The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen: An Exposition of the San Min Part 15

In _min sheng_ neither the experience of the West nor the old Chinese background would be of much value. More than the other two principles and programs, _min sheng_ sought to alter the const.i.tution and nature of Chinese society. Yet in _min sheng_ the Chinese were to be guided only negatively by Western experience. Into their society, pa.s.sing through a great economic upheaval, they must introduce, by a trial-and-error method, the requirements for economic unity, efficiency, and justice.

The National Economic Revolution.

After the pitiable failure of the 1912 Republic, Sun Yat-sen began to place an especially heavy emphasis on the necessity of a national economic revolution which would carry on the achievements of the national political revolution. He placed an even greater stress upon the necessity of _min sheng_ in the revolutionary ideology, and became more and more clearly conscious of the danger imperialism const.i.tuted to the Chinese race-nation. He believed that, as the 1912 revolution had been created by the sword, the new economic revolution might be furthered by the pen, and with this in mind he wrote _The International Development of China_. At the time that he wrote this work, he seems to have been convinced of the fruitlessness of purely military effort, and the superior value of pacific economic organization.(299)

This organization was to be effected through capital brought in from the outside. As it developed that capital would not come in, that instead of continuing the terrific pace of production which the World War had demanded, the nations returned to comparative laissez faire, and let their economies slump, Sun was persuaded that the whole revolution would have to be carried on by the Chinese themselves, with the possible help of the Communist Russians, and of j.a.pan. He found the reorganized Kuomintang to be the instrument of this last revolution, both politically and democratically, and began to emphasize Chinese resistance to the outside, rather than appeal for help from the barbarian nations.

It is this last att.i.tude which one finds expressed in the acts of the last years of his life. The national revolution was to be made a reality by being intimately a.s.sociated with the economic life and development of the country. The plans made for economic development should be pushed as far as possible without waiting for foreign help. The Chinese should use the instrument of the boycott as a sanction with which to give weight to their national policy.(300) They had to practise economic nationalism in order to rid themselves of the incubus of imperialism which was sucking the life-blood of their country. In this connection between nationalism and _min sheng_, the economic aspect of the nationalist program was to be the means, and the national aspect of the _min sheng_ program the consequence.

Unless Chinese, both as members of a state and as individuals stirred by national sentiment, were moved to action against Western economic aggression, they might consider themselves already doomed.

How did Sun propose to promote the national economic revolution,(301) as distinguished from the industrial revolution and the social revolution? He gave, in the first place, as earlier stated, the economic part of his theories a greater weight than they had hitherto enjoyed, and placed them first in his practical program. Secondly, he tended to a.s.sociate the national political revolution more and more with the real seat of economic power: the working cla.s.s. In this introduction of the working cla.s.s into the labors for the fulfilment of _min sheng_ as a national economic revolution, he was doing two things. He was hoping to bring the standards of Chinese labor up to those of the West, and he was making use of the political power of labor in China as an added instrument of the national economic revolution.

The Chinese nation could and should not continue, as a nation, on a scale of living lower than that of the Western nations. He urged the Chinese workers, as the cla.s.s most affected, to fight for the economic advancement of themselves and of their nation. "Comrades, the people meeting here are all workers and represent a part of the nation. A great responsibility rests on Chinese labor, and if you are equal to the task, China will become a great nation and you a mighty working cla.s.s."(302) The Chinese workers were performing not only a duty that they owed to themselves-they were also acting patriotically.

In advancing the national economic revolution by advancing themselves, they could not afford to lose sight of the political part of the revolution. "Beyond the economic struggle for the shortening of the working day and the increase of wages, there are before you other much more important questions of a political character. For our political objectives you must follow the three principles and support the revolution."(303) The two parts of the revolution could not be separated from one another.

Besides the economic part of the national revolution, there was another readjustment of which Sun did not often speak, because it was not an open problem which could be served by immediate political action. This was the problem of the transition of China from an autarchic to a trading economy.

