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Sun Yat-sen

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Political People

                   Sun Yat-sen
   Sun Yat-sen
                Names ( details)
   Known in English as: Sun Yat-sen
               Chinese: 孫逸仙
          Hanyu Pinyin: Sūn Yìxiān
            Wade-Giles: Sun I-hsien
            Cantonese:: Sun Yat-sen
   Known to Chinese as: 孫中山
          Hanyu Pinyin: Sūn Zhōngshān
            Wade-Giles: Sun Chung-shan
           Family name: Sun
   Traditional Chinese: 孫
    Simplified Chinese: 孙
                  Given names
        Register name : Deming (德明)
            Milk name : Dixiang (帝象)
          School name : Wen (文)
        Courtesy name : Zaizhi (載之)
            Pseudonym : Rixin (日新), later
                        Yixian (逸仙),
                        pronounced similarly
                        in Cantonese (Yat
                        San, Yat Sin, resp.)
                Alias : Zhongshan (中山)
        Alias in Japan: Nakayama Shō (中山樵)
                Styled: Guofu (國父), i.e.
                        " Father of the Nation"

   Sun Yat-sen (Chinese: 孫逸仙) ( November 12, 1866– March 12, 1925) was a
   Chinese revolutionary and political leader who is often referred to as
   the "father of modern China". Sun played an instrumental and leadership
   role in the eventual overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. He was the
   first provisional president when the Republic of China was founded in
   1912. He later co-founded the Kuomintang (KMT) where he served as its
   first leader.

   Sun was a uniting figure in post-imperial China, and remains unique
   among 20th-century Chinese politicians for being widely revered in both
   mainland China and Taiwan. On both sides of the Straits he is
   frequently seen as the father to republican China. In Taiwan, he is
   known by the title officially given to him in the Republic of China,
   Father of the Nation (國父), as in his posthumous name Father of the
   Nation, Mr Sun Yat-sen (國父, 孫中山先生). On the mainland, Sun is also seen
   as a Chinese nationalist, the " Forerunner of the Revolution" (革命先行者)
   and "the Father of Modern China".

   Although Sun is considered one of the greatest leaders of modern China,
   his political life was one of constant struggle and frequent exile.
   After the success of the revolution, he quickly fell out of power in
   the newly-founded Republic of China, and led successive revolutionary
   governments as a challenge to the warlords who controlled much of the
   nation. Unfortunately, Sun did not live to see his party bring about
   consolidation of power over the country. His party, which formed a
   fragile alliance with the communists, split into two factions after his
   death. Sun's chief legacy resides in his developing a political
   philosophy known as the Three Principles of the People (三民主義)
   (nationalism (民族), civil liberties (民權), and the people's livelihood
   (民生)), which still heavily influences Chinese government today.

Biography

   Sun Yat-sen (back row, fifth from left) and his family.
   Sun Yat-sen (back row, fifth from left) and his family.

Early years

   On November 12, 1866, Sun Yat-sen was born to a peasant family in the
   village of Cuiheng, Xiangshan county, Guangzhou prefecture, Guangdong
   province (26 km (16 miles) north of Macao) and spoke the Zhongshan
   dialect of Cantonese. When Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, the name of
   Xiangshan was changed to Zhongshan in his honour.

   After receiving a few years of local schooling, at age thirteen, Sun
   went to live with his elder brother, Sun Mei, in Honolulu. Sun Mei was
   twelve years Sun Yat-sen's senior and had emigrated to Hawaii as a
   laborer and had become a prosperous merchant. Though Sun Mei was not
   always supportive of Sun's later revolutionary activities, he supported
   his brother financially, allowing Sun to give up his professional
   career. Sun Yat-sen studied at the prestigious Iolani School where he
   learned English, mathematics and science. Originally unable to speak
   the English language, Sun Yat-sen picked up the language so quickly
   that he received a prize for outstanding achievement in English from
   King David Kalakaua. Sun then enrolled in Oahu College, now Punahou
   School, for further studies but he was soon sent home to China as his
   brother was becoming afraid that Sun Yat-sen was about to embrace
   Christianity. While at Iolani, he befriended Tong Phong, who later
   founded the First Chinese-American Bank.

