The following biography of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen is from the Website humanisttexts.org:
Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) was born in a small peasant village of farmers and fishermen south of Canton, in Kwangtung province, China. He received a traditional Chinese education there until at age 13 he transferred to missionary schools in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he learnt English. After five years, he returned to China to attend Queen’s College, Hong Kong. On graduation he entered Hong Kong Medical College, where he gained his medical degree in 1892. Two years later he produced a remarkable document specifying a plan to modernize China, which he attempted to present to Li Hung-chang, Viceroy of the empire of the reigning Manchu Ch’ing Dynasty. He was ignored (the Viceroy was preoccupied with the Sino-Japanese War) and Sen returned to Honolulu in 1894. There he founded the Society to Revive China, dedicated to expelling the Manchus, establishing a Chinese republic, and reforming land ownership to bring relief to the peasants.
China was in collapse at this time. The empire established by the invading Manchus in 1644 was suffering from an outflow of silver starting early in the Nineteenth Century, causing deflation and an economic slump. The monetary outflow was due to importation of opium from India, which was therefore declared illegal. To protect its drug sales, Britain went to war with China to enforce an increased opium trade, further damaging the Chinese economy, and opening the way for other European powers to gain similar trading benefits. Ports on the Chinese coast became European fiefdoms. The combination of a failed military and economic disruption caused massive rebellions in China. Further military defeats by France and Japan reduced China in Sun’s eyes to "semicolonial status". It was clear that some sort of reform and modernization was needed, particularly since Japan had demonstrated that this could be done.
In 1895 Sun led an uprising in Canton that failed. He fled to escape execution, subsequently spending much of his time raising money for a further revolution. At a conference in Tokyo in 1905, attended by students, mainland Chinese and Chinese merchants resident abroad, Sun formed the T’ung-meng-hui (United League), merging his Society with three other revolutionary organizations. After further failed rebellions, the United League joined forces with revolutionary military units and ousted the Manchu monarchy in 1911. Sun was sworn in as President of a new Chinese Republic in 1912. Unfortunately he relinquished his post to an ambitious general, Yuan Shi-k’ai.
From the League, Sun founded a new democratic party, the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party, which won a majority in China’s first elections to a National Assembly. By 1914, Yuan had got rid of Kuomintang officers and the National Assembly, and was setting up a monarchical government. Sun, finding no support for Yuan’s ouster had fled to Japan in 1913. When Yuan died in 1916, Sun returned to China. In 1918 he attempted to set up a constitutional government for South China at Canton. This failed and Sun barely managed to escape with his life.
In 1919 Sun published his Program for National Reconstruction. This and other writings became known to students in many cities, who disseminated his message to peasants and other workers. In 1919, after the disastrous treatment of China at the Treaty of Versailles, the students initiated a new urban revolution, the May Fourth movement, with Sun as its most prominent spokesman. Sun was able to establish his authority in Canton and to modernize the city in line with his theories. At this time, he made Chiang Kai-shek commander of the Nationalist Party army. He and Chiang put down an armed uprising by the Canton Merchant Corps in 1924, and agreed to negotiate with warlords who were still in charge of Northern China. Sun went to Peking late in 1924 to plan China’s unification and reconstruction, but was diagnosed as having cancer. He died early the following year.
Sun was a leading figure in the overthrow of millennia of autocratic monarchical rule and in the initiation of a democracy in China. He developed a three-part program as to how this should be done, and late in his life explained this in a series of lectures. His three basic ideas were to restore China as a viable, sovereign nation, removing imperialist incursions, to institute a democratic government, and to improve the livelihood of the Chinese people. Extracts from these lectures and other sources follow.