The old Chinese world had been self-sustaining, so self-sustaining that the Emperor Tao Kuang wrote to George III of England that he did not desire anything that the barbarians might have, but, out of the mercy and the bounty of his heart, would permit them to come to China in order to purchase the excellent things that the Chinese possessed in such abundance.(304) The impact of the West had had serious economic consequences,(305) and the Chinese were in the unpleasant position of having their old economic system disrupted without gaining the advantages of a nationally organized economy in return. They had the actual privilege of consuming a greater variety of goods than before, but this was offset by the fact that the presence of these goods threw their domestic markets and old native commercial system out of balance, without offering a correspondingly large potentiality of foreign export. Furthermore, the political position of the Western powers in China was such, as Sun Yat-sen complained, that trade was conducted on a somewhat inequitable basis.

The consequences of a national economic revolution could not but be far-reaching. The political changes in the economic situation demanded by Sun Yat-sen in his program of economic nationalism-the return of tariff autonomy, the retrocession of the occupied concessions, etc.-would have a great positive and immediate effect; but there would be a long system of development, not to be so easily predicted or foreseen, which would inevitably appear as a result of Chinese nationhood. If China were to have a state strong enough to perform the economic functions which Sun wished to have imposed upon it, and were to take her place as one of the great importing and exporting nations of the world, it is obvious that a real economic revolution would have to be gone through.

Here again the liberal-national character of Sun's ideology and programs with respect to relations with the West appears. The Fascist states of the present time exhibit a definite drift from free trade to autarchy. In China the change from an autarchic world-society to a trading nation const.i.tuted the reverse. Sun Yat-sen did not leave a large legacy of programs in this connection, but he foresaw the development and was much concerned about it.

The Industrial Revolution.

The program of industrial revolution was planned by Sun Yat-sen with great care. The same belief which led him to urge the social revolution also guided him in his plans for the industrial revolutionizing of the Chinese economy, namely, his belief that China could profit by the example of the West, that what the West had done wastefully and circuitously could be done by the Chinese deliberately and straightforwardly. He proposed that the change from the old economy to the new be according to a well thought out plan. "However, China must develop her industries by all means. Shall we follow the old path of western civilization? This old path resembles the sea route of Columbus' first trip to America. He set out from Europe by a southwesterly direction through the Canary Islands to San Salvador, in the Bahama group. But nowadays navigators take a different direction to America and find that the destination can be reached by a distance many times shorter. The path of Western civilization was an unknown one and those who went before groped in the dark as Columbus did on his first voyage to America. As a late comer, China can greatly profit in covering the s.p.a.ce by following the direction already charted by western pioneers."(306) By calling in the help of friends who were familiar with engineering and by using his own very extensive knowledge of Chinese economic potentialities, Sun Yat-sen drafted a broad long-range plan by means of which China would be able to set forth on such a charted course in her industrial revolution. This plan, offered tentatively, was called _The International Development of China_ in the English and _The Outline of Material Reconstruction_ in the Chinese version, both of which Sun himself wrote.

This outline was originally prepared as a vast plan which could be financed by the great powers, who would thereby find markets for their glut of goods left over by the war. The loan was to be made on terms not unprofitable to the financial powers, but nevertheless equitable to the Chinese. Sun Yat-sen hoped that with these funds the Chinese state could make a venture into state socialism. It was possible, in his opinion, to launch a cooperative modern economy in China with the a.s.sistance of international capitalism, if the capital employed were to be remunerated with attractive rates of interest, and if the plan were so designed as to allow for its being financially worthwhile. He stated:

Before entering into the details of this International development scheme four principles have to be considered:

1. The most remunerative field must be selected in order to attract foreign capital.

2. The most urgent needs of the nation must be met.

3. The lines of least resistance must be followed.

4. The most suitable positions must be chosen.(307)

He was not oblivious to the necessity of making each detail of his plan one which would not involve the tying-up of unproductive capital, and did not propose to use capital advanced for the purposes of the industrial revolution for the sake of military or political advantage.

