Sun Yatsen in Japan

In 1905 there were about 5,000 Chinese students in Japan; by the follwing year there were 13,000. Japan was a logical choice for many Chinese seeking an education abroad because of its proximity, but the huge increase in the number of Chinese students studying in Japan was not only the result of ending the examinations, but also reflected the pride Asians felt after Japan astounded the world with tis crushing defear of Russia in 1905. Japan's development became a model for many Chinese.

In Japan at this time Chinese students encountered scores of Chinese revolutionaries exiled because of their anti-Manchu policies. One such revolutionary in exile was Sun Yat-sen, the man who later became known as the "Father of the Chinese Revolution." During the first decade of the twentieth century, there were no fewer than sixteen attempts to overthrow the Qing dynasty. Sun Yat-sen organized at least ten of those...

...In 1893 he began a practice in medicine on the Portuguese island of Macao, just outside of Hong Kong. It was in Macao that Sun organized his first secret socirty, the Xing Zhonghui (Revive China Society) with several like-minded iconoclastic Chinese. Intitially, he and his colleagues proposed the established of a constitutional monarchy for China, but as time passed they increasingly came to view the Manchus as the primary obastacle to progress...

...Sun claimed that it was difficult during the 1890's to gain sympathy and support for his organization among many Chinese since they were on the scene at the time other societies and apparently more effective leaders, such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, who competed for the reformers' support...

..In 1905 members of severl antidynastic organizations exiled in Japan allied with Chinese students in Tokyo for form the Tongmenhui (Alliance society), an antidynstaic, anti-imperealistic revolutionary group. Sun was chose to head the organization, whose goals were similar to those of the defunct Revive China Society. Many students blamed the Western imperealists for the Qing dynasty's problems. Thus one of the goals of this new group was to free China from Western enchroachment, a goal the Japanese supported wholeheartedly. Chinese revolutionaries received both protection and encouragement in Japan at a time when Japan itself was expanding its empire into China, competing with the West for Chinese territory...

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Sun's other major contribution to the course of the revolution was his ability to raise money from Chiense living overseas. His talent for finding the necessary funding was one of the main reasons Sun earned the title "Father of the Revolution," since he was actually in the United States when the revolution finally occured in October 1911...

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Modernization and revolution in China: from the Opium Wars to world power
By June M. Grasso, Jay P. Corrin, Michael Kort
Edition: 3, illustrated
Published by M.E. Sharpe, 2004
ISBN 0765614472, 9780765614476
353 pages

http://books.google.com/books?id=E5jfpX0QZdwC