Lee, Theresa Man Ling. "Sun Yat-sen: People’s Democracy and Chinese Democracy." Democratic Moments: Reading Democratic Texts. . London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. 161–168. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 27 Sep. 2021. .

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Copyright © Xavier Márquez and Contributors 2018. You may share this work for non- commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. CHAPTER TWENTY

Sun Yat-sen: People’s Democracy and Chinese Democracy Theresa Man Ling Lee

[T]he aims of the Chinese Revolution are different from the aims in foreign revolutions, and the methods we use must also be different. Why, indeed, is China having a revolution? To put the answer directly, the aims of our revolutions are just opposite to the aims of the revolutions of Europe. Europeans rebelled and fought for liberty because they had had too little liberty. But we, because we have had too much liberty without any unity and resisting power, because we have become a sheet of loose sand and so have been invaded by foreign imperialism and oppressed by the economic control and trade wars of the Powers, without being able to resist, must break down individual liberty and become pressed into an unyielding body like a firm rock which is formed by the addition of cement to sand. [. . .] I classified mankind into three groups. The first group are those who see and perceive first: they are the people of superior wisdom . . . , whose insight into the future and whose many achievements make the world advance and give mankind its civilization. . . . The second group includes those who see and 162 DEMOCRATIC MOMENTS perceive later: their intelligence and ability are below the standard of the first group; they cannot create or discover but can only follow and imitate, learning from what the first group have already done. The third group are those who do not see or perceive: they have a still lower grade of intelligence and ability and do not understand even though one tries to teach them; they simply act. [. . .] The progress of the world depends on these three types, and not one type must be lacking. The nations of the world, as they begin to apply democracy and to reform the government, should give a part to every man – to the man who sees first, to the man who sees later, to the man who does not see. We must realize that political democracy is not given to us by nature; it is created by human effort. We must create democracy and then give it to the people, not wait to give it until people fight for it.1

All three of the passages cited above are taken from a set of lectures on ‘The Principle of Democracy’ delivered at the Canton University in China by Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) in 1924. These lectures, along with two other sets – one on ‘The Principle of Nationalism’ and the other on ‘The Principle of Livelihood’ – were subsequently published as a book under the title San Min Chu I (‘The Three Principles of the People’).2 Despite his remarkable stature as the founding father of modern China, straddling the deep-seated political divide between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, Sun’s international reputation is considerably less pronounced. Moreover, he was undoubtedly a man of action and Sun considered himself more a political actor than a thinker. It is therefore not surprising that Sun has yet to be taken seriously as a major thinker in Western scholarship on Chinese philosophy and thought, while Sun studies in both Taiwan and China tend to be more ideological than academic. Nonetheless, as Marie-Claire Bergère, a French historian who wrote the most recent major biography of Sun, said, San Min Chu I is ‘a fundamental work’ of much import as it ‘crystallizes the questions, ambitions, and ideas that fueled the debates of the first quarter of this [twentieth] century’.3 More specifically, as we shall see, Sun’s theory of democracy embodies this crystallization. To appreciate what was at stake for Sun and his contemporaries, one needs to place Sun’s thought in its historical context. This is not a methodological question of choosing the historical approach over the philosophical in the study of political thought. Rather, Sun’s thought and Chinese history are inextricably linked. The political reality of China at the time was what prompted Sun to think of a unique solution to Chinese problems by drawing from both Chinese and Western political ideas, while his place as a SUN YAT-SEN: PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY AND CHINESE DEMOCRACY 163 much revered political leader meant that thought for him must necessarily inspire and orchestrate concrete and goal-oriented action. In Sun’s words, a principle is at once ‘an idea, a faith, and a power’ (3). When Sun delivered these lectures on the ‘principles’ of nationalism, democracy and livelihood in 1924, China had been a republic for thirteen years, following the abolition of the imperial state during the Revolution of 1911. Yet the nascent republic was plagued by an aborted attempt to restore monarchy early on and power struggle among political factions from the very start while the country splintered under the rule of warlords (former imperial generals). The impact of this protracted political crisis was made worse as Western powers and Japan continued their imperialistic expansion by carving up China into pockets of colonial outposts. Having served the Chinese Republic briefly as its first provisional president, Sun founded the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) in 1919 to save China from obliteration. By 1924, Sun was ready to take his plan to yet another stage, which was to form an alliance, known as the United Front, with the newly founded Chinese Communist Party (1921). This strategic alignment, brokered by the Comintern (1919–43), was deemed to be necessary if China were to be reunified as a sovereign state free from internal political strife and external territorial encroachment. But the alliance soon fell apart when Sun died of cancer in 1925. The struggle for power between the two parties that ensued only ended with the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 by the Communist Party under Mao Zedong while the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek retreated to Taiwan as a government-in-exile of the Chinese Republic. What is remarkable is that despite their ideological differences, both the Communists and the Nationalists claimed that their party was the true bearer of Sun’s vision for a new China. A new China in this context meant a centralized state presiding over a united and sovereign China that is on par with other countries in the world, along with a mandate to serve its people by improving their livelihood. Against this historical background, San Min Chu I is at once an anti- colonial political treatise that affirms nationhood and a blueprint for postcolonial state-building. Democracy as such is the pathway to this new nationhood. Yet Sun noted that ‘the Chinese people’s ideas of political democracy have all come from the West’ because ‘Western civilization . . . is in every way more advanced than Chinese civilization’ (280–1). In other words, for Sun Chinese nationalism was anti-imperialistic but not necessarily anti-Western.4 Sun, however, withheld giving full credit to the West as the inventor of democracy by reminding his audience that both Confucius and Mencius ‘had already considered the idea of democracy’ as they ‘spoke for people’s rights’, only to be ahead of their time (169–70). Now more than 2,000 years later, the time was finally right because humanity had reached the age of ‘people’s sovereignty’, when the ‘people’, as a ‘unified and organized body of men’, are the bearer of sovereignty, defined as the ‘power and authority extended to the area of the state’ (151–2). 164 DEMOCRATIC MOMENTS