   When he returned home in 1883, he was greatly troubled by what he saw
   as a backward China that demanded exorbitant taxes and levies from its
   people. The people were conservative, and the schools maintained their
   ancient methods leaving no opportunity for expression of thought or
   opinions. Under the influence of Christian missionaries in Hawaii, Sun
   had developed a disdain for traditional Chinese religious beliefs. One
   day, Sun and his childhood friend Lu Hao-tung passed by Beijidian, a
   temple in Cuiheng Village, where they saw many villagers worshipping
   the Beiji (lit. North Pole) Emperor-God in the temple. They broke off
   the hand of the statue, incurring the wrath of fellow villagers, and
   escaped to Hong Kong.
   Part of the Sun Yat-sen Historical Trail:"Original Site of Yang Yao Ji:
   Meeting Place for 'The Four Bandits'", on Gough Street, Central, Hong
   Kong.
   Enlarge
   Part of the Sun Yat-sen Historical Trail:"Original Site of Yang Yao Ji:
   Meeting Place for 'The Four Bandits'", on Gough Street, Central, Hong
   Kong.

   Sun studied English at the Anglican Diocesan Home and Orphanage
   (currently Diocesan Boys' School) in Hong Kong. In April 1884, Sun was
   transferred to the Central School of Hong Kong (later renamed Queen's
   College). Sun was later baptized in Hong Kong by an American missionary
   of the Congregational Church of the United States, to his brother's
   disdain. 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. As a result, his
   baptismal name, Rixin 日新, literally means "daily renewal."

   Ultimately, he earned the license of medical practice as a medical
   doctor from the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese (the
   forerunner of The University of Hong Kong) in 1892, of which he was one
   of the first two graduates. He subsequently practiced medicine in that
   city briefly in 1893. He had an arranged marriage with fellow villager
   Lu Muzhen at age twenty; she bore him a son Sun Ke, who would grow up
   to become a high ranking official in the Republican government, and two
   daughters, Sun Yan and Sun Wan.

   Sun was a Triad member during and after the Qing Dynasty rebellion. It
   is known that Sun Yat-sen got his funding from Triad business people.
   Sun Yat-sen's protégé, Chiang Kai Shek, was also a Triad member.

Transformation into a revolutionary

   Sun, who had grown increasingly troubled by the conservative Qing
   government and its refusal to adopt knowledge from the more
   technologically advanced Western nations, quit his medical practice in
   order to devote his time to transforming China. At first, Sun aligned
   himself with the reformists Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao who sought to
   transform China into a Western-style constitutional monarchy. In 1894,
   Sun wrote a long letter to Li Hongzhang, the governor-general of Zhili
   and a reformer in the court, with suggestions on how to strengthen
   China, but he was rebuffed. Since Sun had never been trained in the
   classics, the gentry did not accept Sun into their circles. From then
   on, Sun began to call for the abolition of the monarchy and the
   establishment of a republic.

   Sun went to Hawaii in October 1894 and founded the Revive China Society
   to unveil the goal of a prospering China and as the platform for future
   revolutionary activities. Members were drawn mainly from fellow
   Cantonese expatriates and from the lower social classes.

From exile to Wuchang Uprising

   The photo of the Sun Yat Sen and his friends, so called " Si Da Kou
   "(Four Great Gangs, 四大寇) in the Hong Kong College of Medicine for
   Chinese (from left to right: Yang Heling, Sun Yat Sen, Chen Shaobai and
   You Lie, the one standing was Guan Jingliang.).
   Enlarge
   The photo of the Sun Yat Sen and his friends, so called " Si Da Kou
   "(Four Great Gangs, 四大寇) in the Hong Kong College of Medicine for
   Chinese (from left to right: Yang Heling, Sun Yat Sen, Chen Shaobai and
   You Lie, the one standing was Guan Jingliang.).

