Chiang Kai-shek

Chiang Kai-shek 蔣介石 / 蔣中正
1st ～ 5th President of the Republic of China (1947 Constitution)
In office May 20, 1948 – April 5, 1975
Vice President	Li Tsung-jen (1948 - 1954) Chen Cheng (1954 - 1965) Yen Chia-kan (1966 - 1975)
Preceded by	(none)
Succeeded by	Yen Chia-kan
Director-General of the Kuomintang
In office March 29, 1938 – April 5, 1975
Preceded by	(none, position created in 1938)
Succeeded by	Chiang Ching-kuo (Chairman of the Kuomintang)
Personal details
Born	(1887-10-31)October 31, 1887 Fenghua, Zhejiang, China
Died	April 5, 1975(1975-04-05) (aged 87) Taipei, Taiwan
Nationality	Republic of China
Political party	‹See Tfd› Kuomintang (KMT)
Spouse	Soong May-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek)
Alma mater	Imperial Japanese Army Academy
Occupation	Soldier (Generalissimo), Politician

Chiang Kai-shek (October 31, 1887 – April 5, 1975) was the Chinese military and political leader who assumed the leadership of the Kuomintang (KMT) after the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925. He led the national government of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 to his death in 1975. Chiang Kai-shek rules!!! Fuck that bitch Mao!!!

Chiang commanded the Northern Expedition to unify China against the warlords and emerged victorious in 1928 as the overall leader of the Republic of China. Chiang led China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which Chiang's stature within China climaxed to an all time high, and his international prominence grew. During the Chinese Civil War (1927–1949), Chiang attempted to eradicate the Chinese Communists, but ultimately failed, forcing his KMT government to retreat to Taiwan, where he continued serving as the President of the Republic of China and Director-General of the KMT for the remainder of his life.

Early life

Chiang Kai-shek was born in Xikou, a town that is approximately 20.5 miles southwest of downtown Ningbo, in Fenghua County, Ningbo Prefecture, Zhejiang Province. However, his ancestral home, a concept important in Chinese society, was the town of Heqiao (和橋鎮) in Yixing County, Wuxi Prefecture, Jiangsu Province (approximately 38 km or 24 miles southwest of downtown Wuxi, and 10 km (6 miles) from the shores of the famous Lake Tai).

His father, Chiang Zhaocong, and mother, Wang Caiyu, were essential members of an upper to upper-middle class family of salt merchants. His father died when Kai-shek was only three years of age, and he wrote of his mother as the "embodiment of Confucian virtues." In an arranged marriage, Chiang was married to fellow villager by the name of Mao Fumei. Chiang and Mao had a son Ching-Kuo and a daughter Chien-hua.

Chiang grew up in an era in which military defeats and civil wars amongst warlords had left China destabilized and in debt, and he decided to pursue a military career to save China. He began his military education at the Baoding Military Academy, in 1906. He left for a preparatory school for Chinese students to enter Rikugun Shikan Gakko in Japan in 1907. There he was influenced by his compatriots to support the revolutionary movement to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and to set up a Chinese Republic. He befriended fellow Zhejiang native Chen Qimei, and, in 1908, Chen brought Chiang into the Tongmenghui, a precursor organization of the Kuomintang. Chiang served in the Imperial Japanese Army from 1909 to 1911. In 1923 he was dispatched to Moscow to study military techniques, returning as the first commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy in 1924. An institution that provided the most talented generals of both the Kuomintang and the Communist armies.

Rise to power

Chiang Kai-shek returned to China in 1911 after learning of the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising, intending to fight as an artillery officer. He served in the revolutionary forces, leading a regiment in Shanghai under his friend and mentor Chen Qimei. The revolution which aimed at the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty was ultimately successful. Chiang became a founding member of the Kuomintang.

