Our people keep thinking that China is only a “semi-colony”—a term by which they seek to comfort themselves. Yet in reality the economic oppression we have endured is not just that of a “semi-colony” but greater even than that of a full colony. . . . Of what nation then is China a colony? It is the colony of every nation with which it has concluded treaties; each of them is China’s master. Therefore China is not just the colony of one country; it is the colony of many countries. We are not just the slaves of one country, but the slaves of many countries. In the event of natural disasters like flood and drought, a nation that is sole master appropriates funds for relief and distributes them, thinking this its own duty; and the people who are its slaves regard this relief work as something to which their masters are obligated. But when North China suffered drought several years ago, the foreign powers did not regard it as their responsibility to appropriate funds and distribute relief; only those foreigners resident in China raised funds for the drought victims, whereupon Chinese observers remarked on the great generosity of the foreigners who bore no responsibility to help. . . .
From this we can see that China is not so well off as Annam [under the French] and Korea [under the Japanese]. Being the slaves of one country represents a far higher status than being the slaves of many, and is far more advantageous. Therefore, to call China a “semi-colony” is quite incorrect. If I may coin a phrase, we should be called a “hypo-colony.” This is a term that comes from chemistry, as in “hypo-phosphite.” Among chemicals there are some belonging to the class of phosphorous compounds but of lower grade, which are called phosphites. Still another grade lower, and they are called hypo-phosphites. . . . The Chinese people, believing they were a semi-colony, thought it shame enough; they did not realize that they were lower even than Annam or Korea. Therefore we cannot call ourselves a “semi-colony” but only a “hypo-colony.” [pp. 15–16, lecture 2]
[Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism]. A new idea is emerging in England and Russia, proposed by the intellectuals, which opposes nationalism on the ground that it is narrow and illiberal. This is simply a doctrine of cosmopolitanism. England now and formerly Germany and Russia, together with the Chinese youth of today who preach the new civilization, support this doctrine and oppose nationalism. Often I hear young people say, “The Three Principles of the People do not fit in with the present world’s new tendencies; the latest and best doctrine in the world is cosmopolitanism.” But is cosmopolitanism really good or not? . . . Theoretically, we cannot say it is no good. Yet it is because formerly the Chinese intellectual class had cosmopolitan ideas that, when the Manchus crossed China’s frontier, the whole country was lost to them. . . . [pp. 28–29, lecture 3]
[Nationalism and Traditional Morality]. If today we want to restore the standing of our people, we must first restore our national spirit. . . . If in the past our people have survived despite the fall of the state [to foreign conquerors], and not only survived themselves but been able to assimilate these foreign conquerors, it is because of the high level of our traditional morality. Therefore, if we go to the root of the matter, besides arousing a sense of national solidarity uniting all our people, we must recover and restore our characteristic, traditional morality. Only thus can we hope to attain again the distinctive position of our people.
This characteristic morality the Chinese people today have still not forgotten. First comes loyalty and filial piety, then humanity and love, faithfulness and duty, harmony and peace. Of these traditional virtues, the Chinese people still speak, but now, under foreign oppression, we have been invaded by a new culture, the force of which is felt all across the nation. Men wholly intoxicated by this new culture have thus begun to attack the traditional morality, saying that with the adoption of the new culture, we no longer have need of the old morality.2. . . They say that when we formerly spoke of loyalty, it was loyalty to princes, but now in our democracy there are no princes, so loyalty is unnecessary and can be dispensed with. This kind of reasoning is certainly mistaken. In our country princes can be dispensed with, but not loyalty. . . . If indeed we can no longer speak of loyalty to princes, can we not, however, speak of loyalty to our people? [pp. 51–52, lecture 6]
[Zhongshan quanshu 1: 4–5, 15–16, 28–29, 51–52—CT]
THE PRINCIPLE OF DEMOCRACY
In 1905 Sun had proclaimed the principle of democracy mainly against the advocates of constitutional monarchy whom he identified with “absolutism.” In 1924 his notion of the forms that this democracy should take is given more explicit expression, against a background of personal experience that confirmed Sun’s long-standing belief in the need for strong political leadership. The result is a plan of government that he believed would ensure popular control through electoral processes, yet give a strong executive wide powers to deal with the business of government. The emphasis is on leadership now, not liberty. In fact, argues Sun (thinking again of the Chinese people as a “heap of loose sand”), the struggle of the Chinese people is not for individual liberty, of which they have had an excess, but for the “liberty of the nation.” Consequently, he attempts to distinguish between sovereignty, which the people should retain, and the ability to rule, which should be vested in an elite group of experts.
A distinctive feature of Sun’s constitutional order is his five branches or powers of the government. These would include the three associated with the American government—executive, legislative, and judicial—along with two that were intended as a check on elected officials and their powers of appointment, and for which Sun believed Chinese political tradition provided a unique precedent: a censorate or supervisory organ, and an independent civil service system. These latter he spoke of as if they had indeed been independent organs of the traditional Chinese state, thus enabling him as a nationalist not only to offer a constitution that represented a unique Chinese synthesis but also to redeem Chinese tradition and place it on at least a par with the West.
