Understanding the Soul of China
Sun Yat-sen and Abraham Lincoln
Today’s China has become a paradox for many people.
On the one side, it is a nation based upon centralized government, yet it also has a vast private sector, entrepreneurial culture and market economy. Its leaders call this “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, but there is a larger history at play, which embraces much more than popular definitions of either “socialism” or “capitalism” allow, and which bring us directly into the heart of British imperial vs American “nationalist” economic systems that shaped the causal nexus of world history in the decades following the American Civil War.
As a statesman with connections to the United States going back to his days as a student in Hawaii, Sun Yat-sen was on a tour of the US and Canada in the Autumn of 1911[1].
Sun was lecturing and raising funds for the revolutionary movement that he had been leading since 1893. This particular tour was different from most, as news of the Wuchang uprising that eventually brought down the Qing dynasty went public. He quickly cut his tour short in William Gilpin’s state of Colorado and departed for his homeland to oversee the dismantling of the dynastic system and establishment of a Chinese republican government for the first time in history, where the former doctor took the mantle as the new republic’s first president.
Beyond Left vs. Right
It may be a surprising irony for some to discover that Dr. Sun Yat-sen, first president of the republic of China and a beloved hero to this day in both Taiwan and mainland China was not a follower of Karl Marx, nor was he a Bolshevik, although he was a revolutionary with no qualms about central planning and a healthy disdain for imperialism.
Not one to be easily fit into pre-defined categories, he was also no proponent of the liberal theories of Adam Smith, Malthus, Ricardo or John Stuart Mill, and rallied against the lies of British Free Trade that had only recently been used to justify two opium wars during the previous century of humiliation.
Rather than pick an extreme on the political left or right, Sun Yat-sen instead found himself firmly grounded in the moral philosophy of Lincoln’s USA.
Sun, who was both a Christian and Confucian scholar, stated this explicitly in his 1904 pamphlet, A True Solution for the Chinese Question, where he wrote [2]:
“To work out the salvation of China is exclusively the duty of our own but as the problem has recently found a worldwide interest, we, in order to make sure of our success… must appeal to the people of the United States in particular for your sympathy and support, either moral or material, because you are the pioneers of western civilization in Japan: Because you are a Christian nation: Because we intend to model our new government after yours; Above all, because you are the champion of liberty and democracy. We hope we may find many Lafayette’s among you.”
Sun Yat-sen was always quick to invoke the spirit of Abraham Lincoln throughout his works, and for good reason.
In the Gettysburg Address of November 19, 1863, near the end of the Civil War, Lincoln memorialized those who had died defending the Union by exhorting that through their sacrifice, “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
This tricolon became the inspiration for Sun Yat-sen’s 1924 tract, Three Principles of the People[3].
In the series of lectures which was soon transcribed into a book, Sun lays out the similar three principles that China should adhere to:
minzu (‘national feelings of the people’),
minquan (‘rights of the people’),
and minsheng, (‘the people’s livelihood’).
When asked to describe his political principles, Lincoln once responded[4]: “My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance. I am in favor of the internal improvement system and a high Protective Tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles.”
During his early years studying in the United States from 1879-1883, a young Sun Yat-sen recognized in this aspect of Lincoln’s thought the practical political economic practices that were needed if China was to overcome its twofold crisis: outdated dynastic traditions from within, and hostile manipulation by empires from without. He despaired of the future of the nation, and looked to America for inspiration.
Sun advocated the creation of a native manufacturing sector through the application of protective tariffs, and vast internal improvements through the building of rail, roads, water projects and energy systems. Reiterating his long-time support for the protective tariff in order to cultivate local industries and agriculture, he wrote:
“How do other countries meet foreign economic pressure and check the invasion of economic forces from abroad? Usually by means of a tariff which protects economic development within these countries. Just as forts are built at the entrances of harbors for protection against foreign military invasion, so a tariff against foreign goods protects a nation’s revenue and gives native industries a chance to develop.”
Prospects for a bright future in China after World War I were bleak, with rampant poverty and a severe shortage of national spirit.
Watching the hopes of the 1911 revolution slipping away, Sun wrote in despair:
“If China perishes, the guilt will be on our own heads and we shall be the world’s great sinners. Heaven has placed great responsibilities upon us Chinese; if we do not love ourselves, we are rebels against Heaven.”
In his first lecture on nationalism, Sun Yat-sen clearly described the path to national rejuvenation:
“Our Three Principles of the People mean government ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people’ – that is, a state belonging to all the people, a government controlled by all the people, and rights and benefits for the enjoyment of all the people. If this is true, the people will have a share in everything. When the people share everything in the state, then will we truly reach the goal of the minsheng principle, which is Confucius’ hope of a ‘great commonwealth.’”
