Sun Yat-sen

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Lore & Background

Born to a poor peasant family in Guangdong, Sun was educated in Hawaii before graduating from the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese in 1892. In 1894 he submitted a petition to reform the Qing government to Li Hongzhang, which was rejected. Sun subsequently went into exile and led anti-Qing movements overseas, founding the Revive China Society, the Tongmenghui, and the People's News. Following the 1911 Revolution, Sun proclaimed the establishment of the Republic of China but relinquished the presidency to Beiyang Army leader Yuan Shikai in exchange for securing the Qing court's abdication. After the assassination of Song Jiaoren in 1913, widely attributed to Yuan, Sun led a failed Second Revolution against him, after which Sun fled to Japan. In 1917, Sun established a Constitutional Protection junta in Guangzhou, but before his planned Northern Expedition against the warlords, he was forced to resign due to infighting. Sun assumed the junta leadership in 1921, survived Chen Jiongming's revolt, and collaborated with Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party to form the First United Front. In late 1924, he traveled north beyond his base in Guangdong to call for a national assembly and the abolition of unequal treaties, continuing his struggle against the warlords Duan Qirui and Zhang Zuolin. He died in Beijing in 1925.

Reader's Guide

Sun is revered by both the Republic of China, which designates him 'Father of the Nation,' and the People's Republic of China, which honors him as the 'Forerunner of the Revolution.' Sun's flagship ideology, Three Principles of the People, sought to modernize China through nationalism, democracy, and the people's livelihood, within an ethnically harmonious conception of the Chinese nation. His birthplace, originally known as Xiangshan, was renamed Zhongshan in his honour shortly after his death in 1925. Sun was a Christian, baptized in Hong Kong on 4 May 1884 by Rev. Charles Robert Hager. He attended To Tsai Church while studying medicine. In 1894, Sun founded the Revive China Society in Hawaii, the first Chinese nationalist revolutionary society. During the Qing-dynasty rebellion around 1888, Sun was in Hong Kong with a group of revolutionary thinkers nicknamed the Four Bandits at the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese.

Did You Know?

• Sun's milk name as a child was Tai Tseung (Cantonese: Dai-jeuhng; 帝象).
• His Japanese pseudonym, Kikori Nakayama (中山樵; Nakayama Kikori), was given to him by Tōten Miyazaki while he was in hiding in Japan.
• Sun was one of only two graduates out of a class of twelve students at the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese in 1892.
• As a 17-year-old, Sun and his childhood friend Lu Haodong broke a wooden idol of the North Star God at Beiji Temple, angering fellow villagers.
• Sun received a prize for academic achievement from King Kalākaua while attending ʻIolani School in Hawaii.

A Revolutionary Life in Constant Motion

There he joined the Tongmenghui, Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary society, and after returning home to teach school, he was dispatched to the Dongbei region for clandestine work. The Yuan Shikai regime's persecution drove him back to Japan, where he aligned with Sun's successor organization. His allegiances kept shifting: he joined the Communist Party in 1921, yet in the early 1920s still served the Kuomintang as Minister of Agriculture. His inclusion among the Five Elders of Yan'an recognized both his seniority and his unique position as a living link to the old revolutionary generation.

Diplomatic Bridge and the Founding Ceremony

Lin's early association with Sun Yat-sen and his seniority within the party made him a natural choice for delicate negotiations with the Kuomintang. When the new government was being organized in late 1949, Lin was appointed Secretary General of the Central People's Government Committee. He was sometimes described as the host of those celebrations.

Poet, Father, and Friend of a Revolutionary Icon

His personal life was marked by both devotion and tragedy. He married four times and fathered eight children. According to his niece, Lin was a close personal friend of Sun Yat-sen and was present at the moment of Dr. Sun's death.

Posthumous Erasure and Restored Honor

Deng Xiaoping's tribute emphasized the breadth of Lin's career, noting he passed through three historical stages—the old democratic revolution, the new democratic revolution, and the socialist revolution—and in each was a complete revolutionary. Yet his posthumous fate was far from peaceful. It was not until 1979 that his image was restored to the painting, a quiet correction acknowledging the injustice of those turbulent years.