2 Legacy

His Political philosophy, known as the Three Principles of the People was proclaimed in August 1905 and was based strongly on the American System.

In his Methods and Strategies of Establishing the Country completed in 1919, he suggested using his Three People's Principles to establish ultimate peace, freedom and equality in the country.

After Sun's death, a power struggle between his young protégé Chiang Kai-shek and his old revolutionary comrade Wang Jingwei split the KMT. At stake in this struggle was the right to lay claim to Sun Yat-sen's ambiguous legacy. When the Communists and the Kuomintang split in 1927, marking the start of the Chinese Civil War, each group claimed to be his true heirs. In addition, during World War II, both the anti-Japanese government of Chiang Kai-shek and the pro-Japanese puppet government of Wang Jingwei claimed to be the rightful heirs of Sun's legacy.

300px Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei

The official veneration of Sun's memory (especially in the Kuomintang) was a virtual cult, which centered around his tomb in Nanjing. His widow, the former Soong Ching-ling, sided with the communists during the Chinese Civil War and served from 1949 to 1981 and Vice President (or Vice Chairwoman) of the Communist China and as Honorary President shortly before her death in 1981.

Sun Yat-sen remains unique among 20th-century Chinese leaders for having a high reputation both in mainland China and in Taiwan. In Taiwan, he is seen as the Father of the Republic of China, and is known by the posthumous name National Father, Mr. Sun Zhongshan ( Chinese: 國父　孫中山先生, where the one-character space is a traditional homage symbol). His picture is still almost always found in ceremonial locations such as in front of legislatures and classrooms of public schools (from elementary to senior high school), and he continues to appear in new coinage and currency. This stands in sharp contrast to Chiang Kai-shek, whose pictures were mostly removed from public places in the 1990s, and whose likeness has gradually disappeared from coinage and currency. Much of the difference may be attributed to the fact that unlike Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat-sen played no role in governing Taiwan, so invoking Sun Yat-sen produces much less of a negative reaction among supporters of Taiwan independence than invoking other figures of the Kuomintang.

On the mainland, Sun is also seen as a Chinese nationalist and pro-socialist, and is highly regarded as the Forerunner of the Revolution ( Chinese: 革命的先行者). He is mentioned by name in the preamble to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China. In recent years, the leadership of the Communist Party of China has been increasingly invoking Sun Yat-sen, partly as a way of bolstering Chinese nationalism in light of Chinese economic reform, which has made communism less relevant propaganda. Significantly, a massive picture of Sun now appears in Tiananmen Square for May Day while pictures of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin no longer appear.

Sun is also one of the primary saints of the Vietnamese religion Cao Dai.

3 Names

Like many other Chinese historical figures, Sun Yat-sen used several names throughout his life, and he is known under several of these names, which can be quite confusing for the Westerner. Names are not taken lightly in China, they are central to Chinese culture, something that goes as far back as Confucius and his insistence on using correct names.

The "real" name of Sun Yat-sen (the concept of real or original name is not as clean-cut in China as it is in the Western world, as will become obvious below), the name inscribed in the genealogical records of his family, is Sun Deming (孫德明). This "register name" (譜名) is the name under which his extended relatives of the Sun family would known him, this is a name that was used in formal occasions, such as when he got married. The first Chinese character of the given name, de (德), is the generation character which he shared with his brother and his relatives on the same generation line. Traditionally, this name was not used in intercourse with people outside of the family, and inside China or Taiwan almost nobody knows that his real name was Sun Deming (although other historical figures such as Mao Zedong are known by their "register name"), and even many Chinese people wrongly assume that Deming was his courtesy name (字).

This name, however, was not the name that he received when he was born. Traditionally, Chinese families would wait a certain number of years before officially naming their offspring. In the meantime, they used so-called "milk names" (乳名) which were given to the infant shortly after his birth, and which were known only by the close family. Thus, the actual name that Sun Yat-sen received at birth was Sun Dixiang (孫帝象), but again this is a fact rarely known in China or Taiwan, and only his parents would have used the given name Dixiang when calling him. Dixiang literally means "Supreme God - Elephant". In China, it often happened that families dedicated their newly-born to a god or a buddha in order to offer them protection. Sun Yat-sen and his brother were dedicated to the Supreme God of Heaven by their mother, a supreme deity known as Shangdi (上帝) in Chinese, and so the first character of his milk name (and of his brother too) was di, in reference to Shangdi. As for "Elephant", allegedly his mother dreamed of a large elephant while she was pregnant, and so she called him "Elephant" when he was born.

