BEIJING -- China held a ceremony on Tuesday to commemorate the 158th birth anniversary of Sun Yat-sen, a great national hero, a great patriot, and a great forerunner of China's democratic revolution.

Hosted by the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the event took place in downtown Beijing's Zhongshan Park, a site named after Sun.

Senior officials from the CPPCC National Committee, the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and the Beijing municipal government laid flowers in front of Sun's statue.

Leading officials from the central committees of non-Communist parties and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, alongside representatives of prominent figures without party affiliation, also paid their respects.

Sun Yat-sen, born in 1866 in South China's Guangdong province, played a leading role in the 1911 Revolution, which overthrew the imperial Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and ended more than 2,000 years of feudal rule in China.