Chen Jiongming

Who was Chen Jiongming?

Chen Jiongming was a revolutionary figure in the early periods of the Republic of China. Chen Jiongming was born in 1878 at Haifeng, Guangdong, China.

He was by training a lawyer and became a Qing legislator, a republican revolutionary, a military leader, a civil administrator and a federalist who sought to reconstruct China as a democratic republic. He joined the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance in 1909 and obtained the post of commander-in-chief of the Guangdong Army. He became the Military governor of Guangdong three times and civil governor of Guangdong from 1920 to 1922 and military governor of Guangxi from 1921 to 1922.

Chen was instrumental in backing Sun Yat-sen's Constitutional Protection Movement. He also restored Sun to power after the Guangdong-Guangxi War. Chen disagreed with Sun about the direction that reform should take. Sun wanted to unite the country by force and institute change through a centralized government based on a one-party system. Chen advocated a multiparty federalism with Guangdong becoming the model province and the peaceful unification of China.