China News Service, Shanghai, November 13 (Reporter Xu Jing) This year marks the 160th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Shanghai has recently held a series of activities to commemorate this revolutionary pioneer and inherit the spirit of Sun Yat-sen.
At a meeting held on the 13th by people from all walks of life in Shanghai to commemorate the 160th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Chen Jining, Secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, pointed out that Shanghai is one of the most important cities in Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary career. In the hot land of Shanghai, the "Oriental Great Port" he envisioned back then stands tall and majestic, and the "Pudong Development" he imagined is full of momentum. The envisioned road network, bridges and tunnels, and prosperous industries have long been realized. To commemorate Dr. Sun Yat-sen today is to inherit his great ideal of serving the country and revitalizing China, to carry forward his enterprising spirit of adhering to truth and pursuing progress, to remember his broad sentiments of serving the public and benefiting the people, and to learn from his revolutionary will to defy hardship and unremitting struggle. With "two overall situations" in mind, we should better shoulder the mission entrusted by the times and forge ahead on the new journey of Chinese-style modernization.
Sun Yat-sen came to Shanghai 27 times in his life and lived here for more than five years in total. In June 1918, Sun Yat-sen moved into No. 29 Moliai Road (now No. 7 Xiangshan Road). In this small building shaded by sycamore trees, "Sun Wen Shuo" and "Industrial Plan" were successively written and taken shape.
At the "Sun Yat-sen and Shanghai United Front" symposium held on the same day, Wang Zhixiong, Sun Yat-sen's great-grandson, said that the Sun Yat-sen spirit is the greatest common denominator within Taiwanese society that has not been completely eradicated by "de-Sinicization" and is the most tenacious civil link to oppose "independence" and promote reunification. He called for using the Sun Yat-sen commemoration event as a platform to expand cross-strait grassroots exchanges; making good use of the flexible power of descendants and clan networks to promote the friendship between the Sun clan and clansmen of various surnames in Taiwan, and to become a lubricant for people-to-people exchanges.
On the 12th, a memorial service to commemorate the 160th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Sun Yat-sen was held at the former residence of Sun Yat-sen in Shanghai. Representatives from all walks of life in Shanghai stood in front of the bronze statue of Sun Yat-sen and bowed three times to express their remembrance. After the paying homage, everyone went to the Shanghai History Museum to visit "Sun Yat-sen and Shanghai - Exhibition of Cultural Relics and Historical Materials to Commemorate the 160th Anniversary of the Birth of Dr. Sun Yat-sen."
The special database "Sun Yat-sen's Industrial Plan and the Books and Documents Collection of Sun Yat-sen's Former Residence in Shanghai" was launched at the Shanghai Library on the 8th. The database collects 1,743 documentary resources, many of which are out of the database and digitized for the first time. Sun Yali, Sun Yat-sen's great-niece and president of the Sun Yat-sen Cultural Foundation, said that the digitization of this collection of books has created a living carrier for understanding the "Industrial Plan" and inheriting Sun Yat-sen's thoughts.
Liao Dawei, Distinguished Professor of the "Great Scholar" at Shanghai University and Vice President of the China Sun Yat-sen Research Association, found that before the Revolution of 1911, Shanghai was mostly a transit station on Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary road; after he stepped down as interim president in 1912, it became his core base for writing books, connecting forces, and disseminating ideas, forming a revolutionary layout that echoes Guangzhou from north to south. The city's media, transportation, and information advantages nourished the maturity of his ideological system.
Xu Tao, a researcher at the Institute of History of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, believes that before the Revolution of 1911, Sun Yat-sen went into exile overseas, and Shanghai was his window to see China; from 1911 to 1913, Shanghai was the stage where he displayed his ambitions; after marrying Soong Ching Ling in 1915, Shanghai became his home for settling down, thinking, and writing. Shanghai was also a key hub for the first collaboration between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.
Both scholars believe that Sun Yat-sen is a spiritual link respected by compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Straits and an important spiritual banner that unites the Chinese people at home and abroad.
