Preface
Address at the Opening Session of the Third Annual
Meeting at Huazhong Normal University on May 7, 2011
MA Min*Good morning! Welcome to Huazhong Normal University, located here
in the heart of China. Our university combines a century of tradition andmodern dynamism. I sincerely hope that our beautiful campus and friendly
service will make you feel at home.
I am greatly honored to take over the baton from President Huang Junjie
to serve as the third President of the Society for Cultural Interaction in East
Asia for one year and to take charge of preparations for the current annualmeeting. I hope that I can live up to your expectations, dedicate myself to therigorous approach of the previous two annual meetings, handle well themeeting logistics, and make the current meeting another success. I also hopeto promote further friendly exchange and interaction among scholars both inEast Asia and from around the world, and to enhance academic research.
Since this year is the 100th anniversary of the 1911 Revolution, mycolleagues and I decided to choose “The 1911 Revolution and Asia” as thetheme for the current meeting.
About one hundred years ago, right here in Wuchang — where the present
annual meeting is being held — the first shot of the first uprising of thehistoric 1911 Revolution was fired. This Revolution was in many ways abourgeois democratic revolution that overthrew the rule of the Qing Dynasty
and put an end to over 2,000 years of feudal autocratic monarchy in China.
The Republic of China was then established and a Provisional Constitution,
which was in nature the constitution of a bourgeois republic, was formulated.
The 1911 Revolution was not only epoch-making politically, but also socially.
The Revolution initiated a century of tremendous change in modern China.
The 1911 Revolution was also closely connected to other East Asiancountries, such as Japan and Korea. China and Japan are close neighbors
separated only by a strip of water. This geographic proximity facilitated the* President of Huazhong Normal University and President (2011-2012) of the Society

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Meiji Restoration having an inspiring and profound impact on Chinese revolutionaries of the time. This is evidenced by the large number of revolutionaries, such as Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing, and Song Jiaoren, who either studiedor sought refuge in Japan, which was a convenient location for communicating information and formulating strategies. A good example is theTongmenghui（Chinese United League）, which was founded in Tokyo in 1905,
and became an important revolutionary organization in the 1911 Revolution.
Other examples are newspapers such as the Minbao and Xinmin Congbao,
which were both started in Tokyo, and that carried the most famous controversy ever to occur between the revolutionaries and reformists. ManyJapanese, including Yamada Yoshimasa, Miyazaki Tōten, Kayano Nagatomo,and Umeya Shōkichi, showed sympathy and support for the Chinese revolution and established lifelong friendships with revolutionary leaders like Sun
Yat-sen, Huang Xing, and others.
In Korea, the Righteous Army was inspired in 1905 and 1911 by a seriesof revolutionary activities initiated by Sun Yat-sen in China. After the 1911
Revolution, leaders of the Korean Independence Movement were in close
contact with Chinese revolutionaries. The Provisional Government of theRepublic of Korea, which led the Korean Independence Movement, wasfounded in 1919 in the French concession in Shanghai.
Many in the Chinese diaspora lived in Nanyang（Southeast Asia）, andconstituted an important source of financial and political support for the 1911
Revolution. Statistics indicate that donations from overseas Chinese in
Nanyang reached the sum of five to six million dollars in the year 1911 alone.
Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Burma（Myanmar）, and Siam（Thailand）were influenced by the 1911 Revolution tostart their own national liberation movements. Sun Yat-sen established close
ties and profound friendships, for example, with the Philippine revolutionary
Marino Ponce and the Vietnamese revolutionary Phan Boi Chau while inJapan.
Obviously, research on the significance of the 1911 Revolution must
extend spatially to include the whole of Asia as well as the rest of the world.
From an Asian perspective, the 1911 Revolution was an important part of thenational revolutionary storm that swept through Asia at that time. After thesuccess of the Wuchang uprising, Lenin declared with great excitement that a
new source of the great world storm has emerged in Asia. In his view, the1911 Revolution led by Sun Yat-sen “achieved freedom for four-hundred
million unenlightened Asian people and awakened them to take part in political life. One-fourth of the population on earth has woken from their deep
sleep and is headed for brightness, movement, and struggle.” Sun Yat-sen was
the one in Asia who could “represent the sincere, revolutionary, and radical

