You know, whenever we dig into history, especially
the history of revolutions and nation building,
it's usually a pretty binary affair. You have
your clear cut heroes and your absolute villains.
That is the general rule. Yes. Yeah. History
is written by the victors. And, you know, the
losers are usually painted as these terrible
figures to justify whatever came next. Right.
And who's who depends entirely on which side
of a border or which side of an ideological wall
you happen to be standing on? It's very rare
to find nuance in the. Foundational myths of
a nation. Exactly. But today we are unpacking
a massive, glaring exception to that rule. We're
talking about a figure who manages to be the
ultimate hero for two governments that have been,
I mean, technically at war for over 70 years.
It's a fascinating paradox, really a unique case
study in political legacy. We are talking, of
course, about Sun Yat -sen. Sun Yat -sen, the
man whose face is on the money in Taiwan and
whose massive portrait gets parked right in the
middle of Tiananmen Square in Beijing on major
holidays. It's an incredible status. In the Republic
of China, which we all know as Taiwan, he's officially
designated as the father of the nation. He's
their George Washington. He is. Meanwhile, across
the strait in the People's Republic of China
on the mainland, he's revered as the forerunner
of the revolution. Father versus forerunner.
I like that. It's a subtle distinction, but it
lets both sides claim him. Essentially, everyone
agrees he's the guy who turned the lights on
for modern China. He's a pivotal figure who ended
thousands of years of imperial rule. But here's
the thing that really stood out to me when I
was going through the research for this deep
dive. What's that? If you look at the raw data
of his life, his actual track record as a leader,
as a general. It's not exactly a resume of constant
winning. That's what jumped out at me, too. I
mean, this guy spent way more time losing, hiding,
running away and begging for money than he ever
spent actually ruling anything. He was in many
ways a professional exile. He spent arguably
more time outside of China than inside it during
his most active years. A professional exile.
I love that. So our mission for this deep dive
is to figure out how this guy, this doctor, this
failed insurrectionist, this fundraiser managed
to become the one thing that holds the fractured
identity of modern China together. We need to
look at the man behind the statues, not just
the bronze hero, but the guy who was constantly
on the move, constantly failing and yet somehow
never stopped. And we have to start by acknowledging
he wasn't a traditional Chinese rebel. I mean,
he wasn't a peasant leading a revolt with pitchforks.
No, nor was he a disgruntled general. He was
a product of a collision between worlds, really.
Right. Let's go back to the beginning. Because
when I think of the father of modern China, I
picture, I don't know, a scholar in robes studying
Confucius in some misty mountain temple. And
you'd be completely wrong. Sun was born in 1866
in Quiang, a small village in Guangdong province.
His background was humble. His father was a tailor,
a porter, a farmer. This wasn't the elite scholar
official class. So he wasn't part of the system
he was about to destroy. Not at all. But the
real plot twist, the thing that changes everything,
happens when he's a teenager. Because at age
13, he doesn't go to Beijing to study for the
imperial exam. He goes to Honolulu, Hawaii. This
is the pivotal moment. You have to understand,
in the late 19th century, southern China was
impoverished. Lots of people were leaving to
find work abroad. Sun's elder brother, Sun Mei,
had moved to Hawaii and had done quite well for
himself. He was a rancher, right? A rancher and
a merchant, yes. So Sun Yat -sen packs his bags
and moves to live with his wealthy brother. I
just can't imagine that culture shock. It's 1879.
You have a teenage boy from a Chinese village
where tradition is everything suddenly dropped
into Honolulu. He enrolls at the Iolani School.
And the curriculum there is absolutely vital
to understanding who he becomes. He's studying.
English, British history, mathematics, Christianity.
He's reading about the Magna Carta, the American
Revolution, the rule of law. It's a complete
software update for his brain. Exactly. He arrived
unable to speak a word of English, but he was
incredibly bright. By the time he graduated in
1882, he won a prize for academic achievement
from King Kalakaua himself. Wow. But it's not
just about learning the language, is it? It's
about the heroes he starts to adopt. Yes. He
began to admire figures like Abraham Lincoln
and Alexander Hamilton. He saw the structure
of Western democracy, the concepts of republicanism,
and he started to contrast that with the decaying,
corrupt Qing dynasty back home. He realized that
the way things were in China wasn't the only
way things could be. Precisely. So Hawaii is
the incubator. It's where he gets the perspective
that makes him totally incompatible with the
old system. Incompatible is the perfect word.
