TAIPEI (AP) ― Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou is urging Beijing to pursue democracy and respect his island’s self-governance as both sides marked the centennial of a revolution that ended 2,000 years of imperial rule in China.

Ma said Monday that China should “move bravely” toward freedom and democracy.

Monday is the anniversary of the Oct. 10, 1911, uprising led by revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen that set the stage for the end of China’s imperial rule and the founding of the Republic of China, Asia’s first republic.

Sun’s Nationalist followers were later ousted from the mainland by communists amid civil war in 1949. The communists set up the People’s Republic of China on the mainland while the Republic of China became based in Taiwan.