https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/04/why_sun_yatsen_was_an_american_thinker.html
In modern Chinese history, Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) holds a unique place. He led the revolution that overthrew the Qing dynasty in 1911; devoted his life to championing an independent and democratic China; and was a revolutionary leader and a man of vision. Sun remains the only political leader honored by both mainland China and Taiwan. What’s fascinating about Sun, but little known in America, is that his birthplace, formal education, medical training, religious faith, and political values made him a true American.
Sun’s elder brother concealed the fact that Yat-sen was an American. His family would claim that he was born in China because a Chinese identity was crucial to his mission for China’s future but contemporaneous records show that he was an American citizen by birth. The National Archives at San Francisco verified on April 29, 1904, that Sun had US citizenship. The American Institute in Taiwan also confirms that Sun Yat-sen was born in Hawaii.
When Sun was 4 years old, his parents took him back with them to China. Then at age 12, he sailed on a British steamship back to Hawaii, to live with his elder brother. Sun received his secondary education at the ʻIolani School under the supervision of the Church of Hawai’i.
At 18, Sun wanted to convert to Christianity. He was baptized in Hong Kong by Rev. C. R. Hager, an American missionary. He began studying Western medicine at the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese. At 22, he joined a group of revolutionary thinkers called the Four Bandits. They founded the Furen Literary Society, which emphasized discipline, purifying the character, and learning from the West. In 1892 Sun graduated with a medical doctorate degree from the University of Hong Kong, a globally respected educational establishment in the British territory.
In 1894, Sun wrote a petition to the Qing Viceroy of Zhili, Li Hongzhang, presenting his ideas for modernizing China but was refused an audience. That same year, he founded a nationalist party in Hawaii, the Revive China Society. It would later be renamed the Kuomintang.