Address at the Opening Session of the Third Annual Meeting at Huazhong Normal University on May 7, 20113

democratic bourgeoisie” and was “a worthy comrade of the great French
propagandists and activists at the end of the 18th century.” Indeed, Sun
Yat-sen had a strong sense of commitment and responsibility to the renaissance of Asia.
As early as 1897, on his first meeting with Miyazaki Tōten in Japan, Sun
Yat-sen expressed his grand ambition of establishing a revolutionary army
“for the common people of China, for the yellow race of Asia, and for thehumanity of the world.” As he grew older, Sun Yat-sen focused increasingly
on the “greater Asia doctrine” that he had advocated. He realized that “exceptfor Japan, all the other weak and small nations in Asia were suppressed andsuffering from the pain of racism. They shared the same pains and sufferings
and were bound to stand together to fight against the brutal and greatpowers.” His idea of defending and aiding the weak and small nations in Asiaand in international relations had a profound influence on his successors.
Similar ideas can be easily found in Mao Zedong’s and Zhou Enlai’s diplomatic thought. Even Indonesian former President Sukarno said that he wasinfluenced by Sun Yat-sen’s thought when he was young. “As a young man, I
was inspired by the Three Principles of the People put forward by Dr. Sun
Yat-sen.” “Ever since then, influenced by the Three Principles of the People,nationalism has taken root in my heart.”
By using an Asian perspective to research the 1911 Revolution and its
influence, we shall consider not only the political interaction between China
and other Asian countries. With an understanding of the concept of “culturalinteraction” as defined by the Society, we shall also analyze the conflicts,communication, and interaction between the various regions of Asia in politics, economics, and culture. This interaction took place at all levels andin-depth, facilitating mutual political trust and a sense of cooperation. Sun
Yat-sen and other revolutionaries held the important outlook that Asia was anintegrated whole — a community bound together by common interests anddestinies — and that the destiny of Asia must be kept in the hands of thepeople of Asian countries. “（The people of Asia）must break away from thefetters of Europe and be the masters of Asia instead of being colonized.” Sunand others believed that all Asian countries were equal and that no country
should attempt to seek dominance in Asia. In view of Japan’s militarist
tendencies and attempt at hegemony in Asia at that time, Sun Yat-sen made a
special appeal to the Japanese people in his later years: “It’s up to you, theJapanese people, to make careful observation and prudent consideration as towhether Japan shall become lackeys of the West or defenders of benevolent
governments in the East.”
ASEAN（the Association of Southeast Asian Nations）and the “East AsianCommunity” that was advocated by former Japanese Prime Minister

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Hatoyama Yukio are in a sense manifestations of this new consciousness ofAsian integration. Of course, there is still a long way to go from this initialformation of a consciousness of Asian integration to creating an Asian
consensus. Obstructed by various historical resentments and territorial
disputes, the goal of real equality and coexistence of Asian nations and theestablishment of a community like the European Union will not be achieved
within a short period of time. Yet, a brighter future lies ahead for Asia if we
can show respect for each other’s cultural heritages and values, eliminate one
single dominant value system and the bias of one country as the center. We
must also break away from historical prejudices to explore a new frameworkof reconciliation and cooperation between Asian nations in the process ofmulti-cultural interaction and integration to achieve reconciliation amongnations, establish strategic and mutually beneficial relations, promote thedevelopment process of Asian integration, and create a mutual vision for thepeaceful rise of Asia.
Of course, Asia has never been an isolated continent. It can never develop
without influence from Europe, America, Oceania, and even from distant
Africa. This is even more so in the current unprecedentedly intensified
process of globalization. The intervention and influences of Western civilization shall by no means be neglected when considering East Asian and Asianissues. The Asian and global perspectives should be combined. The interaction between Eastern and Western civilizations, which is a long-term interaction, should also be included in the paradigm of observation of “culturalinteraction.”
As far as cross-cultural interaction is concerned, historically the interaction
between modern Western civilization and ancient Oriental civilization ranged
from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and to the east coast of the Pacific,
creating a most spectacular landscape of cultural interaction between East andWest in modern times. Further, with the rise of an emerging East Asia today,
the Pacific Rim, which includes the west coast of the United States, the east
coast of the Pacific, and Australian and New Zealand coasts in the South
Pacific, may be the most active region in the world in terms of economic,political, and cultural interaction between East and West. The world’s largest
economies, such as the United States, China, Japan, Russia and Australia, allbelong to this region. The major world religions, including Catholicism,Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, are also found in
this area. Collisions, conflicts, struggles, compromises, cooperation, andcompetition among these areas are like the rolling waves in the Pacific: they
will never cease and are always worthy of cross-cultural communication andresearch for the sake of exploring the possibilities of coexistence of differentAddress at the Opening Session of the Third Annual Meeting at Huazhong Normal University on May 7, 2011

5cultures.
Thus, from the historic 1911 Revolution to globalization today, and from
Asia to America, Europe, the Pacific, and Africa, research on cultural interaction is faced with a difficult task. We have a long way to go. It’s worthwhile
for scholars, whether or not they are present at this meeting, to explore its
profound significance, establish a wider field of academic research, andachieve more fruitful academic results by working together.
Thank you!