
must be assured a method of entering the government service. The oligarchy
of the intellectuals is to be reconciled with the dictatorship of the
majority. The old Chinese system of a trained class of scholars, entrance
to which was open on a competitive system to members of almost all classes
of society, had to be preserved in the new China, and at the same time
disciplined and purified of unworthy or unsuitable elements, while
simultaneously subject to the policy-making authority of the majority.

The preservation of a leader class was to be assured by an examination
division in the new democratic government, and its purification and
discipline continued by a supervisory or censoring division. The
administrative setup of the nationalist democracy would appear as follows,
when the present official translations of the Chinese names for the
divisions (_Yuan_) are adopted:

   1. The division of the executive (Executive Yuan).
   2. The division of the legislative (Legislative Yuan).
   3. The division of the judicial (Judicial Yuan).
   4. The division of censorship, impeachment and accounting (Control
      Yuan).
   5. And the division of the examination system (Examination Yuan).

It is an illustration of the further difference between the democracy of
Sun Yat-sen and Western democracy, that each of the divisions, even the
legislative, was to have a single head. The whole government was to be
departmentally, not camerally, organized.

The system of Five Powers emphasizes the implied dyarchy of government and
people in the _San Min Chu I_ by assigning to the government itself
functions which, in the usual course of events, are supposed to be
exercised by the people themselves in Western democracies. The people are
supposed to eliminate unfit officials and decide on the merits and
trustworthiness of incumbents. By the expedient of non-reëlection, the
people are supposed to remove officials, who are incapable or unsuitable
for public office. The two functions have been taken over by the
Examination and Control Yuans, respectively; the Four Powers of the people
are not, in all probability, instruments for continual popular intrigue
and meddling in government, but almost revolutionary implements for
shifting the course or composition of the government.

The Five Rights are instruments for the self-government of the official
class (Examination and Control), and for the government of the people by
the official class (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial). The Four Powers
are the instruments for the government of the official class by the
people. Out of the checks and balances of government and people the
integrity, efficacy, and stability of Sun Yat-sen’s democracy was to be
assured.

The exercise of the Four Rights of the people could, in the theory of Sun
Yat-sen, be used to check the development of an arrogant, inefficient or
irresponsible bureaucracy, in that the people would assist in the
selection of officials and would be able to remove incompetents at any
time. The civil service mechanism of the government would, on the other
hand, resist the too free play of popular caprice. No incompetent person
would be elected to office, since the civil service would extend even to
elective offices. The voters could remove a bad official but they could
not replace him with an untrained person; they would have to select their
candidate from the roster of scholar-officials eligible for the rank of
the office in question. The people were to supervise the operations of the
age-old Chinese civil service, as revivified by the nationalists; they
were to appoint and remove officers, to repeal and enact laws; but in no
case were they to tear down the structure of the civil service and
inaugurate a spoils democracy such as that found in the United States.
This blending of extreme democracy and traditional administrative
hierarchy would result, said Sun Yat-sen, in perfect government.

The democratic nationalist government was to supersede the Empire. In
between there was no central government, since the various military
leaders paid scant respect to the unfortunate clique of diplomats and
officials who carried on the few functions left to the powerless Peking
government.(280) The new government was not, therefore, so much a new
political order to be set up in place of the old as a political order to
be built up out of military chaos. The social system, although shaken and
affected by Western ideas, continued much as usual, and was to be woven
into the new socio-political patterns that Sun Yat-sen projected.

The Nationalist government was to be the nation’s answer to the foreign
aggression. The White Peril, which had flooded Asia, could only be held
back by the dykes of a militant nationalist movement, expressing itself in
a formal state such as the Westerners themselves had developed, and which
fitted them to undertake the conquest of the world. This government was to
be the agent of the whole Chinese people who, casting off the oppression
of the militarists and the imperialists, was to rise again with its
ancient power, formidable and ready to fight if necessary, more ready to
bring about world-coöperation and peace if possible. It was to be a
government made up of a trained officialdom such as ancient China had
possessed for centuries, which had led to the integration of control and
culture (in the narrowest sense of the word), and of a people ruling by
checking that officialdom: an all-powerful state-machine ruled by an
all-powerful people.(281) A state was to appear in the world of states and
enclose the Chinese people, by political power, more effectively than
could the Great Wall.

This aspect of democracy, the self-rule of the Chinese society _vis-à-vis_
the linked despotism of militarists, renegades and imperialists, was,
although the most important facet of democracy, not the whole story. In
order to systematize the loose democracy of old China, in order to lead
all force to the top, where it could be exerted outwards, the democratic
plan had to plan links with the traditional system. The government could
not be democratic if it were not tied to the people. The people could not
govern themselves, as apart from governing the officialdom making up the
National government, unless they had mechanisms with which to do so.
Although the family, the _hui_ and the _hsien_ provided self-government,
this self-government had to be associated with the scheme of nationalist
and national self-government in order to guarantee the latter’s
effectiveness. Beyond or beneath the national democracy of China there was
to be a system of democracy (the politicalization, as it were, of the old
social organs) running through society. What these separate or subordinate
organs were to be, what relations they were to have with the national
government, and what other intermediate institutions were to facilitate
those relations must be studied to gain a complete picture of the
democracy of Sun Yat-sen.




Confederacy Versus Centralism.


One of the most involved questions in the political thought of the Chinese
revolution has been the problem of provincial autonomy. The Chinese
provinces differ considerably more from one another in economic
conditions, language and race than do the American states; it has been
said that one of the causes of the overthrow of the Manchu monarchy was
the encroachment of the Imperial central power, in its last desperate
attempts to modernize itself and cope with the last crisis, upon the old
autonomy of the provinces.(282) Institutionally, the provinces were
relatively independent; this degree of independence was, however,
minimized by the general unimportance of government in Chinese society.
The Chinese, toward each other, feel conscious of family, village and
provincial ties; face to face with the foreigners, they are beginning to
know themselves as Chinese. Until the wave of nationalism swept the
country, provincial rivalry was a live issue; even today, it cannot be
called forgotten.

Sun Yat-sen’s opinions on many points of government remained stable
through his life. The fundamental ideas and ideals seem to have been
expanded, rather than changed, as his theory met the test of his growing
experience and the lessons of the revolution; but even with expansion,
they remain, for the most part, consistent. Sun Yat-sen was steadfast in
his beliefs.

This cannot be said of his and his successors’ opinions on the problem of
province versus nation. There is no one doctrine dealing with the question
of provincial autonomy. There may be a trend, however, which can be
described as a swing from definite emphasis upon the province toward
neglect of that unit of administration. This trend may be illustrated by
several points.

At the time of the first Republic the provinces were treated much as are
states in the United States. The members of the Senate of the Republic
(_Ts’an Yi Yuan_) were to be elected by the Assemblies of the provinces,
and, when representing persons not under the jurisdiction of a provincial
Assembly, by Electoral Colleges. The House of Representatives was to be
elected directly by the people, in the proportion of one member to each
eight hundred thousand of population, with the reservation—again in
propitiation of provincial vanity—that no province should have less than
ten representatives.(283) The first Republic was distinctly federal
although by no means confederate.

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 importance of the provinces in the democracy to
be set up. The Party Declaration of the Kuomintang at its First National
Convention in 1924 in Canton criticised several political viewpoints
prevalent; among these was that of the Confederalists, so called. The
Declaration states, in part: “Undoubtedly regional self-government is in
entire accord with the spirit of democracy and is a great need of our
nation. But a true regional self-government can be realized only when our
national independence is won, for without national freedom, local freedom
is impossible.... Many social, economic and political problems facing the
individual provinces can be solved only by the nation as a whole. So the
success of the peoples’ revolution is a prerequisite to the realization of
provincial autonomy.”(285)

Sun Yat-sen himself stated, a few months earlier, a point of view which
may seem inconsistent with the Party Declaration:


    18. The _Hsien_ is the unit of self-government. The province links
    up and provides means of co-operation between the Central
    Government and the local governments of the districts.(286)


Whatever the occasion for the slight difference of opinion, it has been
the policy of the Kuomintang to emphasize _hsien_ rather than provinces as
units of self-government. The Party itself is quite centralized. The
Resumé of the Kuomintang Third National Congress Resolutions Concerning
Political Matters, adopted March 27, 1929, states unequivocally: “The
traditional policy of attaching greater importance to provincial
government than to _Hsien_ or district government must be corrected or
even reversed.” It adds, “The provincial government, on the other hand,
shall act only as a supervisor of local self-government, standing in
between the _Hsien_ or district government on the one hand, and the
Central Government on the other.”(287)

The province is thus reduced to the lowest possible level. It is not
probable that this tendency was influenced by Marxism, but it certainly
resembled the Marxian idea of a vast confederation of self-governing
communes, acting, by some proletarian metempsychosis, as a highly
centralized instrument of revolution.(288) The doctrine of the
_hsien_-province-nation relationship which places emphasis upon the first
and the last is the authoritative one, and is quite harmonious with the
earlier picture of Imperial China which, apart from the strictly
governmental, was a vast confederacy of largely autonomous communities. In
the picture of the new democratic national government which emerges from
this doctrine, the central government may be regarded as a centralism
versus the provinces, and a super-government in relation to the _hsien_;
that is, while the people govern themselves as groups in the _hsien_, they
will govern themselves as one people in the National Government. The
province will remain as a convenient intermediary between the two.

This is one of the few doctrines of Sun Yat-sen upon which no one
definitive and final pronouncement is to be found and concerning which,
consequently, recourse must be had to the history of the development of
the Sun Yat-sen political philosophy.




The _Hsien_ in a Democracy.


The _hsien_, or district, was one of the most important social
institutions in old China. The lowest official, the _hsien_ Magistrate,
represented the Empire to the people of the _hsien_, while within the
villages or the _hsien_ the people enjoyed a very high degree of autonomy.
The _hsien_ was the meeting point of the political system and the
extra-legal government, generally of a very vaguely organized nature, by
which the Chinese managed their own affairs in accord with tradition. An
estimate of the position of the _hsien_ may be gleaned from the fact that
China has approximately four hundred eighty million inhabitants; apart
from the cities and towns, there are about half a million villages; and
the whole country, with the exception of certain Special Municipalities,
such as Shanghai, is divided into nineteen hundred and forty-three
_hsien_.(289)

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 and
over China without disrupting Chinese social organization.

Sun once quoted the old Chinese proverb about the Lu Shan (mountains): “We
cannot find the real shape of the Lu Shan—for we ourselves are on it.”
From the viewpoint of the Western reader this proverb could be turned
against Sun in his treatment of the _hsien_. He was passionately emphatic
in discussing the importance of the _hsien_ with his foreign friends;(290)
in his writings, addressed to his countrymen, he, as they, simply assumed
the importance of the _hsien_ without troubling to make any cardinal point
of it.

The _hsien_ is in the unit of the most direct self-government of the
people, without the interference of any elaborate set-up from officialdom.
Apart from its age-old importance, it will gain further significance in
the democracy of Sun Yat-sen.

Some of the functions to be assigned to the people in a _hsien_ are
assessment, registration, taxation, and/or purchase of all lands in the
_hsien_; the collection of all unearned increment on lands within the
_hsien_; land profits to be subjected to collection by the _hsien_, and
disbursement for public improvements, charitable work, or other public
service. Add this to the fact that the _hsien_ have been the chief
agencies for police, health, charity, religious activity and the
regulative control of custom—sometimes with the assistance of
persons—through the centuries, and the great importance of the _hsien_ in
the nationalist democracy becomes more clear.




The Family System.


Sun Yat-sen’s democracy differs further from the parliamentary, mechanical
democracy of the West in that it incorporates the family system.(291) Of
course Sun understood the extraordinary part that the family plays in
China—a part more conspicuous, perhaps, than in any other country. He
pointed out that the family required in China much of the loyalty which in
the West is given to the state. “Among the Chinese people the family and
kinship ties are very strong. Not infrequently the people sacrifice their
lives and homes for some affair of kinship; for instance, in Kuangtung,
two clans may fight regardless of life and property. On the other hand,
our people hesitate to sacrifice themselves for a national cause. The
spirit of unity has not extended beyond the family and clan
relationships.”(292)

Speaking of the early Emperors and the revolution, he said: “You see,
gentlemen, the methodology of Yao, like that of ours, was to begin his
moral and political teachings with the family, then the nation-group, then
the world.”(293) How did Sun Yat-sen propose to join the strength of the
family spirit and of nationalism, to the common advantage?

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 effectiveness.

Once the district headquarters were reorganized, they could be combined
throughout a province into a provincial clan organization. Such
organizations already exist, but they are neither systematic nor general.
After the clan was organized on a provincial basis throughout the
provinces, the various provincial organizations could be gathered together
in a national clan organization.

It is only when one contemplates the strength of the family system in
China that the boldness of this plan becomes apparent. A series of vast
national clan organizations would include practically every Chinese. Not
content with this, Sun proposed inter-clan organizations, certain clans
being more related to one another. A further series of national inter-clan
organizations would draw together the allegiance of numberless
individuals. There was always the possibility that a convention of all the
clans might be called—although Sun was not sanguine about this last.(294)

This methodology, according to Sun Yat-sen, would automatically bring
about nationalism. The Chinese people were already vigorously attached to
their families and clans. A union of all the families and clans would lead
the Chinese to realize that they were one people—one enormous family, as
it were—and cause them to join together as a nation. Since there are only
about four hundred surnames in China, the alliance of the clans was not so
far-fetched a suggestion as it might seem. Some clans have a membership
running into the millions, and clan spirit is so great that, in spite of
the absence of legislation, the Chinese marriage system is still largely
exogamic on this clan basis.

The suggestion of clan organization is relevant to Sun Yat-sen’s
democracy, in that the clan was one of the democratizing influences in old
China. An individual who failed to exert appreciable pressure on the
government, or on some other group, might appeal to his clan for
assistance. The Chinese record of relationships was kept so extensively
that there were few men of wealth or power who did not have their kinsmen
commanding their assistance. The non-political authority of the family
system controlled many things which have been within the scope of the
police power in the West, and the adjustments of society and the
individual were frequently mitigated in their harshness by the entrance of
the clan upon the scene. A stable Chinese democracy with a clan system
would be remarkably like the traditional system. The recourse of political
democracy would have been added, but the familiar methods of political
pressure upwards through the clan to the government might, not
inconceivably, prove the more efficacious.





CHAPTER VII. THE PROGRAMS OF _MIN SHÊNG_.




The Three Programs of _Min Shêng_.


The new ideology of Sun Yat-sen, as has been shown, demanded three
fulfilments of the doctrine of _min shêng_: a nationalistic economic
revolution, a deliberate industrial revolution, and a social revolution.
The last was to be accomplished negatively rather than positively. It was
to aim at the reconstruction of the Chinese economy in such a manner as to
avoid the necessity of class war. Since Chinese society was to be
revolutionized by the development of a nation and a state, with all that
that implied, and was to be changed by a transition from a handicraft
economy to an industrial one, Sun Yat-sen hoped that these changes would
permit the social revolution to develop at the same time as the others,
and did not plan for it separately and distinctly. The three revolutions,
all of them economic, were to develop simultaneously, and all together
were to form a third of the process of readjustment.

In considering the actual plans for carrying out the _min shêng_
principle, the student encounters difficulties. The general philosophical
position of the _min shêng_ ideology in relation to the ideologies of
nationalism and democracy, and in connection with such foreign
philosophies as capitalism and Marxism, has already been set forth. The
direct plans that Sun Yat-sen had for the industrial revolution in China
are also clear, since he outlined them, laboriously although tentatively,
in _The International Development of China_;(295) but whereas the ideology
and the actual physical blueprints can be understood clearly enough, the
general lines of practical governmental policy with regard to economic
matters have not been formulated in such a way as to make them
indisputable.

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
China. On the other hand, it would be a waste of time merely to repeat the
main economic theses of the new ideology. Accordingly, the examination of
the program of _min shêng_ will be restricted to the consideration of
those features that affected the state, either directly or indirectly, or
which had an important bearing upon the proposed future social
organization of the Chinese. Among the topics to be discussed are the
political nature of the national economic revolution, the political effect
of the industrial revolution upon the Chinese, and the expediency of Sun’s
plans for that revolution; the nature of the social revolution which was
to accompany these two first, especially with reference to the problem of
land, the problem of capital, and the problem of the class struggle; the
sphere of state action in the new economy; and the nature of that ideal
economy which would be realized when the Chinese should have carried to
completion the programs of _min shêng_. Railway maps and other designs of
Sun, which have proved such an inspiration in the modernization of China
and which represent a pioneer attempt in state planning, will have to be
left to the consideration of the economists and the geographers.(297)

The program of _min shêng_ was vitally important to the realization of the
Nationalist revolution as a whole, so important, indeed, that Sun Yat-sen
put it first in one of his plans:


    The first step in reconstruction is to promote the economic
    well-being of the people by providing for their four necessities
    of life, namely, food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. For
    this purpose, the Government will, with the people’s co-operation,
    develop agriculture to give the people an adequate food supply,
    promote textile industries to solve their clothing problem,
    institute gigantic housing schemes to provide for them decent
    living quarters, and build roads and canals so that they may have
    convenient means of travel.

    Next is the promotion of democracy....

    The third step is the development of nationalism....(298)


The plans for realizing _min shêng_ were to be the most necessary and the
most difficult. In the change from a world-society to a race-nation, the
Chinese had their own social solidarity and the experience of the Western
nations to guide them. There was little in the development of a nation
that had not already been tried elsewhere. The only real obstacles were
the ignorance of the people, in relation to the new social environment in
which their whole society was involved, and the possibility of opposition
from the politically oppressing powers.

In the development of democracy the Chinese could rely in part upon the
experience of the West. The Kuomintang could observe the machinery of
democratic states in regular operation abroad. Although the new democracy
of the five powers and the four rights was differed from the democratic
methods of the West, still, as in mechanics, certain fundamental rules of
political organization in its technical details could be relied upon. The
Chinese people had a democratic background in the autonomy of the various
extra-political units.

In _min shêng_ neither the experience of the West nor the old Chinese
background would be of much value. More than the other two principles and
programs, _min shêng_ sought to alter the constitution and nature of
Chinese society. Yet in _min shêng_ the Chinese were to be guided only
negatively by Western experience. Into their society, passing through a
great economic upheaval, they must introduce, by a trial-and-error method,
the requirements for economic unity, efficiency, and justice.




The National Economic Revolution.


After the pitiable failure of the 1912 Republic, Sun Yat-sen began to
place an especially heavy emphasis on the necessity of a national economic
revolution which would carry on the achievements of the national political
revolution. He placed an even greater stress upon the necessity of _min
shêng_ in the revolutionary ideology, and became more and more clearly
conscious of the danger imperialism constituted to the Chinese
race-nation. He believed that, as the 1912 revolution had been created by
the sword, the new economic revolution might be furthered by the pen, and
with this in mind he wrote _The International Development of China_. At
the time that he wrote this work, he seems to have been convinced of the
fruitlessness of purely military effort, and the superior value of pacific
economic organization.(299)

This organization was to be effected through capital brought in from the
outside. As it developed that capital would not come in, that instead of
continuing the terrific pace of production which the World War had
demanded, the nations returned to comparative laissez faire, and let their
economies slump, Sun was persuaded that the whole revolution would have to
be carried on by the Chinese themselves, with the possible help of the
Communist Russians, and of Japan. He found the reorganized Kuomintang to
be the instrument of this last revolution, both politically and
democratically, and began to emphasize Chinese resistance to the outside,
rather than appeal for help from the barbarian nations.

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 nationalism in order
to rid themselves of the incubus of imperialism which was sucking the
life-blood of their country. In this connection between nationalism and
_min shêng_, the economic aspect of the nationalist program was to be the
means, and the national aspect of the _min shêng_ program the consequence.
Unless Chinese, both as members of a state and as individuals stirred by
national sentiment, were moved to action against Western economic
aggression, they might consider themselves already doomed.

How did Sun propose to promote the national economic revolution,(301) as
distinguished from the industrial revolution and the social revolution? He
gave, in the first place, as earlier stated, the economic part of his
theories a greater weight than they had hitherto enjoyed, and placed them
first in his practical program. Secondly, he tended to associate the
national political revolution more and more with the real seat of economic
power: the working class. In this introduction of the working class into
the labors for the fulfilment of _min shêng_ as a national economic
revolution, he was doing two things. He was hoping to bring the standards
of Chinese labor up to those of the West, and he was making use of the
political power of labor in China as an added instrument of the national
economic revolution.

The Chinese nation could and should not continue, as a nation, on a scale
of living lower than that of the Western nations. He urged the Chinese
workers, as the class most affected, to fight for the economic advancement
of themselves and of their nation. “Comrades, the people meeting here are
all workers and represent a part of the nation. A great responsibility
rests on Chinese labor, and if you are equal to the task, China will
become a great nation and you a mighty working class.”(302) The Chinese
workers were performing not only a duty that they owed to themselves—they
were also acting patriotically.

In advancing the national economic revolution by advancing themselves,
they could not afford to lose sight of the political part of the
revolution. “Beyond the economic struggle for the shortening of the
working day and the increase of wages, there are before you other much
more important questions of a political character. For our political
objectives you must follow the three principles and support the
revolution.”(303) The two parts of the revolution could not be separated
from one another.

Besides the economic part of the national revolution, there was another
readjustment of which Sun did not often speak, because it was not an open
problem which could be served by immediate political action. This was the
problem of the transition of China from an autarchic to a trading economy.
The old Chinese world had been self-sustaining, so self-sustaining that
the Emperor Tao Kuang wrote to George III of England that he did not
desire anything that the barbarians might have, but, out of the mercy and
the bounty of his heart, would permit them to come to China in order to
purchase the excellent things that the Chinese possessed in such
abundance.(304) The impact of the West had had serious economic
consequences,(305) and the Chinese were in the unpleasant position of
having their old economic system disrupted without gaining the advantages
of a nationally organized economy in return. They had the actual privilege
of consuming a greater variety of goods than before, but this was offset
by the fact that the presence of these goods threw their domestic markets
and old native commercial system out of balance, without offering a
correspondingly large potentiality of foreign export. Furthermore, the
political position of the Western powers in China was such, as Sun Yat-sen
complained, that trade was conducted on a somewhat inequitable basis.

