ABSTRACT

This chapter examines Sun Yat-sen's ideas about how China could provide the good life for its people by practicing his Principles of the People. Democracy is a word, a value, an institution, and a way of life that has won widespread acceptance only in this century, despite a history traceable to ancient Greece and ancient China. Sun, in a lecture delivered on March 9, 1924, on the subject of democracy, defined the term politics and made it very clear that the Chinese people should manage their own affairs. Human rights balance the economic rights that give people the security and the civil rights that guarantee their freedom. Sun's ideas concerning individual freedom and security were very much in agreement with the international trend of thought on human rights. Many political ideologies coexist , the most dominant being democracy and communism.