The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen: An Exposition of the San Min Part 4

He states, also, that if the Chinese race is to survive, it must adopt nationalism. "... if we now want to save China, if we wish to see the Chinese race survive forever, we must preach Nationalism."(62) Hitherto they had been no more conscious of race than were the Europeans of the middle ages. To be sure, they were barbarians, whose features were strange; but the Chinese were not conscious of themselves as a racial unity in compet.i.tion and conflict with other equal or superior racial unities. The self-consciousness of the Chinese was a cultural rather than a racial one, and the juxtaposition that presented itself to the Chinese mind was between "Ourselves of the Central Realm" and "You the Outsiders."(63) Sun Yat-sen became intensely conscious of being a Chinese by race,(64) and so did many other of his compatriots, by the extraordinary race-pride of the _White Men_ in China. In common with many others of his generation, Sun Yat-sen turned to race-consciousness as the name for Chinese solidarity.

There is nowhere in his works, so far as the writer knows, any attempt to find a value higher than the necessity of perpetuating the Chinese race.

Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese; his followers were Chinese; whatever benefits they contemplated bestowing upon the world as a whole were incidental to their work for a powerful and continued China. At various times Sun Yat-sen and his followers expressed sympathy with the whole world, with the oppressed of the earth, or with all Asia, but the paramount drive behind the new movement has been the defense and reconstruction of China, no longer conceived of as a core-society maintaining the flower of human civilization, but regarded as a race abruptly plunged into the chaos of hostile and greedy nations.

Throughout his life, Sun Yat-sen called China a nation. We may suppose that he never thought that Chinese society need not necessarily be called a nation, even in the modern world. What he did do, though, was to conceive of China as a unique type of nation: a race-nation. He stated that races could be distinguished by a study of physical characteristics, occupation, language, religion and folkways or customs.(65) Dividing the world first into the usual old-style five primary races (white, black, yellow, brown, and red), he divides these races into sub-races in the narrow sense of the term. The Chinese race, in the narrow sense of the term, is both a race and a nation. The Anglo-Saxons are divided between England and America, the Germans between Germany and Austria, the Latins among the Mediterranean nations, and so forth; but China is at the same time both the Chinese race and the Chinese nation. If the Chinese wish their race to perpetuate itself forever, they must adopt and follow the doctrine of Nationalism.(66) Otherwise China faces the tragedy of being "despoiled as a nation and extinct as a race."(67)

Sun Yat-sen felt that China was menaced and oppressed ethnically, politically and economically. Ethnically, he believed that the extraordinary population increase of the white race within the past few centuries represented a trend which, if not counterbalanced, would simply result in the Chinese race being crowded off the earth. Politically he observed that the Chinese dependencies had been alienated by the Western powers and j.a.pan; that China was at the mercy of any military nation that chose to attack; that it was a temporary deadlock between the conquering powers rather than any strength of China that prevented, at least for the time being, the part.i.tion of China and that a diplomatic attack, which could break the deadlock of the covetous states, would be even more deadly and drastic than simple military attack.(68)

It must be remembered that Sun Yat-sen saw a nation while the majority of his compatriots still envisioned the serene, indestructible society of the Confucians. Others may have realized that the Western impact was more than a frontier squabble on a grand scale; they may have thought it to have a.s.sumed epic proportions. But Sun Yat-sen, oppressed by his superior knowledge of the Western nations, obtained at the cost of considerable sympathy with them, struggled desperately to make his countrymen aware of the fact, irrefutable to him, that China was engaged in a conflict different not only in degree but in kind from any other in Chinese history. The Great Central Realm had become simply China. Endangered and yet supine, it faced the imperative necessity of complete reconst.i.tution, with the bitter alternative of decay and extinction-a race tragedy to be compounded of millions of individual tragedies. And yet reconst.i.tution could not be of a kind that would itself be a surrender and treason to the past; China must fit itself for the modern world, and nevertheless be China. This was the dilemma of the Chinese world-society, suddenly become a nation. Sun Yat-sen's life and thought were devoted to solving it.

The Necessity of Nationalism.