The consequences of a national economic revolution could not but be
far-reaching. The political changes in the economic situation demanded by
Sun Yat-sen in his program of economic nationalism—the return of tariff
autonomy, the retrocession of the occupied concessions, etc.—would have a
great positive and immediate effect; but there would be a long system of
development, not to be so easily predicted or foreseen, which would
inevitably appear as a result of Chinese nationhood. If China were to have
a state strong enough to perform the economic functions which Sun wished
to have imposed upon it, and were to take her place as one of the great
importing and exporting nations of the world, it is obvious that a real
economic revolution would have to be gone through.

Here again the liberal-national character of Sun’s ideology and programs
with respect to relations with the West appears. The Fascist states of the
present time exhibit a definite drift from free trade to autarchy. In
China the change from an autarchic world-society to a trading nation
constituted the reverse. Sun Yat-sen did not leave a large legacy of
programs in this connection, but he foresaw the development and was much
concerned about it.




The Industrial Revolution.


The program of industrial revolution was planned by Sun Yat-sen with great
care. The same belief which led him to urge the social revolution also
guided him in his plans for the industrial revolutionizing of the Chinese
economy, namely, his belief that China could profit by the example of the
West, that what the West had done wastefully and circuitously could be
done by the Chinese deliberately and straightforwardly. He proposed that
the change from the old economy to the new be according to a well thought
out plan. “However, China must develop her industries by all means. Shall
we follow the old path of western civilization? This old path resembles
the sea route of Columbus’ first trip to America. He set out from Europe
by a southwesterly direction through the Canary Islands to San Salvador,
in the Bahama group. But nowadays navigators take a different direction to
America and find that the destination can be reached by a distance many
times shorter. The path of Western civilization was an unknown one and
those who went before groped in the dark as Columbus did on his first
voyage to America. As a late comer, China can greatly profit in covering
the space by following the direction already charted by western
pioneers.”(306) By calling in the help of friends who were familiar with
engineering and by using his own very extensive knowledge of Chinese
economic potentialities, Sun Yat-sen drafted a broad long-range plan by
means of which China would be able to set forth on such a charted course
in her industrial revolution. This plan, offered tentatively, was called
_The International Development of China_ in the English and _The Outline
of Material Reconstruction_ in the Chinese version, both of which Sun
himself wrote.

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
international capitalism, if the capital employed were to be remunerated
with attractive rates of interest, and if the plan were so designed as to
allow for its being financially worthwhile. He stated:


    Before entering into the details of this International development
    scheme four principles have to be considered:

       1. The most remunerative field must be selected in order to
          attract foreign capital.
       2. The most urgent needs of the nation must be met.
       3. The lines of least resistance must be followed.
       4. The most suitable positions must be chosen.(307)


He was not oblivious to the necessity of making each detail of his plan
one which would not involve the tying-up of unproductive capital, and did
not propose to use capital advanced for the purposes of the industrial
revolution for the sake of military or political advantage.

This may be shown in a concrete instance. He spoke of his Great
Northeastern railway system as a scheme which might not seem economically
attractive, and then pointed out that, as between a railway system running
between densely-populated areas, the latter would be infinitely the more
preferable. But, said he, “... a railway between a densely populated
country and a sparsely settled country will pay far better than one that
runs end to end in a densely populated land.”(308)

Even though he came to despair of having this scheme for the development
of China carried out by international financial action, the expediency of
his plans remained. He sought the fulfillment of this outline throughout
his life; it has remained as a part of his legacy, challenging the Chinese
people by the grandeur of its conception and the precision of its details.

It is a work which cannot easily be summarized in a discussion of
political doctrines. Fully comparable in grandeur to the Russian
_Piatiletka_, it provides for a complete communication system including
all types of transport, the development of great ports, colonization and
reclamation projects, and the growth of vast industrial areas comparable
to the Donbas or the Kuzbas. The plan, while sound as a whole and not
inexpedient in detail, is not marked by that irregularity of proportion
which marks planning under capitalism; although not as fully worked out as
the later Russian projects, Sun’s plan, in 1922, was considerably more
advanced than any Russian plan of that time. Sun shared with Lenin a
passionate conviction of the inevitable necessity of industrialization;
but while Lenin saw in industrialism the strengthening of that
revolutionary bulwark, the proletariat, Sun believed in industrialism as a
benefit to the whole nation.

This plan is the obvious fruit of Sun’s advocacy of the adoption of the
Western physical sciences. Here there is little trace of his ideological
consistency with the old premises of Chinese society. He does not
challenge them, but he does present a concrete plan which refers only
incidentally to the political or the ideological. It is heavy with the
details of industrial revolution. Sun Yat-sen’s enthusiasm shows clearly
through the pages of this work; he wrote it at a time when his health was
still comparatively good, and when he was not harassed by the almost
explosive dynamics of the situation such as that in which he delivered the
sixteen lectures on the _San Min Chu I_. Here the practical aspects of his
thinking show forth, his willingness to consider and debate, the profound
and quiet enthusiasm for concrete projects which animated him and which
was so infectious among his followers.

It were, of course, unfeasable to attempt any detailed description and
assessment of the plan.(309) The great amount of point by point
elaboration worked over by Sun Yat-sen in order to make his plan appealing
precludes the consideration of any one project in detail as a sample.
Failing this, the magnitude of the plan may be gauged by a recapitulation
of the chief points in each of his programs. It must be remembered,
however, that each one of these subheads might necessitate hundreds of
millions of dollars for execution, involving the building of several
industrial cities or the reconstruction of a whole industry throughout the
country. The printing industry, for example, not even mentioned in the
general outline given below, was discussed as follows:


    This industry provides man with intellectual food. It is a
    necessity of modern society, without which mankind cannot
    progress. All human activities are recorded, and all human
    knowledge is stored in printing. It is a great factor of
    civilization. The progress and civilization of different nations
    of the world are measured largely by the quantity of printed
    matter they turned out annually. China, though the nation that
    invented printing, is very backward in the development of its
    printing industry. In our international Development Scheme, the
    printing industry must also be given a place. If China is
    developed industrially according to the lines which I suggested,
    the demand for printed matter will be exceedingly great. In order
    to meet this demand efficiently, a system of large printing houses
    must be established in all large cities in the country, to
    undertake printing of all kinds, from newspapers to encyclopedia
    [sic!]. The best modern books on various subjects in different
    countries should be translated into Chinese and published in cheap
    edition form for the general public in China. All the publishing
    houses should be organized under one common management, so as to
    secure the best economic results.

    In order to make printed matter cheap, other subsidiary industries
    must be developed at the same time. The most important of these is
    the paper industry. At present all the paper used by newspapers in
    China is imported. And the demand for paper is increasing every
    day. China has plenty of raw materials for making paper, such as
    the vast virgin forests of the northwestern part of the country,
    and the wild reeds of the Yangtze and its neighboring swamps which
    would furnish the best pulps. So, large plants for manufacturing
    paper should be put up in suitable locations. Besides the paper
    factories, ink factories, type foundries, printing machine
    factories, etc., should be established under a central management
    to produce everything that is needed in the printing
    industry.(310)


With this comment on printing as a small sample of the extent of each
minor project in the plans, let us observe Sun’s own summary:

I.
      The Development of a Communications System.

      (a)
            100,000 miles of Railways.
      (b)
            1,000,000 miles of Macadam Roads.
      (c)
            Improvement of Existing Canals.

            (1)
                  Hangchow-Tientsin Canals.
            (2)
                  Sikiang-Yangtze Canals.

      (d)
            Construction of New Canals.

            (1)
                  Liaoho-Sunghwakiang Canal.
            (2)
                  Others to be projected.

      (e)
            River Conservancy.

            (1)
                  To regulate the Embankments and Channel of the Yangtze
                  River from Hankow to the Sea thus facilitating
                  Ocean-going ships to reach that Port at all seasons.
            (2)
                  To regulate the Hoangho Embankments and Channel to
                  prevent floods.
            (3)
                  To regulate the Sikiang.
            (4)
                  To regulate the Hwaiho.
            (5)
                  To regulate various other rivers.

      (f)
            The Construction of more Telegraph Lines and Telephones and
            Wireless Systems all over the Country.

II.
      The Development of Commercial Harbors.

      (a)
            Three largest Ocean Ports with future capacity equalling New
            York Harbor to be constructed in North, Central and South
            China.
      (b)
            Various small Commercial and Fishing Harbors to be constructed
            along the Coast.
      (c)
            Commercial Docks to be constructed along all navigable rivers.

III.
      Modern Cities with public utilities to be constructed in all Railway
      Centers, Termini, and alongside Harbors.
IV.
      Water Power Development.
V.
      Iron and Steel Works and Cement Works on the largest scale in order
      to supply the above needs.
VI.
      Mineral Development.
VII.
      Agricultural Development.
VIII.
      Irrigational Work on the largest scale in Mongolia and Sinkiang.
IX.
      Reforestation in Central and North China.
X.
      Colonization in Manchuria, Mongolia, Sinkiang, Kokonor, and
      Thibet.(311)

The industrial revolution is to _min shêng_ what the present program of
socialist construction is to the Marxians of the Soviet Union, what
prosperity is to American democracy. Without industrialization _min shêng_
must remain an academic theory. Sun’s program gives a definite physical
gauge by means of which the success of his followers can be told, and the
extent of China’s progress estimated. It provides a material foundation to
the social and political changes in China.

The theory of Sun Yat-sen in connection with the continuation of the old
system is a significant one. His political doctrines, both ideological and
programmatic, are original and not without great meaning in the
development of an adequate and just state system in modern China. But this
work might have been done, although perhaps not as well, by other leaders.
The significance of Sun in his own lifetime lay in his deliberate
championing of the cause of industrial revolution as the _sine qua non_ of
development in China. In the epoch of the first Republic he relinquished
the Presidency in favor of Yüan Shih-k’ai in order to be able to devote
his whole time to the advancement of the railway program of the Republic.
In the years that he had to spend in exile, he constantly studied and
preached the necessity of modernizing China. Of his slogan, “Modernization
without Westernization!” modernization is the industrial revolution, and
non-Westernization the rest of his programs and ideology. The unity of Sun
Yat-sen’s doctrines is apparent; they are inseparable; but if one part
were to be plucked forth as his greatest contribution to the working
politics of his own time, it might conceivably be his activities and plans
for the industrial revolution.

He spoke feelingly and bitterly of the miserable lives which the vast
majority of his countrymen had to lead, of the expensiveness and
insecurity of their material existences, of the vast, tragic waste of
human effort in the form of man-power in a world where machine-power had
rendered muscular work unnecessary. “This miserable condition among the
Chinese proletariat [he apparently means the whole working class] is due
to the non-development of the country, the crude methods of production,
and the wastefulness of labor. The radical cure for all this is industrial
development by foreign capital and experts for the benefit of the whole
nation.... If foreign capital cannot be gotten, we will have to get at
least their experts and inventors to make for us our own
machinery....”(312) Howsoever the work was to be done, it had to be done.
In bringing China into the modern world, in modernizing her economy, in
assuring the justice of the new economy which was to emerge, Sun found the
key in the physical advancement of China, in the building of vast railway
systems, in creating ports “with future capacity equalling New York
harbor,” in re-making the whole face of Eastern Asia as a better home for
his beloved race-nation.




The Social Revolution.


In considering the social revolution which was to form the third part of
the program of _min shêng_, four questions appear, each requiring
examination. It is in this field of Sun’s programs that the terms of the
Western ideology are most relevant, since the ideological distinctions to
be found in old China as contrasted with the West do not apply so
positively in problems that are to appear in a society which is to be
industrially modern. Even in this, however, some of the old Chinese ideas
may continue in use and give relevance to the terms with which Sun
discusses the social revolution. Private property, that mysterious
relation between an individual and certain goods and services, has been
almost a fetish in the West; the Chinese, already subject to the
collectivisms of the family, the village and the _hui_, does not have the
deep attachment to this notion that Westerners—especially those who do
have property—are apt to develop. Consequently, even though the discussion
of Sun’s programs with regard to distributive justice are remarkably like
the discussions of the same problem to be found in the West, the
possibility, at least, of certain minor though thoroughgoing differences
must be allowed for, and not overlooked altogether. The four aspects to
this problem which one may distinguish in Sun’s program for _min shêng_
are: what is to be the sphere of state action? what is to be the treatment
accorded private ownership of land? what is to be the position of private
capital? and, what of the class struggle?

Sun Yat-sen said: “In modern civilization, the material essentials of life
are five, namely: food, clothing, shelter, means of locomotion, and the
printed page.”(313) At other times he may have made slightly different
arrangements of these fundamental necessities, but the essential content
of the demands remained the same.

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 political or
ethical value higher than life itself. A government which did not see that
its subjects were fed, sheltered, clothed, transported, and lettered to
the degree which the economic level of its time permitted, was a
government deserving of destruction. Sun Yat-sen was not a doctrinaire on
the subject of classes; he would tolerate inequality, so long as it could
be shown not to militate against the welfare of the people. He was
completely intolerant of any government, Eastern or Western, which
permitted its subjects to starve or to be degraded into a nightmare
existence of semi-starvation. Whatever the means, this end of popular
livelihood, of a reasonable minimum on the scale of living for each and
every citizen, had to prevail above all others.(314)

Within the limits of this supreme criterion, Sun Yat-sen left the
government to its own choice in the matter of the sphere of state action.
If the system of private initiative could develop more efficiently than
could the government in certain fields, then leave those fields to private
effort. If and when private initiative failed to meet rigid requirements
to be established by the government it was not merely the privilege, it
was the obligation of the government to intervene. Sun Yat-sen seems to
have believed that government action would in the long run be desirable
anyhow, but to have been enough of a political realist at the same time to
be willing to allow the government a considerable length of time in
expanding its activities. In a developing country like China it seemed to
him probable that the ends of _ming shêng_ could best be served in many
fields by private enterprise. “All matters that can be and are better
carried out by private enterprise should be left to private hands which
should be encouraged and fully protected by liberal laws....”(315)

From the outset, Sun Yat-sen’s plan of empirical collectivism demanded a
fairly broad range of state action. “All matters that cannot be taken up
by private concerns and those that possess monopolistic character should
be taken up as national undertakings.”(316) This view of his may be
traced, among others, to three suppositions he entertained concerning
Bismarck, concerning "war socialism," and concerning the industrial
revolution in China. Sun shows a certain grudging admiration for Bismarck,
whom he believed to have offset the rising tide of democratic socialism in
Germany by introducing state socialism, in government control of
railroads, etc. “By this preventive method he imperceptibly did away with
the controversial issues, and since the people had no reason to fight, a
social revolution was naturally averted. This was the very great
anti-democratic move of Bismarck.”(317) Secondly, he believed that the
“... unification and nationalization of all the industries, which I might
call the Second Industrial Revolution ...” on account of the world war
would be even more significant than the first.(318) It intensified the
four elements of recent economic progress, which tended to prove the
falsity of the Marxian predictions of the future of capitalism, namely:
“a. Social and industrial improvements (i. e. labor and welfare
legislation); b. State ownership of the means of transportation and of
communication; c. Direct taxes; d. Socialized distribution (the
coöperative movement).”(319) Finally, Sun believed that the magnitude of
the Chinese industrial revolution was such that no private capital could
establish its foundations, and that the state had perforce to initiate the
great undertakings of industrialism.

Concerning Sun’s beliefs regarding the sphere of state action in economic
matters, one may say that his ideology of empirical collectivism required
a program calling for: 1) the protection of private enterprise and the
simultaneous launching of great state enterprises at the beginning; 2) the
intermediate pursuance of a policy by means of which the state would be
the guarantor of the livelihood of the people, and establish the sphere of
its own action according to whether or not private enterprise was
sufficient to meet the needs of the people; and 3) a long range trend
toward complete collectivism.

With respect to the question of land, Sun Yat-sen believed in his own
version of the “single tax,” which was not, in his programs, the single
tax, since he foresaw other sources of revenue for the state (tariffs,
revenue from state enterprises, etc.). According to the land-control
system of Sun Yat-sen the land-owner would himself assess the value of his
land. He would be prevented from over-assessing it by his own desire to
avoid paying too high a tax; and under-assessment would be avoided by a
provision that the state could at any time purchase the land at the price
set by the owner. If the land were to go up in value the owner would have
to pay the difference between the amount which he formerly assessed and
the amount which he believed it to be worth at the later time. The money
so paid would become “... a public fund as a reward, to all those who had
improved the community and who had advanced industry and commerce around
the land. The proposal that all future increment shall be given to the
community is the ‘equalization of land ownership’ advocated by the
Kuomintang; it is the _Min-sheng_ Principle. This form of the _Min-sheng_
Principle is communism, and since the members of the Kuomintang support
the _San Min_ Principles they should not oppose communism.” Continuing
directly, Sun makes clear the nature of the empirical collectivism of his
_min shêng_ program, which he calls communism. “The great aim of the
Principle of Livelihood in our Three Principles is communism—a share in
property by all. But the communism which we propose is a communism of the
future, not of the present. This communism of the future is a very just
proposal, and those who have had property in the past will not suffer at
all by it. It is a very different thing from what is called in the West
‘nationalization of property,’ confiscation for the government’s use of
private property which the people already possess.”(320) Sun Yat-sen
declared that the solution to the land problem would be half of the
solution of the problem of _min shêng_.(321)

Sun Yat-sen believed in the restriction of private capital in such a way
as to assure its not becoming a socially disruptive force. That is a part
of his ideology which we have already examined. In the matter of an actual
program, he believed in the use of “harnessed capital.”(322) He had no
real fear of capital; imperialist foreign capital was one thing—the small
native capital another. The former was a political enemy. The latter was
not formidable. In a speech on Red Labor Day, 1924, when his sympathies
were about as far Left as they ever were, in consideration for the
kindliness of the Communist assistance to Canton, he said: “Chinese
capitalists are not so strong that they could oppress the Chinese
workers,”(323) and added that, the struggle being one with imperialism,
the destruction of the Chinese capitalists would not solve the question.

The restriction of private capital to the point of keeping it harmless,
and thus avoiding the evils which would lead to the class war and a
violent social revolution, was only half the story of capitalism in China
which Sun Yat-sen wanted told in history. The other half was the
advancement of the industrial revolution by the state, which was the only
instrumentality capable of doing this great work. “China cannot be
compared to foreign countries. It is not sufficient (for her) to impose
restrictions upon capital. Foreign countries are rich, while China is
poor.... For that reason China must not only restrict private capital, but
she must also develop the capital of the State.”(324) The restrictions to
be placed upon private capital and upon private land speculation were
negative; the development of state-owned capital and of capital which the
state could trust politically were positive, as was the revenue which
should be gained from the governmental seizure of unearned increment. In
some cases the state would not even have to trouble itself to confiscate
the unearned increment; it could itself develop the land and profit by its
rise in value, applying the funds thus derived to the paying-off of
foreign loans or some socially constructive enterprise.(325)

Ideologically, Sun Yat-sen was opposed to the intra-national class war.
Class war could, nevertheless, be justified in the programs of Sun in two
ways: 1) if it were international class war, of the oppressed against the
oppressing nations; and 2) if it were the class war of the nationalist
Chinese workers against foreign imperialism. In these two cases Sun
Yat-sen thought class-war a good idea. He did not think class war
necessary in contemporary China, and hoped, by means of _min shêng_, to
develop an economy so healthy that the pathological phenomena of the class
struggle would never appear. On the other hand, in justice to Sun, and to
those Marxians who would apologize for him to their fellow-Marxians, there
can be little doubt that Sun Yat-sen would have approved of the class war,
even in China, if he had thought that Chinese capitalism had risen to such
power that it obstructed the way of the Chinese nation to freedom and
economic health. Even in this he might not have set any particular virtue
upon the proletariat as such; the capitalists would be the enemies of the
nation, and it would be the whole nation which would have to dispose of
them.

A finically Scrupulous and detailed examination of Sun Yat-sen’s programs
for _min shêng_ is intellectually unremunerative, since it has been
established that _min shêng_ may be called empirical collectivism;
collectivism which is empirical cannot be rigidly programmatic, or it
loses its empirical character. Sun, not accepting the dialectics of
historical materialism, and following the traditionally Chinese pragmatic
way of thinking, could not orient his revolution in a world of economic
predestinations. With the characteristic Chinese emphasis on men rather
than on rules and principles, Sun Yat-sen knew that if China were ruled by
the right sort of men, his programs would be carried through in accordance
with the expediency of the moment. He does not appear to have considered,
as do some of the left wing, that it was possible for the revolutionary
movement to be diverted to the control of unworthy persons. Even had he
foreseen such a possible state of affairs, he would not, in all
probability, have settled his programs any more rigidly; he knew, from the
most intimate and heart-breaking experience, how easy it is in China to
pay lip-service to principles which are rejected. The first Republic had
taught him that.

One must consequently regard the programs of national economic revolution,
of industrial revolution, and of social revolution as tentative and
general outlines of the course which Sun wished the Nationalist Kuomintang
and state to follow in carrying out _min shêng_. Of these programs, the
one least likely to be affected by political or personal changes was that
of the industrial revolution, and it is this which is most detailed.(326)
His great desire was that the Chinese race-nation continue, not merely to
subsist, but to thrive and multiply and become great, so that it could
restore the ancient morality and wisdom of China, as well as become
proficient in the Western sciences.

