How Influential Was Sun Yatsen in the Fall of the Qing Dynasty?

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How influential was Sun Yatsen in the fall of the Qing dynasty? The Qing dynasty was replaced by a Republic system in 1911 after the revolution was accidentally sparked by a premature bomb explosion in Wuchang. A key person in the revolution and downfall of the Qing was Sun Yatsen. His ideological ideas of how China should become a Western civilised country, where it would be more developed – socially and politically, inspired many people to look up to him as a leader, as he was initially the one who introduced ideas which China had never previously heard of. However, Sun Yatsen was not in the country at the time the revolution started, implying that the Qing would’ve fallen anyway. An influential character of the revolution was Sun Yatsen, the leader of the tongmenghui. Sun was a nationalist revolutionary who believed that the only way China could refrain from being a backwards country was to adopt western ways in agriculture, industry and become a republic. Sun was educated abroad as a doctor in Hong Kong where he experienced the lifestyle of those who lived in the Western Society. However, by the time of his graduation, Sun believed that whilst the Manchu dynasty still existed, China would remain corrupt and backwards. His experiences abroad shaped his political ideas as at the beginning of the 20th century, the West were advancing and modernising their countries quicker than Sun’s own country of China. He toured Europe and America in hope to raise funds for the “Save China League” and made attempts to start a revolution against the Qing for example, the unsuccessful uprising in Canton, 1895. Sun worked hard travelling around to different countries, gaining more foreign funds and support. Sun Yatsen influenced the Chinese with his Three Principles – Nationalism, Democracy and Socialism and later in 1905; he formed the United League which was a revolutionary
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