On November 24, 1894, the first revolutionary group in modern Chinese history, the Revive China Society, was established in Honolulu, Hawaii. After its founding, the Revive China Society organized and led several uprisings, all of which ultimately ended in failure. By 1905, the Revive China Society merged with the Huaxing Society and the Restoration Society to form the Chinese United League.
The founder of the Revive China Society was Sun Yat-sen, a pioneer of China's modern democratic revolution, the founder of the Republic of China and the Chinese Nationalist Party, and the advocate of the "Three Principles of the People." Born in 1866 in a poor peasant family in Cuiheng Village, Xiangshan, Guangdong, Sun began working in the fields with his family at a young age, deeply understanding the hardships of the common people. At ten, he entered a private school, where his natural intelligence and diligence quickly set him apart from his peers. At twelve, his elder brother Sun Mei funded his studies in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he first encountered Western capitalist systems, laying the groundwork for his future path toward bourgeois revolution. Five years later, Sun returned from his studies and continued his education in Hong Kong.
During this period, Sun Yat-sen studied Western medicine at the Hong Kong College of Medicine, but he was not content with merely mastering his major. While studying in Hong Kong, he read extensively, delving deeply into the political systems and economic development of Western capitalist countries, while also gaining a profound understanding of natural sciences such as geography and astronomy. During his time in Hong Kong, the young Sun Yat-sen often gathered with his close friends Chen Shaobai, You Lie, and Yang Heling at the Yang Yaoji store, located at 24 Gough Street in Central, Hong Kong, to engage in freewheeling discussions. All four greatly admired Hong Xiuquan, the leader of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement, and Sun Yat-sen considered Hong Xiuquan the "foremost anti-Qing hero," even calling himself the second Hong Xiuquan. In the social environment of the time, these four far-sighted young men had already conceived the idea of overthrowing Qing rule through revolution and establishing a democratic republic, and they boldly voiced this idea during their discussions.
In 1892, at the age of twenty-six, Sun Yat-sen graduated with outstanding results from the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, and the then Governor of Hong Kong, Sir William Robinson, personally awarded him a medal for excellence. After graduation, Sun Yat-sen became a doctor, opening medical practices in Macau, Guangzhou, and other places.
During his medical practice, Sun Yat-sen was once invited to treat an official at his residence. There, he saw several prisoners awaiting execution, all chained with iron shackles and wearing tattered clothes. Hearing their cries of injustice, Sun approached an official and asked whether these prisoners had undergone thorough interrogation and whether they truly had grievances. To his surprise, the official replied that people like them were merely superfluous in the world, and what difference did interrogation make.
This incident deeply moved Sun Yat-sen. Although he clearly knew these prisoners were likely innocent, he was powerless to save them from the officials and could only watch the government recklessly disregard human life. As a doctor, he could cure the illnesses of his countrymen, but he could not cure the illness of the nation. With this in mind, why not abandon medicine and instead become a politician capable of healing the nation's ills?
Sun Yat-sen's idea of abandoning medicine for politics emerged during this period. Afterwards, he revived his political ambitions and, in January 1894 at his home in Xiangshan, completed the "Letter to Li Hongzhang." In this essay of over eight thousand characters, Sun proposed a series of capitalist reform measures, mainly including: learning from Western capitalist systems; establishing schools to cultivate talent; setting up specialized agencies to manage agriculture and develop agricultural production; opening mines, building railways, and establishing industrial enterprises; and enacting new policies to protect national industry and commerce. In June of that year, Sun took his painstaking work to Tianjin, hoping to present it to Li Hongzhang. One of Li Hongzhang's advisors, Sheng Xuanhuai, highly praised Sun's reform proposals after reading the letter. It was with Sheng's help that Sun's "Letter to Li Hongzhang" was submitted to the powerful Li Hongzhang. Unfortunately, upon learning that the author was merely a young doctor, Li immediately dismissed the work with contempt, discarding it without even a glance.
Sun Yat-sen arrived full of hope but ultimately left full of disappointment. This failed experience made him realize that saving the nation through reform was not feasible; to rescue the Chinese people from their critical crisis, revolution was necessary. From then on, Sun Yat-sen resolutely abandoned medicine for politics and embarked on the path of bourgeois revolution.
In the autumn of 1894, Sun Yat-sen traveled to Honolulu, Hawaii, where he began uniting local overseas Chinese to discuss strategies for saving the nation. 1894 was a tumultuous year for China, as the First Sino-Japanese War broke out, with the Qing army suffering successive defeats and the Japanese forces pressing forward relentlessly; the war situation constantly stirred the hearts of the Chinese people, even those overseas in America were no exception.
On November 24 of the same year, Sun Yat-sen gathered over twenty like-minded progressive overseas Chinese in Honolulu to establish the Revive China Society, with its name meaning "revitalize China." At the society's first meeting, the constitution drafted by Sun Yat-sen was adopted. In this constitution, Sun proposed the society's mission to "expel the barbarians and restore China," and identified the weak and incompetent Qing government as the primary culprit behind China's deep national crisis. From 1895 to 1900, Yang Quyun served as the society's president. In early 1900, Yang resigned, and Sun Yat-sen was elected as the new president. From then until the eve of the founding of the Tongmenghui in 1905, Sun Yat-sen held the presidency of the Revive China Society.
After the establishment of the Xingzhonghui (Revive China Society) in Honolulu, Sun Yat-sen returned to Hong Kong with plans to set up branches in Hong Kong and Guangzhou. To this end, he specifically arranged to meet with his close friends Chen Shaobai, Lu Haodong, and Zheng Shiliang to discuss the grand strategy. In February 1895, Sun Yat-sen established the headquarters of the Xingzhonghui on Staunton Street in Central, Hong Kong, and soon after set up the Guangzhou branch of the Xingzhonghui. While organizing the society in various locations, its leaders began secretly planning the Guangzhou Uprising, which was the first armed anti-Qing rebellion led by Sun Yat-sen. As the Double Ninth Festival approached in 1895, preparations for the Guangzhou Uprising were complete. The uprising used the Blue Sky with a White Sun flag as its banner and adopted the slogan "Eliminate the Tyrants and Bring Peace to the People," with all rebel soldiers tying a red band around their arms as a signal. Unfortunately, the plot was later betrayed by an informant, ultimately ending in failure, and uprising leaders such as Lu Haodong, Zhu Guiquan, and Qiu Si were tragically martyred.
After the failure of the Guangzhou Uprising, Sun Yat-sen, Chen Shaobai, and Zheng Shiliang fled to Japan and established a branch of the Revive China Society in Yokohama. Subsequently, Yang Quyun set up a branch in South Africa, Chen Shaobai founded a branch in Taiwan, and launched the China Daily in Hong Kong. The China Daily, also known as the Chinese Mail, began publication in Hong Kong on January 25, 1900, promoting the idea of overthrowing the Qing dynasty through revolution—a first in modern Chinese history. In 1905, when the Tongmenghui (Chinese United League) was founded, the China Daily became a newspaper serving the league.
The Revive China Society, founded in 1894, had a profound impact on China, marking both the gradual formation of the Chinese bourgeois revolutionary faction and the beginning of the Chinese bourgeois democratic revolutionary movement. After its establishment, a large number of revolutionary groups were successively formed across the country, laying a solid foundation for the future bourgeois revolution.