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The Legacy of Sun Yat-sen's Railway Plans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

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Dr Sun Yat-sen is known both as a revolutionary and as a planner. As a revolutionary, he is honoured by many for being the father of modern China, whereas his development plans are often criticized for their naivete and idealism. The main focus of Sun's proposals for development was the expansion of China's railways, and it is often assumed that his 1921 railway plan map has had a significant impact on the contemporary network. This assumption appears to have originated in the work of Victor Lippit who stated that Sun's. plans influenced Nationalist proposals of the 1940s and those plans heavily influenced communist railway development in the 1950s.1 Lippit notes that 80 per cent of the mileage completed between 1950 and 1958 was included in Nationalist projections of the early 1940s and that the early 1960s was a period of little mainline development. Indeed, if Sun Yat-sen's map were taken as the base instead of the 1940s‘ plan, Lippit would have found an even higher correspondence. Twenty years have elapsed since Lippit made his study and the purpose of this article will be to reassess the significance of Sun Yat-sen's plans for the development of thec Chinese railway network up to the mid 1980s, and to give some idea of the influence of Sun's writings on the contemporary and future network.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 111 , September 1987 , pp. 421 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1987

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References

1. Lippit, Victor D., “Development of transportation in Communist China,’ The China Quarterly, No. 27 (1966), pp. 101–103, implies a connection between Sun andCrossRefGoogle Scholar communist plans via a later Kuomintang railway scheme as described by Chang, Kiangau, China's Struggle for Railroad Development (New York: John Day, 1943). Chang, on pp. 46–47,Google Scholar states that post-bellum conditions as described by Sun whereby munitions factories at the end of the First World War could begin to produce railway equipment for China, would still be applicable in the post-Second World War years. I have heard casual mention of the influence of Sun's plans on communist railway development at several seminars. See also Tregear, T.R., An Economic Geography of China (London: Butterworths, 1970), pp. 157–58.Google Scholar

2. The Qing Government considered weaponry to be of supreme importance in the face of foreign encroachment. In his proposal, Sun, by contrast, argued for more nonmilitary development as he considered western power to be based not solely on military strength but more on the ability of western countries to utilize all fields of knowledge. See, Schiffrin, Harold Z., Sun Yat-sen: Reluctant Revolutionary (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1980), p. 34.Google ScholarChong, Key Ray, “Cheng Kuan-ying (1841–1920): A source of Sun Yat-sen's Nationalist ideology?”, Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 28 (02 1969), pp. 262–63, has shown that a Cantonese scholar, Zheng Guanying, influenced Sun (manufacturing) development were listed by Sun as the four cornerstones for strengthening China.Google Scholar

3. Aside from his concern for the welfare of the new-born republic, Sun's lack of interest in administration, as demonstrated throughout his political career, may have also prompted his resignation. Schiffrin, Sun Yat-sen, pp. 160–67.

4. Jean, Chesneaux, Sun Yat-sen (Bruxelles: Editions Complexe, reimpression 1982), p. 132.Google Scholar

5. Xiong, Hengling and He, Dechuan (ed.), Guofu xueshuo yu Zhongguo tielu (The Doctrine of the Father of our Country and Chinese Railways) (Taibei: Taiwan tielu dangbu weiyuanhui and Zhonghua dadian bianyinhui, 1966), Vol. 1, p. 13.Google Scholar

6. Sun, Yat-sen, The International Development of China (Taibei: China Cultural Service, 1953 re-edition of the New York and London 1922 edition), p. 8, gives the example of the Sheng Xuanhuai nationalized railway scheme as one way to anger the Chinese people. Opposition to the nationalization of private railways under local Chinese control was one indirect cause of the Wuchang Uprising on 10 October 1911.Google Scholar

7. A speech entitled “ Zhengjian zhi biaoshi’ (“An outline of policy”) delivered on 12 October 1911 at the welcoming party of the Shanghai Journalists Society, reprinted in Xiong Hengling and He Dechuan (Doctrine and Chinese Railways), Vol. 1, p. 34.

8. Sun, Yat-sen, International Development, p. 2. Chesneaux, Sun Yat-sen, pp. 132–33, has noted that Sun's plans show considerable similarities to Lenin's Goelro. Sun, however, was writing in a political vacuum whereas Lenin was in a position of control which gave the latter's efforts more chance of success.Google Scholar

9. Sun, Yat-sen, International Development, p. 8, refers to his own contract with the Pauling Company of London for the Guangzhou-Chongqing Railway as a model. This contract encouraged the use of Chinese manpower and materials as much as possible. Due to civil strife, it was never implemented.Google Scholar

10. Chi-ming, Hou, “Sun Yat-sen's economic philosophy and policy,” in Paul K.T. Sih (ed.), Sun, Yat-sen and China, (Jamaica, NY: St. John's University Press, 1974), p. 103, says, however, that Sun preferred direct foreign investment to loans or jointventures for railway construction.Google Scholar