Why then did the Chinese lag behind their Western counterparts in reaching this critical historical juncture? Sun’s explanation was that the Chinese people were simply not as oppressed as the Europeans, both politically and socially. First, in contrast to European despotism, China’s autocracy was not as ‘severe’ (225). Second, feudalism was long abolished in China with the founding of the first imperial state in 221 BCE. Consequently, there were neither inherited social classes nor an entrenched nobility that stood above the rest of the population (223–5). Accordingly, the Chinese did not have the same intense longing for liberty and equality as the Europeans (209). This was why the aim of democratic revolution in China was different from the ones that took place in Europe, as noted in the first extract at the start of this chapter. Given that the Chinese people had too much freedom, so much so that the Chinese were ‘a sheet of loose sand’, democracy in China was not about enhancing individual freedom. Rather, ‘personal freedom’ had to be sacrificed in order ‘to make the nation free’ (213). In other words, the ‘Principle of Democracy’ works hand in hand with the ‘Principle of Nationalism’ in Sun’s vision. Along with this rejection of personal freedom in the name of nation- building is Sun’s claim that a modern state works more effectively when its citizens are not just individuals stripped of other embedded bonds among them. According to Sun, in the West where ‘the individual is the unit’, the individual expands immediately into the state; between the individual and the state there is no common, firm, social unit’ (114). In contrast, the relation between the Chinese state and its citizens is mediated, first and foremost, by the family. Sun noted, ‘there must first be family loyalty, then clan loyalty, and finally national loyalty. Such a system, expanding step by step, will be orderly and well regulated and the relationship between the small and large social groups will be a real one’ (115). This, in Sun’s view, is superior to ‘knitting together . . . a huge number of separate units’, as it would have been the case ‘where the individual is the unit’ (115). Later in these lectures, Sun pointed out that not only was the aim for Chinese democracy different, its implementation would also be distinctive. According to Sun, the most notable achievement of Western democracy ‘within the past century has been the right to elect and to be elected’, that is, ‘representative or parliamentary government’ (276). But Western nations had yet to solve the ‘problem of administering democracy’ (289). Its citizens are afraid of ‘an all-powerful government which they cannot control’ and are therefore constantly on guard against its power, rendering the government weak and ineffectual (294). Against this concern, Sun put forth what he regarded as a ‘fundamental solution’ to the challenge of administering democracy through ‘a new discovery’, the distinction between ‘sovereignty and ability’ (296–7). In the second extract, Sun identified three distinctive groups of people based on their respective levels of ability. While the distinction thus drawn does not necessarily undermine the legitimacy of popular sovereignty, it does mean SUN YAT-SEN: PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY AND CHINESE DEMOCRACY 165 that not everyone is qualified to rule. In Sun’s words, ‘The foundation of the government of a nation must be built upon the rights of the people, but administration of government must be intrusted to experts’ (318). Accordingly, there are ‘two forces in politics’ – ‘the political power of the people and the administrative power of the government’ (342). The two must work hand in hand to build a strong modern state. To do so effectively without ‘the confusions of Western democracy’ (318) means that the real challenge lies in improving the control mechanism of the people’s power should it become necessary rather than in limiting government power before it is warranted (345). For the people to have an effective control mechanism over government power, direct rather than representative democracy is in order. The people should be entrusted with four powers, including suffrage, power of recall, initiative and referendum (350–1). The first two enable the people to elect and to exercise direct control over officials and their respective positions in government (350). The latter two ensure that the people have control over the laws that govern them by giving them the power to introduce new law as needed and to amend ‘an old law’ that is no longer ‘beneficial to the people’ or to ‘do away with the old law’ altogether (350–1). As for government power, Sun was in full support of constitutionalism and the separation of power though he was critical of the tripartite division in Western constitutional state. Instead, Sun proposed the ‘quintuple-power’ or ‘five-power constitution’, which he first articulated in 1906 and noted that it