[Separation of Sovereignty and Ability]. How can a government be made all-powerful? Once the government is all-powerful, how can it be made responsive to the will of the people? . . . I have found a method to solve the problem. The method that I have thought of is a new discovery in political theory and is a fundamental solution of the whole problem. . . . It is the theory of the distinction between sovereignty and ability. [pp. 117–118, lecture 5]
After China has established a powerful government, we must not be afraid, as Western people are, that the government will become too strong and that we will be unable to control it. For it is our plan that the political power of the reconstructed state will be divided into two parts. One is the power over the government; that great power will be placed entirely in the hands of the people, who will have a full degree of sovereignty and will be able to control directly the affairs of state—this political power is popular sovereignty. The other power is the governing power; that great power will be placed in the hands of the government organs, which will be powerful and will manage all the nation’s business—this governing power is the power of the government. If the people have a full measure of political sovereignty and the methods for exercising popular control over the government are well worked out, we need not fear that the government will become too strong and uncontrollable. . . .
Let the people in thinking about government distinguish between sovereignty and ability. Let the great political force of the state be divided into two: the power of the government and the power of the people. Such a division will make the government the machinery and the people the engineer. The attitude of the people toward the government will then resemble the attitude of the engineer toward his machine. The construction of machinery has made such advances nowadays that not only men with mechanical knowledge but even children without any knowledge of machinery are able to control it. [pp. 139–140, lecture 6]
[The Four Powers of the People]. What are the newest discoveries in the way of exercising popular sovereignty? First, there is suffrage, and it is the only me
thod practiced throughout the so-called advanced democracies. Is this one form of popular sovereignty enough in government? This one power by itself may be compared to the earlier machines, which could move forward only but not back.
The second of the newly discovered methods is the right of recall. When the people have this right, they possess the power of pulling the machine back.
These two rights give the people control over officials and enable them to put all government officials in their positions or to remove them from their positions. The coming and going of officials follows the free will of the people, just as the modern machines move to and fro by the free action of the engine. Besides officials, another important thing in a state is law; “with men to govern there must also be laws for governing.“3 What powers must the people possess in order to control the laws? If the people think that a certain law would be of great advantage to them, they should have the power to decide upon this law and turn it over to the government for execution. This third kind of popular power is called the initiative.
If the people think that an old law is not beneficial to them, they should have the power to amend it and to ask the government to enforce the amended law and do away with the old law. This is called the referendum and is a fourth form of popular sovereignty.
Only when the people have these four rights can we say that democracy is complete, and only when these four powers are effectively applied can we say that there is a thoroughgoing, direct, and popular sovereignty. [pp. 141–142, lecture 6]
[The Five-Power Constitution]. With the people exercising the four great powers to control the government, what methods will the government use in performing its work? In order that the government may have a complete organ through which to do its best work, there must be a five-power constitution. A government is not complete and cannot do its best work for the people unless it is based on the five-power constitution [i.e., a government composed of five branches: executive, legislative, judicial, civil service examination, and censorate]. . . .
All governmental powers were formerly monopolized by kings and emperors, but after the revolutions they were divided into three groups. Thus the United States, after securing its independence, established a government with three coordinate departments. The American system achieved such good results that it was adopted by other nations. But foreign governments have merely a triple-power separation. Why do we now want a separation of five powers? What is the source of the two new features in our five-power constitution?
The two new features come from old China. China long ago had the independent systems of civil service examination and censorate, and they were very effective. The imperial censors of the Manchu dynasty and the official advisers of the Tang dynasty made a fine censoring system. The power of censorship includes the power to impeach. Foreign countries also have this power, only it is placed in the legislative body and is not a separate governmental power.
The selection of real talent and ability through examinations has been characteristic of China for thousands of years. Foreign scholars who have recently studied Chinese institutions highly praise China’s old independent examination system. There have been imitations of the system for the selection of able men in the West. Great Britain’s civil service examinations are modeled after the old Chinese system, but they are limited to ordinary officials. The British system does not yet possess the spirit of the independent examination of China. In old China, [however],. .. the powers of civil service examination and the censorate were independent of the Throne. . . .
