One hundred years ago this week, local outrage over plans to nationalize provincial railways triggered the Wuchang Uprising, an act of sedition that marked the start of the Xinhai Revolution and the beginning of the end for China’s long-governing Qing court. Setting in motion forces that would establish a short-lived Republic and throw the country into its warlord period, the movement also created an icon of revolutionary authority in the figure of Sun Yat-sen, a man whose political legacy remains hotly contested even a century later.
This week on Sinica, Kaiser Kuo hosts China history experts David Moser and Jeremiah Jenne for an in-depth discussion of the legacy of the Xinhai Revolution and Sun Yat-sen. If you’ve listened to Sinica before, you’ll remember David Moser as one of Beijing’s most versatile academics and Director of the CET immersion program in Beijing. Jeremiah Jenne is another excellent Sinologist: Dean of Chinese Studies at the IES program in Beijing as well as author of the popular China history blog Jottings from the Granite Studio.