It cannot be over-emphasized that the man revered by the Chinese Communist Party today as the forebearer of its revolutionary legacy took direct aim at Marx, whose theories were then quickly permeating the young intelligentsia around him.
Sun wrote in his Three Principles of the People:
“Society progresses through the adjustment of major economic interests rather than through the clash of interests (ie: “class struggle”). If most of the economic interests of society can be harmonized, the majority of people will benefit and society will progress.”
Studying forms of government from ancient Greece to the modern age, Sun stated that those revolutionary leaps that transform society’s means of production, distribution and social norms were never static or zero sum, but always centered around the “overthrowing of old systems and giving rise to new systems.”
He stated: “It is the constant emergence of new systems that makes constant progress possible.”
By recognizing that humanity always leaps from lower to higher systems through new discoveries and inventions, always improving humanity’s condition of life, he recognized the fatal flaw in Marx’s ideology, to which he directed his strongest attack.
Sun concluded that “class war is not the cause of social progress, it is a disease developed in the course of social progress,” and that “Marx can only be called a social pathologist; we cannot say that he is a social physiologist.”
Looking again to America’s example under Lincoln, Sun further stated that Marx “found only one of the diseases of society; he did not discover the law of social progress and the central force in history. As stated by the American scholar, the struggle for subsistence is the law of social progress and is the central force of history.”
In the last four lectures of his book, Sun deals with the idea of improvement of livelihood through scientific and technological progress.
He stresses the need for constant improvement of the quality of life and livelihoods through great public projects, centered on hydroelectric power from the great Yangtze River, industrial growth by the application of the protective tariff, and the application of advanced technology for transportation of rails and roads, as well as agriculture. On the latter, he writes: “We must use the great power of the state and imitate the United States’ methods.”
By arguing for the application of advanced technology to replace human labor, he states “if China with human labor can support four hundred millions, she should with machine power produce enough for eight hundred millions.”
In this way, the “law of diminishing returns” advanced by John Stuart Mill can be overcome by leaping from states of lower to ever higher powers of productivity – offsetting the tensions which caused Marx’s class struggle, and instead cultivating a spirit of increasing economic opportunity, harmony of interests and justice for all. Taking a swipe at the capitalist systems promoted by the British Empire, whose Opium Wars were still a painful memory for China, Sun Yat-sen stated:
“The fundamental difference … between the Principle of Livelihood and capitalism is this: capitalism makes profit its sole aim, while the Principle of Livelihood makes the nurture of the people its aim. With such a noble principle, we can destroy the old, evil capitalistic system.”
Sun Yat-sen believed that if the Confucian minsheng principle – centering on the never-ending improvement of the livelihoods of the people – was adhered to, then a balance could be found between large state power and the liberty of the people.
He wrote, “With such an administrative power on the part of the government and such political power on the part of the people, we will be able to realize the ideal of an all-powerful government seeking the welfare of the people and to blaze the way for the building of a new world.”
Understanding the Evil of Hereditary Systems
While taking aim at the “old, evil capitalist system”, Sun was not attacking free enterprise or capitalism per se, as many reactionary communists tend to reflexively do, but rather the principle of empire masquerading behind ivory tower liberal theories of free trade, always with the intention of dividing to conquer their victims.
Writing his 1917 Vital Problems of China, Sun Yat-sen displays a profound insight into the true nature of the empire’s manipulation of both China (and the world,) saying:
“The British are as cunning as the fox and as changeable as the weather and they are not ashamed of themselves… Britain seeks friendship only with those which can render her services, and when her friends are too weak to be of any use to her, they must be sacrificed in her interests. Britain’s tender regard for her friends is like the delicate care usually shown by farmers in the rearing of silkworms; after all the silk has been drawn from the cocoons, they are destroyed by fire or used as food for fish. The present friends of Britain are no more than silkworms.”
Sun Yat-sen understood this “Great Game” very well.
Throughout his Vital Problems, Sun not only rigorously demonstrated how and why the British oligarchy directly manipulated ALL of the major wars of the 19th and early 20th centuries in the pursuit of a “balance of power”, but also laid out those imperial techniques that are as applicable today as they were in 1917 when he said:
“The key policy of England is to attack the strongest enemy with the help of the weaker countries and join the weakened enemy in checking the growth of a 3rd country. The British foreign policy has remained basically unchanged for two centuries.”
