Louie Angelo F.

Celespara 13/04/18
IV – ABPL Prof. Lawas

Midterm Examination in PL 1116

Asian Political Thought

1. Confucius, Sun Yat Sen, and Chiang Kai Shek are influential thinkers in China, what
are their contributions to China’s cultural and political development today?

The former socialist ideology of the Kuomintang is a unique form of socialism and
socialist thought developed in mainland China during the early Republic of China. The
Tongmenghui revolutionary organization led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen was the first to promote
socialist ideology in China.
The Kuomintang also promotes government-owned corporations. The Kuomintang
founder Sun Yat-sen, was heavily influenced by the economic ideas of Henry George, who
believed that the rents extracted from natural monopolies or the usage of land belonged to the
public. Dr. Sun argued for Georgism and emphasized the importance of a mixed economy, which
he termed "The Principle of Minsheng" in his Three Principles of the People.
The Kuomintang government under Dr. Sun and Chiang denounced feudalism as
counterrevolutionary. They proudly proclaimed themselves to be revolutionary. Chiang called
the warlords feudalists, and called for feudalism and counterrevolutionaries to be stamped out by
the Kuomintang.
The Blue Shirts were a fascist paramilitary organization within the Kuomintang modeled
after Mussolini's blackshirts, and were anti-communist and rigorously nationalist. The intended
goal of the Blue shirts was to destroy the Communists, "suppress feudal influences" and "deal
with foreign insults".[27] In addition to being anti-communist, some Kuomintang members, like
Chiang Kai-shek's right-hand man Dai Li were anti-American, and they wanted to expel
American influence.

Three Principles of the People, the ideological basis of the political program of the
Chinese Nationalist leader Sun Yat Sen, championing the principles of nationalism, democracy,
and socialism.
The principles were originally formulated as slogans for Sun’s revolutionary student
group, the United League, one of the chief forces behind the 1911 Republican Revolution, which
ended the Qing dynasty rule of China. After the failure of this revolution to establish democracy
in China, Sun formed a new party, the Nationalist Party or the Kuomintang, utilizing his
principles as fundamental doctrine. In 1922 the Nationalists formed an alliance with the Chinese
Communist Party. Beginning the following winter, Sun, in response to communist demands for a
more formal party ideology, gave a series of lectures in which he sharpened and defined his three
principles.
The first principle, minzu zhuyi, or “nationalism,” earlier had meant opposition to the
Qing dynasty and to foreign imperialism; now Sun explained the phrase as denoting self-
determination for the Chinese people as a whole and also for the minority groups within China.
The second principle, minquan, or the “rights of the people,” sometimes translated as
“democracy,” could be achieved, Sun explained, by allowing the Chinese people to control their
own government through such devices as election, initiative, referendum, and recall. The last
principle was minsheng, or “people’s livelihood,” which is often translated as “socialism.” This
was the most vague of the three principles, but by it Sun seemed to have in mind the idea of
equalization of land ownership through a just system of taxation.

Confucianism is an ethics tied intimately with political philosophy. According to the text
that is the most reliable guide to the teachings of Confucius, the Analects, he took the Mandate
of Heaven as a guide. The Mandate was formulated during the early period of the Zhou dynasty
to justify the overthrow of the Shang dynasty and to legitimate the rule of the Zhou kings. The
Confucian diagnosis of China's troubles suggests that the way out of the turmoil required a moral
transformation led by the top ranks of Chinese society, a return to the virtue of the early Zhou
kings. This article discusses Confucianism and its relation to political philosophy, the role of
ritual in the cultivation of goodness, the concepts of ren and junzi, filial piety, the debate
between Mozi and Mencius over filial loyalty versus impartial concern, family as the paradigm
in a relational and communal conception of political society, the goodness or badness of human
nature and its relation to morality, perfectionism and harmony, democracy, rights, and gender
equality.

2. If Confucius was known for his ethics and moral psychology, what specific teaching or
famous pedagogical principle did Confucius to the world?

It is impossible to talk about the history of China without talking about Confucius.
Working his way up from a minor government post, he founded the philosophy of Confucianism
and attempted to get feudal governments to rule more virtuously. He devised the “Golden Rule”
as a principle of morality, and exemplified his own brand of humanism. His virtue ethics have
been among the most important ideas in Chinese history.

3. Briefly discuss Sun Yat Sen’s rise to power and the political environment of China
before and after his reign.
 During the Qing Dynasty rebellion around 1888, Sun was in Hong Kong with a group of
revolutionary thinkers who were nicknamed the Four Bandits at the Hong Kong College of
Medicine for Chinese. Sun, who had grown increasingly frustrated by the conservative Qing
government and its refusal to adopt knowledge from the more technologically advanced Western
nations, quit his medical practice in order to devote his time to transforming China.
Sun Yat-sen spent time living in Japan while in exile. He befriended and was financially
aided by a democratic revolutionary named Miyazaki Toten. Most Japanese who actively worked
with Sun were motivated by a pan-Asian fear of encroaching Western imperialism. While in
Japan, Sun also met and befriended Mariano Ponce, then a diplomat of the First Philippine
Republic. During the Philippine Revolution and the Philippine–American War, Sun helped
Ponce procure weapons salvaged from the Imperial Japanese Army and ship the weapons to the
Philippines. By helping the Philippine Republic, Sun hoped that the Filipinos would win their
independence so that he could use the archipelago as a staging point of another revolution.
However, as the war ended in July 1902, America emerged victorious from a bitter 3-year war
against the Republic. Therefore, the Filipino dream of independence vanished with Sun's hopes
of collaborating with the Philippines in his revolution in China.

4. What political agenda did Chiang Kai Shek implement in China which made him as a
Champion of Anti-Communism? Discuss the program of government of Chiang Kai Shek in the
Republic of China (Taiwan).

In 1946, a year after Japan’s surrender, civil war broke out in China between KMT and
Communist forces. With the Communist victory in mainland China in 1949, Mao declared the
establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Upon his defeat, Chiang fled with the remnants
of his Nationalist government to Taiwan, which had been turned over to the Nationalist
government after the defeat of Japan according to terms agreed upon in Cairo in 1943. Backed
by American aid, Chiang launched Taiwan on the path of economic modernization, and in 1955
the United States signed an agreement guaranteeing Taiwan’s defense. Many countries continued
to recognize Chiang’s government in exile as the legitimate Chinese government, and it would
control China’s seat in the United Nations until Chiang’s death.
From 1972 onward, however, Taiwan’s preferred status was threatened by improving
U.S.-China relations. In 1979, four years after Chiang died, the United States broke off
diplomatic relations with Taiwan and established full relations with the People’s Republic of
China.