When he was 10-year-old he entered the village Confucian school, and he received a so-called "school name" (學名). The "school name" was actually the formal name of a person, the name used by older people to call the person, so it was the name that the person would use the most in the first decades of his life (as the person grew older, younger generations would have to use one of the courtesy names instead). Colloquially, the "school name" is called "big name" (大名), whereas the "milk name" is known as the "small name" (小名). The "school name" chosen for Sun Yat-sen was Wen (文 - meaning "literary"). Unlike the other names above, this name is very well-known in China and Taiwan, and the vast majority of people even wrongly assume that the original name of Sun Yat-sen was Sun Wen, whereas in fact his "original" name is Sun Deming. This is not surprising however, as many families dispensed with choosing a "school name", and so the "register name" was the one used by people of the older generations to call the young man. In the case of Sun Yat-sen, it seems nobody ever used the "register name" outside of his family. When he became known by Chinese authorities for his revolutionary activities, he was listed as Sun Wen.

In 1883, 17-year-old Sun Yat-sen was baptized Christian, and he started his studies in Hong-Kong. On that occasion, he chose himself a pseudonym (號): Rixin (日新 - meaning "renew oneself daily"). Allegedly he chose this name in reference to a sentence inside the Confucian classic book The Great Learning: "If you renew yourself for one day, you can renew yourself daily, and continue to do so" (「苟日新，日日新，又日新」). This is the name he used while a student in Hong Kong. Later, his professor of Chinese literature changed this pseudonym into Yixian (逸仙). Unlike in Mandarin, both pseudonyms are pronounced the same in Cantonese: Yat-sen. As this was the name that he used in his frequent contacts with Westerners at the time, he has become known under this name (with Cantonese pronunciation) in the West. In the Chinese world, however, almost nobody uses the Mandarin version Sun Yixian, nor the Cantonese version Sun Yat-sen.

Later, Sun Yat-sen chose a courtesy name (字) which was Zaizhi (載之 - meaning "conveying"). Allegedly, this courtesy name was chosen as a reminder of his "school name" Wen ("literary"), based on the Chinese philosophical saying "literature as a vehicle to convey the Tao" (文以載道). Courtesy names in China often tried to bear a connection with the personal name of the person. His courtesy name, however, was apparently seldom used, and is rarely known in the Chinese world.

In 1897, Sun Yat-sen arrived in Japan, and when he went to the hotel he had to register his name. Desiring to remain hidden from Japanese authorities, his friend wrote down the Japanese family name Nakayama (中山) on the register for him. Allegedly, on their way to the hotel they had passed by the Palace of Marquis Nakayama (one of the highest ranking daimyo of Japan) near Hibiya Park in central Tokyo, and so his friend chose the family name which they had seen hanging at the door of the palace. During his entire stay in Japan, he was known as Mr. Nakayama. Nakayama is pronounced Zhongshan in Mandarin Chinese. After his return to China in 1911, this alias became popular among Chinese republican circles, and so it was that a Japanese family name became his new Chinese given name. This was aided by the fact that Nakayama/Zhongshan literally means "central mountain" (and can even be interpreted as meaning "China's mountain"), which holds very positive and dignified connotations in Chinese. Today, the overwhelming majority of Chinese people know Sun Yat-sen under the name Sun Zhongshan. Often it is shortened to Zhongshan only, and inside China one can find many Zhongshan Avenue, Zhongshan Park, etc.

In 1940, the Kuomintang party officially conferred on the late Sun Yat-sen the name Guofu (國父 - meaning "Father of the Nation"), and this name is still frequently used in Taiwan (in Taipei the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is actually officially called Guofu Memorial Hall), but is seldom used in mainland China, where the title "Forerunner of the Revolution" (革命先行者) is encountered instead sometimes.

On top of all these names, Sun Yat-sen also chose many aliases while he was a revolutionary in exile. According to one study, he used as many as thirty different names!

4 See also

• History of the Republic of China

5 External links

• ROC Government Biography
• Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Foundation of Hawaii: A virtual library on Dr. Sun in Hawaii including sources for six visits
• Dr. Sun Yat-sen's "immigration" into the US with his successfully claimed (but of course illicit) "Certificate of Hawaiian birth" NARA Government documents cf. also Dr. Sun Yat-sen Foundation Hawaii, 5th visit
• Alexander Hamilton's Influence on Sun Yat Sen's Founding of the Chinese Republic

Chinese politicians

<Hide>