And that incompatibility showed itself pretty
violently the moment he went back home. Yes,
the idol smashing incident. This sounds like
something out of a rebellious teen movie. It
really does. He returns to his village at age
17, you know, filled with these new ideas about
modernization and science. He looks around and
sees his neighbors pouring their money and hope
into worshiping wooden statues in the local temple.
And to him, this isn't just culture anymore.
It's a superstition holding them back. It's the
chain. So he goes to the Beijing temple with
his childhood friend, Lu Hadong. And I remember
that name. He's important later. They walk up
to the statue of the North Star God. And he decides
to prove a point. He wants to prove that the
superstition is powerless. So he climbs up and
physically breaks the finger off the idol. Some
accounts say he did more damage, but the symbolic
act was breaking that finger. He was basically
saying, look, I hurt your God and he didn't strike
me down. He has no power. I can't imagine that
went over well with the villagers. Furious would
be an understatement. It was a massive scandal.
You have to remember, this wasn't just vandalism.
It was sacrilege. To avoid their wrath, Sun's
parents basically had to banish him. They kicked
him out. They sent him away to Hong Kong to cool
off. So his first act of rebellion gets him kicked
out of his home terror. But this actually works
out for him because it sets him on the path to
becoming a doctor. It does. He continued his
education in Hong Kong, eventually attending
the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese.
And he was a brilliant student. He was one of
only two graduates in his class in 1892. So he's
Dr. Sun now. He could have had a comfortable
life. He could have been a wealthy, respected
doctor. He certainly could have. But while he's
studying anatomy and surgery, he's also diagnosing
China's political illness. He fell in with a
group of friends. Young, hawkling, Chan Subak.
And Yalit. And they gave themselves a nickname
that is just fantastic. The Four Bandits. The
Four Bandits. In the eyes of the king authorities,
they were dangerous. They weren't robbing trains,
they were meeting in tea houses to discuss revolutionary
theory, talking about overthrowing the king dynasty.
But talk is cheap. When does the doctor become
the revolutionary? When does he decide, okay,
I'm putting down the scalpel, I'm picking up
the sword, so to speak. The tipping point came
in 1894. And interestingly... Sun didn't jump
straight to revolution. He tried one last time
to be your former. The petition. Yes. He wrote
an 8 ,000 -character petition to Li Hongzhang.
Now, Li Hongzhang was a heavy hitter, a powerful
viceroy, one of the most influential officials
in the Qing court. And what was in the petition?
Was it radical? Not at all. It was incredibly
rational. It was a blueprint for modernizing
China. He proposed investing in education, modernizing
agriculture, building industry. It wasn't a call
for democracy. It was a call for competence.
A very sensible proposal. Which was completely
ignored. He traveled all the way to Tianjin to
deliver it, and he was refused an audience. He
never even got in the room. And that's the moment,
right? The door slams shut, so he decides to
burn down the house. That's a good way to put
it. He realized that the king's system was too
ossified to change from within. It had to be
removed. So he traveled back to Hawaii and founded
the Revive China Society. Okay, so now he's an
organizer. But an organization needs a win. It
needs action. And action came in 1895 with the
first Guangzhou uprising. The plan was to capture
the city of Guangzhou, which would have given
them a major base of operations. Planned being
the operative word. Unfortunately, yes. This
sets a pattern for Sun's early career. The plans
were leaped. The Qing government. which had spies
everywhere, cracked down immediately. Over 70
members were captured. And this wasn't just a
slap on the wrist. This was the Qing Dynasty.
It was brutal. Sun's childhood friend, Lu Hudong,
the one who helped him smash the idol, was captured.
He was executed. He's often called the first
martyr of the revolution. Wow. That had to weigh
on him. Your best friend is dead. Your plan is
in ruins. And Sun himself was a wanted man with
a price on his head. He had to flee into exile.
