Sun Yat-sen

Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) is widely regarded as the founding father of modern China, honored in both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan. Born in Guangdong province and educated in Hawaii and Hong Kong, where he trained as a physician, Sun spent much of his early career organizing anti-Qing activities from exile, founding the Revive China Society in 1894 and later the Tongmenghui in 1905 in Tokyo.

His political philosophy is best known through the Three Principles of the People (Sanmin Zhuyi): nationalism (minzu), democracy (minquan), and people's livelihood (minsheng). These principles were intended as a roadmap for transforming China from an imperial dynasty into a modern republic and remain enshrined in the constitution of the Republic of China.

Following the Wuchang Uprising of October 1911, Sun was elected provisional president of the new Republic of China and inaugurated on 1 January 1912 in Nanjing. He resigned within weeks in favor of Yuan Shikai to secure the Qing emperor's abdication and preserve national unity. After Yuan's authoritarian turn, Sun spent the rest of his life attempting to reunify a country fragmented by warlords.

In 1919 he reorganized his political movement as the Kuomintang (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party). Frustrated by lack of Western support, Sun accepted Soviet assistance and, through the First United Front announced in 1923–1924, allowed members of the newly founded Chinese Communist Party to join the KMT as individuals. He established the Whampoa Military Academy in 1924 with Chiang Kai-shek as commandant.

Sun died of cancer in Beijing on 12 March 1925 before completing the Northern Expedition he had planned. His legacy is contested but uniquely bipartisan in Chinese politics: his mausoleum in Nanjing remains a site of state commemoration, and his portrait still appears in Tiananmen Square on major holidays.