11. Sun, Yat-sen, International Development, p. 12.Google Scholar

12. Ibid. pp. 314–30. Letters were received from Reinsch, Paul S., United States Legation in Beijing dated 17 March 1919,Google ScholarRedfield, William C., secretary of the Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C., 12 May 1919, General Caviglia, 11 Ministro Delia Guerra, Rome, 17 May 1919,Google ScholarBaker, J.E., “a professional railway man,” Beijing, 17 June 1919, and Hendrich Christian Andersen, from Rome, dated 30 August 1919. All these letters were published with the text.Google Scholar

13. Leung, Chixy-Keung, China: Railway Patterns and National Goals (Chicago: University of Chicago Department of Geography, 1980), pp. 141–45, has devised a simple method which shows to what degree Chinese railway planning incorporates political aspirations - how many provincial and autonomous region capitals are connected by rail to contiguous provincial capitals with routes not passing through a third provincial-level capital. There is a weak point to this index; routes between provincial capitals may be both built to an intervening city primarily for economic reasons. In any case Leung's index can be converted to percentages with a higher figure showing lower capital connectivity. The connectivity index for Sun's planned system is 0–76% compared with a 1986 figure for China of 18–88%. For similar calculations for various years from 1949 to 1975 see Leung's Table 27 on pp. 143–44. Calculations for Sun's 1921 map are based upon provincial capitals and boundaries shown on that map. It is interesting to note that the provincial capitals of Anhui and Henan as well as Hebei (Zhili) have been moved since 1921 to cities which are more accessible on China's contemporary rail system.Google Scholar

14. Xiong, Hengling and He, DechuanDoctrine and Chinese Railways. Vol. 1, p 159.Google Scholar

15. Yu, Feipeng, Shiwunianlai zhi jiaotong gaikuang (Communications in the Last Fifteen Years) (n.p., 1946), pp. 19–22.Google Scholar

16. Leung, , China: Railway Patterns, p. 103.Google Scholar

17. Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo dituji (Provincial Atlas of the People's Republic of China) (Shanghai: Ditu chubanshe, 1984).

18. Quanguo tielu shikebiao (China Railway Timetable) (Beijing: China Railway Publishing House, 1985).

19. One major problem with this analysis is that Sun was planning with Outer Mongolia included as part of China. Moreover, Taiwan as a Japanese colony, was excluded. Therefore Taiwan has been excluded from this analysis. As an island under separate administration for most of this century, the exclusion of Taiwan poses no problem. Excluding Mongolia, however, leaves a large number of irrational routes leading up to the Mongolian border which China cannot be expected to have undertaken since Mongolia's de facto independence in 1924. It is my opinion, however, that few of these lines would have been completed even if Mongolia had been integrated into the People's Republic of China.

20. The administration of the eastern parts of Inner Mongolia has often been associated with Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang, in the north-east and its rail net ties in with these provinces whereas the western portion of Inner Mongolia has had a separate administrative history throughout much of this century and a separate rail network as well.Google Scholar

21. A line which formerly existed in Henan province but was removed has been included in the “planned and never completed” category.

22. Ma, Liqian, Lu, Yizhi and Wang, Kaiji (eds.), Zhongguo tielu jianzhu biannian jianshi (1881–1981) (A Brief Chronological History of China's Railway Construction (1881–1981)) (Beijing: Zhonggue tiedao chubanshe, 1983), pp. 8–9 note that from 1912 to 1927, 52.7% of all railway kilometrage constructed in China was in the north-east. From 1928 to 1937, 56% of the total was in the north-east.Google Scholar

23. A line originally planned prior to Sun's scheme was to run northeast-southwest through Yuanling and Changde in Hunan has never been built but a portion of the Zhicheng (Hubei)-Liuzhou (Guangxi) line runs parallel to this old planned route roughly 50 km to the east (Maps 2 and 8). This line obviously performs the same function but cannot be considered as the same route as that planned early in the 20th century. Other similar cases exist.

24. Chang, , China's Struggle, p. 50, points out the similarity between the American network and Sun's mainlines. The line beginning at Guangzhou in the south was likened to the Southern Pacific Railroad, the Great Eastern Port-Nanking and western main line was similar to The Central Pacific Railroad, and the northern mainline was compared to the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railroads.Google Scholar

25. Leung, , China: Railway Patterns, pp. 155–58.Google Scholar

26. The Xining-Lhasa route has not been built in good part due to the problems maintaining a road bed in permafrost on the Tibetan plateau.

27. “Plans to upgrade nation's transport,” Beijing Review, Vol. 29, No. 42 (20 October 1986), p. 9.

28. Personal correspondence with Schiffrin, Harold Z.. A sample of the official view of Sun Yat-sen's ideas in the People's Republic as of 1986 can be found in Wang Qi, “Dr Sun Yat-sen's message for today,” Beijing Review, Vol. 29, No. 45 (10 November 1986), p. 4.Google Scholar