Sun pointed out that when a nation is on the ascent, Britain’s policy is to use alliances with weaker powers who are on the descent to undermine it, and once those allies find themselves in a position of ascent, the policy is reversed, and they then become the targets for destruction, echoing Lord Palmerston’s famous assertion that the “empire has no permanent friends, but rather only permanent interests.”
On this last point, Sun stated:
“When England befriends another country, the purpose is not to maintain a cordial friendship for the sake of friendship, but to utilize that country as a tool to fight a third country. When an enemy has been shorn of his power, he is turned into a friend, and the friend who has become strong, into an enemy. England always remains in a commanding position; she makes other countries fight her wars and she herself reaps the fruits of victory.”
A Look to the Future
Forecasting an interconnected Eurasian railway system and US-Asia alliance, Sun Yat-sen famously stated in his 1919 treatise:
“The world has been greatly benefited by the development of America as an industrial and a commercial Nation. So a developed China with her four hundred millions of population, will be another New World in the economic sense. The nations which will take part in this development will reap immense advantages. Furthermore, international cooperation of this kind cannot but help to strengthen the Brotherhood of Man.”
Finally, looking to the future of China and the world, Sun wrote optimistically, but left a warning which is more apt today than it was in 1924:
“If we want China to rise to power, we must not only restore our national standing, but we must also assume a great responsibility towards the world. If China cannot assume that responsibility, she will be a great disadvantage, not an advantage to the world, no matter how strong she may be. …
If China, when she becomes strong, wants to crush other countries, copy the Powers’ imperialism, and go their road, we will just be following in their tracks. … Only if we “rescue the weak and lift up the fallen” will we be carrying out the divine obligation of our nation. We must aid the weaker and smaller peoples and oppose the great powers of the world. If all the people of the country resolve upon this purpose, our nation will prosper, otherwise, there is no hope for us.”
The balance between strong government and the people’s will has never perfectly been achieved, but Sun Yat-sen knew this was America’s struggle, and was going to be a challenge for China as it threw off the dynastic system and became a Republic in 1912.
Unfortunately, Sun Yat-sen’s early death in 1924 created a leadership vacuum, which none among his allies within the Kuomintang were even moderately qualified to fill. Much like the elitist Federalist party of Alexander Hamilton earlier, the corruption and strategic incompetence among the leadership of the KMT party which he founded resulted in its ultimate inability to preserve the mandate of heaven.
By the end of World War II, Sun Yat-sen’s vision for a world of win-win cooperation was revived by the figure of Franklin Roosevelt, who had fought tirelessly against the British Imperial forces of the City of London before and during the war.
One of the most important figures who shared the passion for an internationalization of New Deal projects globally in order to help former colonies to stand on their feet and achieve genuine economic independence was FDR’s vice president from 1941-1945, Henry A. Wallace.
The Sabotage of a US-China Alliance
Wallace passionately upheld a new vision of the post-war world that included the East.
As he wrote in his 1944 book Our Job in the Pacific:
“Today the peoples of the East are on the march. We can date the beginning of that march from 1911 when the revolutionary movement among the Chinese people, inspired by the teachings of Sun Yat-sen, overthrew the Manchu dynasty and established a republic. This was the first time in the vast and culturally rich history of Asia that an Asiatic people turned its back on the whole principle of monarchy and hereditary rule and, in spite of the difficulties and obstacles that still remained, set out courageously toward the attainment of democracy – government of the people, by the people and for the people.”
Having played a leading role in the initiation of thousands of American water, energy, agriculture and transportation projects as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal”, Wallace believed that the foundation for any durable international order would be centered on large-scale national development projects that eradicated poverty and elevated minds.
Wallace worked closely with FDR and other New Deal Democrats to shape the 1942 Atlantic Charter – enshrining principles of global peace and cooperation into a sort of constitution – and the Bretton Woods System in order to internationalize the success of the New Deal in the post-war world.
While many Wall Street monetarists complained that committing vast spending on poor colonial countries would be an inflationary waste, Wallace explained that if those investments were directed to large scale agro-industrial endeavours, and if the repayment time frame were long term enough, then there would be no risk.
He wrote:
“To form a balanced opinion we need to look forward to the kind of world we shall be living in twenty years from now, for it is the conditions then which will have a bearing on the ability of the borrowing countries to repay on their borrowings, and the ability of this country to receive payment in goods and services.”
What type of political-economic system would best facilitate this post-war growth in Asia?
Again citing Sun Yat-sen, Wallace believed that it couldn’t be done through communism or capitalism alone, but by a higher synthesis that had yet to be created.