A last suggestion may be made concerning the programs of Sun Yat-sen,
before consideration of the Utopia which lay at the end of the road of
_min shêng_. His plans may continue to go on in _min shêng_ because they
are so empirical. His nationalism may be deflected or altered by the new
situation in world politics. His optimism concerning the rapidity of
democratic developments may not be justified by actual developments. The
programs of _min shêng_ are so general that they can be followed to some
degree by governments of almost any orientation along the Right-Left
scale. The really important criterion in the programs of _min shêng_ is
this: the people must live. It is a simple one to understand, and may be a
great force in the continued development of his programs, to the last
stage of _min shêng_.




The Utopia of _Min Shêng_.


Sun Yat-sen differs from the empirical collectivists of the West in that
he has an end to his program, which is to be achieved over a considerable
period of time. The means are such that he can be classified with those
Western thinkers; his goal is one which he took from the ideals in the old
ideology and which he identified with those of the communists, although
not necessarily with the Marxists. He said, at the end of his second
lecture on _min shêng_:


    Our way is community of industrial and social profits. We cannot
    say, then, that the doctrine of _min shêng_ is different from
    communism. The _San Min Chu I_ means a government “of the people,
    by the people, and for the people”—that is, the state is the
    common property of all the people, its politics are participated
    in by all, and its profits are shared by all. Then there will be
    not only communism in property, but communism in everything else.
    Such will be the ultimate end of _min shêng_, a state which
    Confucius calls _ta t’ung_ or the age of “great similarity.”(327)


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,” complete ideological harmony, and
the presumable disappearance of state and law. Property, the fount of war,
has been set aside, and men—animated by a profound and sincere
appreciation of _jên_—work together, all for the common good. The Chinese
will, in this Utopia, have struck down _might_ from the high places of the
world, and inaugurated an era of _the kingly way_ throughout the earth.
Their ancient doctrines of benevolence and peace shall have succeeded in
bringing about cosmospolitanism.

There are, however, differences from the old order of ideals. According to
the Marxists, nationality, after it has served its purpose as an
instrument in the long class struggle, may be set aside. Speculation of
this sort is rare among them, however, and it is difficult to envision
their final system. To Sun Yat-sen, however, there was the definite ideal
that the Chinese live on forever. This was an obligation imposed upon him
and his ideology by the teleological element in the old ideology which
required that humanity be immortal in the flesh and that it be immortal
through clearly traceable lines of descent. The individual was settled in
a genealogical web, reaching through time and space, which gave him a
sense of certainty that otherwise he might lack. This is inconsistent with
the Marxian ideal, where the family system, a relic of brutal days, shall
have vanished.

The physical immortality of the Chinese race was not the only sort of
immortality Sun Yat-sen wished China to have. His stress on the peculiar
virtues of the Chinese intellectual culture has been noted. The Chinese
literati had sought an immortality of integrity and intellect, a
continuity of civilization without which mere physical survival might seem
brutish. In the teleology of Sun’s ideal society, there would no doubt be
these two factors: filial piety, emphasizing the survival of the flesh;
and _jên_, emphasizing the continuity of wisdom and honor. Neither could
aptly continue unless China remained Chinese, unless the particular
virtues of the Chinese were brought once again to their full potency.(328)

The family system was to continue to the _min shêng_ Utopia. So too were
the three natural orders of men. Sun Yat-sen never advocated that the
false inequality of the present world be thrown down for the purpose of
putting in its place a false equality which made no distinction between
the geniuses, the apostles, and the unthinking. The Chinese world was to
be Chinese to the end of time. In this the narrowness of Sun Yat-sen’s
ideals is apparent; it is, perhaps, a narrowness which limits his
aspirations and gives them strength.

The Chinese Utopia which was to be at the end of _min shêng_ was to be
established in a world, moreover, which might not have made a complete
return to ideological control, in which the state might still survive. The
requirements of an industrial economy certainly presupposes an enormous
length of time before the ideology and the society shall have been
completely adjusted to the peculiarities of life in a world not only of
working men but of working machines. The state must continue until all men
are disciplined to labor: "When all these vagrants will be done away with
and when all will contribute to production, then clothing will be abundant
and food sufficient; families will enjoy prosperity, and individuals will
be satisfied.

“Then the question of the ‘people’s life’ will be solved.”(329)

Thus Sun Yat-sen concluded his last lecture on _min shêng_.





BIBLIOGRAPHY.


The bibliography of works in Western languages dealing with Sun Yat-sen is
short. The author has made no attempt to gather various fugitive pieces,
such as newspaper clippings. He believes, however, that the following
bibliography of Western works on Sun is the most nearly complete which has
yet appeared, and has listed, for the sake of completeness, two Russian
items as yet unavailable in the United States.

The first half of the bibliography presents these Western materials,
arranged according to their subject. Within each category, the individual
items are presented in chronological order; this has been done in order to
make clear the position of the works in point of time of publication—a
factor occasionally of some importance in the study of these materials.

The second half of the bibliography lists further works which have been
referred to or cited. The first group of these consists of a small
collection of some of the more important Chinese editions of, and Chinese
and Japanese treatises upon, Sun Yat-sen’s writings. The second group
represents various Western works on China or on political science which
have been of assistance to the author in this study.

Chinese names have been left in their natural order, with the patronymic
first. Where Chinese names have been Westernized and inverted, they have
been returned to their original Chinese order, but with a comma inserted
to indicate the change.




A. Major Sources on Sun Yat-sen Which are Available in Western Languages.



I. Biographies of Sun Yat-sen.


    Ponce, Mariano, _Sun Yat-sen, El fundador de la Republica de
    China_, Manila, 1912.


A popular biography. Valuable for the period just before 1912.


    Cantlie, James and Sheridan-Jones, C., _Sun Yat-sen and the
    Awakening of China_, New York, 1912.


Also a popular work. Valuable for the description of Sun Yat-sen’s
education.


    Linebarger, Paul (and Sun Yat-sen), _Sun Yat-sen and The Chinese
    Republic_, New York, 1925.


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.


    Vilenskii (Sibiriakov), V., _Sun’ Iat-Sen—otets kitaiskoe
    revoliutsii_, Moscow, 1925. The same, Moscow, 1926.


Not available.


    Lee, Edward Bing-shuey, _Dr. Sun Yat-sen, His Life and
    Achievements_ (English and French), Nanking, n. d.


A synopsis, by a spokesman for the Nationalist Party.


    Wou, Saofong, _Sun Yat-sen, Sa Vie et Sa Doctrine_, Paris, 1929.


An excellent outline, largely from Chinese sources.


    Restarick, Henry Bond, _Sun Yat-sen, Liberator of China_, New
    Haven, 1931.


Useful for a description of Sun Yat-sen’s life in Honolulu, and of some of
his overseas connections.


    —— (R.-Ch. Duval, translator), _Sun Yat-sen, Liberator de la
    Chine_, Paris, 1932.

    de Morant, George Soulie, _Soun Iat-sènn_, Paris, 1932.


A romantic work based upon Chinese sources, and the Chinese translation of
Linebarger’s work.


    Linebarger, Paul; Linebarger, Paul M. A. (editor), _The Gospel of
    Sun Chung-shan_, Paris, 1932.

    Sharman, (Mrs.) Lyon, _Sun Yat-sen, His Life and Its Meaning, A
    Criticall Biography_, New York, 1934.


The most complete biography of Sun Yat-sen. Well documented and prepared.
Mrs. Sharman’s work will remain authoritative for many years to come. Its
main fault is its somewhat hyper-sensitive criticism of Sun Yat-sen’s
personality, with which the author never comes in contact.


    Linebarger, Paul, _The Life of Sun Chung-san_, Shanghai, 1932.
    Fragmentary proofsheets. See note in Preface.

    Reissig, Paul, _Sun Yat Sen und die Kuomintang_, Berlin, n. d. A
    Lutheran missionary tract.



II. Translations of the Sixteen Lectures on the _San Min Chu I_.


    Anonymous, _The Three Principles_, Shanghai 1927.


Of no value.


    Tsan Wan, _Die Drei Nationalen Grundlehren, Die Grundlehren von
    dem Volkstum_, Berlin, 1927.


A translation of the lectures on Nationalism; excellent as far as it goes.


    d’Elia, Paschal M., S. J. (translator and editor); _Le Triple
    Demisme de Suen Wen_, Shanghai, 1929.


The only annotated translation. The style is simple and direct, and the
notes accurate, for the most part, and informative. The uninitiated reader
must make allowances for Father d’Elia’s religious viewpoints. This is
probably the most useful translation.


    Price, Frank W. (translator), Chen, L. T. (editor); _San Min Chu
    I, The Three Principles of the People_, Shanghai, 1930.


The translation most widely known and quoted.


    d’Elia, Paschal M., S. J., _The Triple Demism of Sun Yat-sen_,
    Wuchang, 1931.


A translation of the French version.


    Hsü, Leonard Shihlien; _Sun Yat-sen, His Political and Social
    Ideals_, Los Angeles, 1933.


The most complete selection of the documents of Sun Yat-senism available
in English. Dr. Hsü has assembled his materials remarkably well. His
chapter “The Basic Literature of Sunyatsenism” is the best of its kind in
English.



III. Other Translations of the Chinese Works of Sun Yat-sen.


    Anonymous; _Zapiski kitaiskogo revoliutsionera_, Moscow, 1926.


Not available.


    —— _Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary_, Philadelphia, n. d.


Not documented and apparently unreliable. English version of the above.


    Wittfogel, Karl; _Sun Yat Sen, Aufzeichnungen eines chinesischen
    Revolutionärs_, Vienna and Berlin, n. d. (ca. 1927).


The most complete Marxist critique, containing also an excellent short
biography.


    Tsan Wan; _30 Jahre Chinesische Revolution_, Berlin, 1927.


An excellent translation of one of the short autobiographies of Sun
Yat-sen.


    Wei Yung (translator); _The Cult of Dr. Sun, Sun Wên Hsüeh Shê_,
    Shanghai, 1931.


Also referred to as _The Outline of Psychological Reconstruction_. It
comprises a series of popular essays discussing the problems involved in
modernization of the Chinese outlook, and presenting Sun Yat-sen’s theory
of knowledge versus action.



IV. Works in English by Sun Yat-sen.


    Sun Yat-sen; _Kidnapped in London_, Bristol, 1897.


Sun Yat-sen’s first book in English. Expresses his Christian, modernist,
anti-Manchu attitude of the time.


    —— _How China was Made a Republic_, Shanghai, 1919.


A short autobiography of Sun Yat-sen; see note in Preface.


    —— _The International Development of China_, New York and London,
    1929.


Sun Yat-sen’s bold project for the industrialization of China. First
proposed in 1919, the work calls for a coördinated effort of world
capitalism and Chinese nationalism for the modernization of China. Also
called the _Outline of Material Reconstruction_.



V. Commentaries on the Principles of Sun Yat-sen.


    Li Ti tsun; _The Politico-Economic Theories of Sun Yat-sen_.


This work has not been published, but portions of it appeared in the
_Chinese Students’ Monthly_, XXIV, New York, 1928-1929, as follows: “The
Life of Sun Yat-sen,” no. 1, p. 14, November, 1928; “The Theoretical
System of Dr. Sun Yat-sen,” no. 2, p. 92, December 1928, and no. 3, p.
130, January 1929; and “The Sunyatsenian Principle of Livelihood,” no. 5,
p. 219, March 1929. It is most regrettable that the whole work could not
be published as a unit, for Li’s work is extensive in scope and uses the
major Chinese and foreign sources quite skilfully.


    Tai Chi-tao (Richard Wilhelm, translator); _Die Geistigen
    Grundlagen des Sunyatsenismus_, Berlin, 1931.


An informative commentary on the ethical system of Sun Yat-sen. Tai
Chi-tao is an eminent Party leader.


    Antonov, K.: _Sun’iatsenizm i kitaiskaia revoliutsiia_, Moscow,
    1931.


Not available to the author.


    William, Maurice; _Sun Yat-sen Vs. Communism_, Baltimore, 1932.


A presentation, by the author of _The Social Interpretation of History_,
of the influence which that work had on Sun; useful only in this
connection.


    Linebarger, Paul; Linebarger, Paul M. A. (editor); _Conversations
    With Sun Yat-sen_, 1919-1922.


For comment on this and the following manuscript, see Preface.


    Linebarger, Paul; _A Commentary on the San Min Chu I_. Four
    volumes, unpublished, 1933.

    Tsui, Shu-Chin, _The Influence of the Canton-Moscow Entente upon
    Sun Yat-sen’s political Philosophy_, in _The Chinese Social and
    Political Science Review_, XVIII, 1, 2, 3, Peiping, 1934.


A dissertation presented to Harvard University. Dr. Tsui covers the ground
very thoroughly; his conclusions challenge the general belief that the
Communists influenced Sun Yat-sen’s philosophy. Ranks with the works of
Tai Chi-tao, Hsü Shih-lien, and Father d’Elia as an aid to the
understanding of the Three Principles.


    Jair Hung: _Les Idées Économiques de Sun Yat Sen_, Toulouse, 1934.


A doctoral thesis presented to the University of Toulouse, treating,
chiefly, the programmatic parts of the principle of _min shêng_.


    Tsiang Kuen; _Les origines économiques et politiques du socialisme
    de Sun Yat Sen_, Paris, 1933.


A doctoral thesis presented to the University of Paris, which deals with
the institutional and historical background of min sheng.


    Li Chao-wei; _La souveraineté nationale d’après la doctrine
    politique de Sun-Yet-Sin_, Dijon, 1934.


A doctoral thesis presented to the University of Dijon, concerning the
four popular powers of election, recall, initiative, and referendum.




B. Chinese Sources and Further Western Works Used as Auxiliary Sources.



I. Chinese and Japanese Works by or Concerning Sun Yat-sen.


    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. W.), Hsü Chih-jên (translator);
    _Sun I-hsien Chüan Chi (The Life of Sun Yat-sen)_, 4th ed.,
    Shanghai, 1927.


The Chinese translator has appended an excellent chronology of Sun’s life.


    Sun Fu-hao; _San Min Chu I Piao Chieh (An Elementary Explanation
    of the Sun Min Chu I)_, Shanghai, 1933.

    Sun Yat-sen, Hu Han-min, ed.; _Tsung-li Ch’üan Chi (The Complete
    Works of the Leader)_, 4 vol. in 1; 2nd ed., Shanghai, 1930.


The best collection, but by no means complete.


    Sun Yat-sen; _Sun Chung-shan Yen Chiang Chi (A Collection of the
    Lectures of Sun Chung-shan)_, 3rd ed., Shanghai, 1927.

    Sun Yat-sen; _Tsung-li Yü Mo (The Posthumous Papers of the
    Leader)_, Nanking, n. d.

    Têng Hsi; _Chung Shan Jên Shêng Shih Hsia Tan Yüan, (An Inquiry
    into the Origin of Chung Shan’s Philosophy of Life)_, Shanghai,
    1933.

    Tsao Kê-jen; _Sun Chung Shan Hsien-shêng Ching Chi Hsüeh Shê (The
    Economic Theory of Mr. Sun Chung-shan)_, Nanking, 1935.



II. Works on China or the Revolution.


    Amann, Gustav; _Sun Yatsens Vermächtnis_, Berlin, 1928.

    Bland, J. O. and Backhouse, E.; _China Under the Empress Dowager_,
    Philadelphia, 1910.

    Beresford, Lord Charles; _The Break-up of China_, London, 1899.

    Bonnard, Abel; _En Chine (1920-1921)_, Paris, 1924.

    Burgess, J. S.; _The Guilds of Peking_, New York, 1928.

    Buxton, L. H. Dudley; _China, The Land and the People_, Oxford,
    1929.

    Chen Tsung-hsi, Wang An-tsiang, and Wang I-ting; _General Chiang
    Kai-shek: The Builder of New China_, Shanghai, 1929.

    _Chinese Social and Political Science Review, The_, Peking
    (Peiping), 1916-. The foremost journal of its kind in the Far
    East.

    _China Today_, New York, 1934-. Communist Monthly.

    _China Weekly Review, The_, Shanghai, 1917-.

    The leading English-language weekly in China, Liberal in outlook.

    _China Year Book, The_, Shanghai, 1919-?


A necessary reference work for government personnel, trade statistics, and
chronology. Perhaps inferior to the corresponding volumes in other
countries.


    Close, Upton, _pseud._ (Hall, Josef Washington); _Challenge:
    Behind the Face of Japan_, New York, 1934.

    ——; _Eminent Asians_, New York, 1929.

    Coker, Francis; _Recent Political Thought_, New York, 1934.

    Creel, H. G.; Sinism, _A Study of the Evolution of the Chinese
    World-view_, Chicago, 1929.

    Cressey, George Babcock; _China’s Geographic Foundations_, New
    York, 1934.

    de Groot, J. J. M.; _Religion in China_, New York and London,
    1912.

    Djang, Chu (Chang Tso); _The Chinese Suzerainty_, Johns Hopkins
    University doctoral dissertation, 1935.

    Douglas, Sir Robert K.; _Europe and the Far East 1506-1912_, New
    York, 1913.

    Ellis, Henry; _Journal of the Proceedings of the Late Embassy to
    China..._, Philadelphia, 1818.

    _Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences_, New York, 1930-.


Articles on “Kuomintang” and “Sun Yat-sen.”


    Erdberg, Oskar; _Tales of Modern China_, Moscow, 1932.

    Erkes, Eduard; _Chinesische Literatur_, Breslau, 1922.

    Foreign Office of Japan, The (?); _The Present Condition of
    China_, Tokyo (?), 1932.


No author nor place of publication is given in this work, which presents a
description of those features of Chinese political and economic life that
might be construed as excusing Japanese intervention.


    _Fundamental Laws of the Chinese Soviet Republic_, The, New York,
    1934.

    Goodnow, Frank Johnson; _China: An Analysis_, Baltimore, 1926.

    Granet, Marcel; _Chinese Civilization_, New York, 1930.

    Harvey, E. D.; _The Mind of China_, New Haven, 1933.

    Holcombe, Arthur N.; _The Chinese Revolution_, Cambridge
    (Massachusetts), 1930.

    ——; _The Spirit of the Chinese Revolution_, New York, 1930.

    Hsia Ching-lin; Chow, James L. E.; and Chang, Yukon (translators);
    _The Civil Code of The Republic of China_, Shanghai, 1930.

    Hsieh, Pao Chao; _The Government of China (1644-1911)_, Baltimore,
    1925.

    Hsü, Leonard Shih-lien; _The Political Philosophy of
    Confucianism_, New York, 1932.

    Hsü, Pao-chien; _Ethical Realism in Neo-Confucian Thought_,
    Dissertation, Columbia University, n. d.


Suggests the position of Sun Yat-sen in the history of Chinese philosophy.


    Hu Shih; and Lin Yu-tang; _China’s Own Critics_, Peiping, 1931.

    Isaacs, Harold (editor); _Five Years of Kuomintang Reaction_,
    Shanghai, 1931.

    Johnston, Reginald; _Twilight in the Forbidden City_, London,
    1934.

    Koo, V. K. Wellington; _Memoranda Presented to the Lytton
    Commission_, New York, n. d.

    Kotenev, Anatol M.; _New Lamps for Old_, Shanghai, 1931.

    Kulp, D. H.; _Family Life in South China: The Sociology of
    Familism_, New York, 1925.

    Latourette, Kenneth; _The Chinese: Their History and Culture_, New
    York, 1934.

    Lea, Homer; _The Valor of Ignorance_, New York, 1909.

    Liang Ch’i-ch’ao; _History of Chinese Political Thought_, New York
    and London, 1930.

    Li Chi; _The Formation of the Chinese People_, Cambridge
    (Massachusetts), 1928.

    Lin Yutang; _My Country and My People_, New York, 1936.

    Linebarger, Paul Myron Wentworth; _Deutschlands Gegenwärtige
    Gelegenheiten in China_, Brussels, 1936.

    Lou Kan-jou; _Histoire Sociale de l’Epoque Tcheou_, Paris, 1935.

    MacNair, Harley Farnsworth; _China in Revolution_, Chicago, 1931.

    ——; _Modern Chinese History—Selected Readings_, Shanghai, 1923.

    Mänchen-Helfen, Otto; _China_, Dresden, 1931.

    Maybon, Albert; _La Politique Chinoise_, Paris, 1908.


Sun Yat-sen presented a copy of this book to Judge Linebarger, and
enthusiastically recommended it.


    Maybon, Albert; _La Republique Chinoise_, Paris, 1914.

    Mayers, William Frederick; _The Chinese Government, A Manual of
    Chinese Titles, Categorically Explained and Arranged, with an
    Appendix_, Shanghai, 1897.

    McGovern, William Montgomery; _Modern Japan, Its Political,
    Military, and Industrial Organization_, London, 1920.

    Myron, Paul, pseud. (Linebarger, Paul M. W.); _Our Chinese Chances
    Through Europe’s War_, Chicago, 1915.

    Meadows, Thomas Taylor; _The Chinese and Their Rebellions_,
    London, 1856.


One of the permanently outstanding books on China; dealing primarily with
the T’ai P’ing rebellion, it presents an extraordinarily keen analysis of
the politics of the old Chinese social system.


    Ogden, C. K. and Richards, I. A.; _The Meaning of Meaning_, New
    York and London, 1927.


It is largely upon this work that the present author has sought to base
his technique of ideological analysis.


    Peffer, Nathaniel; _The Collapse of a Civilization_, New York,
    1930.

    Price, Ernest Batson; _The Russo-Japanese Treaties of 1907-1916
    Concerning Manchuria and Mongolia_, Baltimore, 1933.


Pages 1-13 present stimulating suggestions as to the nature of “China.”


    Reichwein, Adolf; _China and Europe: Intellectual and Artistic
    Contacts in the Eighteenth Century_, New York, 1925.

