Sun Yat-sen (; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925) was a Chinese physician, revolutionary and political philosopher who founded the Republic of China (ROC) and the Kuomintang (KMT). Sun is credited with leading the 1911 Revolution and overthrowing the Qing dynasty. He served as the first president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China (1912) and as the inaugural premier of the Kuomintang.
Born to a poor peasant family in Guangdong, Sun was educated in Hawaii before graduating from the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese in 1892. In 1894 he submitted a petition to reform the Qing government to Li Hongzhang, which was rejected. Sun subsequently went into exile and led anti-Qing movements overseas, founding the Revive China Society, the Tongmenghui, and the People's News.
Following the 1911 Revolution, Sun proclaimed the establishment of the Republic of China but relinquished the presidency to Beiyang Army leader Yuan Shikai in exchange for securing the Qing court's abdication. After the assassination of Song Jiaoren in 1913, widely attributed to Yuan, Sun led a failed Second Revolution against him, after which Sun fled to Japan. In 1917, Sun established a Constitutional Protection junta in Guangzhou, but before his planned Northern Expedition against the warlords, he was forced to resign due to infighting. Sun assumed the junta leadership in 1921, survived Chen Jiongming's revolt, and collaborated with Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party to form the First United Front. In late 1924, he traveled north beyond his base in Guangdong to call for a national assembly and the abolition of unequal treaties, continuing his struggle against the warlords Duan Qirui and Zhang Zuolin. He died in Beijing in 1925.
Sun is revered by both the Republic of China, which designates him "Father of the Nation," and the People's Republic of China, which honors him as the "Forerunner of the Revolution." Sun's flagship ideology, Three Principles of the People, sought to modernize China through nationalism, democracy, and the people's livelihood, within an ethnically harmonious conception of the Chinese nation.
Sun's genealogical name was Sun Deming (Cantonese: Syūn Dāk-mìhng; 孫德明). As a child, his milk name was Tai Tseung (Cantonese: Dai-jeuhng; 帝象). In school, a teacher gave him the name Sun Wen (Cantonese: Syūn Màhn; 孫文), which was used by Sun for most of his life.
Sun's courtesy name was Zaizhi (Cantonese: Joi-jī; 載之), and his art name was Rixin (Yaht-sān; 日新) before it was changed to Yixian (Yaht-sān; 逸仙) when he attended school in British Hong Kong. The most common English form of his name derives from the Cantonese romanization of his art names, which differ in Mandarin pronunciation but are identical in Cantonese.
Sun Zhongshan (Syūn Jūng-sāan; 孫中山, also romanized Chung Shan), his best known name in the Chinese-speaking world, is derived from his Japanese name Kikori Nakayama (中山樵; Nakayama Kikori), the pseudonym given to him by Tōten Miyazaki when he was in hiding in Japan.
His birthplace, originally known as Xiangshan, was renamed Zhongshan in his honour shortly after his death in 1925.
Sun Deming was born on 12 November 1866 to Sun Dacheng and Madame Yang. His birthplace was the village of Cuiheng, Xiangshan County (now Zhongshan City), Canton Province (now Guangdong). He was Hakka and Cantonese. His father owned very little land and worked as a tailor in Macau and as a journeyman and a porter. After finishing primary education and meeting childhood friend Lu Haodong, he moved to Honolulu in the Kingdom of Hawaii, where he lived a comfortable life of modest wealth supported by his elder brother Sun Mei.
Sun began his education at the age of 10, and later attended secondary school in Hawaii. In 1878, after receiving a few years of local schooling, a 13-year-old Sun went to live with his elder brother Sun Mei, who would later make major contributions to overthrowing the Qing dynasty, and who financed Sun's attendance of the ʻIolani School. There, he studied English, British history, mathematics, science, and Christianity. Sun was initially unable to speak English, but quickly acquired it, received a prize for academic achievement from King Kalākaua, and graduated in 1882. He then attended Oahu College (now known as Punahou School) for one semester. Sun Yat-sen learned American history and political ideas extensively during his schooling in Hawaii, particularly admiring figures like Abraham Lincoln and Alexander Hamilton, which profoundly shaped his vision for a democratic China, incorporating concepts of republicanism, self-rule, and economic development inspired by American models. He studied U.S. history and geography, absorbing revolutionary ideals from American schools that influenced his own revolutionary path for China. By 1883, Sun's interest in Christianity had become deeply worrisome for his brother, who, seeing his conversion as inevitable, sent Sun back to China.
Upon returning to China, a 17-year-old Sun met with his childhood friend Lu Haodong at the Beiji Temple (北極殿) in Cuiheng, where villagers engaged in traditional folk healing and worshipped an effigy of the North Star God. Feeling contemptuous of these practices, Sun and Lu incurred the wrath of their fellow villagers by breaking the wooden idol; as a result, Sun's parents felt compelled to dispatch him to Hong Kong. In November 1883, Sun began attending the Diocesan Home and Orphanage on Eastern Street (now the Diocesan Boys' School), and from 15 April 1884 he attended The Government Central School on Gough Street (now Queen's College), until graduating in 1886.
In 1886, Sun studied medicine at the Guangzhou Boji Hospital under the Christian missionary John Glasgow Kerr. According to his book Kidnapped in London, in 1887 Sun heard of the opening of the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese (the forerunner of the University of Hong Kong). He immediately sought to attend, and went on to obtain a license to practice medicine from the institution in 1892; out of a class of twelve students, Sun was one of two who graduated.
Religious views and Christian baptism
Sun was a Christian. It has been argued, e.g. by D. Treadgold, that Sun was not a real Christian; he just portrayed himself as such for political reasons. The evidence is that Sun did not visit the church often nor often celebrate Christian festivals such as Christmas or Easter.
Sun said in San Francisco, "Our greatest hope is to make the Bible and Christian education, as we have known it, the means of conveying to our countrymen what blessings may be in the way of just laws."
Sun was baptized in Hong Kong on 4 May 1884 by Rev. Charles Robert Hager, an American missionary of the Congregational Church of the United States (American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions), to his brother's disdain. The minister would also develop a friendship with Sun. Sun attended To Tsai Church (道濟會堂), founded by the London Missionary Society in 1888, while he studied medicine in Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese. Sun pictured a revolution as similar to the salvation mission of the Christian church. His conversion to Christianity was related to his revolutionary ideals and push for advancement.
During the Qing-dynasty rebellion around 1888, Sun was in Hong Kong with a group of revolutionary thinkers, nicknamed the Four Bandits, at the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese.
From Furen Literary Society to Revive China Society