   In 1895 a coup he plotted failed, and for the next sixteen years Sun
   was an exile in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Japan, raising
   money for his revolutionary party and bankrolling uprisings in China.
   In Japan, where he was known as Nakayama Shō ( Kanji: 中山樵, lit. The
   Woodcutter of Middle Mountain), he joined dissident Chinese groups
   (which later became the Tongmenghui) and soon became their leader. He
   was expelled from Japan due to fears of the large level of support he
   had there and went to the United States.

   On October 10, 1911, a military uprising at Wuchang in which Sun had no
   direct involvement (at that moment Sun was still in exile and Huang
   Xing was in charge of the revolution), began a process that ended over
   two thousand years of imperial rule in China. When he learned of the
   successful rebellion against the Qing emperor from press reports, Sun
   immediately returned to China from the United States. Later, on
   December 29, a meeting of representatives from provinces in Nanjing
   elected Sun as the provisional President of the Republic of China and
   set the January 1 of 1912 as the first day of the First Year of the
   Republic. This republic calendar system is still used in Taiwan today.

   The official history of the Kuomintang (and for that matter, the
   Communist Party of China) emphasizes Sun's role as the first
   provisional President, but many historians now question the importance
   of Sun's role in the 1911 revolution and point out that he had no
   direct role in the Wuchang uprising and was in fact out of the country
   at the time. In this interpretation, his naming as the first
   provisional President was precisely because he was a respected but
   rather unimportant figure and therefore served as an ideal compromise
   candidate between the revolutionaries and the conservative gentry.

   However, Sun is credited for the funding of the revolutions and for
   keeping the spirit of revolution alive, even after series of failed
   uprisings. Also, as mentioned, he successfully merged minor
   revolutionary groups to a single larger party, providing a better base
   for all those who shared the same ideals.

   Sun is highly regarded as the National Father of modern China. His
   political philosophy, known as the Three Principles of the People, was
   proclaimed in August 1905. In his Methods and Strategies of
   Establishing the Country completed in 1919, he suggested using his
   Principles to establish ultimate peace, freedom, and equality in the
   country. He devoted all efforts throughout his whole lifetime until his
   dying for a strong and prosperous China and the well being of its
   people.

Republic of China

   Sun Yat-sen in Guangzhou, 1924
   Enlarge
   Sun Yat-sen in Guangzhou, 1924

   After taking the oath of office, Sun Yat-sen sent telegrams to the
   leaders of all provinces, requesting them to elect and send new
   senators to establish the National Assembly of the Republic of China.
   The Assembly then declared the provisional government organizational
   guidelines and the provisional law of the Republic as the basic law of
   the nation.

   The provisional government was in a very weak position. The southern
   provinces of China had declared independence from the Qing dynasty, but
   most of the northern provinces had not. Moreover, the provisional
   government did not have military forces of its own, and its control
   over elements of the New Army that had mutinied was limited, and there
   were still significant forces which had not declared against the Qing.

   The major issue before the provisional government was gaining the
   support of Yuan Shikai, the man in charge of the Beiyang Army, the
   military of northern China. After Sun promised Yuan the presidency of
   the new Republic, Yuan sided with the revolution and forced the emperor
   to abdicate. (Eventually, Yuan proclaimed himself emperor and
   afterwards opposition snowballed against Yuan's dictatorial methods,
   leading him to renounce the throne shortly before his death in 1916.)
   In 1913 Sun led an unsuccessful revolt against Yuan, and he was forced
   to seek asylum in Japan, where he reorganized the Kuomintang. He
   married Soong Ching-ling, one of the Soong sisters, in Japan on October
   25, 1915, without divorcing his first wife Lu Muzhen due to opposition
   from the Chinese community. Lu pleaded with him to take Soong as a
   concubine but this was also unacceptable to Sun's Christian ethics.