was ‘entirely a creation of my own’.5 Under this scheme, added to the executive, legislative and judicial branches are two other branches – the censor and the civil service examination board. Sun was quick to point out that both of these branches were present in the old imperial state and were effective in preventing the Chinese emperor, though autocratic, from having a complete monopoly over political power (356–7). The ‘imperial censor’ had ‘the power to impeach’ officials and the imperial examination board put China ahead in the world by ‘[t]he selection of real talent and ability through examinations’ to serve the government (356). Sun argued that both of these branches remain just as important as before in a constitutional state by ensuring that the state has built-in mechanism for self-correction and improvement. In short, the ‘five-power constitution’ brought together the best of both worlds – the old imperial state in China and the modern constitutional state in the West (357–8). Sun was convinced that ‘[w]hen the four political powers of the people control the five governing powers of the government, then we will have a completely democratic government organ, and the strength of the people and of the government will be well balanced’ (354).6 Through a total of six extended lectures, Sun became the first person in China to provide a comprehensive vision of democracy. In his view, democracy is the only way for China to go forward as it enables ‘a high- powered, strong government’ to be in place (344). But one challenge 166 DEMOCRATIC MOMENTS remains as ‘the majority of the people are without vision’ and those ‘who have prevision must lead them and guide them into the right way’ (318). Indeed, getting those ‘without vision’ ready for democracy is a task to be taken just as seriously as ensuring that democracy works once it is in place. In Sun’s words, ‘If we insist on using democracy without careful preparation beforehand, we will find it extremely dangerous and liable to kill us’ (349). Yet in these lectures Sun did not elaborate on how the majority of people who are ‘without vision’ will be guided. It is in The Fundamentals of National Reconstruction, published in the same year, that Sun outlined the implementation of democracy as a three-stage process – ‘first, the stage of military rule; second, the stage of political tutelage; third, the stage of constitutional government’.7 During the first stage, ‘the whole administrative system shall be placed under military rule’ to restore order, but ‘[a]s soon as a province is completely restored to order, the stage of political tutelage shall commence and the military stage come to an end’ (10). In Sun’s words, ‘Without military rule the destructive side of the revolution cannot be accomplished thoroughly; without political tutelage its constructive work cannot be pushed forward’ (3). To carry out the constructive work, ‘the government should send persons, trained and qualified through examinations, to various districts (hsien) to assist the people in the preparation of self- government’ (10–11). This includes the election of a district magistrate as the chief executive and representatives to make laws. A district is deemed to have achieved self-government when it fulfils the following tasks: completing a census and land survey of the whole district, establishing police and ‘local defense forces’, building and repairing roads within its boundaries, consolidating tax revenue and developing natural resources (11–13). But perhaps most important of all is the task of training people ‘in the exercise of the four powers [suffrage, recall, initiative and referendum]’ and to ‘fulfil their duties as citizens’ and to ‘carry out the revolutionary principles’ (11). Once every district in a province has attained self-government, the province is ready to move on to the stage of constitutional government (13). Finally, when more than half of the provinces have reached the constitutional stage, the People’s Congress shall be convened to decide on and promulgate the Constitution (15). It is clear that the three-stage process of democratization represents a bottom-up approach that is nonetheless carefully orchestrated from top- down. More specifically, democracy is not spontaneous and as Sun astutely noted, democracy is far from natural. This is why leadership is vital to the implementation of democracy. It is also clear from these lectures that Sun did not provide a defence for democracy because of its intrinsic value. Rather, democracy is deemed to be a necessary pathway to post-colonial nation- building. This raises the question of whether Sun would be prepared to adopt another pathway should it be available. Of course, the same question has been asked as to whether the founders of the Chinese Communist Party – Chen Duxiu (1879–1942) and Li Dazhao (1888–1927) – were truly committed SUN YAT-SEN: PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY AND CHINESE DEMOCRACY 167

