...was Hakka Chinese, born in Xiangshan (now Zhongshan) in Guangdong province to a family of poor farmers. At age 13, Sun joined his older brother in Honolulu, Hawaii, was a student at a British missionary school for three years, and then attended Oahu College, now known as Punahou School. Sun was sent back to China in 1883 by his brother who feared that he would convert to Christianity. Back home, Sun and a friend broke a statue of the Beiji Emperor-God, and Sun fled to Hong Kong, where he attended the Diocesan Boys' School. Later that year, he was baptized by an American missionary. In 1885, he married Lu Muzhen, a marriage arranged by his parents. In 1886, he enrolled in the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese. Sun was troubled by the way China was clinging to its traditional ways under the conservative Qing dynasty, while suffering humiliation at the hands of technologically advanced nations. Around 1888, Sun joined a group of revolutionary thinkers, the Four Bandits, who were disillusioned with the Manchus' refusal to adopt more advanced scientific knowledge. 

At a Shanghai Methodist church in 1894, Sun met Charlie Soong, a Hakka businessman and missionary. Charlie had gone to the United States in 1878 at age 15 to look for work. He had been taken in by Methodist missionaries who soon converted him. Soong then joined the anti-Manchu crusade as Sun's chief supporter. Charlie Soong's three daughters, Soong Ai-ling, Soong Qing-ling (married Sun in 1915), and Soong May-ling (married Chiang Kai-shek) attended Wesleyan College in Georgia. His eldest son, T.V. Soong attended Harvard University and Columbia University, and later became the governor of the Central Bank of China. 

Sun was impressed with foreign countries and Dewey's educational system. In 1892 he married Chen Cuifen and in 1894, aware of Manchu impotence, Sun wrote a petition to the Chinese statesman Li Hongzhang presenting his ideas of military modernization by copying foreign technology. Ignored by Li, Sun went to Hawaii and founded the anti-Manchu Revive China Society. The members, mainly lower-class expatriates, swore to expel the Manchus. The Society spread to Hong Kong early 1895. That October, they planned an uprising in Guangzhou against the Qing, but plans were leaked, and more than seventy members were captured. Taking advantage of the defeat of China in the Sino-Japanese War, another uprising was planned in Canton in 1895, but it was also discovered, so Sun left China for 16 years in exile.

In 1896, Sun was detained for 12 days at the Chinese Legation in London by the Chinese Imperial Secret Service. He was saved by his former teacher at the Hong Kong College of Medicine, James Cantlie, as well as by intervention by The London Times, and British Foreign Office. 

In Japan in 1898, Sun met and befriended Mariano Ponce, a diplomat of the First Philippine Republic. Sun helped Ponce procure weapons and munitions to fight Spain and the US. Sun had hoped that he could use the Philippines as a staging area for a revolution, but had to give up this plan when the Philippine rebellion was crushed by the US in 1902. 

Sun Yat-sen obtained a fraudulent Certificate of Hawaiian Birth, which stated he was born in Hawaii in 1870. Sun returned to Japan in 1905 and founded the Tongmenghui (United League) with Chinese students in Tokyo. By this time, Sun had begun developing his "Three Principles of the People": nationalism, democracy, and livelihood.