Three Principles of the People
The Three Principles of the People, also known as the Three People's Principles, San-min Doctrine, San Min Chu-i, or simply Tridemism, is a political philosophy developed by Sun Yat-sen as part of a philosophy to improve China during the Republican Era and later in Taiwan during the Dang Guo era. The three principles are often translated into and summarized as nationalism, democracy, and the livelihood of the people. This philosophy has been claimed as the cornerstone of the nation's policy as carried by the Kuomintang; the principles also appear in the first line of the national anthem of the Republic of China.
Origins
When the Revive China Society was formed in 1894, Sun only had two principles: nationalism and democracy. He picked up the third idea, welfare, during his three-year trip to Europe from 1896 to 1898. He announced all three ideas in the spring of 1905, during another trip to Europe. Sun made the first speech of his life on the "Three Principles of the People" in Brussels. He was able to organize the Revive China Society in many European cities. There were about 30 members in the Brussels branch at the time, 20 in Berlin, and 10 in Paris. After the Tongmenghui was formed, Sun published an editorial in Min Bao. This was the first time the ideas were expressed in writing. Later on, in the anniversary issue of Min Bao, his long speech of the Three Principles was printed, and the editors of the newspaper discussed the issue of people's livelihood.The ideology is said to be heavily influenced by Sun's experiences in the United States and contains elements of the American progressive movement and the thought championed by Abraham Lincoln. Sun credited a line from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, "government of the people, by the people, for the people", as an inspiration for the Three Principles. Sun's Three Principles of the People are inter-connected as the guideline for China's modernization development as stretched by Hu Hanmin.
The Principles
''Mínzú'' or Nationalism
Because "Mínzú" or "People" describes a nation rather than a group of persons united by a purpose, the 'Principle of Mínzú' is commonly rendered as "nationalism".National Independence
Sun saw the Chinese Nation as under threat of annihilation by the imperialist powers. To reverse the trajectory of such decline, China needed to become nationally independent both externally and internally.Internally, national independence meant independence from the Qing Manchus who ruled China for centuries. Sun thought that the Han Chinese people were a people without their own nation and thus strove for national revolution against Qing authorities.
Externally, national independence meant independence from imperialist foreign powers. Sun believed China to be threatened by imperialism in three ways: by economic oppression, by political aggression, and by slow population growth. Economically, Sun held the mercantilist position that China was being economically exploited by unbalanced trade and tariffs. Politically, he looked toward the unequal treaties signed by China as the reason of China's decline. Sun envisioned a future China that was strong and capable of fighting imperialists and standing on the same stage as western powers.
Five Races Under One Union
Although Sun initially believed in a form of Han nationalism to oppose the rule of the Qing dynasty, he later came to accept Liang Qichao’s multi-ethnic nationalist idea of a unified Chinese nation. To achieve "national independence", Sun believed that China must first develop a "China-nationalism," Zhonghua Minzu, as opposed to an mono-ethnic nationalism. Sun developed the principles of Five Races Under One Union to unite the five major ethnic groups of China—Han, Mongols, Tibetans, Manchus, and the Muslims —under one "Chinese Nation". This principle is symbolized by the Five Color Flag of the First Republic of China. He believed that China must develop a "national consciousness" so as to unite the Chinese people in the face of imperialist aggression. He argued that "minzu", which can be translated as "people", "nationality", or "race", was defined by sharing common blood, livelihood, religion, language, and customs. Sun also believed in a form of interculturalism that assimilated ethnic minorities into the dominant Han culture by a process of naturalization, rather than through brute force.''Mínquán'' or Governance Rights
The framing of 'democracy' in the Three Principles of the People differs from the typical Western view democracy, being based in Liang's interpretation of General will, which prioritizes the power of the group over individual freedoms. Sun viewed traditional Chinese society as too individualistic and stated that individual liberty must be broken down so that the Chinese people could pressed together, using the metaphor of adding cement to sand.Four Rights of the People
The power of politics are the powers of the people to express their political wishes and keep administrative officers in check, similar to those vested in the citizenry or the parliaments in other countries, and is represented by the National Assembly. The power of the people is guaranteed by four constitutional rights: the right to election, recalling, initiative, and referendum. These may be equated to "civil rights".Five Power Constitution
The power of governance are the powers of the administration to govern the people. He criticized the traditional three-branch democratic government for vesting too much power in the legislative branch. He expanded and reworked the European-American three-branch government and the system of checks and balances by incorporating traditional Chinese administrative systems to create a government of five branches in a system known as the Five Power Constitution. The state is divided into five "Yuan"s: Legislative Yuan, the Executive Yuan, and the Judicial Yuan came from Montesquieuan thought; the Control Yuan and the Examination Yuan came from Chinese tradition.''Mínshēng'' or Welfare Rights
The Principle of Mínshēng is sometimes translated as " Government for the People" or "Socialism". The concept may be understood as social welfare and as a direct criticism of the inadequacies of unregulated capitalism. He divided livelihood into four areas: clothing, food, housing, and mobility; and planned out how an ideal government can take care of these for its people.Equalization of Land Rights
Sun was influenced by the American thinker Henry George and intended to introduce a Georgist tax reform. The land value tax in Taiwan is a legacy thereof. Sun said that " as the only means of supporting the government is an infinitely just, reasonable, and equitably distributed tax, and on it we will found our new system."Sun proposed a land reform system known as "equalization of land rights", which involves the implementation of four different acts: regulation of land price, in which each landowner reports the value of their property sans improvement; taxation of land, which involves a land value tax set on all land properties; purchase of land, which sets up a system where government can purchase land for public use by eminent domain; and profit belongs to the public, in which a 100% tax is levied on all profit gained from trading of land. According to Sun, the existence of land purchase and land taxation guarantees that landowner wouldn't over-report nor under-report their land values.