An abstract theorist might observe that the Chinese, finding their loose-knit but stable society surrounded by compact and aggressive nations, might have solved the question of the perpetuation of Chinese society in the new environment by one of two expedients: first, by nationalizing, as it were, their non-national civilization; or second, by launching themselves into a campaign against the system of nations as such. The second alternative does not seem to have occurred to Sun Yat-sen. Though he never ventured upon any complete race-war theory, he was nevertheless anxious to maintain the self-sufficient power of China as it had been until the advent of the West. In his negotiations with the Communists, for example, neither he nor they suggested-as might have been done in harmony with communist theory-the fusion of China and the Soviet Union under a nuclear world government. We may a.s.sume with a fair degree of certainty that, had a suggestion been made, Sun Yat-sen would have rejected it with mistrust if not indignation. He had spent a great part of his life in the West. He knew, therefore, the incalculable gulf between the civilizations, and was unwilling to entrust the destinies of China to persons other than Chinese.(69)

Once the possibility of a successful counter-attack upon the system of nations is discounted, nationalism is seen as the sole solution to China's difficulties. It must, however, be understood that, whereas nationalism in the West implies an intensification of the already definite national consciousness of the peoples, nationalism in China might mean only as little as the introduction of such an awareness of nationality.

Nationalism in China might, as a matter of logic, include the possibility of improved personal relations between the Chinese and the nationals of other states since, on the one hand, the Chinese would be relieved of an intolerable sense of humiliation in the face of Western power, and, on the other, be disabused of any archaic notions they might retain concerning themselves as the sole civilized people of the earth.(70)

A brief historical reference may explain the apparent necessity of nationalism in China. In the nineteenth century foreigners in China generally suffered reverses when they came into conflict with a village, a family, or a guild. But when they met the government, they were almost always in a position to bully it. It was commonly of little or no concern to the people what their government did to the barbarians; the whole affair was too remote to be much thought about. We find, for example, that the British had no trouble in obtaining labor auxiliaries in Canton to fight with the British troops against the Imperial government at Peking in 1860; it is quite probable that these Cantonese, who certainly did not think that they were renegades, had no anti-dynastic intentions. Chinese served the foreign enemies of China at various times as quasi-military constabulary, and served faithfully. Before the rise of Chinese nationalism it was not beyond possibility that China would be part.i.tioned into four or five colonies appurtenant to the various great powers and that the Chinese in each separate colony, if considerately and tactfully treated, would have become quite loyal to their respective foreign masters. The menace of such possibilities made the need of Chinese nationalism very real to Sun Yat-sen; the pa.s.sing of time may serve further to vindicate his judgment.

Sun Yat-sen's nationalism, though most vividly clear when considered as a practical expedient of social engineering, may also be regarded more philosophically as a derivation of, or at least having an affinity with, certain older ideas of the Chinese. Confucian thinking, as re-expressed in Western terms, implants in the individual a sense of his responsibility to all humanity, united in s.p.a.ce and time. Confucianism stressed the solidarity of humanity, continuous, immortal, bound together by the closest conceivable ties-blood relations.h.i.+ps. Sun Yat-sen's nationalism may represent a narrowing of this conception, and the subst.i.tution of the modern Chinese race for Confucian humanity. In fairness to Sun Yat-sen it must, however, be admitted that he liked to think, in Christian and Confucian terms, of the brotherhood of man; one of his favorite expressions was "under heaven all men shall work for the common good."(71)

Nationalism was to Sun Yat-sen the prime condition of his movement and of his other principles. The Communists of the West regard every aspect of their lives significant only in so far as it is instrumental in the cla.s.s struggle. Sun Yat-sen, meeting them, was willing to use the term "cla.s.s struggle" as an instrument for Chinese nationalism. He thought of China, of the vital and immediate necessity of defending and strengthening China, and sacrificed everything to the effectuation of a genuine nationalism. To him only nationalism could tighten, organize, and clarify the Chinese social system so that China, whatever it was to be, might not be lost.

The early philosophers of China, looking upon a unicultural world, saw social organization as the supreme criterion of civilization and humanity.

Sun Yat-sen, in a world of many mutually incomprehensible and hostile cultures saw nationalism (in the sense of race solidarity) as the supreme condition for the survival of the race-nation China. Democracy and social welfare were necessary to the stability and effectiveness of this nationalism, but the preservation and continuation of the race-nation was always to remain the prime desideratum.

The Return to the Old Morality.

