Ponce then goes on to point out Sun Yat-sen's having said that the decentralized system of old government and the comparative autonomy of the vice-regencies presented a background of “a sort of aristocratic republic” (“une especie de república aristocrática”).
Wittfogel, cited, p. 140: “... Seine Drei Prinzipien verkörpern in ihrer Entwicklung den objektiven Wandel der ökonomisch-sozialen Situation Chinas, in ihren Widersprüchen die realen Widersprüche der chinesischen Revolution, in ihren jüngsten Tendenzen die Verlagerung des sozialen Schwerpunktes der Revolution, die Klassen in Aktion setzt, deren Ziel nicht mehr ein bürgerlich-kapitalistisches, sondern ein proletarisch-sozialistisches und ein bauerlich-agrar-revolutionäres ist.
“Sun Yat-sen ist demnach nicht nur der bisher mächtigste Repräsentant der bürgerlich-nationalen, antiimperialistischen Revolutionen des erwach-enden Asiens überhaupt, er weist zugleich über die bürgerliche Klassen-schranke dieser ersten Etappe der asiatischen Befreiungsbewegung hinaus. Dies zu verkennen, wäre verhängnisvoll, gerade auch für die proletarisch-kommunistische Bewegung Ostasiens selbst.”
The unfavorable view of the Five Powers is taken by Dr. Jermyn Chi-hung Lynn in his excellent little book, Political Parties in China, Peiping, 1930. Since Dr. Lynn speaks kindly and hopefully of the plans of Wu Pei-fu, one of the war-lords hostile to Sun Yat-sen and the whole Nationalist movement, his criticism of Sun Yat-sen need not be taken as completely impartial. It represents a point that has been made time and time again by persons antagonistic to the San Min Chu I.
“The Wu Chuan Hsien Fa is also no discovery of Dr. Sun's. As is known, the three power constitution, consisting of the legislative, judiciary [sic!] and executive functions, was originally developed, more or less unconsciously, by the English, whose constitution was critically examined by Montesquieu, and its working elaborately described by him for the benefit of his fellow-countrymen. And the unwritten constitution of Old China contained the civil service examination and an independent Board of Censors. Now the much-advertised Wu Chuan Hsien Fa or Five-Power constitution only added the systems of state examination and public censure to the traditional form of constitution first advocated by the French jurist.” P. 66, work cited.