The Mandate of Heaven. Let me explain. The Mandate of Heaven stipulates that dynasties start with the right to rule and then become increasingly incapable, until disasters begin to occur, signalling the need for a renewal of the dynastic cycle. As a result, the actions of later emperors of a dynasty can be safely disentangled from their predecessors, who are judged far more kindly.

It was generally the case that ruling emperors reserved the exclusive right to give offerings at the tombs of prior emperors, even – indeed especially – of previous dynasties, and the founders of the one immediately prior got special treatment by virtue of being the renewers of the cycle. Hence the Qianlong Emperor would sacrifice at the tomb of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming, whenever visiting Nanjing. Sun can be seen in a similar light.

While Sun founded the ROC (Republic of China) and the KMT (Kuomintang – Nationalist Party), it can be construed that it was the ROC and KMT as run by Chiang Kaishek – who essentially took command of it by coup – that abused the Communists, allegedly mishandled the war with Japan, and established the rebel state on Taiwan. Sun, being the apparent founder of the republic, can therefore be both a righteous figure (having overthrown the corrupt Qing) and be absolved of the crimes of his successors.

China's relationship with the republican period and even KMT imagery is actually quite complex, and isn't merely black and white. For example, the 'Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang', a left-wing splinter of the Kuomintang proper using, among other things, the white sun on a blue background as its emblem, is an officially registered political party on the mainland, and the ROC flag used on Taiwan, which again has the KMT star, remains used as a symbol of mainland nationalism.