The Principle Of Nationalism: Lecture Three
Delivered on February 10, 1924.
Speech by Dr. Sun Yat-sen
Translated by Francis Wilson Price(畢範宇 牧師)
NATIONALISM is that precious possession which enables a state to aspire to progress and a nation to perpetuate its existence. China to-day has lost that precious possession. Why? To answer that question and to study whether we have really lost our national spirit is my theme to-day.
To me it is clear that we have lost it not for a day but for centuries. Just look at the anti-revolution articles which came out before the Revolution, all opposing nationalism! For hundreds of years the idea of nationalism had been dead in China; in all the literature of this time one can hardly catch any note of nationalism.
To-day I want to talk to you about some of the reasons for this loss of our nationalism. There are many reasons, of which the greatest is our subjection to alien races. When one race conquers another, it naturally does not allow the subject people to have independent thought. Japan, for example, now that it has control of Korea, is trying to convert the minds of the Koreans. All nationalistic ideas are expunged from Korean school texts, so that thirty years from now Korean children will not know there is a Korea or that they are Koreans. The conquering people tries to destroy that precious possession of the subject people.
China's nationalism was originally crushed out by alien rule, yet there have been other subjugated races than the Chinese. The Jews lost their country and before Jesus' day had become a conquered people. When Jesus was preaching, his followers took him for a revolutionist and wanted him to become a revolutionary leader; he was called the "King of the Jews." It is probable that Jesus' religion did contain some ideas of political revolution, yet one of his disciples thought the political revolution had failed and betrayed his teacher. He did not comprehend that Jesus was a religious revolutionist who called his country the Kingdom of Heaven. So, although their state was destroyed, the Jewish race itself has survived since the time of Christ. Or consider Poland, which, although it was a subject nation for a hundred years, has an unquenchable national consciousness; so after the European War the Poles revived their old state. Thus compared, China is seen to be a subject nation similar to Judea and Poland; then, why have they not lost their national spirit while China, after two periods of subjugation, has had all her national pride crushed out? It is a very strange fact and the study of its causes is very interesting. Before China was subjugated, she had a very cultured people and a powerful state. She called herself the "majestic nation," the "land of famous letters and objects," and looked on other countries as barbarian; she thought she was situated in the center of the world and so named herself the "Middle Kingdom." Other expressions, as the "Great Unifier," "Heaven has but one sun, people have but one King," "Gentry of all nations bow before the crown and pearls," date from before the period of China's subjection, when her nationalism was slowly evolving into cosmopolitanism. If we follow out this line of thought, we will begin to see why China has lost her national spirit while other races, as the Jews, have kept theirs for two thousand years, and why China has been a subject nation for only three hundred years, yet all her nationalism has vanished.
To study the cause is like diagnosing a sick man. Whatever disease a man contracts can be traced back either to a poor constitution or to some weakness before he was taken sick. Before China lost her sovereignty, there were already roots of disease in her system which, as soon as she suffered conquest, caused her national mind to decay.
A new theory is emerging in England and Russia, proposed by the intellectuals, which opposes nationalism on the ground that it is narrow and illiberal--simply a doctrine of cosmopolitanism. England now, and formerly Russia and Germany, together with modern young advocates of new culture in China, support this doctrine and decry nationalism. I constantly hear young men saying, "The San Min Principles are not adapted to the tendencies of modern times; the latest and best doctrine is that of cosmopolitanism." Is it really? Then why did China, as soon as she was conquered, lose all her national spirit? Cosmopolitanism is the same thing as China's theory of world empire two thousand years ago. When we study this theory, do we find it good or not? We cannot decide whether an idea is good or not without seeing it in practice. If the idea is of practical value to us and to the world, it is good, if the idea is impractical, it is no good.
The nations which are employing imperialism to conquer others and which are trying to maintain their own favored positions as sovereign lords of the whole world are advocating cosmopolitanism and want the world to join them.