Guangzhou militarist government

   Sun Yat-sen [middle] and Chiang Kai-shek [on stage in uniform] at the
   founding of the Whampoa Military Academy in 1924.
   Enlarge
   Sun Yat-sen [middle] and Chiang Kai-shek [on stage in uniform] at the
   founding of the Whampoa Military Academy in 1924.

   In the late 1910s, China was greatly divided by different military
   leaders without a proper central government. Sun saw the danger of
   this, and returned to China in 1917 to advocate unification. He started
   a self-proclaimed military government in Guangzhou (Canton), Guangdong
   Province, southern China, in 1921, and was elected as president and
   generalissimo.

   In 1923, he delivered a speech in which he proclaimed his Three
   Principles of the People as the foundation of the country and the
   Five-Yuan Constitution as the guideline for the political system and
   bureaucracy. Part of the speech was made into the National Anthem of
   the Republic of China.

   To develop the military power needed for the Northern Expedition
   against the militarists at Beijing, he established the Whampoa Military
   Academy near Guangzhou, with Chiang Kai-shek as its commandant and with
   such party leaders as Wang Ching-wei and Hu Han-min as political
   instructors. The Academy was the most eminent military school of the
   Republic of China and trained graduates who fought in the Second
   Sino-Japanese War and on both sides of the Chinese Civil War.

   However, as soon as he established his government in Guangzhou, Sun
   Yat-sen came into conflict with entrenched local power. Sun's
   militarist government was not based on the Provisional Constitution of
   1912, which the anti-Beiyang forces vowed to defend in the
   Constitutional Protection War. In addition, Sun was elected president
   by a parliament that did not meet quorum following its move from
   Beijing. Thus, many politicians and warlords alike challenged the
   legitimacy of Sun's militarist government. Sun's use of heavy taxes to
   fund the Northern Expedition to militarily unify China also came at
   odds with reformers such as Chen Jiongming, who advocated establishing
   Guandong as a "model province" before launching a costly military
   campaign. In sum, Sun's military government was opposed by the
   internationally-recognized Beiyang government in the north, Chen's
   Guandong provincial government in the south, and other provincial
   powers that shifted alliance according to their own benefit.

Path to Northern Expedition and death

   In the early 1920s Sun received help from the Comintern for his
   reorganization of the Kuomintang as a Leninist Democratic-Centrist
   Party and negotiated the First CPC-KMT United Front. In 1924, in order
   to hasten the conquest of China, he began a policy of active
   cooperation with the Chinese Communists.

   By this time, Sun was convinced that the only hope for a unified China
   lay in a military conquest from his base in the south, followed by a
   period of political tutelage that would culminate in the transition to
   democracy. Sun then prepared for the later Northern Expedition with
   help from foreign powers such as Japan and the United States until his
   death.

   On November 10, 1924, Sun traveled north and delivered another speech
   to suggest gathering a conference for the Chinese people and the
   abolition of all unequal treaties with the Western powers. Two days
   later, he yet again traveled to Peking (Beijing) to discuss the future
   of the country, despite his deteriorating health and the ongoing civil
   war of the warlords. Although ill at the time, he was still head of the
   southern government. On November 28, 1924 Sun traveled to Japan and
   gave a remarkable speech on Pan-Asianism at Kobe, Japan. He left Canton
   to hold peace talks with the northern regional leaders on the
   unification of China. Sun died of liver cancer on March 12, 1925, at
   the age of 58, in Beijing.

Sun Yat-sen's early influence by Western ideology

   Sun Yat-sen and his Military Staff.
   Enlarge
   Sun Yat-sen and his Military Staff.