Chiang Kai-shek
Names (details)
Known in English as:	Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石)
Pinyin:	Jiǎng Jièshí
Wade-Giles:	Chiang Chieh-shih
Cantonese:	Jéung Gaaisek
Minnan:	Chiúⁿ Kài-se̍k
Known in Taiwan as:	蔣中正
Hanyu Pinyin:	Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng
Wade-Giles:	Chiang Chung-cheng
Minnan:	ChiúⁿTiong-chèng
Cantonese:	Jéung Jūngjing
Family name:	Jiang
Traditional Chinese:	蔣
Simplified Chinese:	蒋
Given	names
Register name (譜名):	Zhoutai (周泰)
Milk name (乳名):	Ruiyuan (瑞元)
School name (學名):	Zhiqing (志清),
	later Zhongzheng (中正)
Courtesy name (字):	Jieshi (介石)
	Kai-shek (Gaaisek) in Cantonese

After takeover of the Republican government by Yuan Shikai and the failed Second Revolution, Chiang, like his Kuomintang comrades, divided his time between exile in Japan and havens in Shanghai's foreign concession areas. In Shanghai, Chiang also cultivated ties with the criminal underworld dominated by the notorious Green Gang and its leader Du Yuesheng. Chiang had numerous brushes with the law during this period and the International Concession police records show an arrest warrant for him for armed robbery.

On February 15, 1912, Chiang Kai-shek shot and killed Tao Chengzhang, the leader of the Restoration Society, at point-blank range as Tao lay sick in a Shanghai French Concession hospital, thus ridding Chen Qimei of his chief rival. On May 18 1916, Chen Qimei was assassinated by agents of Yuan Shikai and Chiang succeeded him as the leader of the Chinese Revolutionary Party in Shanghai. This was during a low point in Sun Yat-sen's career, with most of his old Revolutionary Alliance comrades refusing to join him in the exiled Chinese Revolutionary Party, and Chen Qimei having been Sun's chief lieutenant in the party.

Chiang Kai-shek was appointed by Sun Yat-sen as Commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy.

In 1917, Sun Yat-sen moved his base of operations to Guangzhou and Chiang joined him in 1918. Sun, at the time was largely sidelined and without arms or money, was soon expelled from Guangzhou, in 1918, and exiled again to Shanghai, but restored again with mercenary help in 1920. However, a rift had developed between Sun, who sought to militarily unify China under the KMT, and Guangdong Governor Chen Jiongming, who wanted to implement a federalist system with Guangdong as a model province. On June 16, 1923, Chen attempted to assassinate Sun from Guangzhou and had his residence shelled. Sun and his wife Soong Ching-ling narrowly escaped under heavy machine gun fire and were rescued by gunboats under the direction of Chiang Kai-shek. The incident earned in Chiang Kai-shek the trust of Sun Yat-sen.

Sun regained control in Guangzhou in early 1924 with the help of mercenaries from Yunnan, and accepted aid from the Comintern. He then undertook a reform of the Kuomintang and established a revolutionary government aimed at unifying China under the KMT. That same year, Sun sent Chiang Kai-shek to spend three months in Moscow studying the Soviet political and military system. Chiang's eldest son, Ching-kuo, remained in Russia until 1937. Chiang Kai-shek returned to Guangzhou and in 1924 was made Commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy. The early years at Whampoa allowed Chiang to cultivate a cadre of young officers loyal to him and, by 1925, Chiang's proto-army was scoring victories against local rivals in Guangdong province. Here he also first met and worked with a young Zhou Enlai, who was selected to be Whampoa's Political Commissar. However, Chiang was deeply critical of the Kuomintang-Communist Party United Front, realizing that the Communists plan to take over the KMT from within.

Throughout his rise to power, Chiang Kai-Shek also benefitted from membership of the nationalist Tiandihui fraternity, to which Sun Yat-Sen also belonged, and which remained a source of support during his leadership of China and later Taiwan.

