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SUN YAT-SEN
12 November 1866 to 12 March 1925
Sun Yat-Sen was the first president and founding father of the Republic of China.
Sun Yat-Sen played an instrumental role in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty during the years leading up to the Xinhai Revolution. He was appointed to serve as Provisional President of the Republic of China when it was founded in 1912. He later co-founded the Kuomintang, serving as its first leader. Sun was a uniting figure in post-Imperial China.
Sun Yat-sen assisted the Filipino revolutionary junta to obtain firearms from Japan. Mariano Ponce, one of the revolutionary junta members, had gone to Japan in 1898 trying to get the Japanese government to support their cause. Japan was eager to establish itself as a leader in a Pan-Asian movement and had been supporting the Chinese revolutionaries led by Sun Yat-sen. But the Japanese government was also reluctant to antagonize the United States, which had occupied the Philippines. Sun Yat-sen was able to convince the Japanese authorities to sell firearms to the Filipinos and to have these smuggled into the Philippines. Unfortunately, the ship carrying the firearms sank near Shanghai on its way to the Philippines in June 1899.
Mariano Ponce maintained his friendship with Sun Yat-sen, publishing a biography in 1912 of the Chinese leader.”In 1918 Ponce passed through Hong Kong en-route to China to visit his old friend but never made it because he became ill and died in a hospital there .
Sun Yat-Sen 250th Birth Anniversary #3693 and 3694, 12 Nov 2016
Photo of Mariano Ponce and his friend Sun YatSen
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