Marxists or whether they embraced Marxism because for them, Marxism was the pathway to nation-building. There is no doubt that the educated elites in early twentieth-century China were consumed by the urgent need to find a way to rebuild the country after more than 2,000 years of autocratic rule and more than half a century of Western and Japanese imperialistic encroachment. For many, the debates over political ideas simply had to yield some concrete course of action. While the Chinese Communists continue to hold the view that Mao Zedong Thought incorporates the Three People’s Principles, it is in Taiwan, where the Three People’s Principles, including the five-power constitution, are enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of China, that there was a peaceful evolution to a multi-party democracy in the 1990s that continues to thrive today.

Notes

1 Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu I (The Three Principles of the People), ed. L. T. Chen, trans. Frank W. Price (Shanghai: China Committee, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1927). The extracts cited are at p. 210, p. 297, and p. 299, respectively. All subsequent citations of the text are from this edition without additional endnotes. 2 Sun first articulated these principles in 1905. A few years before these lectures were delivered, Sun had in fact started to write a major book on these principles. Unfortunately, all the notes and manuscripts were destroyed in a fire on 16 June 1922 when Sun’s house was raided by his adversaries (xi). 3 Marie-Claire Bergère, Sun Yat-sen, trans. Janet Lloyd (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 354. 4 Sun’s view was typical of the political discourse of intellectuals during the early years of republican China – that one could be both nationalistic and pro- Western based on the conviction that Western thought on politics and society could be used to transform China into a modern nation-state. This marked a significant departure from the previous generation of reformers under the Qing dynasty, who held the view that all that was lacking to rebuild China’s power was Western technology. For an insightful study of the intellectual milieu of early republican China, see Tse-tung Chow, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960). 5 Sun, ‘Five-Power Constitution’ (Speech delivered at the Kuomintang Special Agent’s Office, July 1921), appendix toFundamentals of National Reconstruction (Taipei: China Cultural Service, 1953), 19–20. 6 Sun, ‘Five-Power Constitution’, 32. 7 Sun, Fundamentals of National Reconstruction, 10. Page numbers found in the rest of the paragraph refer to this text.