And this brings us to the financial cost. Revolutions
are expensive. His brother, Sun May, the wealthy
rancher in Hawaii. The one who took him in. He
had to sell 12 ,000 acres of ranch land to support
Sun's activities and to hide the families of
the revolutionaries. 12 ,000 acres. He basically
liquidated his entire fortune for his brother's
dream. The family was all in. But Sun doesn't
just stay in Hawaii. He goes to London. And this
is where the story turns into a legitimate spy
thriller. The kidnapped in London incident of
1896. This is the event that made Sun Yat -sen
a household name, isn't it? It is. So picture
this. October 1896. Sun is in London. But the
King government has a long reach. Their secret
service is tracking him. And he's just walking
down the street. On Sunday, October 11th, he
was walking past the Chinese legation. the embassy
in portland place he was engaged in conversation
by some chinese men and lured or well dragged
into the building once he was inside the doors
locked he was on chinese sovereign territory
he's a prisoner what was their plan they can't
just execute him in downtown london no that would
cause a huge diplomatic incident their plan was
to smuggle him out to the docks Put him on a
boat chartered specifically for this, ship him
back to China, and execute him there. Which would
have been a horrible death. Almost certainly
Lingchi death by a thousand cuts. Or a ritual
beheading. That is terrifying. Locked in a room
in London, just waiting to be shipped back to
be tortured to death. How on earth did he get
out? He tried throwing notes out the window,
but they fell on a roof. Finally, he managed
to befriend an English servant working at the
legation. He convinced this man to smuggle a
message out to his former medical teacher, Dr.
James Cantley. The old professor to the rescue.
Dr. Cantley didn't hesitate. He went to Scotland
Yard, who said they couldn't really do much.
So he went to the press. He leaked it. He blew
it wide open. The Globe, The Times. They ran
these sensational stories about a Chinese revolutionary
kidnapped on British soil. British justice violated.
It became a massive scandal. So public pressure
mounted. Crowds gathered outside the legation.
The British foreign... Foreign office pressured
the Chinese diplomats. And after 12 days of captivity,
Sun was released. Talk about a backfire. The
Qing government tried to silence him and instead
they made him a global celebrity. Exactly. He
walked out of that location a star. He wrote
a book about it, Kidnapped in London, which became
a bestseller. Suddenly, he wasn't just a failed
rebel from Guangdong. He was the face of the
Chinese resistance to the West. So he's famous
now. But he's still in exile. He can't go back
to China. So what does a revolutionary do when
he can't be in the country he's trying to revolutionize?
He hustles. This next phase of his life is all
about fundraising, building alliances, and navigating
international bureaucracy. And he was incredibly
creative with the truth when he needed to be.
Speaking of being creative with the truth, let's
talk about the Hawaii birth certificate. This
detail blew my mind. Ah, yes. This is a masterclass
in pragmatic maneuvering. You have to remember,
this is the early 1900s. The U .S. had the Chinese
Exclusion Act of 1882 in full swing. Which made
it almost impossible for Chinese nationals to
enter the United States. Right. And that's a
huge problem if you want to tour the U .S. raising
money from wealthy Chinese American communities.
So in 1904, Sun obtained a certificate of Hawaiian
birth. He essentially claimed he was born in
Hawaii in 1870. Wait, he just he lied to the
U .S. government. He claimed he was a natural
born U .S. citizen. He did. And despite some
initial pushback, the U .S. government accepted
it on appeal. This granted him U .S. nationality
and a U .S. passport. It allowed him to travel
freely across the states to raise funds. That
is ironic on so many levels. The father of modern
China was technically, for a while, a U .S. citizen
based on a complete fabrication. It speaks to
his by any means necessary approach. He viewed
these laws as obstacles to be circumvented for
the greater good. And that pragmatism extended
to his alliances, particularly with Japan. Right,
because he spent a lot of time in Japan during
these exile years. And this is a very sensitive
topic, isn't it, given what happened later? It's
very complicated. Japan was Sun's primary base
of operations for years. He was supported by
Japanese Pan -Asianists. These were people who
believed that Asia should throw off Western imperialism.
They saw a strong modern China as a necessary
partner for Japan. Asia for the Asians, essentially.
Right. But there was another side to it. Some
Japanese supporters wanted a revolution in China
because they thought it would create chaos, allowing
Japan to expand its influence. But Sun took their
money and their protection. He had to. There's
a story about a supporter who built him a safe
house. Yes, a wealthy businessman named Fusanosuke
Kuhara. He built a villa for Sun called the Orchid
Room. It actually had a secret escape tunnel
hidden behind a fireplace. You're kidding me.
A secret tunnel? A secret tunnel. Sun could slip
out if the king assassins came knocking. It really
is like a movie. Secret tunnels, fake passports.
But while he's running through tunnels, he also
has a very, let's call it complex, personal life.