He continued:
“Undoubtedly more than one mechanism will be worked out to serve as a gear between the capitalism of America and Britain, the socialism of Russia, and the mixed state and private enterprise which we can expect to see develop in countries like China. One such mechanism might be an international government bank with appropriate guarantees for both government and private funds.”
The foundation for the stability needed for this post-war plan to work, in Wallace’s opinion, included a core alliance of Russia, China and America working in cooperation.
On this point, Wallace wrote:
“It is vital to the United States, it is vital to China and it is vital to Russia that there be peaceful and friendly relations between China and Russia, China and America and Russia and America. China and Russia complement and supplement each other on the continent of Asia, and the two together complement and supplement America’s position in the Pacific.”
Belying the zero-sum game thinking that the post-war world would devolve into, Wallace maintained that each nation’s welfare is locked up in the well being of its neighbour:
“We cannot have prosperity for ourselves alone. We cannot sell unless others can buy. We cannot maintain a high standard of living if it is to be undermined by the low standards of others.”
He ends his pamphlet by describing the guiding principles for this ideal post-war order, writing that fostering communal interests by working together is “the kind of policy in the Pacific that would be welcomed and supported by Americans.”
He adds that such a policy should “be willing to associate with others in minding the world community’s common business; but would fight shy of minding other people’s private business, just as it would resent having our business minded by others.”
Clearly Wallace would have liked the IMF and World Bank to act as instruments to grow this new age, but with the early death of FDR in April 1945, that plan would not unfold. Instead, Wallace and other New Deal Democrats loyal to FDR’s vision were labelled as communist sympathizers for their resistance to the emerging accepted wisdom of the Cold War.
The IMF’s founder and first president, Dexter White, was brought in front of the House of Un-American Activities, losing his position to Wall Street lawyer John J. McCloy and dying of a heart attack in 1948 while campaigning for Wallace as a 3rd Party candidate. Wallace himself was demoted upon Truman’s rise to the Presidency, then summarily fired in 1946 after he tried to promote peace between Russia and America.
Forecasting the tensions of the coming decades, Wallace wrote in 1944 that were his program for an international New Deal to be rejected,
“Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes.”
FDR and Wallace had intended for a system of cooperation with an internationalized New Deal to shape humanity as the plagues of empire were wiped away.
Unfortunately, with FDR’s death, the USA got the Truman doctrine, containment and proxy wars between the supposedly “free and capitalist west” and “totalitarian evil east”.
Xi Jinping and Sun Yat-sen today
In the modern age, the vision of Sun Yat-sen, Lincoln and Wallace for a world shaped by national projects, rail development and peaceful cooperation is again alive in the leadership of China, and the person of Xi Jinping.
Programs taken directly from Xi Jinping’s 1920 International Development of China have become a reality, and the Belt and Road Initiative, tied to the large scale public works programs have increased the standards of living of over a billion people and created a living example of the same principle of National economic planning which made both Lincoln, Sun Yat-sen and FDR such a threat to the international cabal of oligarchs.
At a recent event commemorating the life of President Sun Yat-sen, Xi said the following:
The best way for us to commemorate Sun Yat-sen is to learn from his noble character, uniting all forces that can be united and mobilizing all elements that can be mobilized in the continuing struggle to achieve the revitalization of China that was his dream.
We should study Dr. Sun’s noble model of ardent love and devotion to one’s motherland. His greatest trait was his love for his country; he pursued the ideals of national independence and revitalization of development throughout his life and was resolutely and steadfastly committed to them.
Sun Yat-sen once said: “The greatest thing a person can do is to know how to love his country.” He always encouraged himself with statements such as “I love my country as I love my life” and “As long as I live, I shall endeavor to save the nation.”
Sun Yat-sen had a high degree of national self-esteem and confidence. He did not cling to the past or stubbornly adhere to old ways, and did not blindly revere foreign things and ideas or pander to foreign powers. Rather, he emphasized that “Chinese society is different from that of Western countries, and therefore the politics of managing Chinese society must also be different;” and that “The power of China’s development, when in our hands, shall ensure our survival; if entrusted to others, it shall be our downfall.”
We must learn from Dr. Sun’s tenacious and indomitable spirit.
Dr. Sun devoted “forty years of effort to the national revolution” and, throughout his life, insisted on “pressing forward with courageous aspiration, continuing the struggle with determination despite setbacks, and exerting efforts unremittingly.” He was resolute and steadfast in that endeavor.