    Roffe, Jean; _La Chine Nationaliste 1912-1930_, Paris, 1931.

    Roy, Manabendra Nath; _Revolution und Konterrevolution in China_,
    Berlin, 1930.

    Ruffé, R. d’Auxion de; _Is China Mad?_ Shanghai, 1928.


The author, violently hostile to Sun Yat-sen, presents some details of
Sun’s life not published elsewhere.


    Smith, Arthur; _Village Life in China_, New York, 1899.

    Sheean, Vincent; _Personal History_, New York, 1935.

    Shryock, John Knight; _The Origin and Development of the State
    Cult of Confucius_, New York, 1932.

    Starr, Frederick; _Confucianism_, New York, 1930.

    Stoddard, Lothrop; _The Rising Tide of Color Against White World
    Supremacy_, New York, 1930.

    T’ang Leang-li; _The Inner History of the Chinese Revolution_, New
    York, 1930.

    ——; _Wang ching-wei_, Peiping, 1931.

    Tawney, Richard Henry; _Land and Labour in China_, London, 1932.

    Thomas, Elbert Duncan; _Chinese Political Thought_, New York,
    1927.

    Treat, Payson J.; _The Far East_, New York and London, 1928.

    Trotsky, Leon; _Problems of the Chinese Revolution_, New York,
    1932.

    Tyau Min-ch’ien T. Z.; _Two Years of Nationalist China_, Shanghai,
    1930.

    van Dorn, Harold Archer; _Twenty Years of The Chinese Republic_,
    New York, 1932.

    Vinacke, Harold Monk; _Modern Constitutional Development in
    China_, Princeton, 1920.

    Wang Ch’ing-wei et al.; _The Chinese National Revolution_,
    Peiping, 1930.

    Weale, E. L. Putnam, _pseud._ (Simpson, Bertram Lennox); _The
    Vanished Empire_, London, 1926.

    Weber, Max; _Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie_,
    Tübingen, 1922.

    Wieger, Leon, S. J.; _Chine Moderne_, 10 volumes, Hsien-hsien,
    1921-32.


An enormous scrapbook of translations from the Chinese illustrating
political and religious trends. Catholic point of view.


    ——; _Textes Historiques: Histoire Politique de la Chine_,
    Hsien-hsien, 1929.

    —— and Davrout, L., S. J.; _Chinese Characters_, Hsien-hsien,
    1927.

    Wilhelm, Richard (Danton, G. H. and Danton, A. P., translators);
    _Confucius and Confucianism_, New York, 1931.

    ——; _Geschichte der chinesischen Philosophie_, Breslau, 1929.

    ——; _Ostasien, Werden und Wandel des Chinesischen Kulturkreises_,
    Potsdam and Zürich, 1928.


Perhaps the best of all works introductory to Chinese civilization.


    Williams, S. Wells; _The Middle Kingdom_, New York, 1895.

    ——; _A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language_, Tungchou,
    1909.

    Wu Ch’ao-ch’u, _The Nationalist Program for China_, New Haven,
    1930.

    Wu Kuo-cheng; _Ancient Chinese Political Theories_, Shanghai,
    1928.

    Ziah, C. F.; _Philosophie Politique de la Chine Ancienne (700-221
    AV. J.-C.)_, Paris, 1934.





CHINESE-ENGLISH GLOSSARY.


The author has not sought to prepare a lexicon of modern Chinese political
terms. He presents, however, a list of those Chinese words which have
frequently been left untranslated in the text, together with the
ideographs by which they are written in China, and brief definitions.
Variant meanings, however significant, have been omitted. Peculiar
definitions, to be found only in the present work, have been enclosed in
brackets. To locate the phrases, and discussions of them, consult the
index.

      正  _chêng_; right; rectified
      主 _chu_; used as a compound with _i_, below, to make _chu-i_:
      principle, -ism
      權 _ch’üan_; power
      會 _hui_; society; guild
      縣 _hsien_; district (a political subdivision)
      義 _i_; propriety
      仁 _jên_; humanity; fellow-feeling; benevolence, etc. [consciousness
      of social orientation]
      禮 _li_; rites; ceremonies [ideological conformity]
      民 _min_; people; _Volk_
      名 _ming_; name [terminology, or, a part of ideology]
      能 _nêng_; capacity
      霸 _pa_; violence; violent; tyrant; tyrannous
      三 _san_; three
      生 _shêng_;  life; regeneration; livelihood
      大 _ta_; great
      道 _tao_; path; way; principle
      德 _têh_; virtue
      族 _tsu_; unity; kinship
      同 _t’ung_; harmony; concord
      王 _wang_; king; kingly
      樂 _yüeh_; rhythm





INDEX.


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, 54n., 122

Chang Tso (Djang Chu), 186n.

Ch’en Ch’iung-ming, 6

Chen, Eugene, 159n.

Chêng, state of, 27

_chêng ming_, 31ff., 83ff., 104, 114, 210

_ch’i_, 110

Chiang Chieh-shih (Chiang Kai-shek), 102n., 158n., 163n., 206

_Chien Kuo Fang Lo_ (see _The Program of National Reconstruction_)

_Chien Kuo Ta Kang_ (see _see The Outline of National Reconstruction_)

Ch’ien Lung, the Emperor, 168

Ch’in dynasty, 47

Ch’in Shih Huang Ti, the, 26n., 37

Chinese Eastern Railway, the, 201

Ch’ing dynasty (_see_ Manchu dynasty)

Chou dynasty, 25, 28

Christianity, 49, 67, 133n., 155n.

_ch’üan_, 107ff., 141, 218

_chun ch’üan_, 100n.

Chung Hua, The Republic of, 190

Cohen, Morris, 8n.

Coker, Francis W., 147ff.

Communists, 10, 64ff., 66, 106, 122, 160, 161, 163ff., 189, 205, 246ff.

Confucianism, 23ff., 60, 66ff., 82ff., 90ff., 106, 109, 113ff., 210

Confucius (K’ung Ch’iu), 25ff., 60, 76, 97, 105, 261

Creel, H. G., 23n.

Cressey, George B., 127n.

Davrout, L., 32n.

d’Elia, Paschal M., 4n.

Donbas region, 246

Douglas, Sir Robert K., 243n.

Dutch, the, 44n.

Empress Dowager, Tzŭ Hsi, the, 131

England, 62, 150n., 188

Erdberg, Oskar, 161n.

Fascism, 54, 146ff., 244

Ford, Henry, 132

_Four Books, The_, 75

France, 188

Gandhi, M. K., 156n., 180

Genro, the, 131

George III of England, 243

George, Henry, 72, 136ff., 144, 256

Germany, 62, 100, 196, 254ff.

Goodnow, Frank J., 97

Granet, Marcel, 23n.

Great Britain (_see_ British Empire, England)

_Great Learning, The_, 74

Greeks, the, 133

Hai Ching Kung, the, 44n.

Hamilton, Alexander, 77

Han Fei-tzŭ, 29, 93

Harvey, E. D., 154n.

Hawaii, 61n.

Hitler, Adolf, 56

Holcombe, Arthur N., 11n.

Hongkong, 51n.

Honolulu, 126

_hou chih hou chou_, the, 105

Hsieh, Pao-chao, 45n.

_hsien_, 45, 211ff., 230ff.

_hsien chih hsien chou_, the, 104, 106

Hsin dynasty, 58

Hsü, Leonard Shih-lien, 4n.

Hu Han-min, 4n., 186

_hui_, 38, 41, 95, 165

Hulutao port, 260

_hung fang_, 100n.

Hung Hsiu-ch’üan, 58

Hung Jair, 236n.

“ideology,” 18ff.

India, 90, 181

_International Development of China, The_, 4

Isaacs, Harold, 161n.

Japan, 28, 40, 47, 48, 51, 59, 63, 90, 170, 184, 188, 199ff., 240, 260

_jên_, 14, 30ff., 72ff., 141, 142, 144ff., 154, 263

Jên T’ai, 31n.

Jews, the, 168

Joffe, Adolf, 64

Johnston, Sir Reginald, 119

Kailan Mining Administration, The, 179

K’ang Hsi, the Emperor, 168

“Kang Têh” (_see_ P’u Yi)

Koo, V. K. Wellington, 122n.

Korea (Chosen), 48, 59, 70, 127, 200

Kulp, D. H., 38n.

Ku Hung-ming, 77

K’ung family, 90

Kung, H. H., 122n.

Kuo Hsing-hua, 44n.

Kuomintang, the, 104, 158ff., 205

Kwangtung Province (_see_ Canton)

Kuzbas region, 246

Lao Tzŭ, 25

Latins, the, 62

Latourette, Kenneth Scott, 91n.

Lea, Homer, 195

Lee, Frank C., 122n.

Legge translations, the, 23n., 75n.

Lenin, V. I., 132, 230n., 247

_li_, 31ff., 104, 115

Li Chao-wei, 219n.

Li Chi, 86n.

Li Ti-tsun, 137n.

Liang Ch’i-ch’ao, 30, 31n.

Lin Shen, President, 122n.

Lincoln, Abraham, 262

Linebarger, Paul Myron Wentworth, 8n., 84

Lotus society, the, 41

Lovejoy, Arthur O., 18n.

Lynn, Jermyn Chi-hung, 221n.

Macao, 49

Machiavelli, Niccolò, 26

“machine state,” 54

MacNair, Harley Farnsworth, 11n.

Malaysia, 186

Manchu (Ch’ing) dynasty, 22, 43, 44n., 47, 58ff., 96, 111, 119, 124, 131,
159ff., 167ff., 172ff., 182, 190, 227

“Manchukuo” (“Manchoukuo”), 71

Manchuria, 2, 51, 201, 205, 260

Mandarins, 104ff.

_Manifesto_ of the first Party congress, 4

Mannheim, Karl, 18n.

Marx, Karl, 72n., 163

Marxian philosophy, 14ff., 52, 55, 70, 72, 81n., 106, 125, 134n., 137ff.,
144, 192ff., 209ff., 236, 257ff.

Marxism-Leninism, 81, 136, 182, 189, 192ff.

Mayers, William Frederick, 45n.

Meiji Emperor, the, 82, 131

Mencius (Mêng Tzŭ), 76, 93, 97

Miao tribes, 168

Mill, John Stuart, 98n.

Millar, John, 98

_min_, 217

_min ch’üan_, 99, 100n., 209ff.

_Min Ch’üan Ts’u Pu_ (see _The Primer of Democracy_)

_min shêng_, 12, 101, 121, 122ff., 141, 180, 193, 236ff.

_min tsu_, 36, 99, 120

Ming dynasty, 96, 124

Ming T’ai Tsung, the Emperor, 124

Mo Ti, 93

Mohammedans, 190

Mongol (Yüan) dynasty, 47

Mongolia, 2, 87, 190

Montesquieu, Charles de S., Baron, 112, 221

Mussolini, Benito, 56

National Government of China, The, 3

_nêng_, 107ff., 141, 218

New Deal, the, 238n.

New Life Movement, the, 102n.

_Outline of National Reconstruction, The_, 4

_pa tao_, 71, 200

Pan-Asia, 197ff.

Pareto, Vilfredo, 15ff.

Peffer, Nathaniel, 10n.

Peru, 165

Philippines, 186, 187n., 200

_Philosophy of Sun Wên, The_ (see _Sun Wên Hsüeh Shê_)

Piatiletka (The Five-Year Plan), 132, 238n., 246

Plato, 79

Poland, 168

_Political Testament, The_, 2

Ponce, Mariano, 97

Portuguese, the, 49

Presidency of ancient states, the, 28

Price, Frank W., 4n.

_Primer of Democracy, The_, 4

_Program of National Reconstruction, The_, 4

_pu chih pu chou_, the, 105

P’u Yi, 119n.

Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., 91

Rea, George Bronson, 183

Reichwein, Adolf, 50n.

_Republic, The_, 79

Rome, 215

Roy, Manabendra Nath, 52n.

Russians (_see also_ Soviet Union), 49, 51, 100, 103n., 137, 194ff., 240

_San Min Chu I_, 4ff.

Sharman, Lyon, 1n.

Sheean, Vincent, 161n.

_shen ch’üan_, 100n.

_Shih Yeh Chi Hua_, 4

Shryock, John K., 36n.

Shun, the Emperor, 97, 168

Siam, 187

Smith, Adam, 237

Smith, Arthur, 40n.

South Manchuria Railway, The, 179

Soviets in China, 2, 212

Soviet Union (U. S. S. R.), 64, 147, 155n., 184ff., 189, 199, 201

Spring and Autumn Period, 27

Stalin, Joseph, 56, 158n.

Starr, Frederick, 23n.

Stoddard, Lothrop, 197

Sun-Joffe Manifesto, The, 64

_Sun Wên Hsüeh Shê_, 4

Sun Yat-sen, Mme. (née Soong Ching-ling), 122n., 158n., 159n., 253n.

Sung Chiao-jên, 138

Sung dynasty, 58

_ta chia_, 141

_ta t’ung_, 120, 210, 261

Tagore, Sir Rabindranath, 132, 156n.

Tai Chi-tao, 69

Tai-p’ing Rebellion, the, 50, 58, 172

Taiwan (Formosa), 44n., 51n.

T’ang Liang-li (T’ang Leang-li), 5n., 56n.

_tang pu_, 164

Taoism, 25

Tao Kuang, the Emperor, 243

Tawney, R. H., 45n.

_têh_ (_tê_), 31ff.

Thomas, Elbert Duncan, 25n.

Tibet, 2, 190

Triad Society, the, 41

_Triple Demism, The_ (see _San Min Chu I_)

_Ts’an Yi Yüan_, the, 228

Tsao Kun, 119n.

Tsiang Kuen, 236n.

Tsinanfu, 205

Tsui Shu-chin 10n.

_Tsung Li_, 162

Tung Meng Hui, 136ff.

Turkey, 199, 201

Tyau, Minch’ien T. Z., 5n.

United States of America, The, 79, 97, 112, 130, 187n., 188, 199, 205

Versailles Conference, the, 190

Vilenskii (Sibiriakov), V., 4n.

Vinacke, Harold Monk, 227n.

Vladislavich, 243

Wang An-shih, 58

Wang Ch’ing-wei, 5, 164, 206

Wang Mang, 58

_wang tao_, 71

Wang Yang-ming, 80n., 84

Warring States, the Age of, 27

Washington Conference, the, 188

Weale, Putnam (B. L. Simpson), 50, 225

Weber, Max, 15

Wei Yung, 4n.

Wên Wang, the, 168

Wieger, Leon, 32n.

Wilhelm, Richard, 23n., 68

William, Maurice, 10, 72, 142ff.

Williams, S. Wells, 44, 122n.

Wilson, Woodrow, 6, 190

Wittfogel, Karl, 4n.

Wou Saofong, 111n.

Wu Pei-fu, 222n.

Yangtze river (the _Ch’ang Chiang_), 100

Yao, the Emperor, 76, 97, 219, 233

Yellow river (the _Huang Ho_), 100

Yen Shing Kung, the, 44n.

_yi_ (_i_), 31ff.

Yoshemitsu, the Ashikaga Shogun, 183

Yuan, the Five, 224

Yüan dynasty (_see_ Mongol dynasty)

Yüan Shih-k’ai, 159, 166, 173, 183, 220, 251

_yüeh_, 91ff.






FOOTNOTES


_    1 China Today_ (March, 1935), I, No. 6, p. 112. This is the leading
      English-language journal of the Chinese Communists. Mme. Sun’s
      letter to the paper is characteristic of the attitude toward Nanking
      adopted throughout the magazine.

    2 These manuscripts consist of the following chief items: Linebarger,
      Paul Myron Wentworth, _Conversations with Sun Yat-sen 1919-1922_
      (written in 1933-1935); the same, _A Commentary on the San Min Chu
      I_ (four volumes, 1932-1933); and Sun Yat-sen, _How China Was Made a
      Republic_ (Shanghai, 1919). These are all typescripts, with
      autograph corrections by their respective authors. The manuscripts
      of Judge Linebarger represent his attempts to replace, from memory,
      books which were destroyed at the time of the bombardment of the
      Commercial Press in Shanghai by the Japanese. He had prepared a
      two-volume work on the life and principles of Sun Yat-sen and had
      left his manuscripts and other papers in the vaults of the Press.
      When the Press was bombed the manuscripts, documents, plates and
      Chinese translations were all destroyed; the only things remaining
      were a few pages of proof sheets for _The Life and Principles of Sun
      Chung-san_, which remain in the possession of the present author.
      Judge Linebarger attempted to replace these volumes. He had a few
      notebooks in which he had kept the outlines of his own speeches; he
      had not used these, because of the secondary value. When, however,
      the major volumes were lost, he returned to these notebooks and
      reconstructed his speeches. They were issued in Paris in 1932 under
      the title of _The Gospel of Sun Chung-shan_. He also prepared the
      _Commentary_ and the _Conversations_ from memory. These manuscripts
      possess a certain somewhat questionable value. Judge Linebarger
      himself suggested that they be allowed the same weight that
      testimony, based upon memory but delivered under oath, upon a
      subject ten years past would receive in a court of justice. The
      seven volumes described are in the possession of the present author.
      Other materials to which the author has had access are his father’s
      diaries and various other private papers; but since he has not cited
      them for references, he does not believe any description of them
      necessary. Finally, there are the manuscripts of _Sun Yat-sen and
      the Chinese Republic_, which contain a considerable amount of
      material deleted from the published version of that work, which
      appeared in New York in 1925. For comments on other source material
      for Sun Yat-sen which is not generally used, see Bibliography.

    3 Lyon Sharman, _Sun Yat-sen, His Life and Its Meaning_, New York,
      1934, p. 405.

    4 He did this in his _Political Testament_, which is given in almost
      every work on Sun Yat-sen or on modern Chinese politics. It was
      written in February and signed in March 1925, shortly before his
      death.

    5 The Chinese text of these is given in Hu Han-min, _ed._, _Tsung-li
      Ch’üan Chi_ (_The Complete Works of the Leader_), 4 vol. in 1,
      Shanghai, 1930. This collection comprises the most important works
      of Sun which were published in his lifetime. Edited by one of the
      two scholars closest to Sun, it is the standard edition of his
      works. English versions of varying amounts of this material are
      given in Paschal M. d’Elia, _The Triple Demism of Sun Yat-sen_,
      Wuchang, 1931; Frank W. Price, _San Min Chu I, The Three Principles
      of the People_, Shanghai, 1930; and Leonard Shih-lien Hsü, _Sun
      Yat-sen, His Political and Social Ideals_, Los Angeles, 1933. Each
      of these works will henceforth be cited by the name of its editor;
      for brief descriptions and appraisals, see the bibliography.

    6 The only English version of this work is one prepared by Wei Yung,
      under the title of _The Cult of Dr. Sun_, Shanghai, 1931. Fragments
      of this work are also to be found in Vilenskii (Sibiriakov), V.,
      _Sun’ Iat-sen, Otets Kitaiskoi Revoliutsii_, (_Sun Yat-sen, Father
      of the Chinese Revolution_), Moscow, 1925; _Zapiski Kitaiskogo
      Revoliutsionera_, (_Notes of a Chinese Revolutionary_), Moscow,
      1926; _Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary_, Philadelphia, n. d.; and
      Karl Wittfogel, _Sun Yat Sen, Aufzeichnungen eines chinesischen
      Revolutionärs_, Vienna & Berlin, n. d. (ca. 1927).

    7 This work has not been translated into any Western language.

    8 Sun Yat-sen, _The International Development of China_, New York and
      London, 1929.

    9 This is given in Hsü, cited above, and in Min-ch’ien T. Z. Tyau,
      _Two Years of Nationalist China_, Shanghai, 1930, pp. 439-442. Dr.
      Tyau substitutes the word “Fundamentals” for “Outline,” a rather
      happy choice.

   10 See bibliography for a complete list of the translations. d’Elia
      translation, cited, pp. 36-49, dedicates a whole chapter to the
      problem of an adequate translation of the Chinese phrase _San Min
      Chu I_. He concludes that it can only be rendered by a nelogism
      based upon Greek roots: _the triple demism_, “demism” including the
      meaning of “principle concerning and for the people” and “popular
      principle.”

   11 T’ang Leang-li, _The Inner History of the Chinese Revolution_, New
      York, 1930, p. 166.

   12 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 58.

   13 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 58.

   14 See Lyon Sharman, _Sun Yat-sen, His Life and Its Meaning_, New York,
      1934, p. 292, for a stimulating discussion of the parts that the
      various documents played in the so-called "cult of Sun Yat-sen."

   15 Sharman, cited, p. 270.

   16 A typical instance of this sort of criticism is to be found in the
      annotations to the anonymous translation of the _San Min Chu I_
      which was published by a British newspaper in 1927 (_The Three
      Principles_, Shanghai, 1927). The translator and annotator both
      remained anonymous; the translation was wholly inadequate; and the
      annotations a marvel of invective. Almost every page of the
      translation was studded with notes pointing out and gloating over
      the most trivial errors and inconsistencies. The inflamed opinion of
      the time was not confined to the Chinese.

   17 Paul M. W. Linebarger, _Deutschlands Gegenwärtige Gelegenheiten in
      China_, Brussels, 1936, p. 53. Judge Linebarger repeats the story
      told him by General Morris Cohen, the Canadian who was Sun’s
      bodyguard throughout this period.

   18 Nathaniel Peffer, _China: The Collapse of a Civilization_, New York,
      1930, p. 155.

   19 d’Elia, cited; Hsü, cited; and Wittfogel, cited.

   20 Maurice William, _Sun Yat-sen Versus Communism_, Baltimore, 1932;
      and Tsui Shu-chin, _The Influence of the Canton-Moscow Entente upon
      Sun Yat-sen’s Political Philosophy_, in _The Social and Political
      Science Review_, XVIII, 1, 2, 3, Peiping, 1934; and other works
      listed in bibliography, pp. 268-269.

