Mr. Science and Mr. Democracy

As the popularity of New Youth grew, Chen expressed a growing interest in democracy. He associated democracy closely with science, going so far as to anthropomorphize the two concepts as heroes of the New Culture Movement, Mr. Science and Mr. Democracy.

When it came to applying democracy in China, however, Chen confronted some of the same problems as Sun Yat-sen. He felt instilling democratic ideas in the Chinese people would be difficult, but unlike Sun, he did not support the idea of a period of political tutelage. As his colleague Hu Shi famously said, “the only way to have democracy is to have democracy.”

Like other leaders of his time, however, Chen was pragmatic when it came to his political choices. Chen would support whichever system he felt had the best chance of bringing about the restoration of Chinese wealth and power that he sought.

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