In order to make printed matter cheap, other subsidiary industries must be developed at the same time. The most important of these is the paper industry. At present all the paper used by newspapers in China is imported. And the demand for paper is increasing every day. China has plenty of raw materials for making paper, such as the vast virgin forests of the northwestern part of the country, and the wild reeds of the Yangtze and its neighboring swamps which would furnish the best pulps. So, large plants for manufacturing paper should be put up in suitable locations. Besides the paper factories, ink factories, type [pg 249]foundries, printing machine factories, etc., should be established under a central management to produce everything that is needed in the printing industry.[310]

With this comment on printing as a small sample of the extent of each minor project in the plans, let us observe Sun's own summary:

I.
The Development of a Communications System. (a) 100,000 miles of Railways. (b) 1,000,000 miles of Macadam Roads. (c) Improvement of Existing Canals. (1) Hangchow-Tientsin Canals. (2) Sikiang-Yangtze Canals. (d) Construction of New Canals. (1) Liaoho-Sunghwakiang Canal. (2) Others to be projected. (e) River Conservancy. (1) To regulate the Embankments and Channel of the Yangtze River from Hankow to the Sea thus facilitating Ocean-going ships to reach that Port at all seasons. (2) To regulate the Hoangho Embankments and Channel to prevent floods. (3) To regulate the Sikiang. (4) To regulate the Hwaiho. (5) To regulate various other rivers. (f) The Construction of more Telegraph Lines and Telephones and Wireless Systems all over the Country.
(a)
100,000 miles of Railways.
(b)
1,000,000 miles of Macadam Roads.
(c)
Improvement of Existing Canals. (1) Hangchow-Tientsin Canals. (2) Sikiang-Yangtze Canals.
(1)
Hangchow-Tientsin Canals.
(2)
Sikiang-Yangtze Canals.
(d)
Construction of New Canals. (1) Liaoho-Sunghwakiang Canal. (2) Others to be projected.
(1)
Liaoho-Sunghwakiang Canal.
(2)
Others to be projected.
(e)
River Conservancy. (1) To regulate the Embankments and Channel of the Yangtze River from Hankow to the Sea thus facilitating Ocean-going ships to reach that Port at all seasons. (2) To regulate the Hoangho Embankments and Channel to prevent floods. (3) To regulate the Sikiang. (4) To regulate the Hwaiho. (5) To regulate various other rivers.
(1)
To regulate the Embankments and Channel of the Yangtze River from Hankow to the Sea thus facilitating Ocean-going ships to reach that Port at all seasons.
(2)
To regulate the Hoangho Embankments and Channel to prevent floods.
(3)
To regulate the Sikiang.
(4)
To regulate the Hwaiho.
(5)
To regulate various other rivers.
(f)
The Construction of more Telegraph Lines and Telephones and Wireless Systems all over the Country.
II.
The Development of Commercial Harbors. (a) Three largest Ocean Ports with future capacity equalling New York Harbor to be constructed in North, Central and South China. (b) Various small Commercial and Fishing Harbors to be constructed along the Coast. (c) Commercial Docks to be constructed along all navigable rivers.
(a)
Three largest Ocean Ports with future capacity equalling New York Harbor to be constructed in North, Central and South China.
(b)
Various small Commercial and Fishing Harbors to be constructed along the Coast.
(c)
Commercial Docks to be constructed along all navigable rivers.
III.
Modern Cities with public utilities to be constructed in all Railway Centers, Termini, and alongside Harbors.
IV.
Water Power Development.
V.
Iron and Steel Works and Cement Works on the largest scale in order to supply the above needs.
VI.
Mineral Development.
VII.
Agricultural Development.
VIII.
Irrigational Work on the largest scale in Mongolia and Sinkiang.
IX.
Reforestation in Central and North China.
X.
Colonization in Manchuria, Mongolia, Sinkiang, Kokonor, and Thibet.[311]

The industrial revolution is to min shêng what the present program of socialist construction is to the Marxians of the Soviet Union, what prosperity is to American democracy. Without industrialization min shêng must remain an academic theory. Sun's program gives a definite physical gauge by means of which the success of his followers can be told, and the extent of China's progress estimated. It provides a material foundation to the social and political changes in China.

The theory of Sun Yat-sen in connection with the continuation of the old system is a significant one. His political doctrines, both ideological and programmatic, are original and not without great meaning in the development of an adequate and just state system in modern China. But this work might have been done, although perhaps not as well, by other leaders. The significance of Sun in his own lifetime lay in his deliberate championing [pg 251] of the cause of industrial revolution as the sine qua non of development in China. In the epoch of the first Republic he relinquished the Presidency in favor of Yüan Shih-k'ai in order to be able to devote his whole time to the advancement of the railway program of the Republic. In the years that he had to spend in exile, he constantly studied and preached the necessity of modernizing China. Of his slogan, “Modernization without Westernization!” modernization is the industrial revolution, and non-Westernization the rest of his programs and ideology. The unity of Sun Yat-sen's doctrines is apparent; they are inseparable; but if one part were to be plucked forth as his greatest contribution to the working politics of his own time, it might conceivably be his activities and plans for the industrial revolution.

He spoke feelingly and bitterly of the miserable lives which the vast majority of his countrymen had to lead, of the expensiveness and insecurity of their material existences, of the vast, tragic waste of human effort in the form of man-power in a world where machine-power had rendered muscular work unnecessary. “This miserable condition among the Chinese proletariat [he apparently means the whole working class] is due to the non-development of the country, the crude methods of production, and the wastefulness of labor. The radical cure for all this is industrial development by foreign capital and experts for the benefit of the whole nation.... If foreign capital cannot be gotten, we will have to get at least their experts and inventors to make for us our own machinery....”[312] Howsoever the work was to be done, it had to be done. In bringing China into the modern world, in modernizing her economy, in assuring the justice of the new economy which was to emerge, Sun found the key in the physical advancement of China, in the building [pg 252] of vast railway systems, in creating ports “with future capacity equalling New York harbor,” in re-making the whole face of Eastern Asia as a better home for his beloved race-nation.

The Social Revolution.

In considering the social revolution which was to form the third part of the program of min shêng, four questions appear, each requiring examination. It is in this field of Sun's programs that the terms of the Western ideology are most relevant, since the ideological distinctions to be found in old China as contrasted with the West do not apply so positively in problems that are to appear in a society which is to be industrially modern. Even in this, however, some of the old Chinese ideas may continue in use and give relevance to the terms with which Sun discusses the social revolution. Private property, that mysterious relation between an individual and certain goods and services, has been almost a fetish in the West; the Chinese, already subject to the collectivisms of the family, the village and the hui, does not have the deep attachment to this notion that Westerners—especially those who do have property—are apt to develop. Consequently, even though the discussion of Sun's programs with regard to distributive justice are remarkably like the discussions of the same problem to be found in the West, the possibility, at least, of certain minor though thoroughgoing differences must be allowed for, and not overlooked altogether. The four aspects to this problem which one may distinguish in Sun's program for min shêng are: what is to be the sphere of state action? what is to be the treatment accorded private ownership of land? what is to be the position of private capital? and, what of the class struggle?

Sun Yat-sen said: “In modern civilization, the material essentials of life are five, namely: food, clothing, shelter, [pg 253] means of locomotion, and the printed page.”[313] At other times he may have made slightly different arrangements of these fundamental necessities, but the essential content of the demands remained the same.