The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen: An Exposition of the San Min Part 11

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 cla.s.s 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-a-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 compet.i.tion 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 Yuan s.h.i.+h-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 a.s.sume control.

The further necessity for nationalism appeared in several ways. First, the Chinese had not become nationalistic enough in their att.i.tude 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 j.a.panese capital pouring into Peking for illegitimate purposes, and accepted by a prost.i.tuted 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 overlords.h.i.+p-had been achieved. He was preoccupied with the domestic problems of democracy and _min sheng_. 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 s.h.i.+pments 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 a.s.sist 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 a.s.sociate with China as an equal, and the Soviet representative in Peking was the first diplomat to be given the t.i.tle of amba.s.sador 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 va.s.salage 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 va.s.sal 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 part.i.tioning had been r.e.t.a.r.ded, 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 peris.h.i.+ng at any moment. She is not safe from one day to the other."(252) j.a.pan 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 att.i.tudes 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 inst.i.tution 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 att.i.tude that it had fallen heir to the overlords.h.i.+p 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 const.i.tuent "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 sheng_ 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-kins.h.i.+p; China was not only to be self-ruling-it was to help the other nations of Asia restore their autonomy and s.h.i.+eld them with its tutelary benevolence.

When one considers that to Sun Yat-sen democracy and autonomy are inextricably a.s.sociated, 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 j.a.pan. 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, a.s.sociated with democracy, required that the whole Chinese people be a.s.sociated 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 part.i.tion; 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 Cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s war of the nations. It serves to ill.u.s.trate 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 friends.h.i.+p proffered him by the Communists that he sought to cooperate 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 cla.s.ses. 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 cla.s.s struggle.

He regarded the cla.s.s 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 sheng_ 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 p.r.o.nounced, 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 cla.s.s 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 const.i.tute 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 _Ra.s.senpolitiker_, 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 cla.s.s 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 s.h.i.+ft 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s struggle of the nations had been done with, the time for the consideration of cosmopolitanism would have arrived.

In taking cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s struggle is at one and the same time an a.s.sertion 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 cla.s.s 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 sheng_ 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 kins.h.i.+p. In this last p.r.o.nouncement, 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, j.a.pan.(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 j.a.panese officials and propagandists have been making, this part of his program requires new attention.

The speech itself is a re-statement of the race-cla.s.s 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 j.a.pan, Turkey, and the Soviet Union as leaders of the oppressed cla.s.s 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 j.a.pan 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 j.a.panese, 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 kins.h.i.+p 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-j.a.panese conflict. China is bound to Russia by the theory of the cla.s.s war of the nations, but could declare that Russia had merely devised a new form for imperialism. China is bound to j.a.pan by the common heritage of Asiatic blood and civilization, but could declare that j.a.pan had gone over to the _pa tao_ side of Western imperialism, and prost.i.tuted 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 j.a.pan 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 j.a.pan 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 j.a.pan.

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 const.i.tution 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 j.a.panese and Russians. The former naturally saw it as a great resurgency of Asia under the glorious leaders.h.i.+p of the j.a.panese 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.