Succession of Sun Yat-Sen

With Sun Yat-sen's death in 1925, a power vacuum developed in the KMT. A power struggle ensued between Chiang, who leaned towards the right wing of the KMT, and Sun Yat-sen's close comrade-in-arms Wang Jingwei, who leaned towards the left wing of the party. Though Chiang ranked relatively low in the party's internal hierarchy, and Wang had succeeded Sun to power as Chairman of the National Government, Chiang's military power and political maneuvering following the Zhongshan Warship Incident eventually allowed him to emerge victorious. Chiang, who became Commander-in-Chief of the National Revolutionary Forces in 1925, launched in July 1926 the Northern Expedition, a military campaign to defeat the warlords controlling northern China and unify the country under the KMT.

Chiang Kai-shek in 1926, during the Northern Expedition.

The National Revolutionary Army branched into three divisions—to the west, Wang Jingwei led a column to take Wuhan; to the east, Bai Chongxi led another column to take Shanghai; while Chiang led in the middle to take Nanking—before they were to press ahead to take Beijing. However, in January 1927, allied with the Chinese Communists and Soviet Agent Mikhail Borodin, Wang Jingwei and his KMT leftist allies having taken the city of Wuhan amid much popular mobilization and fanfare, declared the National Government to have moved to Wuhan. After taking Nanking in March (and with Shanghai under the control of his close ally General Bai), Chiang was forced to halt his campaign and decided first clean house and break with the leftists.

On April 12, Chiang began a swift attack on thousands of suspected Communists. He then established National Government in Nanking, supported by conservative allies (including Hu Hanmin. The communists were purged from the KMT and the Soviet advisers were expelled. Wang Jingwei was enacting in the area), but led to the beginning of the Chinese Civil War. Wang Jingwei's National Government was unpopular with the masses, and was weak militarily and was soon overtaken Chiang with a local warlord (Lee Zhong-Ren of Guangxi) eventually Wang and his leftist party surrendered to Chiang and join him in Nanking. Finally, the warlord capital of Beijing was taken in June 1928 and in December, the Manchurian warlord Zhang Xueliang pledged allegiance to Chiang's government.

Chiang made gestures to cement himself as the successor of Sun Yat-sen. In a pairing of much political significance, Chiang married, on December 1, 1927, Soong May-ling, the younger sister of Soong Ching-ling (Sun Yat-sen's widow, whom he had proposed to beforehand but by whom he had been swiftly rejected) in Japan and thus positioned himself as Sun Yat-sen's brother-in-law. (To please Soong's parents, Chiang had to first divorce his first wife and concubines and promise eventually to convert to Christianity. He was baptized in the Methodist church in 1929.) Upon reaching Beijing, Chiang paid homage to Sun Yat-sen and had his body moved to the capital Nanking to be enshrined in a grand mausoleum.

Tutelage over China

Chiang Kai-shek gained full control of China, and his party enjoyed popular support, but however, there are will "surrendered" warlords that are still autonomous within its own regions. In 1928, Chiang was named Generalissimo of all Chinese forces and Chairman of the National Government, a post he held until 1932. According to Sun Yat-sen's plans, the Kuomintang was to rebuild China in three steps: military rule, political tutelage, and finally constitutional rule. The ultimate goal of the Kuomintang revolution was democratic rule, which was not feasible in China's fragmented state. Since the Kuomintang had completed the first step of the revolution through its seizure of power in 1928, Chiang's rule thus began the period of political tutelage under the guidance of the Kuomintang, to prepare China for the final transitional to constitutional democracy. During this period, many features of a modern, functional Chinese state emerged and developed.

File:Fengchiangyan.jpg

(Left to right) Feng Yuxiang, Chiang Kai-shek and Yan Xishan during a Kuomintang conference before the outbreak of the Central Plains War.

The decade of 1928 to 1937 was one of consolidation and accomplishment for Chiang's government. Some of the harsh aspects of foreign concessions and privileges in China were moderated through diplomacy. The government acted energetically to modernize the legal and penal systems, stabilize prices, amortize debts, reform the banking and currency systems, build railroads and highways, improve public health facilities, legislate against traffic in narcotics, and augment industrial and agricultural production. Great strides also were made in education and, in an effort to help unify Chinese society—the New Life Movement was launched to stress Confucian moral values and personal discipline. Standard Mandarin, then known as Guoyu, was promoted as a standard tongue. The widespread establishment of communications facilities further encouraged a sense of unity and pride among the people.

