The San Min Chu I
Out of the broad body of doctrine embodied in the public and private utterances of Sun Yat-sen, one single integrating philosophy stands forth, which entitles him to rank as a major political thinker. This is the San Min Chu I, which may be translated "three principles of the people," "three principles of government for the benefit of the people," "three principles concerning people" and so forth, or may—most accurately—be represented by the neologism, "tridemism."[7] It consists of an affirmation of a body of theory and a scheme of programs to be applied generally to human experience, and particularly to the modern problems of China.
The prime problem faced by Sun Yat-sen was displacement of the Confucian ideology, long refreshed and perpetuated by the mandarinate. (The scholastic bureaucracy rested on the difficulty and character of the language, which removed writing from speaking and, lacking what Westerners commonly consider grammar, depended upon exact, appropriate choice of terms.) Confucius, anticipating semantic controversialists by many centuries, established a doctrine of meaning which made politics the by-product of correct speech and thought, to be performed by conspicuous, informed, and majestic persons. When ideas and ideals were clear, moral standards firm and visible, and demeanor correct—as determined by archaic natural standards—the realm would prosper. Education was stressed as a means to public service. In succeeding centuries Confucians first monopolized education, establishing the Confucian classics as formal Chinese canons, and then monopolized the bureaucracy. Providing for elementary circulation of an academic elite, although economically based on land-ownership, they gave China a modified sort of representative government, which operated by the all-encompassing constitutionalism of common sense itself, and rested ultimately on the lack of an alternative to common sense. The Confucians were intellectually indifferent to natural science and economically unfriendly to technological change; China, unsurpassed for political sophistication and deliberate social order, was immobilized by an ancient success. Ideological control led to veneration of the scholar, even veneration of writing. Emperors, officials, people—all were captive to accomplishment, and so completely indoctrinated that they presumably enjoyed a very high conscious freedom. Rigid social and mental uniformity spelled political laxity; the state became atrophied and vestigial.
Social rigidity made China only very slowly progressive in mechanical terms. Political laxity made the country weak in the face of invasion, exploitation, and possible partition. Intellectual traditionalism shut off stimuli available from the outside. Confucius had said, "If terms be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success."[8] Sun Yat-sen, Confucian in spirit though not in form, turned to the dynamics of ideological rather than legal control. To stir the immense lethargy of China, he substituted science for archaism; a Party elite for the scholastic system, propaganda to replace doctrinal education, and agitation to supersede incantation and reverence.
He struck at ideas first: "We cannot say in general that ideas, as ideas, are either good or bad. We must judge whether, when put into practice, they prove useful or not. If they are of practical use to us, they are good; if they are impractical, they are bad. If they are useful to the world, they are good; if they are not useful to the world, they are not good."[9] This pragmatic utilitarianism was to be the philosophical foundation of his revolution. The San Min Chu I therewith remained alien to Marxism, which is dependent upon the occult mysteries of a topsy-turvy Hegelianism; Sun's thought is kin to the working philosophy of America, a pragmatism tinctured by idealist vestiges.
The first political principle he developed was Nationalism (min ts'u). The theoretical basis for this was a racialism which, scientifically no more tenable than National Socialist Aryanism, is clear in common practice. Very few Chinese have trouble in identifying another Chinese. Sun Yat-sen pointed out that although the European peoples were divided, China was to him both a race and a nation. He thereby established for his followers a foundation for nationality more credible than any mere appeal to state allegiance. Treason against one's government is taken lightly in China: witness the Japanophiles. Treason to the Chinese race is a far more serious matter. In order to preserve the Chinese race-nation, Sun Yat-sen called for ideological reconstruction from three elements: ancient Chinese morality, traditional Chinese social knowledge (e.g., bureaucratic techniques; arbitration instead of adjudication), and Western physical science. He urged a return to cosmopolitanism through nationalism. By becoming strong—instead of extinct under alien colonial rule—the Chinese state could lead the world back to the old pacific cosmopolitanism of Eastern Asia.
Programmatically, Sun subsumed under his min t'su theory, the necessity of a patriotic elite, formed into the party of his followers, which was to unify China and to cultivate a genuine state-allegiance instead of the veneration of a concretely paramount Emperor or other leader. He also advocated that China maintain independence, make independence a reality in which the entire race-nation should share by fostering actual autonomy (hence, democracy), and by fighting defensively against economic exploitation by the imperialist powers.
The second principle presented was Democracy (min ch'üan). He pointed out that old China was democratic in allowing considerable social mobility, and much equality within the framework of that mobility, and that popular government was a reality in local affairs, while popular supremacy (corresponding to Western theories of popular sovereignty) followed from the universally admitted Chinese right of rebellion. He justified democracy on the grounds that it was commanded by China's antique sages, was necessarily consequent upon nationalism, was decreed by the Zeitgeist, was necessary to good administration, and was a modernizing force. But he modified his democracy by a distinction between ch'üan (power) and nêng (ability), keeping government and people perpetually dual, and making the problem of democratic personnel one of popular choice plus the control of popular choice. The programs of democracy involved the revolution of three stages, the five-yüan government, and emphasis on the hsien.[10]
The third principle is based on Sun Yat-sen's own philosophy of history. Min shêng, frequently translated "the principle of the people's livelihood," rested upon Sun Yat-sen's belief that history is not based exclusively on materialism and that it cannot be analyzed merely in terms of the ownership of the means of production. He insisted that history was based on the fundamental fact that man has jên—humane self-awareness; human fellow-sympathy; consciousness of being located in society, together with orientation by values social, not individually or materially established; benevolence. Min shêng is accordingly an ethical doctrine first, and an economic one afterward. It is the basis of history (min-shêng wei li-shih-ti chung-hsin). It presupposes, for China: (1) a national economic revolution against imperialism and for democracy; (2) an industrial revolution for the enrichment of China; and (3) a prophylactic against social revolution. Although showing the influence of Karl Marx, Henry George, and the modern American, Maurice William,[11] the doctrine remained Chinese in spirit, pragmatically collectivist in application. Under the programs of min shêng Sun included the bold projects for which he had sought all his life, desiring the independent, socially just prosperity of his country.
These doctrines form the constitutional foundation of government action, as well as being the Party credo of the Kuomintang. Whoever proposes policy in China must first square it with the San Min Chu I. In this the Generalissimo has combined adroitness with profound sincerity.