Editing Three Principles of the People (section)

==Origins==
[[File:The organ of Tongmen Hui.png|thumb|left|The concept first appearing in the newspaper ''Min Bao'' in 1905 appearing as "Three Major Principles" (三大主義) instead of "Three Principles of the People" (三民主義).]]

When the [[Revive China Society]] was formed in 1894, Sun only had two principles: nationalism and democracy. He picked up the third idea, welfare, during his three-year trip to [[Europe]] from 1896 to 1898.<ref name="Li">Li Chien-Nung, translated by Teng, Ssu-yu, Jeremy Ingalls. ''The political history of China, 1840–1928''. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand, 1956; rpr. Stanford University Press. {{ISBN|0-8047-0602-6}}, {{ISBN|978-0-8047-0602-5}}. pp. 203–206.</ref> He announced all three ideas in the spring of 1905, during another trip to Europe. Sun made the first speech of his life on the "Three Principles of the People" in [[Brussels]].<ref name="Sharman">{{Cite book  | last1 = Sharman| first1 = Lyon| title = Sun Yat-sen: His life and its meaning, a critical biography | year = 1968 | publisher = Stanford University Press | location = Stanford| pages = 94, 271 }}</ref> He was able to organize the Revive China Society in many European cities. There were about 30 members in the Brussels branch at the time, 20 in [[Berlin]], and 10 in [[Paris]].<ref name="Sharman" /> After the [[Tongmenghui]] was formed, Sun published an editorial in ''Min Bao'' (民報).<ref name="Li" />  This was the first time the ideas were expressed in writing. Later on, in the anniversary issue of ''Min Bao'', his long speech of the Three Principles was printed, and the editors of the newspaper discussed the issue of people's livelihood.<ref name="Li" />

The ideology is said to be heavily influenced by Sun's experiences in the [[United States]] and contains elements of the [[Progressivism in the United States|American progressive movement]] and the thought championed by [[Abraham Lincoln]]. Sun credited a line from Lincoln's [[Gettysburg Address]], "government [[of the people, by the people, for the people]]", as an inspiration for the Three Principles.<ref name="Sharman" /> Sun's Three Principles of the People are inter-connected as the guideline for China's modernization development as stretched by [[Hu Hanmin]].<ref name="pccu">{{cite web|url=http://ap6.pccu.edu.tw/Encyclopedia/data.asp?id=238|title=+{中華百科全書‧典藏版}+|publisher=ap6.pccu.edu.tw|access-date=24 December 2015}}</ref>