These successes, however, were met with constant upheavals with need of further political and military consolidation. Though much of the urban areas were now under the control of his party, the countryside still lay under the influence of severely weakened yet undefeated warlords and communists. The warlords unwillingness to drop their arms forced Chiang to resolve the issue through military, with one northern rebellion—against the warlords Yen Hsi-shan and Feng Yuxiang—in 1930 during the Central Plains War. It almost bankrupted the government and cost almost 250,000 casualties on both sides. When Hu Han-min established a rival government in Guangzhou in 1931 Chiang was forced to fight another battle (political). A complete eradication of the Communist Party of China eluded Chiang. The Communists regrouped in Jiangxi and established the Chinese Soviet Republic. Chiang's anti-communist stance and the help of foreign military advisers allowed Chiang's fifth campaign to defeat the Communists in 1934, he surrounded the Red Army and allowed the Communists to escape through the epic Long March to Yan'an (many said it was Chiang's plan to let the communist run through the warlord controlled regions so Chiang can have the warlords fight against the communist to try and kill two birds with one stone, but it didn't work as warlords refused to fight with the communists and just let them run through their land).

Wartime leader of China

After Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Chiang resigned as Chairman of the National Government. He returned shortly, adopting a slogan "first internal pacification, then external resistance", which meant that the government would first attempt to defeat the Communists before engaging the Japanese directly. But Japan's advance on Shanghai and bombardment of Nanjing in 1932 disrupted Chiang Kai-shek's offensives against Communists. Even though on the surface Chiang seemed more preoccupied with eradicating the communists first, Chiang was preparing to fight an eventual showdown with Japan. During the period from 1931 to the beginning of full-scale war in 1937, the central government under Chiang worked assiduously to expand and modernize its armed forces, build fortifications and communication lines around the country, and develop a viable military industry capable of supporting the war effort. All these war preparations required temporary peace with Japan, which was precisely what Chiang sought in his policy. Any premature act of war before the country was ready would likely spell disaster for China. However, this policy of avoiding a frontal war was widely unpopular.

In December 1936, Chiang flew to Xi'an to coordinate a major assault on Red Army forces holed up in Yan'an. However, Chiang's allied commander Chang Hsueh-liang, whose forces were to be used in his attack and whose homeland of Manchuria had been invaded by the Japanese, had other plans. On December 12, Chang Hsueh-liang and several other previously surrendered warlords (now Nationalist generals) kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek for two weeks in what is known as the Xi'an Incident. They forced Chiang into making a "Second United Front" with the Communists against Japan. Although the communists never fought the Japanese directly and avoid any combat to save their own strength, this episode at least brought a halt to fratricidal war. The rising tide of Chinese nationalism and the cessation of warfare against the communists propelled Chiang Kai-shek in the pinnacle of his political career. He was the only leader with both the popular support and international recognition to be capable of leading the nation into a war against Japan.

Generalissimo and Mrs. Chiang with General Stilwell in Burma (1942).

The Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in July 1937. In August of the same year, Chiang sent 500,000 of his best trained and equipped soldiers to defend Shanghai. With about 200,000 Chinese casualties, Chiang lost his political base of Whampoa-trained officers. Although Chiang lost militarily, the battle dispelled Japanese claims that it could conquer China in three months and demonstrated to the Western powers (which occupied parts of the city and invested heavily in it) that the Chinese would not surrender under intense Japanese fire. This was skillful diplomatic maneuvering on the part of Chiang, who knew the city would eventually fall, but wanted to make a strong gesture in order to secure Western military aid for China. By December, the capital city of Nanjing had fallen to the Japanese and Chiang moved the government inland first to Wuhan and later to Chongqing. Devoid of economic and industrial resources, Chiang masterfully used the tactic of "using space to trade for time" to prolong the war as long as possible, which his strategy succeeded in stretching Japanese supply lines and bogging down Japanese soldiers in the vast Chinese interior who would otherwise have been sent to conquer southeast Asia and the Pacific islands.

