Issued to honor the fifth anniversary of the resistance of the Chinese people to Japanese aggression, it paid tribute to the efforts of China to promote the principles of free government for its people.

Sun Yat-sen was the leader, as well as the symbol, of the Chinese nationalist revolution and first president of the republic that succeeded the Manchu Dynasty in 1911. In 1907 from exile in Japan, he issued a manifesto that contained an early version of his Three Principles of the People: nationalism, democracy, and the equalization of land ownership. He is considered by many Chinese in the same manner as Lincoln is by Americans.