This may be shown in a concrete instance. He spoke of his Great Northeastern railway system as a scheme which might not seem economically attractive, and then pointed out that, as between a railway system running between densely-populated areas, the latter would be infinitely the more preferable. But, said he, "... a railway between a densely populated country and a spa.r.s.ely settled country will pay far better than one that runs end to end in a densely populated land."(308)

Even though he came to despair of having this scheme for the development of China carried out by international financial action, the expediency of his plans remained. He sought the fulfillment of this outline throughout his life; it has remained as a part of his legacy, challenging the Chinese people by the grandeur of its conception and the precision of its details.

It is a work which cannot easily be summarized in a discussion of political doctrines. Fully comparable in grandeur to the Russian _Piatiletka_, it provides for a complete communication system including all types of transport, the development of great ports, colonization and reclamation projects, and the growth of vast industrial areas comparable to the Donbas or the Kuzbas. The plan, while sound as a whole and not inexpedient in detail, is not marked by that irregularity of proportion which marks planning under capitalism; although not as fully worked out as the later Russian projects, Sun's plan, in 1922, was considerably more advanced than any Russian plan of that time. Sun shared with Lenin a pa.s.sionate conviction of the inevitable necessity of industrialization; but while Lenin saw in industrialism the strengthening of that revolutionary bulwark, the proletariat, Sun believed in industrialism as a benefit to the whole nation.

This plan is the obvious fruit of Sun's advocacy of the adoption of the Western physical sciences. Here there is little trace of his ideological consistency with the old premises of Chinese society. He does not challenge them, but he does present a concrete plan which refers only incidentally to the political or the ideological. It is heavy with the details of industrial revolution. Sun Yat-sen's enthusiasm shows clearly through the pages of this work; he wrote it at a time when his health was still comparatively good, and when he was not hara.s.sed by the almost explosive dynamics of the situation such as that in which he delivered the sixteen lectures on the _San Min Chu I_. Here the practical aspects of his thinking show forth, his willingness to consider and debate, the profound and quiet enthusiasm for concrete projects which animated him and which was so infectious among his followers.

It were, of course, unfeasable to attempt any detailed description and a.s.sessment of the plan.(309) The great amount of point by point elaboration worked over by Sun Yat-sen in order to make his plan appealing precludes the consideration of any one project in detail as a sample.

Failing this, the magnitude of the plan may be gauged by a recapitulation of the chief points in each of his programs. It must be remembered, however, that each one of these subheads might necessitate hundreds of millions of dollars for execution, involving the building of several industrial cities or the reconstruction of a whole industry throughout the country. The printing industry, for example, not even mentioned in the general outline given below, was discussed as follows:

This industry provides man with intellectual food. It is a necessity of modern society, without which mankind cannot progress. All human activities are recorded, and all human knowledge is stored in printing. It is a great factor of civilization. The progress and civilization of different nations of the world are measured largely by the quant.i.ty of printed matter they turned out annually. China, though the nation that invented printing, is very backward in the development of its printing industry. In our international Development Scheme, the printing industry must also be given a place. If China is developed industrially according to the lines which I suggested, the demand for printed matter will be exceedingly great. In order to meet this demand efficiently, a system of large printing houses must be established in all large cities in the country, to undertake printing of all kinds, from newspapers to encyclopedia [sic!]. The best modern books on various subjects in different countries should be translated into Chinese and published in cheap edition form for the general public in China. All the publishing houses should be organized under one common management, so as to secure the best economic results.

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 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 Ca.n.a.ls.

(1) Hangchow-Tientsin Ca.n.a.ls.

(2) Sikiang-Yangtze Ca.n.a.ls.

(d) Construction of New Ca.n.a.ls.

(1) Liaoho-Sunghwakiang Ca.n.a.l.

(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.

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.