   21 Two such are the chapters on Sun Yat-sen’s thought to be found in
      Harley Farnsworth MacNair, _China in Revolution_, Chicago, 1931, pp.
      78-91 (Chapter VI, “The Ideology and Plans of Sun Yat-sen”) and
      Arthur N. Holcombe, _The Chinese Revolution_, Cambridge
      (Massachusetts), 1930, pp. 120-155 (Chapter V, “The Revolutionary
      Politics of Sun Yat-sen”). The former is the shorter of the two, and
      is a summary of the various documents involved. The distinction
      between the ideology and the plans is so convenient and illuminating
      that the present writer has adopted it. Except for the comments on
      the influence of William upon Sun Yat-sen, it is completely
      reliable. The latter is a discussion, rather than an outline, and
      admirably presents the gist of Sun’s thought.

   22 Holcombe, cited, p. 136 ff.

   23 The word “ideology” is one of the catchwords of the hour. The author
      regrets having to use it, but dares not coin a neologism to replace
      it. He does not desire that “ideology” be opposed to “truth,” but
      uses the word in its broadest possible sense, referring to the whole
      socio-psychological conditioning of a group of people. He does not,
      therefore, speak of ideologies as a collection of Paretian
      derivations, fictions which mask some “truth.” He considers his own
      background—or Pareto’s, for that matter—as ideological, and—in the
      sense of the word here employed—cannot conceive of any human belief
      or utterance _not_ ideological. The task he has set himself is the
      transposition of a pattern of Chinese ideas concerning government
      from the Chinese ideology to the Western-traditionalist ideology of
      the twentieth century. Whether one, the other, neither, or both, is
      “right,” is quite beside the point, so far as the present enterprise
      is concerned. In calling the whole non-physical background of a
      society the ideology of that society, the author can excuse his
      novel use of the term only if he admits that he establishes the new
      meaning by definition, without any necessary reference to the
      previous use of the term. He has no intention of following, in the
      present work, any “theory of ideology” or definition of “ideology”
      established by political philosophers, such as Marx, or sociologists
      such as Weber, Mannheim, or Pareto. (Professor A. O. Lovejoy
      suggested the following definition of the term, “ideology,” after
      having seen the way it was employed in this work: “_Ideology_ means
      a complex of ideas, in part ethical, in part political, in part
      often religious, which is current in a society, or which the
      proponents of it desire to make current, as an effective means of
      controlling behavior.”)

   24 Confucianism may be read in the Legge translations, a popular
      abridged edition of which was issued in 1930 in Shanghai under the
      title of _The Four Books_. Commentaries on Confucius which present
      him in a well-rounded setting are Richard Wilhelm, _Confucius and
      Confucianism_, New York, 1931; the same, _Ostasien, Werden und
      Wandel des Chinesischen Kulturkreises_, Potsdam, 1928, for a very
      concise account and the celebrated _Geschichte der chinesischen
      Kultur_, Munich, 1928, for a longer account in a complete historical
      setting; Frederick Starr, _Confucianism_, New York, 1930; H. G.
      Creel, _Sinism_, Chicago, 1929; and Marcel Granet, _La Civilization
      Chinoise_, Paris, 1929. Bibliographies are found in several of these
      works. They deal with Confucius either in his historical setting or
      as the main object of study, and are under no necessity of
      distorting Confucius’ historical rôle for the purpose of showing his
      connection with some other topic. The reader may gauge the amount of
      distortion necessary when he imagines a work on Lenin, written for
      the information and edification of Soviet Eskimos, which—for the
      sake of clarity—was forced to summarize all Western thought, from
      Plato and Jesus Christ down to Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx, in a few
      pages providing a background to Lenin.

   25 There is a work on Confucianism upon which the author has leaned
      quite heavily: Leonard Shih-lien Hsü, _The Political Philosophy of
      Confucianism_, New York, 1932. Dr. Hsü is interested in sociological
      political theory. The novelty of his work has aroused a great amount
      of criticism among Chinese scholars of the older disciplines,
      whether the relatively conservative and established Western
      disciplines or the ultra-conservative schools of the truly classical
      literati. His work cannot be recommended for any purposes other than
      those which Dr. Hsü himself had in mind; there are several other
      works, the product of philosophers, historians, and literary
      historians, which will present a portrait of Confucius and
      Confucianism more conventionally exact. In its own narrow but
      definite field Dr. Hsü’s work is an impressive accomplishment; he
      transposes the Confucian terms into those of the most advanced
      schools of social thought. A reader not forewarned might suffer by
      this, and read into Confucius an unwarranted modernity of outlook;
      if, however, the up-to-dateness is recognized as Dr. Hsü’s and not
      Confucius’, the work is valuable. It puts Confucius on common ground
      with modern social theory, ground on which he does not belong, but
      where his ideas are still relevant and interesting. The present
      author follows Dr. Hsü in this transposition of Confucius, but begs
      the reader to remember that this is one made for purposes of
      comparison only, and not intended as valid for all purposes. (He
      must acknowledge the stimulating criticism of Mr. Jan Tai, of the
      Library of Congress, who made it clear that this distortion of
      Confucius was one which could be excused only if it were
      admitted.)—An interesting presentation of Confucius as transposed
      into the older political theory, untouched by sociology, is to be
      found in Senator Elbert Duncan Thomas, _Chinese Political Thought_,
      New York, 1927.

   26 Granet, _Chinese Civilization_, cited, p. 84. Granet’s work, while
      challenged by many sinologues as well as by anthropologists, is the
      most brilliant portrayal of Chinese civilization to the time of Shih
      Huang Ti. His interpretations make the language of the _Odes_
      (collected by Confucius) intelligible, and clear up the somewhat
      obscure transition from the oldest feudal society to the epoch of
      the proto-nations and then to the inauguration of the world order.

   27 Granet, cited, pp. 87-88.

   28 Richard Wilhelm, _Geschichte der chinesischen Philosophie_, Breslau,
      1929, p. 19.

   29 One could therefore say that membership in a society is determined
      by the outlook of the individual concerned.

   30 In modern Western political thought, this doctrine is most clearly
      demonstrated in the Marxian thesis of the withering-away of the
      state. The Marxists hold that, as the relics of the class struggle
      are eliminated from the new society, and classlessness and uniform
      indoctrination come to prevail, the necessity for a state—which
      they, however, consider an instrument of class domination—will
      decline and the state will atrophy and disappear.

   31 Liang Ch’i-ch’ao, _History of Chinese Political Thought during the
      early Tsin Period_, translated by L. T. Chen, New York, 1930, p. 38.

   32 Liang Ch’i-ch’ao (cited, p. 48 and following) discusses these
      points.—The author is indebted to Mr. Jên Tai for the explanation of
      the relation of these various factors in the Confucian ideology.

   33 Leon Wieger and L. Davrout, _Chinese Characters_, Hsien-hsien, 1927,
      p. 6.

   34 Hsü, cited above, chapter three, contains an excellent discussion of
      the doctrine of rectification.

   35 A stimulating discussion of the pragmatism of early Chinese thought
      is to be found in Creel, cited.

   36 It must be pointed out in this connection that Confucius advocated
      an ideology which would not only be socially useful but
      scientifically and morally exact. He did not consider, as have some
      Western thinkers of the past century, that the ideology might be a
      quite amoral instrument of control, and might contain deliberate or
      unconscious deception. Hsü writes, in his _Confucianism_, cited, p.
      93, of the various translations of the word _li_ into English: “The
      word _li_ has no English equivalent. It has been erroneously
      translated as ‘rites’ or ‘propriety’. It has been suggested that the
      term civilization is its nearest English equivalent; but
      ‘civilization’ is a broader term, without necessarily implying
      ethical values, while _li_ is essentially a term implying such
      values.” _Li_ is civilized behavior; that is, behavior which is
      civilized in being in conformance with the ideology and the values
      it contains.

   37 Hsü, cited, p. 103.

   38 Confucius the individual was quite nationalistically devoted to his
      native state of Lu, and, more philosophically, hostile to the
      barbarians. Hsü, cited, p. 118.

   39 John K. Shryock, _The Origin and Development of The State Cult of
      Confucius_, New York, 1932, traces this growth with great clarity
      and superlative scholarship. The work is invaluable as a means to
      the understanding of the political and educational structure
      commonly called “Confucian civilization.”

   40 This expansion took place in China in the reign of Ch’in Shih Huang
      Ti, who used the state of Ch’in as an instrument by means of which
      to destroy the multiple state-system and replace it with a powerful
      unitary state for all China. He sought to wipe out the past, raising
      the imperial office to a position of real power, and destroying the
      whole feudal organization. He abolished tenantry and supplanted it
      with a system of small freeholds. Although his immediate successors
      did much to restore the forms and appearances of the past, his work
      was not altogether undone. Himself hostile to Confucius, his actions
      implemented the teachings to an enormous degree. See Granet, cited,
      pp. 96-104.

   41 D. H. Kulp, _Family Life in South China_, New York, 1925, p. xxiv.

   42 H. G. Creel, cited, p. 10. Creole writes as follows of the
      significance of the village: “The village life is very important,
      for it appears to be the archetype from which the entire Chinese
      conception of the world and even of the cosmos grew. The village
      was, as has been said, small. It was based on agriculture. It was
      apparently a community of a peaceful regularity and a social
      solidarity beyond anything which we of the present can imagine.”

   43 Arthur Smith, one of the few Westerners to live in a Chinese village
      for any length of years, wrote: “It is a noteworthy fact that the
      government of China, while in theory more or less despotic, places
      no practical restrictions upon the right of free assemblage by the
      people for the consideration of their own affairs. The people of any
      village can, if they choose, meet every day of the year. There is no
      government censor present, and no restriction upon the liberty of
      debate. The people can say what they like, and the local Magistrate
      neither knows nor cares what is said.... But should insurrection
      break out, these popular rights might be extinguished in a moment, a
      fact of which all the people are perfectly well aware.” _Village
      Life in China_, New York, 1899, p. 228. This was written thirteen
      years before the fall of the Ch’ing dynasty.

   44 J. S. Burgess, _The Guilds of Peking_, New York, 1928. This is
      perhaps the best work on the subject of the guilds which has yet
      appeared. The information was gathered by the students of the
      author, who as a teacher had excellent facilities for developing
      contacts. The students, as Chinese, were able to gather data from
      the conservative guild leaders in a manner and to a degree that no
      Westerner could have done. The classification here given is a
      modification of Burgess’.

   45 S. Wells Williams, _The Middle Kingdom_, New York, 1895, p. 405. Dr.
      Williams, whose work is perhaps the most celebrated single work on
      China in the English language, wrote as follows concerning the
      nobility under the Ch’ing:

      “The titular nobility of the Empire, as a whole, is a body whose
      members are without power, land, wealth, office, or influence, in
      virtue of their honors; some of them are more or less hereditary,
      but the whole system has been so devised, and the designations so
      conferred, as to tickle the vanity of those who receive them,
      without granting them any real power. The titles are not derived
      from landed estates, but the rank is simply designated in addition
      to the name....” He also pointed out that, under the Ch’ing, the
      only hereditary titles of any significance were _Yen Shing Kung_
      (for the descendant of Confucius) and _Hai Ching Kung_ (for the
      descendant of Kuo Hsing-hua, the formidable sea adventurer who drove
      the Dutch out of Taiwan and made himself master of that island).

   46 William Frederick Mayers, _The Chinese Government, A Manual of
      Chinese Titles ..._, Shanghai, 1897, devotes one hundred and
      ninety-five pages to the enumeration of the Ch’ing titles. His work,
      intended to be used as an office manual for foreigners having
      relations with Chinese officials, remains extremely useful as a
      presentation of the administrative outline of the Chinese government
      in its last days before the appearance of Sun Yat-sen and the
      Kuomintang. Pao Chao Hsieh, _The Government of China (1644-1911)_,
      Baltimore, 1925, is a more descriptive work dealing with the whole
      administration of the Ch’ing dynasty. No work has as yet appeared in
      the West, to the knowledge of the present author, which describes
      the historical development of government in China in any detail.

   47 The figures given are those of the present day, which may be more or
      less exact for the past century. For earlier times, the number will
      have to be reduced in proportion with the remoteness in time. See
      Richard Henry Tawney, _Land and Labour in China_, London, 1932.

   48 Richard Wilhelm, _Confucius and Confucianism_, cited, pp. 130-132.
      The connection between the naming of names and the operation of the
      popular check of revolution is made evident by Wilhelm in a
      brilliant passage. If a righteous ruler died a violent death at the
      hands of one of his subjects, he was murdered; were he unrighteous,
      he was only killed. Confucius himself used such terms in his annals.
      His use of varying terms, terms carrying condemnation or
      condonement, even of such a subject as regicide, electrified the
      scholars of his day.

   49 An exception must be made in the case of the first Russian colony in
      Peking, which was lost in two centuries and became virtually
      indistinguishable from the mass of the population. The Portuguese,
      at Macao, displayed that tendency to compromise and miscegenate
      which marked their whole progress along the coasts of Asia, but they
      maintained their political supremacy in that city; today the
      Macanese are largely of Chinese blood, but Portuguese-speaking, and
      proud of their separateness.

   50 Too many works have been written on the relations of the Chinese and
      Westerners to permit any citations, with one exception. Putnam
      Weale’s _The Vanished Empire_, New York, 1925, is an extraordinarily
      vivid history of the collision of the civilizations. It is not
      particularly commendable as a factual record, but as a brilliant and
      moving piece of literature presenting the Chinese viewpoint, it is
      unexcelled.

   51 See Adolf Reichwein, _China and Europe: Intellectual and Artistic
      Contacts in the Eighteenth Century_, New York, 1925, which makes
      apparent the full extent to which modern Europe is indebted to China
      for the luxuries of its culture.

   52 In this connection, it might be pointed out that the attractive
      strength of the two civilizations has not, as yet, been adequately
      studied, although there is an enormous amount of loose
      generalization on the subject: “The Chinese are becoming completely
      Westernized,” or “The Chinese, in spite of their veneer, are always
      Chinese; they will, in the end, absorb their conquerors.” But will
      they? In the face of a modern educational and propaganda system,
      there is at least room for doubt; it is not beyond all conjecture
      that the Chinese of Manchuria might be Japanized as easily as the
      fiercely chauvinistic Japanese might be sinicized. The only adequate
      answer to the question would be through detailed studies of the
      social conditioning and preferences of Chinese under foreign
      influence (as in Hongkong, Taiwan, Manchuria), and of foreigners
      under Chinese influence (the White Russians in China, the few other
      Westerners in preëminently Chinese milieux).

   53 An example of this is to be found in Manabendra Nath Roy,
      _Revolution und Konterrevolution in China_, Berlin, 1930. Roy was
      one of the emissaries of the Third International to the
      Nationalists, and his ineptness in practical politics assisted
      materially in the weakening of the Communist position. His work
      quite seriously employs all the familiar clichés of Western class
      dispute, and analyzes the Chinese situation in terms that ignore the
      fact that China is Chinese.

   54 This same line of attack seems, in the West, to be employed only by
      the Catholic church which, while opposing any avowedly
      collectivistic totalitarian state, seeks to maintain control on an
      ideological and not a political basis, over almost all aspects of
      the life of its members. No political party or governing group seems
      to share this attitude.

   55 Karl A. Wittfogel, in his _Sun Yat-sen_, cited, as well as Roy, in
      the work cited, thinks very little of the justice of Confucianism.
      The extreme mobility of Chinese society, which largely precluded the
      development of any permanent class rule, is either unknown to them
      or ignored. If the ideologue-officials of old China composed a
      class, they were a class like no other known, for they provided for
      the continuous purging of their own class, and its continuous
      recruitment from all levels of society—excepting that of prostitutes
      and soldiers.

   56 T’ang Leang-li writes, in _The Inner History of the Chinese
      Revolution_, New York, 1930, p. 168, as follows concerning Sun
      Yat-sen’s early teaching of nationalism:

      “Previous to the Republican Revolution of 1911, the principle of
      nationality was known as the principle of racial struggle, and was
      in effect little more than _a primitive tribalism rationalized to
      serve as a weapon_ in the struggle against the Manchu oppressors. It
      was the corner-stone of revolutionary theory, and by emphasizing the
      racial distinction between the ruling and the oppressed classes,
      succeeded in uniting the entire Chinese people against the Manchu
      dynasty.” (Italics mine.) In speaking of _min ts’u_ as a primitive
      tribalism which had been rationalized as a weapon, Dr. T’ang might
      lead some of his readers to infer that Sun Yat-sen did not believe
      what he taught, and that—as a master-stroke of practical politics—he
      had devised an ideological weapon which, regardless of its
      truthfulness, would serve him in his struggles. But, it may be
      asked, what was Sun Yat-sen struggling for, if not the union and
      preservation of the Chinese people?

   57 See sections, below, on the programs of nationalism.

   58 d’Elia translation, p. 131. Sun Yat-sen said: “Formerly China too
      entertained the ambition of becoming mistress of the whole world and
      of rising above all other countries; so she (too) advocated
      cosmopolitanism.... When the Manchus entered the Great Wall, they
      were very few; they numbered 100,000 men. How were those 100,000 men
      able to subject hundreds of millions of others? Because the majority
      of Chinese at that time favored cosmopolitanism and said nothing
      about nationalism.”

   59 d’Elia translation, pp. 126 ff.

   60 It seems to the present writer that, whatever criteria are selected
      for the determination of the nationhood of a given society,
      _uniqueness_ certainly is _not_ one of the qualities attributed to a
      “nation.” It is not appropriate for the author to venture upon any
      extended search for a “true nation”; he might observe, however, that
      in his own use—in contrast to Sun Yat-sen’s—he employs the term in a
      consciously relative sense, contrasting it with the old Chinese
      cosmopolitan society, which thought itself unique except for certain
      imitations of itself on the part of half-civilized barbarians. A
      “nation” must signify, among other things, for the purposes of this
      work, a society calling itself such and recognizing the existence of
      other societies of more or less the same nature. Sun Yat-sen, on the
      other hand, regarded a nation as a group of persons as real as a
      family group, and consistently spoke of the Chinese nation as having
      existed throughout the ages—even in those times when the Chinese
      themselves regarded their own society as the civilized world, and
      did so with some show of exactness, if their own viewpoint is taken
      into account.

   61 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 130-131. d’Elia’s italics, covering
      the last two sentences in the quotation, have been omitted as
      superfluous. As an illustration of the difference between the
      translation of d’Elia and that of Hsü, the same paragraph might also
      be cited from the latter translation. “The ethical value of
      everything is relative and so nothing in the world is innately good
      or innately bad. It is determined by circumstances. A thing that is
      useful to us is a good thing; otherwise, a bad thing. Also, a thing
      that is useful and advantageous to the world is a good thing;
      otherwise, a bad thing.” Hsü translation, cited, pp. 210-211.
      Excepting for occasional purposes of comparison, the translation of
      Father d’Elia will be referred to in citing the sixteen lectures on
      the _San Min Chu I_.

   62 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 70. The curiously significant use of
      the word “forever” is reminiscent of the teleology of the Chinese
      family system, according to which the flesh-and-blood immortality of
      man, and the preservation of identity through the survival of
      descendants, is a true immortality.

_   63 Wo-men Chung-kuo jen_ and _ni-men wai-kuo jen_.

   64 Paul M. Linebarger, _The Life and Principles of Sun Chung-shan_, p.
      102. There is here told the anecdote of Sun Yat-sen’s first
      encounter with race-hatred. At Ewa, Hawaii, in 1880, Sun, then a
      young lad just arrived from China, met a Westerner on the road. The
      Westerner threatened him, and called him “Damn Chinaman!” and
      various other epithets. When Sun Yat-sen discovered that the man was
      neither deranged nor intoxicated, but simply venting his general
      hatred of all Chinese, he was so much impressed with the incident
      that he never forgot it.

   65 Hsü translation, cited, p. 168; d’Elia translation, cited, p. 68.

   66 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 70.

   67 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 71.

   68 Sun Yat-sen said: “A scrap of paper, a pen, and a mutual agreement
      will be enough for the ruin of China ... in order to wipe her out by
      common agreement, it suffices that the diplomats of the different
      countries meet somewhere and affix their signatures.... One morning
      will suffice to annihilate a nation.” d’Elia translation, cited, p.
      170.

   69 The danger of relying too much on foreign aid can be illustrated by
      a reference to Sun-Joffe Manifesto issued in Shanghai, January 26,
      1922. Sun Yat-sen, as the leader of the Chinese Nationalist
      movement, and Adolf Joffe, as the Soviet Special Envoy, signed a
      joint statement, the first paragraph of which reads as follows:

      “Dr. Sun Yat-sen 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 the successful establishment of
      either Communism or Sovietism. This view is entirely shared by Mr.
      Joffe who is further of the opinion that China’s paramount and most
      pressing problem is to achieve unification and attain full national
      independence, and regarding this great task he has assured Dr. Sun
      Yat-sen that China has the warmest sympathy of the Russian people
      and can count on the support of Russia.”

      See T’ang Leang-li, cited, p. 156.

      In view of the subsequent Communist attempt, in 1927, to convert the
      Nationalist movement into a mere stage in the proletarian conquest
      of power in China, in violation of the terms of the understanding
      upon which the Communists and the Chinese Nationalists had worked
      together, the leaders of the Kuomintang are today as mistrustful of
      what they term Communist politico-cultural imperialism as they are
      of capitalist politico-economic imperialism. It is curious that the
      APRA leaders in Peru have adopted practically the same attitude.