There are several great states, the so-called Great Powers, whose policies and character have not yet undergone any marked change. But in the future, England and the United States may be able to break up the group of powers and become the only great powers. Suppose that should happen, and then that England should subjugate China and our people become English--would that be good for us? If Chinese should become naturalized British or Americans and help England or America to destroy China, saying that we were but following out the principle of cosmopolitanism, would our consciences, let me ask you, be at rest? If our consciences hurt us at all, it would be because we had some nationalistic feelings; so, I say, nationalism is that precious possession by which humanity maintains its existence. If nationalism decays, then when cosmopolitanism flourishes we will be unable to survive and will be eliminated by other races. Have we a strong or a weak race, a fit or an unfit race? Not one of us is willing to see our race perish or fail; everyone wishes the race to survive and to win out--these are natural, instinctive feelings. But our country to-day is in a very perilous position. Because we have lost our national spirit, we have opened the gates for political and economic forces to break in, which never would have happened if we bad preserved our nationalism.
It is difficult to explain just how we have lost our nationalism. To illustrate I will tell a story which may seem off the point and unrelated to our thesis, but perhaps it will make clearer the causes of which we are speaking. It is an incident which I personally witnessed in Hongkong. There was a coolie who worked daily at the steamer jetties carrying passengers' baggage with his bamboo pole and two ropes. Each day's load was his means of livelihood for that day, but he finally managed to save more than ten dollars. The Luzon lotteries were flourishing at that time and this coolie used his savings to buy a Luzon lottery ticket. He had no home and no place to keep his things or the lottery ticket which he had bought. All his tool of trade was his bamboo pole and two ropes which he carried about with him everywhere he went. So he hid the lottery ticket inside of his bamboo pole, and since he could not always be pulling out the ticket to be looking at it, he fixed the number indelibly on his mind and thought about it all the time. When the day for the drawing came, he went to the lottery shop to match this number, and as soon as he saw the list of numbers he knew that he had won first prize, acquiring a wealth of $100,000. He was in ecstasy, almost insane with joy. Thinking that he would no longer have to be a coolie and use his bamboo pole and ropes, that he would be a rich man forever, he gleefully took the pole and ropes and threw them into the sea!
The coolie's bamboo pole may represent nationalism-- a means of existence; the winning of the first prize may represent the time when China at the zenith of her power was evolving into cosmopolitanism and when our forefathers, believing that China was the world's great state-- that "Heaven has but one sun, people but one king"; that "gentry of all nations bow before the crown and pearls"; that universal peace would henceforth prevail and that the only thing necessary was a world harmony in which the world would bring its tribute to China--threw away nationalism as the coolie threw his bamboo pole into the sea. Then when China was overcome by the Manchus, she not only failed to become the master of the world, but even failed to keep her small family property intact. The national spirit of the people was destroyed, just as the bamboo pole was thrown into the sea.
Those young students who prate about the new culture and espouse cosmopolitanism, saying that nationalism is out of date, might have some ground if they spoke for England and America or even for our forefathers, but if they think they are speaking for the Chinese to-day, we have no place for them. If our forefathers had not thrown away the bamboo pole, we might have won first prize, but we threw away the pole too early, forgetting that the ticket was hidden inside. As soon as we felt the yoke of foreign political and economic domination and encountered the forces of natural selection, we came face to face with the tragic possibility of a lost nation and a vanishing race.
If we Chinese can in the future find some way to revive our nationalism, can discover another bamboo pole, then no matter what foreign political and economic forces oppress us, we will survive through the ages. We can overcome the forces of natural selection; Heaven's preservation of our four hundred millions of Chinese till now shows that it has not wanted to destroy us; if China perishes, the guilt will be on our own heads and we shall be the world's great sinners. Heaven has placed great responsibilities upon us Chinese; if we do not love ourselves, we are rebels against Heaven. China has come to the time when each one of us has a great responsibility to shoulder. If Heaven does not want to eliminate us, it evidently wants to further the world's progress. If China perishes, she will perish at the hands of the Great Powers; those Powers will thus be obstructing the world's progress. If we want to resist Might we must espouse nationalism and in the first instance attain our own unity, then we can consider others and help the weaker, smaller peoples to unite in a common struggle against the oppressors. Together we shall use Right to fight Might, and when Might is overthrown and the selfishly ambitious have disappeared, then we may talk about cosmospolitanism.