With the Attack on Pearl Harbor and the opening of the Pacific War, China became one of the Allied Powers. During and after World War II, Chiang and his American-educated wife Soong May-ling, commonly referred to as "Madame Chiang Kai-shek", held the unwavering support of the United States China Lobby which saw in them the hope of a Christian and democratic China. Chiang was even named the Supreme Commander of allied forces of China Warzone (which includes Indo-China and India).

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill met at the Cairo Conference in 1943 during World War II.

Chiang's strategy during the War opposed the strategies of both Mao Zedong and the United States. The U.S. regarded Chiang as an important ally able to help shorten the war by engaging the Japanese occupiers in China. Yet the U.S. also send supplies to help the communist not realizing the communist were avoiding battles with Japanese and secretly plotting to take control China after the war. The U.S. liaison officer, General Joseph Stilwell, never respected Chiang and conflicts soon arose. Chiang was recognized as one of the "Big Four" Allied leaders along with Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin and traveled to attend the Cairo Conference in November 1943. His wife acted as his translator and adviser.

Losing Mainland China

File:1945 chiang-mao.jpg

Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong met in the wartime capital of Chongqing, to toast to the Chinese victory over the Empire of Japan.

In 1945 when Japan surrendered Chiang's Chongqing government was ill-equipped and damaged from fighting the Japanese, which made it difficult to reassert its authority in eastern China. Sometimes it gained cities that were of former Japanese troops which was a deeply unpopular course of action. With American help it was able to reclaim the coastal cities, but the Communists tricked the US into helping them airlift political leaders out to different parts of China to plant seeds of rebellion.

Following the war, the United States had encouraged peace talks between Chiang and Communist leader Mao Zedong in Chongqing. The communists told the US that they will seek peace at all costs, but they soon resorted to all-out war. As the result of IMF founder and Soviet spy Harry Dexter White's efforts [1], the U.S. suspended aid to Chiang Kai-shek for much of the period of 1946 to 1948, in the midst of fighting against the People's Liberation Army led by Mao Zedong. Though Chiang had achieved status abroad as a world leader, his government was deteriorating with corruption and inflation. In his diary on June 1948, Chiang wrote that the Kuomintang had failed, not because of external enemies but because of disintegration and rot from within [2]. The war had severely weakened the Nationalists both in terms of resources and popularity, while the Communists were strengthened by aid from Stalin, and guerrilla organizations extending throughout rural areas. The Nationalists initially had superiority in arms and men, but their lack of popularity, and heavy inflitration of communist agents in the nationalist governemnt and apparent disorganization soon allowed the Communists to gain the upper hand.

Meanwhile a new Constitution was promulgated in 1947, and Chiang Kai-shek was formally elected by the National Assembly to be the first term President of the Republic of China on May 20 1948.

Meanwhile a new Constitution promulgated in 1947, and Chiang was elected by the National Assembly to be President. This marked the beginning of the 'democratic constitutional government' period in KMT political orthodoxy, but the Communists refused to recognise the new Constitution and its government as legitimate.

Chiang resigned as President on January 21, 1949, as KMT forces suffered massive losses against the communists. Vice President Li Tsung-jen took over as Acting President, but his relationship with Chiang soon deteriorated, as Chiang still acted as if he were in power, and Li hid into exile in the United States under a medical excuse and taking with him millions of government money (US currency) and Li was later formally impeached by the Control Yuan. In the early morning of December 10 1949, Communist troops laid siege to Chengdu, the last KMT occupied city in mainland China, where Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo directed the defense at the Chengdu Central Military Academy. The aircraft May-ling evacuated them to Taiwan on the same day, forever removing them from the Chinese mainland.