   70 It is necessary to remember that in the four decades before 1925,
      during which Sun Yat-sen advocated _nationalism_, the word had not
      acquired the ugly connotations that recent events have given it. The
      nationalism of Sun Yat-sen was conceived of by him as a pacific and
      defensive instrument, for the perpetuation of an independent Chinese
      race and civilization. See Paul M. W. Linebarger, _Conversations
      with Sun Yat-sen, 1919-1922_, Book I, ch. 5, “Defensive
      Nationalism,” and ch. 6, “Pacific Nationalism,” for a further
      discussion of this phase of Sun Yat-sen’s thought.

_   71 tien sha wei kung._

   72 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 184. A reference to clan organization,
      to be discussed later, has been deleted.

   73 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 181 (summary of the sixth lecture on
      nationalism).

   74 Richard Wilhelm’s preface to _Die Geistigen Grundlagen des Sun Yat
      Senismus_ of Tai Chi-tao (The Intellectual Foundations of
      Sun-Yat-senism), Berlin, 1931 (henceforth cited as “Tai Chi-tao”),
      pp. 8-9; “Die Grösse Sun Yat Sens beruht nun darauf, dass er eine
      lebendige Synthese gefunden hat zwischen den Grundprinzipien des
      Konfuzianismus and den Anforderungen der neuen Zeit, eine Synthese,
      die über die Grenzen Chinas hinaus für die ganze Menschheit noch
      einmal von Bedeutung werden kann. Sun Yat Sen vereinigt in sich die
      eherne Konsequenz des Revolutionärs und die grosse Menschenliebe des
      Erneuerers. Sun Yat Sen ist der gütigste von allen Revolutionären
      der Menschheit gewesen. Und diese Güte hat er dem Erbe des Konfuzius
      entnommen. So steht sein geistiges Werk da als eine verbindende
      Brücke swischen der alten und der neuen Zeit. Und es wird das Heil
      Chinas sein, wenn es entschlossen diese Brücke beschreitet.”

   75 Tai Chi-tao, cited, p. 65.

   76 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 186.

   77 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 187-8. Sun Yat-sen’s discussion of
      the old morality forms the first part of his lecture on nationalism,
      pp. 184-194 of the d’Elia translation.

   78 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 66. The translation employs the words.

   79 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 129. In connection with the doctrine
      of _wang tao_, it may be mentioned that this doctrine has been made
      the state philosophy of “Manchukuo.” See the coronation issue of the
      _Manchuria Daily News_, Dairen, March 1, 1934, pp. 71-80, and the
      _Japan-Manchoukuo Year Book_, Tokyo, 1934, pp. 634-635. The advocacy
      of _wang tao_ in a state which is a consequence of one of the
      perfect illustrations of _pa tao_ in the modern Far East, is
      astonishing. Its use does possess significance, in demonstrating
      that the shibboleths of ancient virtue are believed by the Japanese
      and by “Emperor Kang Teh” to possess value in contemporary politics.

   80 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 528, 529.

   81 See below, for discussion of the influence that Henry George, Karl
      Marx, and Maurice William had upon the social interpretation of
      history so far as economic matters were concerned.

   82 See “The Theory of the Confucian World Society,” above.

   83 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 341.

   84 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 199.

   85 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 194.

   86 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 194. The original quotation, in
      Chinese and in English, may be found in James Legge, translator,
      _The Four Books_, Shanghai, 1930, p. 313.

   87 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 194-195.

   88 Judge Paul Linebarger, in _Conversations with Sun Yat-sen_
      (unpublished), states that Sun said to him: “China will go down in
      history as the greatest literary civilization the world has ever
      known, or ever will know, but what good does this deep literary
      knowledge do us if we cannot combine it with the modernity of
      Western science?” p. 64, Book Four.

   89 Tai Chi-tao, cited, p. 62. The passage reads in full: “Sun Yat-sen
      umfasst vollkommen die wahren Gedanken Chinas, wie sie bei Yau und
      Schun und auch bei Kung Dsï und Mong Dsï wiederfinden. Dadurch wird
      uns klar, dass Sun Yat Sen der Erneuerer der seit 2000 Jahre
      ununterbrochenen chinesischen sittlichen Kultur ist. Im vergangenen
      Jahr hat ein russischer Revolutionär an Sun Yat Sen die folgende
      Frage gerichtet: ‘Welche Grundlage haben Ihre Revolutionsgedanken?’
      Sun Yat Sen hat darauf geantwortet: ‘In China hat es ein sittlichen
      Gedanken gegeben, der von Yau, Schun, Yü, Tang, Wen Wang, Wu Wang,
      Dschou Gung his zu Kung Dsï getragen worden ist; seither ist er
      ununterbrochen, ich habe wieder an ihn angeknüpft und versacht, ihn
      weiter zu entwickeln.’ Der Fragende hat dies nicht verstehen können
      und sich weiter erkundigt; Sun Yat Sen hat noch mehrmals versucht,
      ihm seine Antwort zu erklären. Aus dieser Unterredung können wir
      ersehen, dass Sun Yat Sen von seine Gedanken überzeugt war,
      gleichzeitig können wir ersehen, dass seine Nationalrevolution auf
      dem Widererwachen der chinesischen Kultur beruht. Er hat die
      schöpferische Kraft Chinas wieder ins Leben rufen und den Wert der
      chinesischen Kultur fur die ganze Welt nutzbar machen wollen, um
      somit den Universalismus verwirklichen zu können.” Allowance will
      have to be made, as it should always in the case of Tai Chi-tao, for
      the author’s deep appreciation of and consequent devotion to the
      virtues of Chinese culture. Other disciples of Sun Yat-sen wrote in
      a quite different vein. The present author inclines to the opinion,
      however, that Tai Chi-tao’s summary is a just rendition of Sun
      Yat-sen’s attitude. Sun Yat-sen loved and fought for the struggling
      masses of China, whose misery was always before his pitying eyes; he
      also fought for the accomplishments of Chinese civilization. In
      modern China, many leaders have fought for the culture, and
      forgotten the masses (men such as Ku Hung-ming were typical); others
      loved the populace and forgot the culture. It was one of the
      elements of Sun Yat-sen’s greatness that he was able to remember
      both.

   90 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 199-202.

   91 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 259.

   92 This idea, of wealth as national capacity to produce, is of course
      not a new one. It is found in the writings of Alexander Hamilton,
      among others.

   93 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 337.

   94 Wei Yung, translator, _The Cult of Dr. Sun, Sun Wên Hsüeh Shê_,
      cited. See the discussion on dietetics, pp. 3-9.

   95 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 337.

   96 Wei Yung’s translation, cited, is an English version of _The Outline
      of Psychological Reconstruction_ of Sun Yat-sen. This work is
      devoted to a refutation of the thesis, first propounded by Wang
      Yang-ming (ca. 1472-1528), that knowledge is easy and action
      difficult. In a society where the ideology had been stabilized for
      almost two millenia, this was undoubtedly quite true. In modern
      China, however, faced with the terrific problem of again settling
      the problem of an adequate ideology, the reverse was true: knowledge
      was difficult, and action easy. This was one of the favorite
      aphorisms of Sun Yat-sen, and he devoted much time, effort, and
      thought to making it plain to his countrymen. The comparative points
      of view of Wang Yang-ming and Sun Yat-sen afford a quite clear-cut
      example of the contrast between an established and unsettled
      ideology.

   97 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 336-345. This discussion occurs in
      the fifth lecture on democracy, incidental to Sun Yat-sen’s
      explaining the failure of the parliamentary Republic in Peking, and
      the general inapplicability of Western ideas of democracy to China.

   98 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 344.

   99 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 344.

  100 It might again be pointed out that Sun Yat-sen differed with Marxism
      which, while it, of course, does not hold that all knowledge is
      already found, certainly keeps its own first premises beyond all
      dispute, and its own interpretations sacrosanct. The dialectics of
      Marx and Hegel would certainly appear peculiar in the Chinese
      environment. Without going out of his way to point out the
      difference between Sun’s Nationalism and Marxism-Leninism, the
      author cannot refrain—in view of the quite popular misconception
      that Sun Yat-sen was at one time almost a Marxist convert—from
      pointing out the extreme difference between the premises, the
      methods, and the conclusions of the two philosophies.

  101 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 344.

  102 Hsü, _Confucianism_, cited, contains two chapters relevant to the
      consideration of this problem. Ch. III, “The Doctrine of
      Rectification” (pp. 43-61), and Ch. XI, “Social Evolution” (pp.
      219-232), discuss rectification and ideological development within
      the Confucian ideology.

  103 As an illustration of Dr. Sun’s continued activity as a medical man,
      the author begs the reader’s tolerance of a short anecdote. In 1920
      or 1921, when both Judge Linebarger and Sun Yat-sen were in
      Shanghai, and were working together on the book that was to appear
      as _Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Republic_, the younger son of Judge
      Linebarger—the brother of the present author—fell ill with a rather
      obscure stomach disorder. The Western physicians having made little
      or no progress in the case, Sun Yat-sen intervened with an old
      Chinese herbal prescription, which he, a Western-trained physician,
      was willing to endorse. The remedy was relatively efficacious—more
      so than the suggestions of the European doctors. Even though Sun
      Yat-sen very early abandoned his career of professional medical man
      for that of revolutionist, he appears to have practised medicine
      intermittently throughout his life.

  104 Sun Yat-sen wrote, in Wei Yung translation, cited, p. 115: “In our
      age of scientific progress the undertaker [sic!], seeks to know
      first before undertaking. This is due to the desire to forestall
      blunders and accidents so as to ensure efficiency and economy of
      labor. He who is able to develop ideas from knowledge, plans from
      ideas, and action from plans can be crowned with success in any
      undertaking irrespective of its profoundness or the magnitude of
      labor involved.”

  105 Tai, cited, p. 66: “Wir sind Chinesen, und was wir zunächst zu
      ändern haben liegt in China. Aber wenn alle Dinge in China wertlos
      gewerden sind, wenn die chinesische Kultur in der Kulturgeschichte
      der Welt keine Bedeutung mehr hat, und wenn das chinesische Volk die
      Kraft, seine Kultur hochzuhalten, verloren hat, dann können wir
      gleich mit gebundenen Händen den Tod abwarten; zu welchem Zweck
      brauchen wir dann noch Revolution zu treiben!”

  106 An interesting discussion of this attitude is to be found in Li Chi,
      _The Formation of the Chinese People_, Cambridge (Massachusetts),
      1928.

  107 See Tsui Shu-chin, cited, pp. 96-146. The work of Tsui is good for
      the field covered; his discussion of the contrasting policy of the
      Communists and of Sun Yat-sen with respect to nationalities may be
      regarded as reliable.

  108 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 67 and following.

  109 See above, “The Nation and State in Chinese Antiquity.”

  110 The present state of Western knowledge of the sociology of China is
      not sufficient to warrant reference to any authorities for the
      description of egalitarianism and mobility. These matters are still
      on that level of unspecialized knowledge where every visitor to
      China may observe for himself. The bibliography on the social life
      of the Chinese on pp. 240-242 of Kenneth Scott Latourette, _The
      Chinese: Their History and Culture_, New York, 1934, contains some
      of the leading titles that touch on the subject. Prof. A. R.
      Radcliffe-Brown of the University of Chicago informed the present
      author that he contemplates the planning of an extensive program of
      socio-anthropological field work in Chinese villages which will
      assist considerably in the understanding of the sociology of old
      China.

  111 Hsü, _Confucianism_, cited, p. 49, states the function of the
      Confucian leaders quite succinctly: “... the Confucian school
      advocates political and social reorganization by changing the social
      mind through political action.”

  112 Hsü, cited, p. 104.

  113 Hsü, cited, pp. 195-196.

  114 Mariano Ponce, _Sun Yat Sen, El fundador de la Republica de China_,
      Manila, 1912, p. 23.

      “Y tampoco era posible sustituirla por otra dinastía nacional. Sólo
      existen al presente dos familias en China, de donde podían salir los
      soberanos: uno es la descendencia de la dinastía Ming, de que
      usurparon los mandchüs el trone, hace más de dos siglos y medio, y
      la otra es la del filósofo Confucio, cuyo descendiente lineal
      reconocido es el actual duque Kung. Ni en una, ni en otra existen
      vástagos acondicionados para regir un Estado conforme á los
      requerimientos de los tiempos actuales. Hubo de descartarse, pues,
      de la plataforma de la ‘Joven China’ el pensamiento de instalar en
      el trono á una dinastía nacional. Y sin dinastía holgaba el trono.

      “No sabemos si aún habiendo en las dos familias mencionados miembros
      con condiciones suficientes para ser el Jefe supremo de un Estado
      moderno, hubiese prosperado el programa monarquico.

      “Lo que sí pueda decir es que desde los primeros momentos
      evolucionayon las ideas de Sun Yat Sen hacia el republicanismo....”

      Ponce then goes on to point out Sun Yat-sen’s having said that the
      decentralized system of old government and the comparative autonomy
      of the vice-regencies presented a background of “a sort of
      aristocratic republic” (“une especie de república aristocrática”).

  115 Ponce, cited, p. 24. “... la única garantía posible, el único medio
      por excelencia para obtener los mejores gobernantes....”

  116 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 234.

  117 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 235.

  118 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 255.

  119 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 266, note 1. Father d’Elia discusses
      the reasons which made it seem more probable that Sun was
      transliterating the name Millar into Chinese rather than (John
      Stuart) Mill.

  120 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 256 and following.

  121 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 271.

  122 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 273.

  123 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 242-243.

  124 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 223 and following. Dr. Hsü (cited, p.
      263 and following) translates these four epochs as following: _hung
      fang_, “the stage of the great wilderness”; _shen ch’üan_, “the
      state of theocracy”; _chun ch’üan_, “the stage of monarchy”; and
      _min ch’üan_, “the stage of democracy.”

  125 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 241-242.

  126 Linebarger, _Conversations_, cited, Book II, ch. 2.

  127 It is of interest to note that the “New Life Movement” inaugurated
      by Chiang Chieh-shih is concerned with many such petty matters such
      as those enumerated above. Each of these small problems is in itself
      of little consequence; in the aggregate they loom large.

  128 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 331.

  129 Hsü translation, cited, p. 352. It is interesting to note that the
      translation by Father d’Elia gives a more literal translation of the
      names that Sun Yat-sen applied to these categories. He translates
      the Chinese terms as _pre-seeing_, _post-seeing_, and _non-seeing_.

  130 Hsü translation, cited, p. 352.

  131 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 348.

  132 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 352. Sun Yat-sen defined democracy
      thus: “... under a republican government, the people is sovereign.”

  133 Tai Chi-tao, cited, p. 25, refers to this distinction as being
      between force (_Gewalt_) and power (_Macht_). To the people
      belonged, and rightfully, the force which could sanction or refuse
      to sanction the existence of the government and the confirmation of
      its policies. The government had the power (_Macht_), which the
      people did not have, of formulating intelligent policies and
      carrying them out in an organized manner.

  134 Liang Chi-ch’ao, cited, pp. 50-52.

  135 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 279 and following.

  136 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 368.

  137 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 368-9. Dr. Wou Saofong, in his _Sun
      Yat-sen_ (Paris, 1929), summarizes his thesis of Sun Yat-sen in
      somewhat different terms: “... Sun Yat-sen compare, le gouvernement
      à un appareil mécanique, dont le moteur est constitué _par les lois_
      ou les ministres, tandis que l’ingénieur que dirige la machine était
      autrefois le roi et aujourd’hui le peuple,” p. 124. (Italics mine.)
      This suggestion that the state-machine, in the theory of Sun
      Yat-sen, is composed of laws as well as men is quite interesting;
      Sun Yat-sen himself does not seem to have used this figure of speech
      and it may be Dr. Wou’s applying the juristic interpretation on his
      own initiative. Sun Yat-sen, in his sixth lecture on democracy,
      says, “Statesmen and lawyers of Europe and America say that
      government is a machine of which law is a tool.” (d’Elia
      translation, cited, p. 368.)

  138 It must always remain one of those conjectures upon which scholars
      may expend their fantasy what Sun Yat-sen would have thought of the
      necessity of the juristic state, which involved a quite radical
      change throughout the Chinese social organism, had he lived to see
      the ebb of juristic polity and, for all that, of voting democracy.
      It is not unlikely that his early impressions of the United States
      and his reading of Montesquieu would have led him to retain his
      belief in a juristic-democratic state in spite of the fact that such
      a state would no longer represent the acme of ultra-modernism.

  139 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 378 and following.

  140 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 369.

  141 Reginald Johnston, _Twilight in the Forbidden City_, cited above,
      presents an apparently true account of the conspiracies of the
      various Northern generals which centered around the person of P’u
      Yi. According to Johnston Tsao Kun was defeated in his attempt to
      restore the Manchu Emperor only by the jealousies of his
      fellow-militarists.

  142 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 406.

  143 Father d’Elia devotes the whole second chapter of his introduction
      to the consideration of a suitable rendition of _San Min Chu I_,
      which he calls the Triple Demism. (Work cited, pp. 36-49.) Again on
      p. 402, he explains that, while he had translated _min shêng_ as
      _socialism_ in the first French edition of his work, he now renders
      it as _the economic Demism_ or _sociology_. The most current
      translation, that of Frank Price, cited, gives _the principle of
      livelihood_. Paul Linebarger gave it as _socialism_ as far back as
      1917 (_The Chinese Nationalist Monthly_, December, 1917, Chicago) in
      Chicago, at the time when Lin Shen, Frank C. Lee and he were all
      working for Sun in that city. Dr. H. H. Kung, a high government
      official related by marriage to Mme. Sun Yat-sen, speaks of the
      three principles of _liberty_, _democracy_, and _economic
      well-being_ (preface to Hsü, _Sun_, cited, p. xvi). Dr. V. K.
      Wellington Koo, one of China’s most eminent diplomats, speaks of
      _social organization_ (_Memoranda Presented to the Lytton
      Commission_, New York City, n. d.). Citations could be presented
      almost indefinitely. _Min_ means “people,” and _shêng_ means “life;
      vitality, the living, birth, means of living” according to the
      dictionary (S. Wells Williams, _A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese
      Language_, Tungchou, 1909). The mere terms are of very little help
      in solving the riddle of _min shêng_. Laborious examination is
      needed, and even this will not, perhaps, lead us to anything more
      than probability. Sun Yat-sen, in his lectures, called it by several
      different names, which seem at first sight to contradict each other.

  144 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 91-92.

  145 Linebarger, _Conversations_, cited, Bk. IV, p. 62: “I must confess
      that the idea of using the sacred cult of ancestor worship as a
      political machine is very abhorrent to me. In fact, I think that
      even the rashest fool would never attempt to use this intimate cult
      with its exclusively domestic privacy as a revolutionary
      instrument.”

  146 Linebarger, _Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Republic_, New York, 1925,
      pp. 68-9.

  147 The same, pp. 135-139.

  148 The same, pp. 104-105.

  149 The same, pp. 122-123.

  150 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 472.

  151 Karl A. Wittfogel, _Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Chinas_, Leipzig,
      1931. The author, the German Marxian who wrote the best Marxist
      critique of Sun Yat-sen, is the only scholar to seek a really
      complete picture of the old Chinese economy by the technique of
      modern Western economic analysis. Described by the author as an
      “attempt,” the first volume of this work runs to 737 pages. It is
      valuable for the large amount of statistical material which it
      contains, and for its systematic method; its Marxian bias narrows
      its interest considerably.

  152 Both works of Wittfogel, cited above, are useful for the
      understanding of the transition from the old economy to the new. For
      a general view of the economic situation and potentialities of
      China, see George B. Cressey, _China’s Geographic Foundations_, New
      York, 1934. The bibliography on Chinese economy to be found in
      Latourette, cited above, vol. II, pp. 116-119, is useful.

  153 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 97.

  154 See below, section on the national economic revolution.

  155 Hsü translation, cited, pp. 186-187. The d’Elia translation gives a
      more exact rendering of Sun Yat-sen’s words (p. 97), but, by
      following Sun Yat-sen in calling China a hypo-colony, is less
      immediately plain to the Western reader than is the translation of
      Dr. Hsü, who in this instance uses “sub” and “hypo” interchangeably.

  156 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 443.

  157 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 452.

  158 His _International Development of China_, New York, 1922
      (republished 1929), is a colossal plan which could only be compared
      with the _Piatiletka_ or with the New Deal in the United States,
      since Sun Yat-sen suggested that—in order to avoid the consequences
      of a post-war depression—the nations of the world might cooperate in
      the equal exploitation of Chinese national resources with the
      Chinese. He proposed the modernization of China by a vast
      international loan which could permit the Western nations to
      maintain their war-time peak production, supplying China (1929 ed.,
      p. 8). He concludes the work: “In a nutshell, it is my idea to make
      capitalism create socialism in China so that these two economic
      forces of human civilization will work side by side in future
      civilization” (p. 237). The work is, however, generally regarded as
      a transportation plan, since Sun Yat-sen sketched out a railway map
      of China which would require decades to realize, and which
      overshadowed, by its very magnitude, the other aspects of his
      proposals.

  159 At the risk of digression, one might comment on an interesting
      element of the Euramerican ideology which is in sharp contrast to
      the Chinese. The West has, apparently, always been devoted to
      dichotomies of morality. The Greeks had reason and unenlightenment,
      and whole series of ideals that could be fought for and against, but
      the real division of good and bad in the West came, of course, with
      Christianity, which accustomed Westerners to think for centuries in
      terms of holiness versus evil—they being, geographically, holy, and
      the outsiders (heathen), evil. Now that the supernatural foundations
      of Christianity have been shaken by the progress of scientific and
      intellectual uncertainty, many Westerners find an emotional and an
      intellectual satisfaction in dividing the world into pure and
      unclean along lines of sometimes rather abstruse economic questions.
      This new morality seems to be based on distributive economics rather
      than on deity. It is employed, of course, by the Marxians, but their
      adversaries, in opposing them with equal passion, fall into the same
      habit. It is shocking and unbelievable to such persons to discover
      that there is a society whose ideology does not center around the
      all-meaningful point of the ownership of the means of production.
      Their only reaction is a negation of the possibility of such
      thought, or, at least, of its realism. The intellectual position of
      Sun Yat-sen in the modern world would be more clearly appreciated if
      the intellectuals of the West were not adjusting their ideological
      and emotional habits from religion to economics, and meanwhile
      judging all men and events in economic terms. The present discussion
      of Sun Yat-sen’s economic ideology is a quite subordinate one in
      comparison to the examination of his ideology as a whole, but some
      persons will regard it as the only really important point that could
      be raised concerning him.

