Sun Yat Sen (1866– 1925) Chinese political activist and head of state. Born in present- day Guangdong, Sun was educated in Hawaii and Hong Kong. He worked mainly outside China to raise funds and support for a revolution to topple China’s Qing Dynasty. His revolutionary alliance, known as the Tongmeng Hui, was founded in Japan in 1905.

Sun visited Singapore eight times between 1900 and 1911. He established the Singapore branch of the Tongmeng Hui on 6 April 1906 at a villa owned by a local supporter (see Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall). In Singapore and the wider region, Sun and his supporters mobilized Chinese support for the revolutionary cause, and propagated an ideology known as the ‘Three Principles of the People’— nationalism, populism and ‘the people’s livelihood’.

Following an uprising in China in October 1911, the Qing Dynasty collapsed. The Republic of China was founded in 1912, and Sun was made president. In August of that year, the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) was formed. In 1913, however, Sun was driven into exile by China’s new president, Yuan Shikai. Sun returned to China in 1916, and by 1923, had become head of the Kuomintang government which ruled from the city of Canton (present- day Guangzhou), but which exerted little authority over many other parts of China. Sun died of liver cancer in Peking (present- day Beijing) shortly thereafter.