Beijing is trying to use national hero Sun Yat-sen – who is also revered in Taiwan – to frame “reunification” with the democratic island as the fulfillment of a common national destiny, analysts told Radio Free Asia.

Ahead of the 160th anniversary of Sun’s birth on Nov. 12, the mainland has planned official commemorations, and Taiwan’s government warned that Beijing was using the revolutionary leader’s legacy to further an “anti-independence, pro-reunification” strategy.

Taiwan considers Sun to be the “father of the country.” He helped lead the revolution that ended China’s imperial system and became the Republic of China’s first provisional president in 1912. The government of the Republic of China fled to Taiwan in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists lost the Chinese Civil War to Mao Zedong’s communists. Taiwan still uses “Republic of China” as its official name.

In Beijing’s view, Sun is the “forerunner of the revolution.” Mao is considered to have continued in his footsteps, and the communist “People’s Republic of China” is said to be the realization of Sun’s unfinished vision. It is this version of history that China wants to push, Jozef Huljak, a political science doctoral candidate at Constantine the Philosopher University in Slovakia whose research examines Taiwan’s cultural and public diplomacy, told RFA.

“In my view, Beijing’s core strategy is a battle over words: if the world accepts its version of history, a takeover can be sold as ‘reunification,’” Huljak said.

Soldiers stand in front of a Taiwan flag and a portrait of Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the Republic of China Soldiers stand in front of a Taiwan flag and a portrait of Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the Republic of China, after Taiwan’s military demonstrated combat readiness ahead of the upcoming Lunar New Year holidays in an annual exercise in Hsinchu, Taiwan, Jan. 7, 2025. (Ann Wang/Reuters)

Though China’s communist government has never governed Taiwan, it considers the democratic island to be a rogue province. It claims the island as its territory and has not renounced using force to bring it under Beijing’s control.

In addition to diplomatic and military pressure on Taiwan, China’s historical messaging promotes a national belonging intended to make political union appear both legitimate and inevitable.

China’s own policy documents describe history and culture as forces driving unification. A 2022 white paper on Taiwan presented national unity as a longstanding Chinese aspiration and tied its achievement to the country’s national rejuvenation.

Sun as a political tool

Sun’s connection to China’s Taiwan policy is explicit. Beijing organized the cross-strait Sun Yat-sen Forum in his ancestral birthplace in June, and about 1,300 Taiwanese participants attended.

At that event, Pan Xianzhang, a deputy head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, urged people on both sides to draw inspiration from Sun while adhering to the “one-China principle,” Beijing’s doctrine that asserts Taiwan is an inalienable part of China.

“Beijing’s use of Sun works because Taipei still props him up,” Huljak said.

But the same historical figure can carry different political meanings. During an April visit to Sun’s mausoleum in Nanjing, Cheng Li-wun, chairperson of Taiwan’s main opposition Kuomintang, or KMT, – the Nationalist party founded by Sun – invoked his legacy to advocate reconciliation and dialogue. She also pointed to Taiwan’s democratic development as an expression of his founding principles.

Taiwan opposition leader Cheng Li-wun Cheng Li-wun, chairperson of the Kuomintang, Taiwan's largest opposition party, speaks upon visiting Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum in Nanjing, China April 8, 2026. (via REUTERS)

The KMT’s own account of the visit emphasized the continuation of Sun’s ideals in Taiwan and the promotion of peaceful cross-strait relations.

A broader repertoire

Sun’s birth anniversary is part of a wider pattern in which Chinese authorities connect history to a shared national identity and political unity with Taiwan.

Another figure honored on both sides of the strait is Zheng Chenggong, also known as Koxinga, who expelled the Dutch from Taiwan in 1662 and established a regime there. Beijing describes him as a national hero who recovered Chinese territory.

But in Taiwan the way Zheng is remembered depends on who you ask. For some, he is seen as analogous to Chiang Kai-shek, as both were military leaders who lost their respective campaigns on the mainland, fled to Taiwan, and vowed to return. To others, he is seen as having established a kingdom on Taiwan independent from mainland control.

koxinga The Portrait of Koxinga—a mid-17th century hanging scroll exhibited in the National Palace Museum in Taiwan (National Palace Museum via Wikimedia Commons)

In September 2024, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office highlighted commemorations marking the 400th anniversary of Zheng’s birth alongside exhibitions about families separated by the Taiwan Strait.

The two sides also frame the end of World War II differently.

In October 2025, China’s legislature designated Oct. 25 as a day commemorating what it calls Taiwan’s recovery from Japanese rule in 1945. The decision described that event as an important link in the historical and legal basis for Taiwan belonging to China.

But in Taiwan’s view, it was the Republic of China authorities who took over Taiwan’s administration after Japan’s surrender in 1945. The People’s Republic of China was founded four years later and has never ruled Taiwan.

Huljak said these competing interpretations of history and historical figures matter internationally as well as within Taiwan. In his assessment, acceptance of Beijing’s historical vocabulary can help normalize its present-day claims among foreign audiences unfamiliar with the distinction.

Symbols and their limits

The challenge for Beijing is that Taiwan’s identity has diverged since the Chinese civil war, the analysts said.

Under Chiang Kai-shek, the KMT claimed to represent all of China and ruled Taiwan through an authoritarian system. Martial law ended in 1987, and the island held its first direct presidential election in 1996, establishing a democratic basis for political authority.

Taiwan China Timeline President Chiang Kai-shek of Nationalist China delivers an address at a city hall reception in Taipei, March 2, 1950. (Spencer Mosa/AP)

That transformation helps explain the gap analysts see between Sun Yat-sen’s institutional prominence and his emotional relevance to many people in Taiwan.

“Claiming to be the true inheritor of Sun’s legacy is one of many similar methods Beijing uses to court Taiwanese and try to forge common bonds, but these claims have limited currency among a people for whom Sun has limited emotional resonance,” Sasha B. Chhabra, a Taiwan-based security analyst and publisher of the Formosa Review newsletter, told RFA.

Chhabra said Sun remained particularly important to KMT supporters in Taiwan, who prefer engagement with the mainland over independence. Huljak also identified KMT supporters and potential swing voters as audiences Beijing hoped to reach.

Neither assessment, however, establishes that commemorations change political preferences. Shared respect for a historical figure can provide an opening for contact without producing agreement over sovereignty or support for Communist rule.

For Chhabra, figures associated with Taiwan’s own political development have greater relevance to many residents than the revolutionary founder honored by both governments.

“Taiwanese are more interested in commemorating figures with a tangible legacy in the country, such as presidents Lee Teng-hui or Chiang Jing-kuo,” he said, referring to Taiwan’s first directly elected president and his predecessor, who lifted martial law in 1987.

Edited by Eugene Whong.