  160 Tsui, cited, p. 345, quotes Nathaniel Peffer: “... Peffer said that
      Dr. Sun never ‘attained intellectual maturity, and he was completely
      devoid of the faculty of reason. He functioned mentally in sporadic
      hunches. It was typical of him that he met Joffe, read the Communist
      Manifesto, and turned Communist, and then read one book by an
      American of whom he knew nothing, and rejected communism all in a
      few months.’ ” Sun Yat-sen knew Marxism, years before the Russian
      Revolution. The Communist Manifesto was not new to him. He was
      extraordinarily well read in Western political and economic thought.
      Sun Yat-sen never turned Communist, nor did he subsequently reject
      communism any more than he had done for years.

  161 The author hopes, at some future time, to be able to fill in the
      intellectual background of Sun Yat-sen much more thoroughly than he
      is able to at the present, for lack of materials. One interesting
      method would involve the listing of every Western book with which
      Sun Yat-sen can be shown to have been acquainted. It might be a
      fairly accurate gauge of the breadth of his information.

  162 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 461-468. Father d’Elia’s note on the
      relative positions of Henry George and Sun (p. 466) is interesting.
      For a discussion of the actual program proposed by Sun, see below,
      “The Program of _Min Shêng_” section on land policy.

  163 Lyon Sharman, _Sun Yat-sen_, cited, p. 58.

  164 The same, pp. 98-99. There is an inconsistency of wording here,
      which may or may not be the fault of the translator. The oath refers
      to the “equitable redistribution of the land” (p. 98); the platform
      speaks of “the nationalization of land” (p. 98); and one of the
      slogans is “Equalize land-ownership!”

  165 See also the discussion in Tsui, _Canton-Moscow Entente_, cited, pp.
      371-376; and in Li Ti-tsun, “The Sunyatsenian principle of
      Livelihood,” _The Chinese Students’ Monthly_, XXIV (March 1929), pp.
      230. Li declares that Sun envisioned immediate redistribution but
      ultimate socialization, but does not cite his source for this. Li’s
      discussion of sources is good otherwise.

  166 Sharman, p. 58; the same authority for the statement as to the 1905
      manifesto.

  167 Sharman, p. 94.

  168 Wittfogel, _Sun Yat-sen_, cited, p. 61.

  169 Wittfogel, _Sun Yat-sen_, cited, p. 66: “Dieses sehr unpräzise
      Programm, das die Frage der Klasseninteressen und des Klassenkampfes
      als des Mittels zur Brechung privilegierter Klasseninteressen nicht
      aufwirft, war objektiv gar nicht Sozialismus, sondern etwas durchaus
      anderes: Lenin hat die Formel ‘_Subjektiver Sozialismus_’ dafür
      geprägt.”

  170 Wittfogel, _Sun Yat-sen_, cited, p. 67: “So bedeutete denn Suns
      ‘Sozialismus’ im Munde der Chinesischen Bourgeoisie nichts als ein
      Art Bekenntness zu einer ‘sozialen,’ d.h. massenfreundlichen
      Wirtschaftspolitik.”

  171 T’ang, cited, p. 46.

  172 T’ang, cited, p. 172.

  173 T’ang, cited, p. 172.

  174 T’ang, cited, pp. 171-172.

  175 Wittfogel, cited, pp. 117-118.

  176 Wittfogel, cited, p. 140: “... Seine Drei Prinzipien verkörpern in
      ihrer _Entwicklung_ den objektiven Wandel der ökonomisch-sozialen
      Situation Chinas, in ihren _Widersprüchen_ die realen Widersprüche
      der chinesischen Revolution, in ihren _jüngsten Tendenzen_ die
      Verlagerung des sozialen Schwerpunktes der Revolution, die Klassen
      in Aktion setzt, deren Ziel nicht mehr ein
      bürgerlich-kapitalistisches, sondern ein
      proletarisch-sozialistisches und ein bauerlich-agrar-revolutionäres
      ist.

      “Sun Yat-sen ist demnach nicht nur der bisher mächtigste
      Repräsentant der bürgerlich-nationalen, antiimperialistischen
      Revolutionen des erwach-enden Asiens überhaupt, er weist zugleich
      über die bürgerliche Klassen-schranke dieser ersten Etappe der
      asiatischen Befreiungsbewegung hinaus. Dies zu verkennen, wäre
      verhängnisvoll, gerade auch für die proletarisch-kommunistische
      Bewegung Ostasiens selbst.”

  177 Statement of Judge Linebarger to the author. See also Linebarger,
      _Conversations_, references to Communism which occur throughout the
      whole book.

  178 Tsui, cited, p. 144. It would involve a duplication of effort for
      the present author to repeat the material of Dr. Tsui’s excellent
      monograph on Sun Yat-sen and the Bolsheviks. Since the purpose of
      the present work is to undertake an exposition of the Nationalist
      political ideology and programs against the background of the old
      Chinese ideology, such an emphasis upon one comparatively small
      point in Sun Yat-sen’s doctrines would be entirely disproportionate
      as well as superfluous. The reader is referred to the work of Dr.
      Tsui for any details of these relations that he may wish to examine.

  179 See Tsui, cited, and section below, on the class struggle of the
      nations.

  180 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 450. See also Tsui, cited, pp.
      353-354; and Li, cited, pp. 229 and following.

  181 Sun, _Development of China_, cited, p. 237.

  182 Maurice William, _Sun Yat-sen Versus Communism_, Baltimore, 1932, p.
      4.

  183 William, in his _Sun Yat-sen Versus Communism_, cited, proves beyond
      doubt that Sun Yat-sen was strongly indebted to him for many
      anti-Marxian arguments.

  184 See above, Chapter One, second, third, and fourth sections.

  185 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 423.

  186 Tsui, cited, pp. 121-123, n. 72.

  187 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 472.

  188 Hsü translation, cited, p. 422. The Hsü version will be cited from
      time to time, whenever Father d’Elia’s interesting neologisms might
      make the citation too disharmonious, in wording, with the comment.

  189 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 294.

  190 Francis W. Coker, _Recent Political Thought_, New York—London, 1934,
      pp. 545-562, Ch. XX, “Empirical Collectivism.”

  191 Coker, cited, pp. 546-547.

  192 Coker, cited, pp. 548-549. Throughout the discussion of empirical
      collectivism the present author will cite, by and large, the
      categories given by Coker. Any special exceptions will be noted, but
      otherwise the discussion will be based on Coker’s chapter on
      “Empirical Collectivism,” cited above.

  193 Linebarger, _Conversations_, cited, Book III, p. 31.

  194 Linebarger, _Conversations_, cited, Book III, p. 30.

  195 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 475.

  196 See, however, the d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 298-301, for a
      reference to labor unions and a statement for their need of
      competent and honest leadership.

  197 See Wittfogel, _Sun Yat-sen_, cited, “Die Arbeiter,” pp. 97-99.
      T’ang, Hsü, and the various biographies of Sun almost all contain
      references from time to time to Sun’s friendliness toward and
      approval of organized labor.

  198 Wittfogel, _Sun Yat-sen_, cited, pp. 325-329. The next speech of Sun
      Yat-sen given in Wittfogel’s work is Sun’s indignant attack on “the
      so-called Labor Government” of England, which permitted the old
      methods of British Far Eastern imperialism to continue.

  199 Linebarger, _Conversations_, cited, Book III, p. 18. This work,
      while it cannot be given the weight of direct quotations from Sun’s
      own writings or speeches, does contain a good deal about the
      policies of _min shêng_ which does not appear elsewhere. The author
      has sought to avoid citation of it where direct sources are
      available, since the nature of the material makes it by no means so
      authoritative as others might be.

  200 Coker, cited, p. 551.

  201 E. D. Harvey, _The Mind of China_, New Haven, 1933, deals
      extensively with these supernatural elements. The reader who turns
      to it should keep in mind the fact that the supernatural plays a
      rôle in China distinctly less important than that which it did, say,
      in medieval Europe, and that a strong agnostic, rather than a
      skeptical, spirit among the Chinese has preserved them from the
      grossest errors of superstition.

  202 Latourette, cited, p. 129. Dr. Latourette’s sketch of Chinese
      religious thought is especially good, as indeed it might be, since
      he is one of the most celebrated American scholars in the field of
      Western religion in China.

  203 H. G. Creel, work cited, p. 127.

  204 The author cannot give a documentary citation for this observation.
      It was communicated to him many times by his father, Judge Paul
      Linebarger, who stated that Sun Yat-sen was most apt to talk in
      terms of morality and morale by preference. The fact that Sun
      Yat-sen came from a Chinese Confucian background into a Western
      Christian one cannot be ignored. He did not permit his Christianity
      to sway him from what he considered his necessary lines of behavior
      in politics; it did not, for example, prevent him from being
      extremely cordial to the Soviet Union at the time that that state
      was still more or less outcaste. And yet, speaking of the Christian
      God, he is reputably reported to have said: “God sent me to China to
      free her from bondage and oppression, and I have not been
      disobedient to the Heavenly mission”; and, again, to have said on
      the day before his death: “I am a Christian; God sent me to fight
      evil for my people. Jesus was a revolutionist; so am I.” (Both
      quotations from appendix to the d’Elia translation, p. 718.)

  205 Sun Yat-sen authorized the biography, cited, which Judge Linebarger
      wrote of him. It was a propaganda work, and neither he nor the
      author had any particular expectation that it would ever be regarded
      as a source, or as an academically prepared document. The last
      chapter of this authorized biography bears the title, “Conclusion:
      Sun the Moral Force.” This, perhaps, is significant as to Sun’s own
      attitude.

  206 Note the contrast between the thought of Sun in this respect and
      that of Tagore or Gandhi. This has been pointed out by many Western
      writers on China.

  207 Linebarger, _Conversations_, cited, Book III, p. 20.

  208 Sharman, cited, p. 282.

  209 The reader must bear in mind the fact that what is presented here is
      Sun Yat-sen’s political program for China. In many instances the
      course of affairs has deviated quite definitely from that program,
      and it can be only a matter of conjecture as to what Sun Yat-sen
      would do were he to return and observe the Nationalist movement as
      it now is. It is manifestly impossible to trace all the changes in
      this program. The actual developments have conformed only in part
      with Sun Yat-sen’s plans, although the leaders seek to have it
      appear as though they are following as close to Sun Yat-sen’s
      democratic politics as they can. Many persons who were close to Sun
      Yat-sen, such as Mme. Sun Yat-sen, believe that the National
      Government has betrayed the theory of Sun Yat-sen, and that
      Generalissimo Chiang Chieh-shih has made himself the autocrat of the
      National Government. It is, of course, impossible within the scope
      of this thesis to enter into this dispute. Who rules the
      Soviet—Stalin, or the Communist Party? Who rules China—Chiang
      Chieh-shih, or the Kuomintang? In each case there is the question of
      whether the leader could get along without the party, and whether
      the party could get along without the leader, as well as the
      question of the leader’s sincerity. These issues, however burning
      they might be in real life, could not be adequately treated in a
      work such as this. The author has sought to present Sun Yat-sen’s
      theory of applied politics. Where events which Sun Yat-sen foresaw
      have come to pass, the author has referred to them. He does not wish
      to be understood as presenting a description of the whole course of
      events in China.

  210 Here, again, one must remember that Mme. Sun Yat-sen, Eugene Chen,
      and others charge that the Party no longer rules, that it has been
      prostituted by Chiang Chieh-shih, and now serves only to cloak a
      military despotism. It may be noted, so far as the other side of the
      question is concerned, that a greater number of the persons who were
      eminent in the Party before Sun Yat-sen died have remained in it
      than have left it.

  211 See T’ang, work cited for an excellent description of the mutations
      of the revolutionary party. T’ang criticizes the present personnel
      of the Kuomintang severely, but the reader must keep in mind the
      fact that he has since become reconciled with the present
      leadership, and make allowances for the somewhat emphatic
      indignation voiced at the time of writing the book. The brilliance
      of the author guarantees that the story is well told, but it is not
      told for the last time. See also, Min-ch’ien T. Z. Tyau, _Two Years
      of Nationalist China_, Shanghai, 1930, for a summary that is as
      excellent as it is short. Various changes have occurred in party
      function, organization, and personnel since that time, but they have
      not—to the knowledge of the author—been completely and adequately
      covered by any one work.

  212 For a history of this period, see T’ang, Sharman, or Tsui Shu-chin,
      all cited above. The Communist side of the story is told by Harold
      Isaacs (editor), _Five Years of Kuomintang Reaction_, Shanghai,
      1932, and in the various works of the Stalinist and Trotskyist
      groups concerning the intervention of the Third Internationale in
      China. Two graphic personal accounts cast in semi-fictional form,
      are Oscar Erdberg, _Tales of Modern China_, Moscow, 1932, and
      Vincent Sheean, _Personal History_, New York, 1935; these present
      the Communist and the left-liberal viewpoints, respectively. The
      dramatic story of the Entente, the separation, and the ensuing
      conflict are not yet remote enough to have cooled into material
      ready for the historian.

  213 The Kuomintang, in accepting the Communist administrative structure,
      was not violating traditional Chinese patterns altogether. It has
      been pointed out that the revised structure of the Kuomintang
      resembled older Chinese guild patterns as well as the new Russian
      style (Sharman, work cited, p. 262).

  214 Here, again, one might refer to the disputes as to the orthodoxy and
      integrity of the present leadership. The preëminence of
      Generalissimo Chiang Chieh-shih, which cannot be doubted, is seen by
      persons friendly to him as a strong and beneficent influence upon
      the C. E. C. Persons hostile to him charge that he has packed the C.
      E. C. with his adherents, and controls it as he chooses.

  215 An interesting piece of research could deal with the method of
      recruitment and registration in the Kuomintang before the coming of
      the Communist advisers. There was rarely any doubt as to who was, or
      was not, a member, but there was constant trouble as to the good
      standing of members. Recruitment seems to have been on a basis of
      oath-taking, initiation, etc.; what Party discipline there was seems
      to have been applied only in the most extreme cases, and then
      crudely.

  216 It is interesting to note that the Kuomintang is to a certain degree
      democratic in representing the various occupational groups in China.
      Tyau, cited above, p. 25 and following, lists the percentages in the
      membership in the Kuomintang according to occupation, as they stood
      in 1930: Party work, 5.84%; government service, 6.61%; army and
      navy, 3.26%; police, 4.09%; labor (in general), 7.32%; agriculture,
      10.43%; navigation, 1.20%; railway, 1.14%; commerce, 10.47%;
      students, 10.47%; teaching, 21.31%; independent professions, 1.66%;
      social work, 1.68%; unemployed, O.54%; unclassified, 3.13%;
      incomplete returns, 15.09%.

  217 See above, pp. 59 and following.

  218 Sun Yat-sen, _Kidnapped in London_, cited, _passim_.

  219 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 122-123.

  220 The present instances are all taken from the third lecture on
      nationalism, d’Elia translation, cited pp. 127-128. The Hsü
      translation, in spite of its many merits, is not strong on
      geography. Thus, in the translation referring to Poland which has
      just been cited, the Hsü reading runs: “Although Persia was
      partitioned by foreigners over a century ago, Persian nationalism
      was not lost; consequently the Persians have been able to restore
      their country to independence; and now Persia has the status of a
      second or third class power in Europe” (p. 208), this in spite of
      the fact that Persia is translated correctly further on (p. 327).
      Another misreading is: “After the war, two new Slavic states were
      born, namely Czechoslovakia and Jugoslovakia” (p. 217). These minor
      errors are, however, among the very few which can be discovered in
      the whole book, and do not mar the text to any appreciable extent.

  221 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 132.

  222 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 63.

  223 T’ang, cited, pp. 168 and following, gives the various documents of
      the First National Congress of the Kuomintang, which place the
      application of nationalism first in their programs. “The Manifesto
      On Going to Peking,” issued by Sun November 10, 1924, refers to
      various points to be achieved; the first is, “National freedom from
      external restriction will enable China to develop her national
      economy and to increase her productivity.” (Hsü translation, p.
      148.) This might imply that the execution of _min shêng_ was to be
      coincidental with or anterior to the fulfillment of nationalism; it
      probably does not.

  224 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 187.

  225 Discussions of this are to be found in Sir Reginald Johnston’s
      _Twilight in the Forbidden City_, cited.

  226 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 244.

  227 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 245-247.

  228 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 187. Numerals have been written out by
      the present author.

  229 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 365. Italics are omitted.

  230 This is not due to any mystical veneration of numbers, or religious
      influence. In spreading doctrines which would have to be followed by
      the unlettered as well as by the scholars, Sun Yat-sen found it
      necessary to develop the general outline of his principles in such a
      way as to give them a considerable mnemonic appeal. Thus, the three
      principles—and the three French (liberty, equality, fraternity) and
      American (of, by, for the people) principles—and the triple foreign
      aggression, the four popular powers, the five governmental rights.
      The use of the number three permitted Sun Yat-sen to weave together
      the various strands of his teaching, and to attain a considerable
      degree of cross-reference. It cannot be shown to have induced any
      actual distortion of his theories.

  231 Hsü translation, cited, p. 213. See also d’Elia translation, p. 134.

  232 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 114.

  233 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 101.

  234 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 113. The whole present discussion of
      economic oppression is drawn from the latter part of the second
      lecture. Except in the case of direct quotation, no further
      reference will be given to this section, which occurs at pp. 97-115
      of the d’Elia translation.

  235 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 106.

  236 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 113.

  237 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 113.

  238 In referring to a sub-principle, the author is following Sun
      Yat-sen’s arrangement of his ideas, even though the exact term,
      “sub-principle,” is not to be found in Sun’s works. Each of the
      three principles can be considered with respect to national unity,
      national autonomy, and national survival. The correlation of the
      three principles, each with itself and then the two others,
      logically leads to the appearance of nine sub-principles. The writer
      has not followed any artificial compulsion of numbers, merely for
      the sake of producing a pretty outline, but has followed Sun Yat-sen
      in seeking to make clear the specific relations of each of the three
      principles to the three cardinal points which they embody.

  239 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 179-180.

  240 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 180.

  241 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 180.

  242 Tsui, cited, pp. 113-114.

  243 Linebarger, _Conversations_, cited, pp. 21 and following, Book I.

  244 Among the persons whom he entrusted with the task of seeking foreign
      capital for the just and honorable national development of China
      through international means were George Bronson Rea and Paul
      Linebarger. Mr. Rea was given a power of attorney by Sun to secure
      loans for railway purposes to an unlimited amount. Mr. Rea never
      used the document, but kept it among his papers. (Statement of Mr.
      Rea to the author in Washington, spring of 1934, at the time that
      the former was “Special Counsellor to the Ministry of Foreign
      Affairs of Manchoukuo,” despite his former Chinese connections.)
      Judge Linebarger was also unsuccessful. Sun Yat-sen was more
      interested in having Judge Linebarger stop any assistance offered by
      the Consortium to the Northern “Republic of China” than in having
      him procure any actual funds.

  245 It is obvious that a strong China would be a horrid nightmare to
      Japan. Not only would the Chinese thwart the use of their man-power
      and natural resources, as stepping stones to Asiatic or world
      hegemony; they might even equal the Japanese in audacity, and think
      of restoring the Japanese to the position of Chinese vassals which
      they had enjoyed in the time of Yoshemitsu, the third Ashikaga
      Shogun.

  246 Tsui, cited, pp. 115-116.

  247 Hu Han-min, cited in Tsui, work cited, p. 118, n. 63.

  248 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 152. For a full discussion of this
      curious relationship between China and her vassal states, see Djang
      Chu (Chang Tso), _The Chinese Suzerainty_, Johns Hopkins University
      doctoral dissertation, 1935. The submission to China was, among
      other things, a means by which the rulers of the peripheral states
      could get themselves recognized by an authority higher than
      themselves, thus legitimizing their position.

  249 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 153. Sun Yat-sen seems to have had a
      high opinion of the American administration of the Philippines,
      saying: The United States “... even allows the Filipinos to send
      delegations to Congress in Washington. Not only does the United
      States require no annual tribute in money from them, but, on the
      contrary, she gives the Filipinos considerable subsidies to build
      and maintain their roads and to promote education. It seems as
      though so humanitarian a treatment would be regarded as the utmost
      benevolence. Still, until the present day, the Filipinos do not
      boast of being ‘Americanized’; they are daily clamoring for
      independence” (d’Elia translation, p. 153). This statement is
      interesting in two connections. In the first place, although Sun
      Yat-sen had once thought of sending men, money, or munitions to help
      the Filipino nationalists in their struggles against the Americans,
      he seems to have conceived a warm admiration for the American
      administration in those islands. Secondly, the reader may consider
      that Sun Yat-sen, at the time that he made this comment, was in the
      course of attacking imperialism. If Sun Yat-sen could offer so
      enthusiastic an apology for the Americans in the Philippines, it
      shows that he must have let the abstract principle ride, and judged
      only on the basis of his own observation. To the orthodox Communist
      the American rule of the Philippines is peculiarly wicked because of
      the American denial of imperialist practises.

