The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen: An Exposition of the San Min Chu ILinebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
History
The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen: An Exposition of the San Min Chu I
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
Sun, Yat-sen, 1866-1925. San min zhu yi
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)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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