Sun Yat-sen

People wave as the motorcade of former Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou arrives at the Museum of Modern Chinese History in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, China, on 28 March 2023. (Greg Baker/AFP)

Chasing Ma Ying-jeou with the Chinese in Nanjing 

As former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou makes his way around the mainland on his 12-day ancestral visit, mainland people gathering in the streets to greet him signal changes in the ebb and flow of cross-strait ties.
This handout picture taken and released by the office of former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou on 28 March 2023 shows former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou (centre) holding a written calligraphy reading "Peaceful struggle and revitalisation of Zhonghua" during his visit to Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum in Nanjing, in China's eastern Jiangsu province. (Handout/Ma Ying-jeou's office/AFP)

All the subtleties: Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou's words and actions in China

Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou’s trip to mainland China began with a visit to Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum, where Ma paid tribute to Sun in a wreath-laying ceremony and a speech, in which he mentioned Minguo (the short form of the Republic of China) four times, and called for peace efforts on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Tourists are seen at an entrance of the Forbidden City amid snowfall, in Beijing, China, 7 November 2021. (Tingshu Wang/Reuters)

Professor Wang Gungwu’s Tang Prize 2021 lecture: China’s road from wen to shi

Professor Wang Gungwu, recipient of the 2020 Tang Prize in Sinology, delivered a Tang Prize Laureate Lecture at Tang Prize 2021 on 20 November. In tracing China’s history from empire to nation, he relates in tandem his journey of becoming a historian, from being a Chinese overseas in his youth, then returning briefly to the motherland before starting a new life in a new country. “That seemed like the real meaning of my leaving China,” he says, “ requiring me to think as a huaqiao settling down as a citizen of a foreign country... But I did learn that I could leave China but China did not leave me.” Whether in his studies of the Five Dynasties period of the 10th century or Mao’s China and the struggle to find its future after throwing away its own past, he noted that wen (文)-texts supported central power and shaped the system’s collective memory, and were most useful as the shi (史) records of every dynasty. This nexus can perhaps help us understand how one Confucian past could serve to denigrate one set of leaders but provide greater legitimacy for another, and how the continuity of China’s history can be preserved in the future.
Eric Chu, Taiwan’s newly-elected main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) chairman, gestures on the podium following his election victory for the party's leadership at the KMT headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, on 25 September 2021. (Sam Yeh/AFP)

A mountain to climb: New KMT leader Eric Chu and his hope for peaceful cross-strait relations

Although a new Kuomintang (KMT) chairman, former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu, has been installed, the KMT’s stance on cross-strait relations and its aspirations for Taiwan’s future is hazy to many. While Chu pledged commitment to the 1992 Consensus and non-support of Taiwan independence, he did not give a clear response to the mainland’s call for “reunification”. Pledging to stick to the “status quo” would be a no-go either, given the ambiguous term. How then should the KMT position itself on the path to the 2024 presidential elections?
The cheers from the civilian Russians show that to Russia, there was no doubt of victory in the war. They called the Japanese “yellow monkeys”, and believed that Japan was too weak to dare to attack. They thought the Russian army had the absolute advantage and winning was just a matter of time.

[Photo story] Russo-Japanese War: A war fought on Chinese soil and its hard lessons

The Russo-Japanese War was in fact not fought in either Russia or Japan, but in China. It was the culmination of a fierce rivalry between a Eurasian power and an Asian country that showed it could hold its own against a much bigger opponent. Historical photo collector Hsu Chung-mao takes us through a painful period in history that saw many Chinese lives taken.
In this aerial shot taken on 11 January 2021, workers are seen maintaining the Mohe Railway Station in Mohe county, the northernmost county in China, Heilongjiang province. (Xinhua)

Why China's railway development has fallen short of Sun Yat-sen's expectations

While China has soared ahead in other areas such as expressway construction and port development, it lags behind heavyweights like the US in railway development. A fundamental cause is relying on the government as its single investment channel. Plugging its railway gaps, literally and figuratively, would give China’s economic development a decided boost.
Teo Soon Kim (right) with only son Peter Wang, taken in March 1950. The photo was vandalised during the Cultural Revolution.

Singapore’s first female barrister and the cultural revolution: Her happiest moments were spent here

Lost love, tumultuous times. Teo Soon Kim, Singapore’s first female lawyer and daughter of rubber magnate and revolutionary Teo Eng Hock, may have had the most beautiful wedding in Singapore during the 1920s, but she passed away in her staff quarters in China that was just 15sqm in size. In the end, her ashes were laid to rest in Singapore's Choa Chu Kang Christian Columbarium. Chia Yei Yei, senior correspondent of Zaobao, talks to family members and pieces together this poignant story.
Sun Yat-sen is widely regarded as the foremost revolutionary of his time.

Sun Yat-sen and the Xinhai Revolution: A pictorial journey

Between October and December 1911, fierce fighting broke out between the revolutionaries and the Qing troops. And by early 1912, China's 2,000 years of imperial rule was history. The Xinhai Revolution led by Sun Yat-sen had successfully united the Chinese people against the imperial system, and built the first Republic in Asia, changing the fate of China and East Asia. Hsu Chung-mao takes us on a visual journey through that period of chaos and upheaval.
Chen Cuifen was not recognised. History does not remember her name. Her relationship with Sun Yat-sen was never made public. (SPH)

Sun Yat-sen’s lover Cuifen and her Malaysia villa

What will matter most on one’s deathbed? For Chen Cuifen, partner of Sun Yat-sen, it was a gold ring and a pocket watch, engraved with Sun’s English name.