Hence, as for the separation of governmental powers, we can say that China had three coordinate departments of government just as the modern democracies. China practiced the separation of autocratic, examination, and censorate powers for thousands of years. Western countries have practiced the separation of legislative, judicial, and executive powers for only a little over a century. However, if we now want to combine the best from China and the best from other countries and guard against all kinds of abuse, we must take the three Western governmental powers—the executive, legislative, and judicial—add to them the Chinese powers of examination and censorate and make a perfect government of five powers. Such a government will be the most complete and the finest in the world, and a state with such a government will indeed be of the people, by the people, and for the people. [pp. 143–145, lecture 6]
[Zhongshan quanshu 1: 117–118, 139–145; adapted from Price, San min chu i, pp. 345–346, 350–358]
THE PEOPLE’S LIVELIHOOD
The “People’s Livelihood” (minsheng zhuyi) joined nationalism and democracy to make up Sun Yat-sen’s Three People’s Principles in 1906. It was meant to cover the economic side of Sun’s program broadly enough so as to embrace a variety of social and economic theories that had attracted Sun’s attention. Often he and his followers used minsheng zhuyi as an equivalent for socialism, drawing upon the popularity of this idea in general, while retaining the freedom to interpret it as they chose. For Sun in 1924 its most essential component was still Henry George’s single tax. Though paying tribute to Marx as a “social scientist,” Sun rejected entirely Marx’s theory of class struggle and cited a work little known in the West, The Social Interpretation of History, by a Brooklyn dentist, Maurice William, as a conclusive refutation of Marx’s economic determinism. Sun also disputed Marx’s belief in the steady impoverishment of the worker under capitalism and the latter’s imminent collapse. American experience (e.g., Henry Ford) showed that capitalist success and rising living standards for the worker were not mutually exclusive.
Sun exhibited great confidence in China’s future, in her ability to catch up with the West and yet avoid its economic woes. China’s problem was one of production, not of distribution, and the inequality of wealth need never arise if economic development were based on Sun’s land tax program, which would prevent “unearned increments” from accruing to individuals at the same time that it provided revenues for state investment in industry. Sun envisaged a kind of mixed economy, permitting small-scale capitalist enterprise to exist alongside nationalized industries and utilities. But the immediate need was to encourage China’s infant industries. Here Sun stressed her emancipation from foreign economic imperialism, the main point of which was to gain customs autonomy, lost through the unequal treaties, and to erect protective tariffs. Foreign investment he was only too ready to promote. His program for agriculture involved mainly technological improvement.
Although Sun did not live to see it, years later, after the failure of Mao Zedong’s economic program, the Communist leadership in the eighties and nineties adopted policies for a mixed economy, foreign investment, and economic development in China similar to those advocated under Sun.
[The Principle of Livelihood]. The Nationalist Party some time ago in its party platform adopted two methods by which the principle of livelihood is to be carried out. The first method is equalization of landownership; the second is regulation of capital. [p. 166]
Our first method consists in solving the land question. The methods for solution of the land problem are different in various countries, and each country has its own peculiar difficulties. The plan that we are following is simple and easy—equalization of landownership. . . .
If our landowners were like the great landowners of Europe and had developed tremendous power, it would be very difficult for us to solve the land problem. But China does not have such big landowners, and the power of the small landowners is still rather weak. If we attack the problem now, we can solve it; but if we lose the present opportunity, we will have much more difficulty in the future. . . . We propose that the government shall levy a tax proportionate to the price of the land and, if necessary, buy back the land according to its price.
But how will the price of the land be determined? I would let the landowner himself fix the price. . . . According to this plan, if the landowner makes a low assessment, he will be afraid lest the government buy the land at the declared value and make hi
m lose his property; if he makes too high an assessment, he will be afraid of the government taxing according to the value and his losing through heavy taxes. Comparing these two serious possibilities, he will certainly not want to report the value of his land too high or too low; he will strike the mean and report the true market price to the government. In this way neither the landowner nor the government will lose.
After the land values have been fixed we should have a regulation by law that from that year on, all increase in land value, which in other countries means heavier taxation, shall revert to the community. This is because the increase in land value is due to improvement made by society and to the progress of industry and commerce. . . . The credit for the progress and improvement belongs to the energy and enterprise of all the people. Land increment resulting from that progress and improvement should therefore revert to the community rather than to private individuals. [pp. 175–176, lecture 2]
[Capital and the State]. China cannot be compared to foreign countries. It is not sufficient for us to regulate capital. Other countries are rich while China is poor; other countries have a surplus of production while China is not producing enough. So China must not only regulate private capital, but it must also develop state capital. . . .
First, we must build means of communication, railroads, and waterways on a large scale. Second, we must open up mines. China is rich in minerals, but alas, they are buried in the earth! Third, we must hasten to develop manufacturing. Although China has a multitude of workers, it has no machinery and so cannot compete with other countries. Goods used throughout China have to be manufactured and imported from other countries, with the result that our rights and interests are simply leaking away. If we want to recover these rights and interests, we must quickly employ state power to promote industry, use machinery in production, and see that all workers of the country are employed. When all the workers have employment and use machinery in production, we will have a great, new source of wealth. If we do not use state power to build up these enterprises but leave them in the hands of private Chinese or of foreign businessmen, the result will be the expansion of private capital and the emergence of a great wealthy class with consequent inequalities in society. . . .
Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2 Page 49