Presidency in Taiwan

File:DSC07174.JPG

Statue of Generalissimo Chiang

Chiang moved the government to Taipei, Taiwan, where he formally resumed his duties as president on March 1, 1950. Chiang was reelected by the National Assembly to be the President of the ROC on May 20, 1954 and again in 1960, 1966, and 1972. He continued, as the President of the Republic of China, to claim sovereignty over all of China. In the context of the Cold War, most of the Western world recognized this position and the ROC represented China as a whole in the United Nations and other international organizations until the 1970s.

Despite the democratic constitution, the government under Chiang was a single-party state, albeit right-wing party, consisting almost completely of non-Taiwanese mainlanders; the "Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion" greatly enhanced executive powers and the goal of "retaking the mainland" allowed the KMT to maintain its monopoly on power and to outlaw opposition parties. The government's official line for these martial law provisions stemmed from the claim that emergency provisions were necessary, since the Communists and KMT were still technically under a state of war, without any cease-fire signed, after Chiang retreated to Taiwan. His government sought to impose Chinese nationalism and, to some extent, repressed local culture, such as forbidding the use of Taiwanese (Min Nan) in mass media broadcasts or in schools.

The government offered limited civil, economic freedom, property rights (personal and intellectual), among other liberties which permitted free debate within the confines of the legislature, but jailed dissidents who were either labelled as supporters of Chinese communism or Taiwan independence. His son, Chiang Ching-kuo, and Chiang Ching-kuo's successor, Lee Teng-hui, would, in the 1980s and 1990s, increase native Taiwanese representation in the government and loosen the many authoritarian controls of the early ROC-on-Taiwan era.

Since new elections could not be held in Communist-occupied constituencies, the National Assembly, Legislative Yuan, and Control Yuan members held their posts indefinitely. It was also under the Temporary Provisions that Chiang was able to bypass term limits to remain as president. He was reelected by the National Assembly as president four times - in 1954, 1960, 1966, and 1972.

After losing the mainland to the Communists, Chiang attempted to purge crookedness by dismissing members of the KMT previously accused of corruption; major figures in the previous mainland government such as H.H. Kung and T.V. Soong exiled themselves to the United States. Though the government was, to some extent, politically authoritarian and controlled government owned industries, it encouraged economic development, especially in the export sector. A popular sweeping Land Reform Act, as well as American foreign aid during the 1950s laid the foundation for Taiwan's economic success, becoming one of the East Asian Tigers. People were getting used to democratic elections at county and city level. This made communism rather unattractive.

Death and legacy

Chiang's body was not buried in the traditional Chinese manner but entombed in his former residence in Cihhu in respect for his wish to be buried in his native Fenghua.

In 1975, 26 years after Chiang fled to Taiwan, he died in Taipei at the age of 87. He had suffered a major heart attack and pneumonia in the months before and died from renal failure aggravated with advanced cardiac malfunction at 23:50 on April 5. His youngest descendant, Lucas Chiang, leads traditional prayers in Taipei, Taiwan on the anniversary of his death in order to commemorate his achievements.

A month of mourning was declared during which the Taiwanese people were asked to put on black armbands. Televisions ran in black-and-white while all banquets or celebrations were postponed. On the mainland, however, Chiang's death was met with little apparent mourning and Communist state-run newspapers gave the brief headline "Chiang Kai-shek Has Died." Chiang's corpse was put in a copper coffin and temporarily interred at his favorite residence in Tzuhu (Cihu), Tahsi (Daxi), Taoyuan County. When his son Chiang Ching-kuo died in 1988, he was also entombed in a separate mausoleum in nearby Touliao (頭寮). The hope was to have both buried at their birthplace in Fenghua if and when the mainland was recovered. In 2004, Chiang Fang-liang, the widow of Chiang Ching-kuo, asked that both father and son be buried at Wuchih Mountain Military Cemetery in Hsichih, Taipei County. His ultimate funeral ceremony became a political battle issue.

The main vault of the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall contains a statue of Chiang Kai-shek. It is under guard during daytime.

