Sun Yat-sen

Who is Sun Yat-sen?

Sun Yat-sen trained as a physician in Hong Kong, graduating in 1892 from the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, the institution that later became the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong. It was in colonial Hong Kong, with its relative press freedom and exposure to Western political ideas, that Sun began organizing the revolutionary activity that would eventually topple the Qing dynasty. He co-founded early revolutionary societies and later the Tongmenghui, articulating his "Three Principles of the People" (nationalism, democracy, and people's livelihood) as the ideological basis for a modern Chinese republic. After the 1911 Revolution succeeded, Sun was sworn in as the first provisional president of the Republic of China in January 1912. Though his direct presidency was brief, he continued to lead the Kuomintang and shape China's revolutionary politics until his death in 1925. Hong Kong honors this formative period of his life with heritage trails and a museum tracing his student years and early organizing in the city, and he is widely regarded as a foundational figure of modern China whose political education began on Hong Kong soil.

Sources: Harold Z. Schiffrin, Sun Yat-sen and the Origins of the Chinese Revolution (1968) · University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Medicine historical records · Dr Sun Yat-sen Museum, Hong Kong (official heritage documentation)