In a leisurely trip to the island of Penang, Malaysia, I discovered that Sun Yat Sen, the presumptive “father” of modern-day China, had spent some of the most important months of 1910-1911 raising funds from the local Chinese population to overthrow the Qing dynasty. This visit, coupled with others to Nagasaki in Japan, Beijing, Nanjing and other parts of the world, helped me recreate the global geopolitical conditions that Sun and his comrades operated in – which was really not much different from our world today.
In this video, I outlined the activities that Sun Yat Sen focused on, the people (mostly women) who helped and supported him and the lessons that can help us extrapolate how the future of China will play out in the foreseeable future.