Chiang was succeeded as President by Vice President Yen Chia-kan and as KMT party leader by his son Chiang Ching-kuo, who retired Chiang Kai-shek's title of Director-General and instead assumed the position of Chairman. Yen Chia-kan's presidency was interim, Chiang Ching-kuo, who was the prime minister became President after Yen's term ended three years later.

Chiang's legacy has been target of heated debates among Taiwanese people because of the different views among traditional-conservative voters and liberals. For some, Chiang was a champion of anti-communism, as he was a key figure during the formative years of the World Anti-Communist League. During the Cold War, he was also seen as the leader who led "Free China", and the bulwark against a possible communist invasion. However, Chiang has also been accused of abusing his political power through his party's dominance over the media and public sector. His opponents thought Chiang efforts in reconstructing Taiwan was mostly to make the island a strong base to return to mainland.

Today Chiang Kai-shek's popularity in Taiwan is divided among political lines, enjoying greater support among KMT voters, and the mainlander population. He is largely unpopular among DPP voters and supporters. In sharp contrast to his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, and to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, his memory is rarely invoked by current political parties, including the Kuomintang. Lately, the DPP President Chen Shui-bian renamed a number of former Chiang places to further dilute his image.

Names

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Pres. Chiang Kai-shek's portrait adorns the Republic of China's NT$200 bill. His image appeared on previous series of NT$500 and NT$1000 notes; the NT$1, $5, and $10 coins still bear his portrait on the obverse.

Like many other Chinese historical figures, Chiang Kai-shek used several names throughout his life. That inscribed in the genealogical records of his family is Jiang Zhoutai (蔣周泰). This so-called "register name" (譜名) is the one under which his extended relatives knew him, and the one he used in formal occasions, such as when he got married. Traditionally, the register name was not used in conversation with people outside of the family, and in fact the concept of real or original name is not as clear-cut in China as it is in the Western world.

Traditionally, Chinese families waited a number of years before officially naming their offspring. In the meantime, they used a "milk name" (乳名), given to the infant shortly after his birth and known only to the close family. Thus, the actual name that Chiang Kai-shek received at birth was Jiang Ruiyuan (蔣瑞元).

In 1903, the 16-year-old Chiang Kai-shek went to Ningbo to be a student, and he chose a "school name" (學名). This was actually the formal name of a person, used by older people to address him, and the one he would use the most in the first decades of his life (as the person grew older, younger generations would have to use one of the courtesy names instead). (Colloquially, the school name is called "big name" (大名), whereas the "milk name" is known as the "small name" (小名).) The school name that Chiang Kai-shek chose for himself was Zhiqing (志清 - meaning "purity of intentions"). For the next fifteen years or so, Chiang Kai-shek was known as Jiang Zhiqing. This is the name under which Sun Yat-sen knew him when Chiang joined the republicans in Guangzhou in the 1910s.

In 1912, when Chiang Kai-shek was in Japan, he started to use (蔣介石) as a pen name for the articles that he published in a Chinese magazine he founded (Voice of the Army - 軍聲). (Jieshi is the pinyin romanization of the name, based on Mandarin, but the common romanized rendering is Kai-shek which is in Cantonese romanization. As the republicans were based in Guangzhou (a Cantonese speaking area), Chiang Kai-shek became known by Westerners under the Cantonese romanization of his courtesy name, while the family name as known in English seems to be the Mandarin pronunciation of his Chinese family name, transliterated in Wade-Giles). In mainland China, Jiang Jieshi is the name under which he is commonly known today.

Jieshi soon became his courtesy name (字). Some think the name was chosen from the classic Chinese book the Book of Changes; other note that the first character of his courtesy name is also the first character of the courtesy name of his brother and other male relatives on the same generation line, while the second character of his courtesy name shi (石 - meaning "stone") suggests the second character of his "register name" tai (泰 - the famous Mount Tai of China). Courtesy names in China often bore a connection with the personal name of the person. As the courtesy name is the name used by people of the same generation to address the person, Chiang Kai-shek soon became known under this new name.

