Why is sun yat sen the father of modern china

Li did not take his advice. In , when his plot to launch the First Guangzhou Uprising was disclosed , he had to flee the country. During this period, he visited a number of Western nations, carefully studying their economic practices and politics. Sun Yat-sen fourth from left, first row with like-minded Japanese revolutionaries.

Image via Sohu. Between and , Sun led a total of eight uprisings, including the Second Guangzhou Uprising, which ended in failure with the deaths of 86 revolutionaries. This time, Sun and his revolutionaries experienced success. Within two months, 15 provinces declared to secede from the Qing government to join the newly-founded Republic of China, of which Sun was elected the provisionary president on December 29, His inauguration took place the next year on January 1, together with the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China.

The Wuchang Uprising. Image via jxnews. Yuan turned out to be very hungry for power and he attempted to restore the monarchy in China with himself at the top.

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Sun was born into a family of poor farmers in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong. One of his first experiences with the outside world came through his brother Mei, a laborer in Hawaii, who brought him to the islands to study at a British missionary school.

It was there that Sun converted to Christianity to the consternation of his brother and was baptized in or Sun later returned to Hong Kong, where he enrolled in medical school and married a girl chosen for him by his parents. Their union eventually produced three children. He graduated in and set up a medical practice in Canton. The traditional lifestyle didn't hold his interest for long. By he had abandoned medicine for politics. Some years later he scandalized many of his followers by marrying his secretary, Soong Ch'ing-ling, who was 27 years his junior, without divorcing his first wife.

Like many activists, Sun was troubled by the Qing court's resistance to reform and its lack of resistance to the Western powers. In he helped plot an uprising in Canton. When the scheme failed, he embarked on what would become a year exile abroad. He went to London, then to Japan, where he spent time courting potential backers. In he emerged as head of a revolutionary coalition, the United League, based in Tokyo.

The group was loosely organized and unwieldy, but Sun used its mouthpiece, "The People's Journal," to disseminate propaganda. His ideas gained credence with many overseas Chinese students. Sun's philosophy, honed over many decades, boiled down to "Three Principles of the People": nationalism, democracy and people's livelihood. After a fund-raising tour through Europe and the United States in , Sun made one more attempt to spark a rebellion in Canton, but it fared no better than his earlier plots.

The Revolution of , however, gave Sun a golden opportunity. As the spontaneous uprising spread rapidly from Wuhan through the rest of the country, he returned to China and was elected provisional president of a self-proclaimed republic in Perhaps hoping to head off a civil war, Sun made a strategic alliance with Yuan Shikai, commander-in-chief of the imperial army, who had seized power from the child emperor Pu Yi in Beijing.

Yuan was made president, while Sun became a minister in the government. The entente did not last long. Just a few years into the alliance, Sun accused Yuan of having one of his associates murdered, and set up a rival government in southern China. In the ensuing years, Sun strove to unify his Kuomintang party, which was beset by internal rivalries. During this period, Sun was constantly frustrated in obtaining Western support. Western officials still recognized Yuan and successive warlords in Beijing as the Chinese government.

They considered Sun something of a crackpot and a schemer with a history of failed uprisings.