On December 16, Sun presided over an anti-American rally as the ships took up positions in the harbor. A day later, he released a letter, “To my friends, the American people,” that sounded like the lament of a spurned lover. “When we first waged the revolution to overthrow dictatorship and the corrupted government, we had America as our model, and we hoped we could have the help of our American Lafayette to achieve our goal,” he wrote. Instead, the United States dispatched warships to threaten an attack. “Has the nation of Washington and Lincoln denied its faith in freedom and taken to
...more
