Cheng Kuan-ying (1841–1920): A Source of Sun Yat-sen's Nationalist Ideology?

Abstract

Chinese scholarship, in its quest for an explanation of the beginning of Sun Yat-sen's nationalist ideology, San-min chu-i (“The Three Principles of the People”), has yet to grapple with the complexity of his ideological makeup. Unfortunately, scholarship has been inhibited (and will probably continue to suffer, at least in the foreseeable future) a great deal by a certain persistent point of view in both Nationalist and Communist Chinas when it comes to the study of Sun Yat-sen as a whole. This inhibition has stemmed, in the main, from the fact that Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of modern China, has thus far been regarded as someone to worship rather than someone to study with a critical mind.