Sun Yat-sen quite unequivocally stated the necessity for establis.h.i.+ng a new Nationalist ideology in order to effectuate the purposes of China's regeneration. He spoke of the two steps of ideological reconst.i.tution and political reconst.i.tution as follows: "In order today to restore our national standing we must, first of all, revive the national spirit. But in order to revive the national spirit, we must fulfill two conditions.

First, we must realize that we are at present in a very critical situation. Second ... we must unite ... and form a large national a.s.sociation."(72) He evidently regarded the ideological reconst.i.tution as anterior to the political, although he adjusted the common development of the two quite detailedly in his doctrine of tutelage.

He proposed three ideological methods for the regeneration of China, which might again make the Chinese the leading society (nation) of the world.

There were: first, the return to the ancient Chinese morality; second, the return to the ancient Chinese learning; and third, the adoption of Western science.(73)

Sun Yat-sen's never-shaken belief in the applicability of the ancient Chinese ethical system, and in the wisdom of old China in social organization, is such that of itself it prevents his being regarded as a mere imitator of the West, a barbarized Chinese returning to barbarize his countrymen. His devotion to Confucianism was so great that Richard Wilhelm, the greatest of German sinologues, wrote of him: "The greatness of Sun Yat-sen rests, therefore, upon the fact that he has found a living synthesis between the fundamental principles of Confucianism and the demands of modern times, a synthesis which, beyond the borders of China, can again become significant to all humanity. Sun Yat-sen combined in himself the brazen consistency of a revolutionary and the great love of humanity of a renewer. Sun Yat-sen has been the kindest of all the revolutionaries of mankind. And this kindness was taken by him from the heritage of Confucius. Hence his intellectual work stands as a connecting bridge between the old and the modern ages. And it will be the salvation of China, if it determinedly treads that bridge."(74) And Tai Chi-tao, one of Sun Yat-sen's most respected followers, had said: "Sun Yat-sen was the only one among all the revolutionaries who was not an enemy to Confucius; Sun Yat-sen himself said that his ideas embodied China, and that they were derived from the ideas of Confucius."(75) The invocation of authorities need not be relied upon to demonstrate the importance of Sun Yat-sen's demand for ideological reconstruction upon the basis of a return to the traditional morality; he himself stated his position in his sixth lecture on nationalism: "If we now wish to restore to our nation its former position, besides uniting all of us into a national body, we must also first revive our own ancient morality; when we have achieved that, we can hope to give back to our nation the position which she once held."(76)

What are the chief elements of the old morality? These are: 1) loyalty and filial piety, 2) humanity and charity, 3) faithfulness and justice, and 4) peace. These four, however, are all expressions of _humanity_, to which _knowledge_ and _valor_ must be joined, and _sincerity_ employed in expressing them.

The problem of loyalty was one very difficult to solve. Under the Empire it was easy enough to consider the Emperor as the father of the great society, and to teach loyalty to him. This was easy to grasp, even for the simplest mind. Sun Yat-sen urged loyalty to the people, and loyalty to duty, as successors to the loyalty once owed to the sovereign. He deplored the tendency, which appeared in Republican times, for the ma.s.ses to a.s.sume that since there was no more Emperor, there was no more loyalty; and it has, since the pa.s.sing of Sun Yat-sen, been one of the efforts of the Nationalists to build up a tradition of loyalty to the spirit of Sun Yat-sen as the timeless and undying leader of modern China.

Sun Yat-sen was also deeply devoted to filial piety in China, which was-in the old philosophy-simply a manifestation, in another direction, of the same virtue as loyalty. He called filial piety indispensable, and was proud that none of the Western nations had ever approached the excellence of the Chinese in this virtue.(77) At the time that he said this, Sun Yat-sen was accused of being a virtual Communist, and of having succ.u.mbed to the lure of Soviet doctrines. It is at least a little strange that a man supposedly infatuated with Marxism should praise that most conservative of all virtues: filial piety!

Sun Yat-sen then commented on each of the other virtues, pointing out their excellence in old China, and their necessity to modern China. In the case of faithfulness, for example, he cited the traditional reliability of the Chinese in commercial honor. Concerning justice, he pointed out that the Chinese political technique was one fundamentally just; an instance of the application of this was Korea, which was-allowed to enjoy peace and autonomy as a Chinese va.s.sal state for centuries, and then was destroyed shortly after becoming a j.a.panese protectorate. Chinese faithfulness and justice were obviously superior to that of the j.a.panese.