   Sun attached particular importance to the ideas of Alexander Hamilton
   and Abraham Lincoln. Sun often said that the formulation from Lincoln's
   Gettysburg Address, "government of the people, by the people, for the
   people," had been the inspiration for the Three Principles of the
   People. He incorporated these ideas, later in life, in two highly
   influential books. One, The Vital Problem of China (1917), analyzed
   some of the problems of colonialism: Sun warned that "…the British
   treat nations as the silkworm farmer treats his worms; as long as they
   produce silk, he cares for them well; when they stop, he feeds them to
   the fish." The second book, International Development of China (1921),
   presented detailed proposals for the development of infrastructure in
   China, and attacked the ideology of laissez-faire, as well as that of
   Marxism adhering more to the ideas of Henry George's, particularly land
   value taxation. His ideology remained flexible, however, reflecting his
   audience as much as his personal convictions. He presented himself as a
   strident nationalist to the nationalists, as a socialist to the
   socialists, and an anarchist to the anarchists, declaring at one point
   that "the goal of the Three Principles of the People is to create
   socialism and anarchism." It is an open matter of debate whether this
   eclecticism reflected a sincere effort to incorporate ideas from the
   multiple competing schools of thought or was simply opportunistic
   posturing. In any case, his ideological flexibility allowed him to
   become a key figure in the Nationalist movement since he was one of
   very few people who had good relations with all of the movement's
   factions.

Legacy

   Sun Yat-sen tribute in Tiananmen Square, 2005.
   Enlarge
   Sun Yat-sen tribute in Tiananmen Square, 2005.

   A struggle for Sun's power between Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei
   broke out immediately after Sun's death. This created much inefficiency
   in the administration of the country and largely delayed the Northern
   Expedition. In addition, Sun is also one of the primary saints of the
   Vietnamese religion Cao Dai.

Power struggle

   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'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, Chiang Kai-shek and Wang
   Jingwei claimed to be the rightful heirs of Sun's legacy.

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

Father of the Nation

   Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei
   Enlarge
   Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei

   Sun Yat-sen remains unique among twentieth-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 Father of the Nation, Mr. Sun Chungshan
   (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, Sun played no role in
   governing Taiwan, so invoking Sun produces much less of a negative
   reaction among supporters of Taiwanese independence or victims of
   government oppression prior to the lifting of Martial Law in 1987 than
   invoking other figures of the Kuomintang.

Sun's posthumous popularity on Mainland China

   Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing
   Enlarge
   Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing

   On the mainland, Sun is also seen as a Chinese nationalist and proto-
   socialist, and is highly regarded as the Forerunner of the Revolution.
   He is mentioned by name in the preamble to the Constitution of the
   People's Republic of China. In most major Chinese cities one of the
   main streets is named "Zhongshan" (中山) to memorialize him, a name even
   more commonly found than other popular choices such as "Renmin Lu"
   (人民路), or The People's Road, and "Jiefang Lu" (解放路), or Liberation
   Road. There are also numerous parks, schools, and geographical features
   named after him.

   In recent years, the leadership of the Communist Party of China has
   been increasingly invoking Sun, partly as a way of bolstering Chinese
   nationalism in light of Chinese economic reform and partly to increase
   connections with supporters of the Kuomintang on Taiwan which the PRC
   sees as allies against Taiwanese independence. Sun's tomb was one of
   the first stops made by the leaders of both the Kuomintang and the
   People First Party on their trips to mainland China in 2005.
   Furthermore, a massive picture of Sun continues to appear in Tiananmen
   Square for May Day while pictures of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin no
   longer appear.

Sun and the overseas Chinese

   Sun's notability and popularity extends beyond the Greater China
   region, particularly to Nanyang where a large concentration of overseas
   Chinese reside in Singapore. Sun recognised the contributions which the
   large number of overseas Chinese can make beyond the sending of
   remittances to their ancestral homeland, and therefore made multiple
   visits to spread his revolutionary message to these communities around
   the world.

