China marks 1911 uprising with Taiwan unification call

By Bill Smith Oct 9, 2011, 10:31 GMT

Beijing - Chinese President Hu Jintao marked the 100th anniversary of China's republican revolution with a call on Sunday for the unification of Taiwan and mainland China.

'Achieving reunification by peaceful means best serves the fundamental interests of all Chinese, including our Taiwan compatriots,' Hu said in speech at Beijing's Great Hall of the People to mark the anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution in October 1911.

State media quoted him as saying the two sides should 'end cross-Straits antagonisms, heal wounds of the past and work together to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.'

Hu said 1911 revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen's 'cherished goal' of 'rejuvenating' China should be the 'common aspiration of all compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.'

Sun is credited with leading republican rebels who overthrew the forces of the Qing government in the central city of Wuhan in 1911, launching what was later named the Xinhai Revolution, after the imperial year in which it took place.

Sun and his allies founded the Republic of China the following year, but many in Taiwan and mainland China see greater significance in the events that led to the abdication of China's last emperor in February 1912, ending the Qing Dynasty's rule that began in 1644.

Hu, who heads China's ruling Communist Party, on Sunday hailed Sun as a 'great national hero, a great patriot and a great leader of the Chinese democratic revolution.'

The Communists took control of mainland China in 1949, when the rival Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalist) party fled to Taiwan after losing a civil war.

The Communists and Nationalists had partly cooperated in fighting occupying Japanese forces in the 1930s and 1940s.

Japan handed control of Taiwan to Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek at the end of World War II after 50 years of colonial rule. The Nationalists ruled Taiwan under martial law for 38 years, and the island state still uses the name of the Republic of China.

But the Communist Party regards the island democracy as a renegade province that must be unified with the mainland, by force if necessary.

Hu said the two sides should 'strengthen the political common ground of opposing Taiwan independence and upholding the 1992 Consensus'.

The 1992 Consensus refers to a 1992 meeting in Hong Kong between negotiators from China and Taiwan, during which both sides reportedly agreed to suspend their political disputes by acknowledging that there is only 'one China' but retaining their own definitions of China.

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou last week defended his ruling Nationalist Party's adherence to the Consensus, saying it guaranteed the sovereignty of the Republic of China.

Ma said his government would not join celebrations of the Xinhai Revolution in China, with Taiwan planning its own events on Monday.

Taiwan's opposition Democratic Progressive Party has accused the Communist Party of using the 'one China' principle to assert its claim to sovereignty over the island.

Hu said China's future must be based on 'adhering to socialism with Chinese characteristics' under the Communist Party.

The 1911 Revolution was 'a thoroughly modern, national and democratic revolution' that started decades of great change in China, he said.

But Xu Youyu, an outspoken former researcher for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a Beijing government think-tank, said Taiwan had implemented the democratic principles of the 1911 revolution better then the Communist-ruled mainland.

'I think Taiwan is really carrying on the Three People's Principles of Sun Yat-sen while the Chinese Communists have a different ideology,' Xu told dpa.

Xu said Communist Party leaders' praise for Sun was 'perfunctory' and he accused them of using the 1911 revolution for propaganda purposes.

Zhou Xiaozheng of People's University in Beijing said people in mainland China had already forgotten the significance of the Xinhai Revolution.

'Dynastic society has not ended yet,' Zhou told dpa. 'Mao Zedong was an emperor without wearing a dragon robe,' he said, referring to the traditional dragon-decorated robes of China's later emperors.

Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China in Beijing on October 1, 1949 and ruled the country until his death in 1976.

'China is still a centralized society and still has one emperor, doesn't it?' Zhou said. 'So the Xinhai Revolution has very little significance.'

Writing in a recent issue of History Today, Jonathan Fenby said the 1911 revolution had left many unanswered questions and led to many tragic events in mainland China.

'The basic question remains unanswered of whether a nation as big as China and with the democratic deficit from which the country has always suffered can be ruled other than by a top-down regime,' said Fenby, who is the author of the Penguin History of Modern China.

'What is clear is that, for all the celebrations in the mainland and Taiwan this autumn, the revolution of 1911-12 brought no real solution and left China facing decades of suffering,' he said.