Keynote Address “Sun Yat-sen and the Origins of Modern Chinese Politics”

Summary

Professor Leo Suryadinata reminded me that when I first wrote about Sun Yat-sen in 1952, it was twenty-seven years after his death and just over forty years after the 1911 Revolution. Some of the people I spoke to at the time had known Sun Yat-sen and they spoke of him with respect while admitting that they did not find it easy to understand him. Was he a failed politician but a great leader? Now he has been dead for eighty-five years and we are commemorating 100 years of the Revolution that he will always be identified with. We now know much more about him. Many scholars have worked on his life and work and each has sought to evaluate his place in history and especially his role in that Revolution. I have little to add to what has been published. But there is something I would like to revisit. I once described Sun Yat-sen as China's first modern politician when he emerged as a leader of a revolution at the end of the nineteenth century. What kind of politics did he promote? In what ways were his politics modern?

Modernity is a concept that has been much debated about, especially when juxtaposed with the word “tradition”. Most of the debates linked with Western attitudes towards China are not relevant here. The word “modern” was first used in the West to mark the progress that followed the struggles against tradition that its peoples were engaged in. It was not a word applied to Asia. For Asian leaders, Western power was the reality, and the question was how far to westernize if they were to defend their countries against being dominated or worse, either conquered or colonized. The first decisive response had come from the young Japanese samurai who helped to overthrow Tokugawa Shogunate. They were prepared to go all out to learn everything they needed from the West in order to fight back.