That is a fair description. He had an arranged
marriage to his first wife, Lumuzin, back in
the village. A traditional woman, but he also
had a concubine. Chen Kuifin, who lived with
him in Malaysia. And then there were the Japanese
partners. Yes, Haro Sada and Kaoru Atsuki. He
actually married Atsuki while she was just a
teenager, then had to leave her. But the marriage
that really caused a political earthquake, the
iconic one, was to Soon Ching Ling. This is where
it gets dramatic. Because Soon Ching Ling wasn't
just some random woman. Not at all. She was the
daughter of Charles Soon. Now, Charles Soong
was one of Sun's closest friends and arguably
his biggest financial backer. So Sun goes to
his best friend and main fundraiser and says,
hey, I want to marry your daughter. And the daughter,
Ching Ling, was 26 years younger than Sun. Plus,
Sun was still legally married to his first wife.
And the Soongs were devout Christians. I can
see why Charles might be upset. Upset doesn't
cover it. He was furious. He felt betrayed. He
locked his daughter up. He tried everything to
break up the match. Sun and Xing Ling were both
incredibly stubborn. They fled to Japan and got
married in 1915. This marriage created a power
couple that would shape Chinese politics for
decades. She became Madam Sun Yat -sen. Exactly.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We have
the fundraiser, the exile, the lover. We still
need a revolution that actually works. Right.
How do we get from guy hiding in a villa in Japan
to president? We have to talk about the Tong
Ming Wee. The Tong Ming Wee. This is the United
League. Yes. Up until 1905, the Chinese resistance
was fragmented. You had student groups, secret
societies, radicals, moderates. They couldn't
agree on anything. In 1905 in Tokyo, Sun managed
to do something very difficult. He herded the
cats. He brought them all under one umbrella.
He united them under a specific mantra. Expel
the Tatar barbarians, revive Zongwa, establish
a republic, distribute land equally. Tatar barbarians
are pretty harsh. He's referring to the Manchu
rulers of the Qing dynasty. It was ethnic nationalism.
He was tapping into the resentment of the Han
Chinese majority against the Manchu minority
ruling class. But he combined that with Republican
idealism. But even with this united front, they
kept failing, didn't they? They launched uprising
after uprising. Over and over again. The Huizhou
Uprising, the Zanangwood Uprising. Between 1895
and 1911, there were 10 major failed uprisings.
10. It must have been incredibly demoralizing.
It was. But Sun had this almost supernatural
persistence. He just kept moving, kept raising
money, kept talking. And then finally came October
10th, 1911. The Wuchang Uprising. This is the
big one. The Xinhai Revolution. The one that
finally topples the empire. And here's the best
part. The detail that I think defines his life.
Sun Yat -sen wasn't even there. It is one of
history's great ironies. The father of the revolution
was in Denver, Colorado. Denver? What was he
doing in Denver? He was on a fundraising tour.
He was staying at the Brown Palace Hotel. And
he found out that the revolution had finally
succeeded. by reading about it in a newspaper
the next morning. Imagine that scene. You've
been trying to start a fire for 20 years. You're
grabbing coffee in Denver. You open the paper
and you see, oh, look, the fire started without
me. And significantly, he didn't rush back immediately.
A military commander would have jumped on the
first boat. But Sun knew his strengths. He knew
that a military victory wasn't enough. The revolution
would die without money and diplomatic recognition.
So he took the long way home. He did. He went
to London and Paris first. He lobbied the British
and French governments to stop loaning money
to the Qing dynasty. He was cutting off the empire's
financial lifeline. He didn't arrive back in
China until December. But when he gets back,
he is the man of the hour. He is. The revolutionaries
needed a figurehead everyone could agree on.
On January 1st, 1912, Sun Yat -sen is inaugurated
as the provisional president of the Republic
of China in Nanjing. The dynasty is over. The
republic has begun. Mission accomplished. Roll
credits. If only. This is where the tragedy of
Sun's political career really begins. Because
being a revolutionary is very, very different
from being a president. What was the main hurdle?
Why couldn't he just govern? The problem was
the army. Or, well, the lack of one. The provisional
government in Nanjing had high ideals and a new
flag, but they had no real military power and
no money. The north of China was controlled by
Yuan Shikai. Yuan Shikai, the powerful king general.
He was the commander of the Beiyang Army, the
most modern and powerful military force in China.
He was a shrewd, ambitious operator. So you have
Sun with the ideals and Yuan with the guns. Exactly.
And Sun knew that if they fought, it would be
a bloody civil war that the infant republic would
likely lose. So his son made a deal, a heartbreaking
deal. What was the trade? He agreed to step down.
He would resign as president and let Yuan Shikai
take the job. In exchange, Yuan had to force
the king emperor to abdicate peacefully and agree
to support the republic. That is a massive sacrifice.