Sun Yat-sen once said, “In the few decades on this earth before I inevitably pass, I will have laid the foundation for a country that will live on for tens of thousands of years. The significance of that is evident.”
Dr. Sun’s revolutionary career was fraught with repeated frustrations and hardships. However, for the sake of “creating an independent and free country to support the interests of the nation and the people,” he never allowed himself to lose heart when faced with failure or cower before challenges. It was his firm belief that, “If I am confident that it can be done, then even such a difficult task as moving a mountain and filling an ocean will eventually succeed. If I am convinced that it cannot be done, then even such an easy task as breaking a twig with a flick of my hand will be fruitless.”
It was his firm belief that as long as “our spirit is concentrated, our full strength is directed forward, and we follow the trends of progress of the world and the natural order of good overcoming evil, then there will eventually be a day of ultimate success.” No external threats, internal divisions, or temporary failures could shake Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary will.
Even on his deathbed, “peace, struggle, and saving China” remained front and center in his mind. Through a lifetime of struggle, Dr. Sun fulfilled his vows, demonstrating the heroic spirit and dedication to pursuit of a great revolutionary.
Matthew Ehret is the editor-in-chief of The Canadian Patriot Review, Senior Fellow of the American University in Moscow and Director of the Rising Tide Foundation. He has written the four volume Untold History of Canada series, four volume Clash of the Two Americas series and Science Unshackled: Restoring Causality to a World in Chaos. He is also co-host of The Multipolar Reality on Rogue News and Breaking History on Badlands Media.
Badlands Media articles and features represent the opinions of the contributing authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Badlands Media itself.
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Footnotes
[1] Sun Yat-sen’s 1911 Tour of America, Chinese Historical Society of America, Exhibit
[2] Sun Yat-sen, “The True Solution to the Chinese Question”, New York, 1904, 11-2.
[3] San Min Chu, The Three Principles of the People by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, 1924
[4] The Tariff Review, July 20, 1894, p. 20
Sun Yat-sen was obviously a great leader and proposed much that benefitted China. Some of his plans are being implemented today.
You mention his admiration of FDR and his VP, Henry Wallace. Here is where things began to go haywire in my opinion. First, you say FDR fought tirelessly against the imperial forces of the City of London. That is just not correct. In 1933 FDR made the possession of Gold in America illegal and force all Gold to be returned to the government. Then, in 1935, he changed the valuation of Gold from $20/ounce to $35/ounce. Those two crazy acts guaranteed our currency was going to deflate by design and it immediately inflated Gold by 75% in one year which also deflated our dollar by 75%.
Henry Wallace changed from being a Republican to being VP as a Democrat. By 1944 he was so far left that the democrats tossed him overboard. I had a Farmer’s Almanac from about 1978 that showed him running third party in 1948 as a communist. I now see that has been changed to “progressive party” in the latest description of the guy.
The main point I am going to make is that Sun Yat-sen, FDR, Henry Wallace, and for that matter all politicians, have one problem to solve in promising to build up other destitute countries. The problem is who will pay for those promises? Trying to expand the New Deal internationally sounded just peachy, but it was already bankrupting America! FDR died in 1945, but the democrats had killed the idea of the expansion of the New Deal in 1944! They called it communist!
So, back to how to pay for the improvements in destitute countries, our citizens must pay through taxation. Or, they have to pay by picking our pockets with inflation. Both schemes were invented in 1913 by our politicians which Sun Yat-sen admired greatly. I wonder if he really understood the evil he was admiring?
To me, that is the real story here. How about a better solution that can actually work without taxation or inflation? Let’s watch Donald Trump do some magic. Let’s back our dollars with Gold and stop printing fiat dollars to fund our imperialistic interests. If we want to help other countries, show them how we did it from 1776 to 1871! If FDR had really wanted to fight the City of London he would have told them to kiss off in 1933 instead for taking away our Gold from us.
See, this isn’t rocket science. It is just sound logic.
Fascinating inquiry ... TY, Matt. May an accelerating emergence of Virtue propagate in the Pending Golden Jubilee. Wealth is best defined not in how much I own but in how much I bestow love, light & opportunities upon others. It's this generosity that comes through in your portrayal of Sun Yat-sen.
When our bodies, minds & souls gush w/ divine light, what need is there to hoard? The Deep State Enemy is commanded by Soul-less Vampires who only know how to suck like desperate parasites on life force of others. In facing justice for their past deeds, these evil ones will banished to incarnate on some far flung planet across the multiverse. Earth's emerging 5D+ resonance will not abide such vulgar selfishness anymore. I hope somewhere Sun Yat-sen is smiling.