In politics the two most important contributions of the old morality to the Nationalist ideology of Sun Yat-sen were (1) the doctrine of _w.a.n.g tao_, and (2) the social interpretation of history.

_w.a.n.g tao_ is the way of kings-the way of right as opposed to _pa tao_, the way of might. It consisted, in the old ideology, of the course of action of the kingly man, who ruled in harmony with nature and did not violate the established proprieties of mankind. Sun Yat-sen's teachings afford us several applications of _w.a.n.g tao_. In the first place, a group which has been formed by the forces of nature is a race; it has been formed according to _w.a.n.g tao_. A group which has been organized by brute force is a state, and is formed by _pa tao_. The Chinese Empire was built according to _w.a.n.g tao_; the British Empire by _pa tao_. The former was a natural organization of a h.o.m.ogeneous race; the latter, a military outrage against the natural order of mankind.(78)

_w.a.n.g tao_ is also seen in the relation between China and her va.s.sal states, a benevolent relations.h.i.+p which stood in sharp contrast, at times, though not always, to the methods later to be used by the Europeans in Asia.(79) Again, economic development on a basis of the free play of economic forces was regarded as _w.a.n.g tao_ by Sun Yat-sen, even though its consequences might be adverse. _Pa tao_ appeared only when the political was employed to do violence to the economic.(80) This doctrine of good and bad aspects of economic relations.h.i.+ps stands in distinct contrast to the Communist theory. He believed that the political was frequently employed to bring about unjust international economic relations.h.i.+ps, and extenuated adverse economic conditions simply because they were the free result of the operations of a _laissez-faire_ economy.

Economically, the interpretation of history was, according to Sun Yat-sen, to be performed through the study of consumption, and not of the means of production. In this he was indebted to Maurice William-at least in part.(81) The social interpretation of history is, however, a.s.sociated not only with economic matters, but with the ancient Chinese moral system as well. Tai Chi-tao, whose work has most clearly demonstrated the relations.h.i.+p between Confucianism and Sunyatsenism, points out in his diagram of Sun Yat-sen's ethical system that _humanity_ (_jen_) was to Sun Yat-sen the key to the interpretation of history. We have already seen that _jen_ is the doctrine of social consciousness, of awareness of members.h.i.+p in society.(82) Sun Yat-sen, according to Tai Chi-tao, regarded man's development as a social animal, the development of his humanity, as the key to history. This would include, of course, among other things, his methods of production and of consumption. The distinction between Sun Yat-sen and the Western Marxian thinkers lies in the fact that the latter trace their philosophical genealogy back through the main currents of Western philosophy, while Sun Yat-sen derives his from Confucius. Nothing could be further from dialectical materialism than the socio-ethical interpretation that Sun Yat-sen developed from the Confucian theories.

The role played by the old Chinese morality in the ideology of Sun Yat-sen is, it is apparent, an important one. First, Sun Yat-sen believed that Chinese nationalism and the regeneration of the Chinese people had to be based on the old morality of China, which was superior to any other morality that the world had known, and which was among the treasures of the Chinese people. Second, he believed that, in practical politics as well as national ideology, the application of the old virtues would be fruitful in bringing about the development of a strong China. Third, he derived the idea of _w.a.n.g tao_, the right, the royal, the natural way, from antiquity. He pointed out that violence to the established order-of race, as in the case of the British Empire, of economics, as in the case of the political methods of imperialism-was directly ant.i.thetical to the natural, peaceful way of doing things that had led to the supreme greatness of China in past ages. Fourth, he employed the doctrine of _jen_, of social-consciousness, which had already been used, by the Confucians, and formed the cornerstone of their teaching, as the key to his interpretation. In regard to the individual, this was, as we have seen, consciousness of social orientation; with regard to the group, it was the development of strength and harmony. It has also been translated _humanity_, which broadly and ethically, carries the value scheme with which _jen_ is connected.

Even this heavy indebtedness to Chinese antiquity in adopting and adapting the morality of the ancients for the salvation of their children in the modern world, was not the total of Sun Yat-sen's political traditionalism.

He also wished to renew the ancient Chinese knowledge, especially in the fields of social and political science. Only after these did he desire that Western technics be introduced.

The Return to the Ancient Knowledge.