  250 Some of the older books on China give interesting maps of that
      country divided up into spheres of influence between the various
      powers. It was quite fashionable among journalists to sketch the
      various Chinese possessions of the great powers; the powers never
      got around to the partition. The American declaration of the “Open
      Door” may have had something to do with this, and the British
      enunciation of the same doctrine probably carried weight. For a
      time, however, the Europeans seemed quite convinced of the almost
      immediate break-up of China into three or four big colonies. Lord
      Charles Beresford, a prominent English peer, wrote a work which was
      extremely popular; its title was _The Break-Up of China_ (London,
      1899).

  251 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 93.

  252 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 165.

  253 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 165-170.

  254 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 170.

  255 The Communists envision three types of conflict to be produced by
      the contradictions of imperialism: intra-national class war,
      international class war, and inter-imperialist war. The first is the
      struggle of the proletariat of the whole world against the various
      national bourgeois governments; the second, the struggle of the
      oppressed peoples, under revolutionary bourgeois or proletarian
      leadership, against the oppressions of Western imperialism; and the
      last, the conflict of the various imperialist powers with one
      another. Sun Yat-sen’s theory agreed definitely with the second
      point, the international class war; he seems to have admitted the
      probability of class war within the nations of the West, and of
      inter-imperialist war, but he did not draw the three types of
      conflict together and because of them predicate an Armageddon and a
      millenium. His flexible, pragmatic thought never ran to extremes;
      although he agreed, more or less distinctly, with the Bolshevik
      premises of the three conflicts of the imperialist epoch, he did not
      follow them to their conclusion.

  256 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 75.

  257 d’Elia translation, cited, pp. 148-149.

  258 Such works as Lea’s _The Valor of Ignorance_, New York, 1909, and
      Stoddard’s _The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy_,
      New York, 1920, make precisely the same sort of statements,
      although, of course, they regard the “Saxon” or “Teutonic” race as
      the logical master-race of the world. Since Lea was associated for
      some time with Sun Yat-sen, accompanying him from Europe to Nanking
      in 1911, and undoubtedly had plenty of time to talk with him, it may
      be that some of the particular terms used by Sun in this discussion
      are those which he may have developed in his probable conversations
      with Lea. Nothing more definite than this can be stated.

  259 Quoted by Sun in d’Elia translation, cited, p. 138. The remark does
      not sound like Lenin. A Communist would not invoke nature, nor would
      he count the whole membership of an imperialist nation as
      imperialist. The world, to him, is misguided by a tiny handful of
      capitalists and traditional ideologues and their hangers-on, not by
      the masses of any nation.

  260 Note, however, the reference in d’Elia translation, cited, p. 76, or
      the Price translation, p. 18. Sun Yat-sen speaks of _international
      wars, within_ races, on the lines of social _classes_. He may have
      meant international wars within the races and across race lines on
      the basis of the oppressed nations of the world fighting the
      oppressing nations. He may, however, have meant intra-national class
      wars. Since he recognized the presence of the class conflict in the
      developed capitalistic states of the West, this would not
      necessarily imply his expectation of an intra-national class war in
      China.

  261 Wittfogel, _Sun Yat-sen_, pp. 331-337, gives the whole text of the
      speech. Sharman, _Sun Yat-sen_, p. 304, refers to it.

  262 Wittfogel, _Sun Yat-sen_, p. 335. “Es ist gegen Gerechtigkeit und
      Menschlichkeit, dass eine Minderheit von vierhundert Millionen eine
      Mehrheit von neunhundert Millionen unterdrückt....”

  263 Wittfogel, _Sun Yat-sen_, p. 333. “Die Europäer halten uns Asiaten
      durch die Macht ihrer materiellen Errungenschaften zu Boden.”

  264 Wittfogel, _Sun Yat-sen_, cited, p. 333. “Wenn wir
      zweitausendfünf-hundert Jahre zurückdenken, so war China damals das
      mächtigste Volk der Welt. Es nahm damals eine Stellung ein wie heute
      Grossbritannien und Amerika. Doch während Grossbritannien und die
      Vereinigten Staaten heute zur zwei unter einer Reihe von Weltmächten
      sind, war China damals die einzige grosse Macht.”

  265 Ponce, work cited, p. xiv: “_Conozcámonos y nos amaremos más_—decía
      el gran Sun Yat-sen á sus amigos orientales.” This work is, by the
      way, the most extensive for its account of Sun’s associations with
      Koreans, Filipinos, and Japanese. It has been completely overlooked
      by the various biographers of and commentators on Sun, with the
      exception of Judge Linebarger, to whom Sun Yat-sen presented a copy
      of the work.

  266 Wittfogel, _Sun Yat-sen_, p. 337: “In England und Amerika gibt es
      immerhin eine kleine Zahl von Menschen, die diese unsere Ideale im
      Einklang mit einer allgemeinen Weltbewegung verteidigen. Was die
      anderen Barbarennationen anbelangt, so dürfte es auch in ihren
      Reihen Menschen geben, die von der gleichen Überzeugung beseelt
      sind.”

  267 Wittfogel, _Sun Yat-sen_, p. 335: “Wenn wir Asiaten nach der
      Herstellung einer panasiatischen Einheitsfront streben, müssen wir
      selbst in unserer Zeit daran denken, auf welcher grundlegenden
      Auffassung wir diese Einheitsfront errichten wollen. Wir sollen
      dasjenige zugrunde legen, was die besondere Eigentümlichkeit unserer
      östlichen Kultur gewesen ist, wir sollten unseren Nachdruck legen
      auf die moralischen Werte, auf Güte und Gerechtigkeit. Sie sollen
      das Fundament der Einheit ganz Asiens werden.”

  268 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 207. Italics omitted.

  269 The article by Tsui, cited, p. 177 and following, goes into a quite
      detailed comparison of the Chinese Nationalist and the Marxian
      Communist theories of the three stages of revolution. He draws
      attention to the fact that, while the Communists do not speak of
      "three stages" and prefer to emphasize the transitional stage of the
      dictatorship of the proletariat, the two theories are similar almost
      to the point of being identical.

  270 Tsui, cited, p. 181.

  271 Tyau, cited, p. 439 and following. It is also available in Hsü, _Sun
      Yat-sen_, cited above, p. 85 and following. The Tyau translation was
      preferred since it was written by an official of the Ministry of
      Foreign Affairs, and may be regarded as the work of a Government
      spokesman. It is interesting, by way of contrast, to quote a passage
      from the Constitution of the Chinese Soviet Republic, so-called:
      “The Chinese Soviet Government is building up a state of the
      democratic dictatorship [sic!] of the workers and peasants. All
      power shall be vested in the Soviets of Workers, Peasants, and Red
      Army men.” _Fundamental Laws of the Chinese Soviet Republic_, New
      York, 1934, p. 18. The absence of an acknowledged period of
      tutelage, in view of the unfamiliarity of the Chinese people with
      democratic forms, is significant. The constitutional jurisprudence
      of the Chinese Communists is, however, primarily a matter of
      academic interest, since the Soviets, where they have existed, have
      existed in a state of perpetual emergency, shielded by the Red
      Terror and other devices of revolutionary control. The contrast
      between a pronouncement of Sun Yat-sen and a constitution is a fair
      one, since the writings of Sun Yat-sen form the final authority in
      the Nationalist movement and government; in a dispute as to the
      higher validity of a governmental provision or a flat contrary
      statement of Sun Yat-sen, there can be little question as to which
      would—or, in the eyes of the Nationalists, should—prevail.

  272 It is interesting to note that the institution which most Western
      writers would incline to regard as the very key-stone of democracy,
      parliament, has a quite inferior place in the Sun Yat-sen system. In
      the National Government of China, the Legislative Yuan is more like
      a department than like a chamber. This question, however, will be
      discussed under the heading of the Five Rights.

  273 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 341.

  274 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 342.

  275 A discussion of the four powers and the five rights is to be found
      in Li Chao-wei, _La Souveraineté Nationale d’après la Doctrine
      Politique de Sun-Yet-Sin_, Dijon, 1934. This work, a doctoral thesis
      submitted to the University of Dijon, treats the Western theory of
      democracy and Sun’s theory comparatively. It is excellent in
      portraying the legal outline of the Chinese governmental structure,
      and points out many significant analogies between the two theories.

  276 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 391.

  277 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 395.

  278 The unfavorable view of the Five Powers is taken by Dr. Jermyn
      Chi-hung Lynn in his excellent little book, _Political Parties in
      China_, Peiping, 1930. Since Dr. Lynn speaks kindly and hopefully of
      the plans of Wu Pei-fu, one of the war-lords hostile to Sun Yat-sen
      and the whole Nationalist movement, his criticism of Sun Yat-sen
      need not be taken as completely impartial. It represents a point
      that has been made time and time again by persons antagonistic to
      the _San Min Chu I_.

      “The Wu Chuan Hsien Fa is also no discovery of Dr. Sun’s. As is
      known, the three power constitution, consisting of the legislative,
      judiciary [sic!] and executive functions, was originally developed,
      more or less unconsciously, by the English, whose constitution was
      critically examined by Montesquieu, and its working elaborately
      described by him for the benefit of his fellow-countrymen. And the
      unwritten constitution of Old China contained the civil service
      examination and an independent Board of Censors. Now the
      much-advertised Wu Chuan Hsien Fa or Five-Power constitution only
      added the systems of state examination and public censure to the
      traditional form of constitution first advocated by the French
      jurist.” P. 66, work cited.

  279 Hsü translation, cited, p. 104.

  280 For an intensively vivid description of this government, which Sun
      Yat-sen’s planned democracy was to relegate to limbo, see B. L.
      Putnam Weale, _The Vanished Empire_, London, 1926. Putnam Weale was
      the pseudonym of Bertram Lennox Simpson, an Englishman born and
      reared in China, who understood and participated in Chinese life and
      policies as have few since the days of Marco Polo; he was an advisor
      to the insurrectionary Peking “Nationalist” Government of 1931 when
      he was shot to death in his home at Tientsin. Few other Westerners
      have left such a wealth of accurate and sympathetic material about
      modern China.

  281 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 399.

  282 Harold Monk Vinacke, _Modern Constitutional Development in China_,
      Princeton, 1920, p. 100.

  283 Vinacke, cited, p. 141 and following. While Dr. Vinacke’s book is
      now out of date, it contains excellent material for the period
      covered, roughly 1898 to 1919. He quotes Morse’s comment on the
      provinces with approval: “The Provinces are satrapies to the extent
      that so long as the tribute and matriculations are duly paid, and
      the general policy of the central administration followed, they are
      free to administer their own affairs in detail as may seem best to
      their own provincial authorities.” (Hosea Ballou Morse, _The Trade
      and Administration of China_, London, 1913, p. 46, quoted in
      Vinacke, work cited, p. 5.)

  284 Paul M. W. Linebarger, _Conversations with Sun Yat-sen_, mss., 1934;
      Book two, Chapter Five, “Democratic Provincial Home Rule.”

  285 Hsü, cited, p. 124.

  286 Tyau, cited, p. 441. From “The Outline of National Reconstruction.”

  287 Tyau, cited, p. 450.

  288 V. I. Lenin, _State and Revolution_, New York, 1932. Lenin’s
      discussion of Marx’s point, p. 39 and following, is stimulating
      although inclining to the ingenious.

  289 The number of the villages is taken from Tawney, Richard Henry,
      _Land and Labor in China_, London, 1932; and the number of _hsien_
      from Tyau, cited, p. 85.

  290 Linebarger, _Conversations_, cited above; throughout this volume,
      Judge Linebarger recalls references made by Sun Yat-sen to him
      concerning the _hsien_.

  291 It is but fair to state, at the beginning, that this point of the
      family system as one of the institutions of the democratic nation
      has been very largely neglected by the Kuomintang and the National
      Government. To the knowledge of the author, no plan has ever been
      drafted either by Party or by Government which would erect the
      system that Sun Yat-sen proposed. It is not beyond all conjecture
      that Sun’s suggestion may at a later date seem more practicable to
      the leaders than now appears, and be put into operation in some
      manner.

  292 Hsü, cited, p. 164.

  293 Hsü, cited, p. 243.

  294 The material concerning the clans has been taken from the fifth
      lecture on Nationalism (Hsü, cited, p. 240 and following; d’Elia,
      cited, p. 174 and following). Judge Linebarger recorded Sun
      Yat-sen’s mention of a convention of the clans in _Conversations_,
      cited above, Book One, Chapter Eight, “The Clans in the Nation.”

  295 There are three excellent discussions of the _min shêng_ programs.
      Wou, cited, gives a clear precis of the doctrine. Hung Jair, _Les
      idées économiques de Sun Yat Sen_, Toulouse, 1934, and Tsiang Kuen,
      _Les origines économiques et politiques du socialisme de Sun Yat
      Sen_, Paris, 1933, cover essentially the same ground, although they
      are both doctoral dissertations submitted to French universities.
      The former deals primarily with the theory of Sun’s economic ideas,
      contrasting them with the economic thought of Adam Smith and of the
      Marxians. The latter gives a rather extensive historical and
      statistical background to Sun’s _min shêng_, and traces the Chinese
      economic system, whence _min shêng_ was derived in part, quite
      fully. These authors have covered the field so widely that the
      present work need not enter into the discussion of the precise
      immediate policies to be advocated under _min shêng_. Enough will be
      given to describe the relations of _min shêng_ with the more
      formally political principles of nationalism and democracy, and to
      afford the reader an opportunity to assess its scope and
      significance for himself. The works of Hung Jair, Tsiang Kuen, Wou
      Saofong, and Li Ti-tsun all measure _min shêng_ in terms of
      classical Western _laissez-faire_ economics and then in terms of
      Marxism; they all proceed in considerable detail to recapitulate the
      various concrete plans that Sun projected. The present author will
      not enter into the minutiae of the problems of clothing, of
      transport, of communications, etc., inasmuch as they have already
      been dealt with and because they are not directly relevant to the
      political or ideological features of Sun’s thought.

  296 Tsui, cited, p. 378, n. 125.

_  297 The International Development of China_ was welcomed as an
      interesting fantasy in a world which had not yet heard of the Five
      Year Plans and the programs of the New Deal. The fact that Sun
      Yat-sen was a few years ahead of his contemporaries gave him the air
      of a dreamer, which was scarcely deserved.

  298 Hsü translation, “The Outline of National Reconstruction,” p. 85.
      Two points of detail may be noted here. In the first place, _min
      shêng_ has been emphasized by being placed first, although Sun
      Yat-sen generally arranged his principles in their logical order:
      nationalism, democracy, _min shêng_. Secondly, _min shêng_, although
      emphasized, is dealt with in one single paragraph in this vitally
      important document. The question of the _hsien_ is given eight
      paragraphs to the one on _min shêng_. This is indicative of the
      point stressed above, namely, that Sun Yat-sen, while he was sure of
      the importance of _min shêng_, did not believe in hard and fast
      rules concerning its development.

  299 Work cited, p. 232.

  300 See above, p. 180 ff.

  301 The author uses the term “national economic revolution” to
      distinguish those parts of the _ming shêng chu i_ which treat the
      transformation of the Chinese economy in relation to the development
      of a nation-state. Obviously, there is a great difference between
      the economy of a society regarding itself as ecumenical, and one
      faced with the problem of dealing with other equal societies. The
      presence of a state implies a certain minimum of state interference
      with economic matters; the national economic revolution of Sun
      Yat-sen was to give the Chinese economy a national character,
      coordinating the economic with the other programs of nationalism.
      Hence, the significant stress in the phrase “national economic
      revolution” should rest upon the word “national.”

  302 Wittfogel, _Sun Yat-sen_, cited, p. 329. “Genossen, die hier
      Versammelten sind alle Arbeiter und stellen eine Teil der Nation
      dar. Auf den chinesischen Arbeitern lastet eine grosse Verantwortung
      und wenn ihr dieser Aufgabe entsprechen werdet, so wird China eine
      grosse Nation und ihr eine mächtige Arbeiterklasse.”

  303 Wittfogel, _Sun Yat-sen_, p. 329. “Ausser dem wirtschaftlichen Kampf
      für die Kürzung des Arbeitstages und die Erhöhung der Löhne stehen
      vor Euch noch viel wichtigere Fragen von politischem Charakter. Für
      die politischen Ziele müsst ihr meine Drei Prinzipien befolgen und
      die Revolution unterstützen.”

  304 Putnam Weale, _The Vanished Empire_, London, 1926, pp. 145-147. The
      same observation had been made to the Russian ambassador,
      Vladislavich, sent by Catherine I to Peking in 1727. The Chinese
      said at that time, “ ... that foreign trade had no attraction for
      the people, who were amply supplied with all the necessaries of life
      from the products of their own country.” Sir Robert K. Douglas,
      _Europe and the Far East 1506-1912_, New York, 1913, pp. 28-29.

  305 See above, p. 47 ff.

_  306 International Development_, cited, p. 237.

_  307 International Development_, p. 12.

_  308 International Development_, p. 21.

  309 Wou Saofong, cited, gives an excellent summary of the plan, pp.
      184-202. There is no particular reason, however, why the work by
      Sun, which he wrote in fluent and simple English, should not be
      consulted. The American edition is so well put together with maps
      and outlines that a layman will find it comprehensible and
      stimulating.

_  310 International Development_, pp. 220-221.

_  311 International Development_, pp. 6-8.

_  312 International Development_, p. 198.

_  313 International Development_, p. 199. Sun Yat-sen discussed only two
      of these essentials (food, clothing) in his lectures on the _San Min
      Chu I_. According to Tai Chi-tao, he was to have continued to speak
      on the topics of “Housing,” “Health,” “Death,” “Conclusions on
      Livelihood,” and “Conclusions on the San Min Doctrine,” but the only
      person who may know what he intended to say on these subjects is
      Mme. Sun Yat-sen. (See Hsü translation, “The Basic Literature of
      Sunyatsenism,” pp. 39-40.)

  314 This is based upon statements made by Judge Linebarger to the
      author. According to him, Sun Yat-sen had few of the prejudices of
      class, one way or the other, that affect the outlook of so many
      Western leaders. He did not believe that the only possible solution
      to the problem of livelihood was the Marxian one, and was confident
      that the Chinese Nationalists would be able to solve the problem.
      This question was to him paramount above all others; the life of the
      masses of Chinese citizens was the life of China itself.

_  315 International Development_, p. 11.

  316 The same, p. 11.

  317 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 326. The discussion of Bismarck runs
      from p. 322 to 326; the length of the discussion shows what Sun
      thinks of Bismarck’s acuteness, although he disapproved of
      Bismarck’s anti-democratic stand.

_  318 International Development_, p. 4.

  319 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 426.

  320 Price translation, pp. 434-435. In the d’Elia translation, pp.
      465-466. The Price translation has been quoted in this instance
      because Father d’Elia translates _min shêng_ as “the economic
      Demism,” which—although interesting when used consistently—might not
      be clear in its present context. Sun Yat-sen’s courteous use of the
      word “communism,” in view of the Canton-Moscow entente then
      existing, has caused a great deal of confusion. The reader may judge
      for himself how much Sun’s policy constitutes communism.

  321 One or two further points concerning the land policy may be
      mentioned. In the first place, it is the land which is to be taxed.
      A tax will be applied, according to this theory, on the land, and
      the increment will also be confiscated. These are two separate forms
      of revenue. Furthermore, lest all land-holders simply surrender
      their land to the government, Sun makes clear that his taxation
      program applies only to land. It would consequently be quite
      advantageous for the owner to keep the land; the buildings on it
      would not be affected by the increment-seizure program, and the land
      would be worth keeping. “The value of the land as declared at
      present by the landowner will still remain the property of each
      individual landowner.” (d’Elia translation, p. 466; Father d’Elia’s
      note on this page is informing.) The landowner might conceivably put
      a mortgage on the land to pay the government the amount of the
      unearned increment, and still make a handsome enough profit from the
      use of the land to amortize the mortgage.

  322 Linebarger, _Conversations_, Book III, p. 25.

  323 Wittfogel, _Sun Yat-sen_, p. 328. “Die chinesischen Kapitalisten
      sind nicht so stark, dass sie die chinesischen Arbeiter unterdrücken
      könnten.”

  324 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 469. Italics omitted. For the
      discussion of the relation of the program of _min shêng_ to
      capitalism, see d’Elia’s various footnotes and appendices dealing
      with the subject. Father d’Elia, as a devout Catholic, does a
      thorough piece of work in demonstrating that Sun Yat-sen was not a
      Bolshevik and not hostile to the Roman Catholic Church, and had a
      warm although infrequently expressed admiration for that
      organization. Li Ti-tsun, in “The Sunyatsenian Principle of
      Livelihood,” cited, tries to find the exact shade of left
      orientation in _min shêng_, and digests the main policies. Wou and
      Tsui, both cited, also discuss this point.

_  325 International Development_, pp. 36-39.

  326 By an irony of fate, the most conspicuous example of the realization
      of any one of these plans was the beginning of the port of Hulutao,
      which was to be “The Great Northern Port” of Sun’s vision. The
      National Government had already started work on this port when the
      Japanese, invading Manchuria, took it. There is so much pathos in
      Sun’s own life that this frustation of his plans after his death
      seems disappointing beyond words to his followers. In his own trust
      in mankind, in the eagerness and the sincerity of his enthusiasms,
      in the grandeur of his vision—here are to be found the most vital
      clues to the tragedy of Sun Yat-sen. Like the other great founders
      of the earth’s ideals, he charted worlds within the vision but,
      perhaps, beyond the accomplishment of ordinary men.

  327 Hsü translation, cited, p. 440; Price translation, p. 444; d’Elia
      translation, cited, p. 476. The first has been preferred purely as a
      matter of style. The Chinese words _min shêng_ and _San Min Chu I_
      have been used instead of the English renderings which Hsü gives,
      again as a pure matter of form and consistency with the text.

  328 The author is indebted to Mr. Jên Tai for the clarification of this
      ideal of dual continuity—of the family system, preserving the flesh,
      and the intellectual tradition, preserving the cultural heritages.

  329 d’Elia translation, cited, p. 538.