#202 Sun Zhongshan: A Nation of Citizens?

Background on Sun Zhongshan and the Xinhai Revolution

• Slides on Sun Zhongshan and the Xinhai Revolution (Google Slides)

Rare video recording of Sun Zhongshan speech

Discussion questions:

• After more than two thousand years under some version of the imperial system, Sun Zhongshan re-imagined China as a republic. What is a republic? How do you recognize one when you see it? What are its distinguishing features—what, in other words binds together the American republic, France, and the People’s Republic of China as a common form of government?
• What are the “radical” and “conservative” elements of Sun Zhongshan’s thought?
• Three People's Principles (Sanmin zhuyi 三民主义):
  • Nationalism (minzhu zhuyi 民主主义). What is the “ethnicity” or the “race” that Sun might have had in mind?
  • People’s rights (minquan zhuyi 民权主义). Sun said the “aims of the Chinese Revolution are different . . . methods we must use must also be different.” If he did not have in mind “the kind of natural or God-given rights that Enlightenment thinkers viewed as the birthright of all human beings,” then what did he have in mind?
  • People’s livelihood (minsheng zhuyi 民生主义). Sun’s socio-economic vision for China. How does this compare to “socialism”? Where would he be on the left-right political spectrum in the nation grew up in?

• Why might Sun be one of the few major political figures in modern China celebrated in both the Mainland and on Taiwan?