Sun Yat-sen's doctrine of the return to the ancient Chinese knowledge may be divided into three parts. First, he praised the ancient Chinese superiority in the field of social science, but distinctly stressed the necessity of Western knowledge in the field of the physical and applied sciences alone.(83) Second, he pointed out the many practical accomplishments of the ancient Chinese knowledge, and the excellence and versatility of Chinese invention.(84) Third, his emphasis upon the development of talents in the material sciences hints at, although it does not state, a theory of national wealth based upon labor capacity.

Sun Yat-sen said, "Besides reviving our ancient Chinese morality, we must also revive our wisdom and ability.... If today we want to revive our national spirit, we must revive not only the morality which is proper to us, but we must revive also our own knowledge."(85) He goes on to say that the peculiar excellence of the ancient Chinese knowledge lay in the field of political philosophy, and states that the Chinese political philosophy surpa.s.sed the Western, at least in clearness.

He quotes _The Great Learning_ for the summation, in a few words, of the highlights of this ancient Chinese social knowledge: "Investigate into things, attain the utmost knowledge, make the thoughts sincere, rectify the heart, cultivate the person, regulate the family, govern the country rightly, pacify the world."(86) This is, as we have seen, what may be called the Confucian doctrine of ideological control. Sun Yat-sen lavished praise upon it. "Such a theory, so detailed, minute, and progressive, was neither discovered nor spoken of by any foreign political philosopher. It is a peculiar intellectual treasure pertaining to our political philosophy, which we must preserve."(87) The endors.e.m.e.nt is doubly significant. In the first place, it demonstrates the fact that Sun Yat-sen thought of himself as a rebuilder and not as a destroyer of the ancient Chinese culture, and the traditional methods of organization and control.

In the second place, it points out that his Chinese background was most clear to him, and that he was in his own mind the transmitter of the Chinese heritage.

In speaking of Chinese excellence in the field of the social science, Sun Yat-sen did not confine his discussion to any one time. Whenever he referred to a political theory, he mentioned its Chinese origin if it were one of those known to Chinese antiquity: anarchism, communism, democracy.

He never attacked Chinese intellectual knowledge for being what it was, but only for what it omitted: physical science.(88) He was undoubtedly more conservative than many of his contemporaries, who were actually hostile to the inheritance.

The summary of Sun Yat-sen's beliefs and position in respect to the ancient intellectual knowledge is so well given by Tai Chi-tao that any other statement would almost have to verge on paraphrase. Tai Chi-tao wrote:

Sun Yat-sen (in his teachings) completely includes the true ideas of China as they recur again and again from Yao and Shun, Confucius and Mencius. It will be clear to us, therefore, that Sun Yat-sen is the renewal of Chinese moral culture, unbroken for two thousand years ... we can see that Sun Yat-sen was convinced of the truth of his own words, and at the same time we can also recognize that his national revolution was based upon the re-awakening of Chinese culture. He wanted to call the creative power of China to life again, and to make the value of Chinese culture useful to the whole world, and in that way to realize cosmopolitanism.(89)

Accordingly, Sun Yat-sen's doctrines may not only be regarded as having been based upon the tacit premises of the Chinese intellectual milieu, but as having been incorporated in them as supports. Sun Yat-sen's theories were, therefore, consciously as well as unconsciously Chinese.

Sun Yat-sen was proud of the accomplishment of the Chinese in physical and applied knowledge. He praised Chinese craftsmans.h.i.+p and skill, and extolled the talents of the people which had invented the mariner's compa.s.s, printing, porcelain, gunpowder, tea, silks, arches, and suspension bridges.(90) He urged the revival of the talents of the Chinese, and the return of material development. This teaching, in conjunction with his advocacy of Western knowledge, leads to another suggestive point.

Sun Yat-sen pointed out that _wealth_ was to the modern Chinese what _liberty_ was to the Europeans of the eighteenth century-the supreme condition of further progress.(91) The way to progress and wealth was through social reorganization, and through the use of the capacities of the people. It may be inferred, although it cannot be stated positively, that Sun Yat-sen measured wealth not merely in metals or commodities, but in the productive capacities of the country, which, as they depend upon the labor skill of the workers, are in the last a.n.a.lysis cultural and psychological rather than exclusively physical in nature.(92)

China, following the ancient morality, conscious of its intellectual and social heritage, and of its latent practical talents, needed only one more lesson to learn: the need of Western science.