That there were injustices in the old system of Chinese economy, no one can deny, but these injustices were scarcely sufficient to provoke, of themselves alone, the complete alteration of economic outlook that Sun Yat-sen proposed. Chinese capitalism had not reached the state of industrial capitalism until after its contact with the West; at the most it was a primitive sort of usury-capitalism practised by the three economically dominant groups of old China—landholders, officials, and merchant-usurers.[151] The disturbances which hurt the economic condition [pg 127] of the country, and thereby led to greater disturbances, had involved China in a vicious cycle of decline which could scarcely be blamed on any one feature or any one group in the old economy. The essential fault lay with the condition of the country as a whole, directly affected by the economic consequences of Western trade and partial industrialization.[152]
Sun Yat-sen's positive dissatisfaction with the economy of his time arose from the position which he felt China had in the modern business world. He believed that, by virtue of the economic oppression of the Chinese by the Western powers, China had been degraded to the position of the lowest nation on earth—that the Chinese were even more unfortunate than “slaves without a country,” such as the Koreans and the Annamites.[153] The particular forms of this oppression, and Sun Yat-sen's plans for meeting it, may be more aptly described in the consideration of his program of economic national regeneration.[154] The Chinese nation occupied the ignominious position of a sub-colony or—as Sun himself termed it—“a hypo-colony”; “Our people are realizing that to be a semi-colony is a national disgrace; but our case is worse than that; our country is in the position of a sub-colony (since it is the colony of all the Great Powers and not merely subject to one of them), a position which is inferior to an ordinary colony such as Korea and Annam.”[155]
What, then, were the positive implications of the principle of min shêng in the nationalist ideology?
The Three Meanings of Min Shêng.
First, min shêng is the doctrine leading the nationalist democracy on its road to a high position among the nations of the earth; only through the material strength to be found in min shêng can the Chinese attain a position by which they can exert the full force of their new-formed state against the invaders and oppressors, and be able to lift up the populace so that democracy will possess some actual operative meaning. Min shêng is “... the center of politics, of economics, of all kinds of historical movements; it is similar to the center of gravity in space.”[156] It provides the implementation of nationalism and democracy.
Secondly, min shêng means national enrichment. The problem of China is primarily one of poverty. Sun wanted consideration of the problem of the livelihood of the people to begin with the supreme economic reality in China. What was this reality? “It is the poverty from which we all suffer. The Chinese in general are poor; among them there is no privileged wealthy class, but only a generality of ordinary poor people.”[157] However this enrichment was to be brought about, it was imperative.
Thirdly, min shêng, as the doctrine of enrichment, was also the doctrine of economic justice. If the nation was to become economically healthy, it could only do so on the basis of the proper distribution of property among its citizens. Its wealth would not bring about well-being unless it were properly distributed.
More briefly, min shêng may be said to be the thesis of the indispensability of: 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.
The significance of min shêng as the economic implementation of nationalism and democracy is clear enough to require no further discussion. Its significance as a doctrine for the promotion of the industrial revolution is considerable, and worth attention.