However, the Kuomintang failed to achieve any successful land reform Sun envisioned in mainland China and only succeeded in Taiwan during the Cold War era.
Impact
Sun died before he was able to fully explain his vision of this Principle and it has been the subject of much debate within both the various factions within Kuomintang and Communist Parties, with the latter suggesting that Sun supported socialism. Chiang Kai-shek further elaborated the Mínshēng principle of both the importance of social well-being and recreational activities for a modernized China in 1953 in Taiwan.Canon
The most definite exposition of these principles was a book compiled from notes of speeches that Sun gave near Guangzhou, and therefore is open to interpretation by various parties and interest groups and may not have been as fully explicated as Sun might have wished. Indeed, Chiang Kai-shek supplied an annex to the Principle of Mínshēng, covering two additional areas of livelihood: education, land, and leisure, and explicitly arguing that Mínshēng was not to be seen as supporting either communism or socialism.The French historian of Chinese history, Marie-Claire Bergère's view is that the book is a work of propaganda. Its purpose is to appeal to action rather than to thought. As Sun Yat-sen declared, a principle is not simply an idea; it is "a faith, a power."
Legacy
The Three Principles of the People were claimed as the basis for the ideologies of the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek, the Reorganized National Government of China under Wang Jingwei, and an inspiration of the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong as the stage of "old democracy". The Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party largely agreed on the meaning of nationalism but differed sharply on the meaning of democracy and people's welfare, which the former saw in Western social democratic terms and the latter interpreted in Marxist and communist terms. The Japanese collaborationist government interpreted nationalism less in terms of anti-imperialism and more in terms of cooperating with Japan to advance theoretically pan-Asian, but in practice, typically Japanese interests.Republic of China and Taiwan
During the Republic of China's Nanjing period, the KMT developed a national censorship apparatus as part of its "Arts of the Three Principles of the People" cultural campaign. This program sought to censor cultural products deemed unwelcomed by the KMT, such as works by left-wing artists or writers.There were several higher-education institutes in Taiwan that used to devote themselves to the 'research and development' of the Three Principles in this aspect. Since the late 1990s, these institutes have re-oriented themselves so that other political theories are also admitted as worthy of consideration, and have changed their names to be more ideologically neutral.
In addition to this institutional phenomenon, many streets and businesses in Taiwan are named "Sān-mín" or for one of the three principles. In contrast to other politically derived street names, there has been no major renaming of these streets or institutions in the 1990s.
Although the term "Sanmin Zhuyi" has been less explicitly invoked since the mid-1980s, no political party has explicitly attacked its principles with practices under the Martial Law ruling era then except the Tangwai movement groups such as Democratic Progressive Party. The Three Principles of the People remains explicitly part of the platform of the Kuomintang and in the Constitution of the Republic of China.
As for Taiwan independence supporters, some have objections regarding the formal constitutional commitment to a particular set of political principles. Also, they have been against the mandatory indoctrination in schools and universities, which have now been abolished in a piecemeal fashion beginning in the late 1990s. However, there is little fundamental hostility to the substantive principles themselves. In these circles, attitudes toward the Three Principles of the People span the spectrum from indifference to reinterpreting the Three Principles of the People in a local Taiwanese context rather than in a pan-Chinese one.