He basically handed the keys to the kingdom to
the guy with the biggest army just to save the
concept of the republic. It was an act of supreme
idealism. He believed that institutions were
more important than individuals. He thought Yuan
Shikai would play by the rules. And he did not
play by the rules. He did not. Once Yuan had
the presidency, he consolidated power. He assassinated
rivals, specifically Song Jiao. a key KMT leader.
And eventually, Yuan Shikai went fully off the
rails and tried to declare himself emperor. So
the Republic was dead, and Sun is back on the
run. Back on the run. He launched a second revolution
in 1913 against Yuan, but it failed miserably.
He fled to Japan. Again. This poor guy. He finally
wins, gives it up for the greater good, gets
betrayed, and ends up back in exile. And things
got even worse. After Yuan Shikai died in 1916,
China didn't go back to being a republic. It
shattered. This was the beginning of the warlord
era. Describe that for us. What was that like?
Imagine the country broken into pieces. Local
generals turned provinces into their own private
kingdoms. They taxed the peasants into starvation
to fund their private armies. Wars were constant.
There was no central government, just chaos.
It sounds like Mad Max. It was. Sun tried to
establish rival governments in Guangzhou in the
south to oppose the warlords in the north. But
he was constantly struggling. A warlord would
ally with him, then betray him. He needed powerful
friends. And this is where the story pivots toward
the Soviet Union. Because he tried the West again
first, right? He did. He appealed to the United
States and Britain for aid. He wrote to them
saying, help me develop China. Help me build
a democracy. And what did the West say? They
ghosted him. The Western powers preferred stability.
Even if it meant dealing with corrupt warlords
over supporting a perpetual revolutionary like
Sun, they ignored him. So if the capitalists
won't help, you turn to the communists. The newly
formed associate union was more than happy to
help. In 1923, Sun signed the Sun Jaffe Manifesto.
Now, this is crucial because this explains why
the Communist Party in China today claims him.
But was Sun actually a communist? No. He was
very clear about that. Yeah. He explicitly stated
in the manifesto that he didn't think the Soviet
system was suitable for China. He wasn't a Marxist,
but he was a pragmatist. He needed their organizational
structure, their training and their weapons.
So what was the deal? What was the arrangement?
He agreed to a united front. He allowed members
of the newly formed Chinese Communist Party to
join his nationalist party, the KMT, as individuals.
He thought he could use them and control them.
A marriage of convenience. Exactly. The Soviets
sent advisors. The most famous was a man named
Mikhail Borodin. Sun actually called Borodin
his Lafayette, referencing the French general
who helped George Washington. That's a telling
comparison. He sees himself as Washington and
the Russian Bolshevik as just a means to an end.
And with Soviet money in arms, they founded the
Wampoa Military Academy. This is hugely significant
for modern Chinese history. Why is Wampoa so
important? Because it built the army that would
eventually conquer the warlords. But look at
the staff list. It's a who's who of the future
civil war. The commandant was Chiang Kai -shek,
Sun's conservative protege, the head of the political
department. Zhu Anlai, the future premier of
communist China. They were all under the same
roof. The future bitter enemies were colleagues.
They were working together under Sun's umbrella.
That is the power of Sun Yat -sen. He was the
only figure with enough gravity to hold these
contradictory forces together. He was the glue.
Let's talk about his philosophy, then. The three
principles of the people. We hear this term a
lot, San Minzu Yi, but what does it actually
mean? It's his political legacy. The three principles
are nationalism, democracy, and livelihood. Okay,
let's break those down. First, nationalism. Minzu.
This wasn't just simple patriotism. It was about
independence, freedom from imperialist domination,
getting the Western powers in Japan out of China.
It was about China standing up as an equal nation
state. Second, democracy. Min Kwan. He wanted
a constitutional government. But, and this is
interesting, he has his own unique spin on it.
He proposed a five -power constitution. Five
powers. In the U .S., we have three. Legislative,
executive, judicial. What were the other two?
He added the examination yuan and the control
yuan. Explain those. The examination yuan was
based on the ancient Chinese civil service exams.
Sun believed that leaders and bureaucrats should
be qualified, not just popular. You had to pass
the test. The Control Yuan was an independent
body to monitor government corruption like an
independent auditor with real teeth. He was trying
to blend Western democracy with traditional Chinese
strengths. That's actually really innovative.
It is. And the third principle, livelihood. Mention.
This is the most debated one. It covered social
welfare. Communists interpret this as socialism.
