Tongmenghui
중국동맹회
The secret revolutionary organisation founded in Tokyo on 20 August 1905 by Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing, Song Jiaoren and others through the merger of anti-Qing groups such as the Revive China Society and the Guangfuhui. With the programme “expel the Tatar barbarians, revive Zhonghua, establish a republic and distribute land equally”, it launched a series of armed risings in the south; after the 1911 Revolution it became an open party in March 1912 and in August merged with other groups into the Kuomintang.
In depth
Founding and organisation: the Tongmenghui grew out of the community of Chinese students in Japan. Sun Yat-sen was its leader and Huang Xing, as general affairs officer, its second; more than 90 per cent of the founding members were aged 17 to 26. Members included Wang Jingwei, Hu Hanmin, Liao Zhongkai, Zhang Binglin and Qiu Jin, and Nanyang branches founded in Singapore in 1906 and Penang in 1909 raised money from the Chinese of Southeast Asia. Japanese pan-Asianists also helped the organisation.
Risings and strategy: seven Tongmenghui-led risings between December 1906 and April 1908 all failed, and many young members died in the Huanghuagang rising at Guangzhou on 27 April 1911. Discontent grew within the leadership over Sun’s strategy of risings on the southern frontier, and factions such as the Progressive Association, preparing a rising in the Yangtze valley, became the organisers of the Wuchang Uprising of 1911. Some members were anarchists who defended assassination.
As a party: after the revolution the headquarters moved via Shanghai and Nanjing to Beijing in May 1912; when it became an open party on 3 March, Sun was elected chairman and Huang Xing and Li Yuanhong vice-chairmen. With about 550,000 members it was China’s largest party, and in August, led by Song Jiaoren, it merged with other groups into the Kuomintang.