The national committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) held a grand ceremony Friday to commemorate the 138th anniversary of the birth of China's revolutionary forerunner Sun Yat-sen.

Representatives from all walks of life from society, including Li Guixian, vice chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, He Luli, chairperson of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese
Kuomintang, and Sun Anmin, Beijing's vice mayor, attended the ceremony held in the capital's Zhongshan Park and bowed three times in front of the Sun Yat-sen Statue to show their respect.

The ceremony was presided over by Wang Zhongyu, also vice chairman of the CPPCC National Committee.

Similar ceremonies were also held in Shanghai and Guangzhou, the capital of south China's Guangdong Province.

Born in 1866 in Xiangshan County (now Zhongshan City) in south China's Guangdong Province, Dr. Sun Yat-sen is known across the country as "a great revolutionary and great statesman" who led the 1911 Revolution, the Chinese democratic revolution which overthrew the imperial Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and put an end to more than 2,000 years of feudal rule in China.

Dr. Sun founded China's first republic in Nanjing in 1911 after the fall of Qing Dynasty. He died of an illness in Beijing on March 12, 1925.

(Xinhua News Agency November 13, 2004)