But Sun was actually heavily influenced by an
American economist named Henry George, who advocated
for a land value tax. Sun wanted to prevent massive
wealth inequality, but he wasn't calling for
the abolition of private property. So nationalism,
democracy, livelihood, a solid platform. But
he never really got to see it fully implemented,
did he? No, he didn't. In 1924, he traveled north
to Beijing. He was trying one last time to negotiate
national unity with the warlords peacefully.
But he was exhausted. He fell ill on the trip.
He did. And for decades, the official story was
that he had liver cancer. But the notes say there
was a plot twist in 2016. Yes, a rediscovery
of the original autopsy report by an American
pathologist. It turns out it wasn't liver cancer
initially. It was gallbladder cancer that had
metastasized to the liver. A small medical detail,
but it speaks to how much of his life was sort
of mythologized. He died on March 12, 1925. He
was only 58 years old. His last words were reportedly,
peace, struggle, save China. And even in death,
things got weird. The Soviets sent a glass coffin,
right? Like the one they used for Lenin. They
did. They wanted to turn him into a Leninist
-style saint preserved for eternity. But the
family rejected the crystal coffin. Apparently
the quality wasn't great and they found the idea
unsuitable. Thanks, but no thanks. Exactly. His
body was eventually buried in a massive imperial
-style mausoleum in Nanjing. You can still visit
it today. It's huge. But once he was dead, the
glue holding the KMT and the communists together
dissolved instantly. Almost immediately. The
united front collapsed. Chiang Kai -shek took
control of the military and the KMT. He turned
on the communists in 1927 in a bloody purge.
the civil war began. And this is where the fight
for Sun's legacy gets intense because both sides
claimed him. They both said, we are the true
heirs of Sun Yat -sen. Chiang Kai -shek solidified
his claim by marrying Sun Meiling Sun's sister
-in -law. So he became family. He elevated Sun
to a godlike status in the Republic of China,
emphasizing nationalism and democracy. But the
communists didn't let him go either. No. And
here's the family tragedy. Sun's widow, Sun Qingling,
actually sided with the communists. She felt
Chiang Kai -shek had betrayed Sun's ideals. She
stayed on the mainland and eventually became
the vice president of the People's Republic of
China. That is a family dinner I would not want
to attend. One sister married to Chiang Kai -shek,
the other the widow of Sun, standing on opposite
sides of a civil war. It perfectly illustrates
the fracture of the nation. The communists reinterpreted
Sun's three principles. They focused on livelihood
and his policy of allying with Russia and helping
the peasants. So today, if you go to Taiwan,
he's the father of the nation. If you go to Beijing,
he's the forerunner. And in Tiananmen Square
on major holidays, huge portraits of Sun Yat
-sen are displayed. He's the one historical figure
that both sides can agree to honor. So coming
back to our original mission, how did the professional
exile become... The national icon. How did the
guy who failed so many times become the one success
story everyone agrees on? I think the key is
to look at Sun as a bridge. A bridge. Yes. He
was a bridge between ancient China and the modern
world. He started by smashing an idol and ended
by designing a constitution. But he was also
a bridge between East and West. He was educated
in Hawaii. He wore Western suits, but he fought
for Chinese dignity. And maybe, most importantly,
a bridge between the different factions of China
itself. Exactly. Even though he failed militarily
and politically over and over again, he never
defeated the warlords. He never saw a unified
China. His image became the only thing strong
enough to hold the concept of China together.
It's the persistence, isn't it? That's what sticks
with me. The image of him reading about his own
revolution in a newspaper in Denver. It wasn't
his military genius that won. It was his relentless
traveling, speaking, and fundraising. He just
kept the idea alive when the reality was falling
apart. There's a provocative thought to end on
here. Sun left a will that was recited in schools
for decades, right? Yes. It ends with the phrase,
the revolution is not yet effective. All my comrades
must continue to work hard. The revolution is
not yet effective. In a way, both Taiwan and
the mainland are still arguing over who is effectively
finishing Sun's work. And as long as that argument
continues, Sun Yat -sen remains the most important
common ground they have left. He's the only person
both sides can talk about without arguing. So
next time you see that statue, whether it's in
Taipei, Beijing or even a Chinatown somewhere,
don't just see the stiff statesman. See the kids
smashing the idol, the guy hiding in the secret
tunnel and the traveler in the train station
trying to talk the world into believing in a
new China. Well said. Thanks for listening to
this deep dive. We'll catch you on the next one.