   Sun made a total of eight visits to Singapore between 1900 and 1911.
   His first visit made on September 7, 1900 was to rescue Miyazaki Toten,
   an ardent Japanese supporter and friend of Sun's, who was arrested
   there, an act which also resulted in his own arrest and a ban from
   visiting the island for five years. Upon his next visit in June 1905,
   he met local Chinese merchants Teo Eng Hock, Tan Chor Nam and Lim Nee
   Soon in a meeting which was to mark the commencement of direct support
   from the Nanyang Chinese. Upon hearing their reports on overseas
   Chinese revolutionists organising themselves in Europe and Japan, he
   urged them to establish the Singapore chapter of the Tongmenghui, which
   came officially into being on 6 April the following year upon his next
   visit.
   Sun Yat-sen's original handwriting (write to Soong Ching-ling)
   Enlarge
   Sun Yat-sen's original handwriting (write to Soong Ching-ling)

   The chapter was housed in a villa known as Wan Qing Yuan (晚晴園) and
   donated for the use of revolutionalists by Teo. In 1906, the chapter
   grew in membership to 400, and in 1908, when Sun was in Singapore to
   escape the Qing government in the wake of the failed Zhennanguan
   Uprising, the chapter had become the regional headquarters for
   Tongmenghui branches in Southeast Asia. Sun and his followers travelled
   from Singapore to Malaya and Indonesia to spread their revolutionary
   message, by which time the alliance already had over twenty branches
   with over 3,000 members around the world.

   Sun's foresight in tapping on the help and resources of the overseas
   Chinese population was to bear fruit on his subsequent revolutionary
   efforts. In one particular instance, his personal plea for financial
   aid at the Penang Conference held on November 13, 1910 in Malaya,
   helped launch a major drive for donations across the Malay Peninsula,
   an effort which helped finance the Second Guangzhou Uprising (also
   commonly known as the Yellow Flower Mound revolt) in 1911.

   The role that overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia played during the 1911
   Revolution was so significant that Sun himself admitted "Overseas
   Chinese as the Mother of the Revolution".

   Today, Sun's legacy is remembered in Nanyang at Wan Qing Yuan, which
   has since been preserved and renamed as the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang
   Memorial Hall, and gazetted as a national monument of Singapore on
   October 28, 1994.

   In Penang, the Penang Philomatic Union which was founded by Sun in
   1908, has embarked on a heritage project to turn its premises at 65
   Macalister Road into Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Museum. The project is expected to
   complete in late 2006.

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, which are
   not taken lightly in China, are central to Chinese culture. This
   reverence goes as far back as Confucius and his insistence on using
   correct names. In addition to the names and aliases listed below, Sun
   also used many other aliases while he was a revolutionary in exile.
   According to one study, he used as many as thirty different names.

   The "real" name of Sun Yat-sen (the concept of real or original name is
   not as clear-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" is the name under
   which his extended relatives of the Sun family would have known him;
   and it was a name that was used on formal occasions, such as when he
   got married.

   In 1883, Sun was baptized as a Christian, and he started his studies in
   Hong Kong. On that occasion, he chose himself a pseudonym: Rixin (日新,
   lit. renew oneself daily). Later, his professor of Chinese literature
   changed this pseudonym into Yixian (逸仙). Unlike in Standard Mandarin,
   pronunciation of both pseudonyms are similar to Yat-sen in the local
   Cantonese. This was the name that he used in his frequent contacts with
   Westerners which became his most often used name in the West. However,
   in the Chinese world, almost nobody uses the Mandarin version Sun
   Yixian, nor the Cantonese version Sun Yat-sen.

   In 1897, Sun arrived in Japan. Desiring to remain hidden from Japanese
   authorities, he renamed himself Nakayama Shō (中山樵). After his return to
   China in 1911, the alias Nakayama was transliterated into Zhongshan.
   Today, the overwhelming majority of Chinese people know Sun under the
   name Sun Zhongshan. Often it is shortened to Zhongshan only (as is
   usually done for Chinese names to show respect), and inside China one
   can find many instances of Zhongshan Avenue, Zhongshan Park, etc.

   Another "official" name is Sun Wen (孫文), the "school name" used by Sun
   Yat-sen when attending school. This is the way he signed his name,
   especially after the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912.
   All official documents executed after this date were signed Sun Wen.

   In 1940, the Kuomintang party officially conferred on the late Sun the
   title Guo fu (國父, meaning "National Father"), and this title is still
   frequently used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. In mainland China, the title
   "Forerunner of the Revolution" (革命先行者) is sometimes used instead.

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