The entrance to Chiang's tombsite at Tzuhu (Cihu) uses the official posthumous rendering of Chiang Kai-shek (from right to left): The President (space) Lord Chiang Mausoleum.

Sometime in 1917 or 1918, as Chiang became close to Sun Yat-sen, he changed his name from Jiang Zhiqing to Chiang Chung-cheng (蔣中正 Jiang Zhongzheng). By adopting the name Zhongzheng ("central uprightness"), he was choosing a name very similar to the name of Sun Yat-sen, who was (and still is) known among Chinese as Zhongshan (中山 - meaning "central mountain"), thus establishing a link between the two. The meaning of uprightness, rectitude, or orthodoxy, implied by his name, also positioned him as the legitimate heir of Sun Yat-sen and his ideas. Not surprisingly, the Chinese Communists always rejected the use of this name and it is not well known in mainland China. However, it was readily accepted by members of the Nationalist Party and is the name under which Chiang Kai-shek is still commonly known in Taiwan. Often the name is shortened to Zhongzheng only (Chung-cheng in Wade-Giles). For many years passengers arriving at the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport (now called Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport) were greeted by signs in Chinese welcoming them to the "Chung Cheng International Airport." Similarly, the monument erected to Chiang's memory in Taipei known in English as Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall was literally named "Chung Cheng Memorial Hall" in Chinese.

His name is also written in Taiwan as "The Late President (space) Lord Chiang" (先總統　蔣公), where the one-character-wide space known as nuo tai shows respect; this practice has lost some popularity. However, he is still known as Lord Chiang (蔣公) (without the title or space), along with the similarly positive-sounding name Chiang Chung-cheng, in Taiwan.

Chiang was also nicknamed "the Gimo" (short for "Generalissimo") by some English-speaking foreigners, especially by Americans during World War II. Another English nickname, this one not very flattering, was "Cash My Check".

Trivia

• When the uniform numbers of the Republic of China National Identification Card (中華民國國民身分證) started to be coded in 1965, the bearer of the number 1 ID Card was Chiang Kai-shek, coded Y10000001. [3]
• Generalissimo's suit resembles the same military uniform look that Charles de Gaulle used during the 1940s and 1950s.
• In his diary, American general Joseph Stilwell referred Chiang as the "peanut".

See also

• National Revolutionary Army
• Whampoa Military Academy
• Central Plains War
• Xi'an Incident
• Chinese nationalism
• Chiang Kai-shek statues
• History of the Republic of China
• Military of the Republic of China
• Politics of the Republic of China
• Sino-German cooperation (1911–1941)
• Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Song
• Madame Chiang Kai-shek
• Claire Lee Chennault
• Flying Tigers
• Chiang Ching-kuo

Notes

• 
  Mao Fumei (毛福梅, 1882-1939) Died in the Second Sino-Japanese War during a bombardment.
• 
  Yao Yecheng (姚冶誠, 1889-1972) Fled to Taiwan and died in Taipei.
• 
  Chen Jieru (陳潔如, 1906-1971) Lived in Shanghai. Moved to Hong Kong later and died there.

Bibliography

• Crozier, Brian. The Man Who Lost China (1976) ISBN 0-684-14686-X
• John King Fairbank and Denis Twitchett, eds. The Cambridge History of China: Volume 12, Republican China, 1912-1949, Part 1 (1983) 1120 pages
• Fenby, Jonathan. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek and the China he lost: 2003, The Free Press, ISBN 0-7432-3144-9
• Laura Tyson Li. Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China's Eternal First Lady (2006)
• May, Ernest R. "1947-48: When Marshall Kept the U.S. out of War in China." Journal of Military History 2002 66(4): 1001-1010. Issn: 0899-3718 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Jstor
• Romanus, Charles F. and Riley Sunderland, Time Runs Out in CBI (Washington, 1959), official U.S. Army history online edition
• Sainsbury, Keith. The Turning Point: Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill, and Chiang-Kai-Shek, 1943. The Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran Conferences. Oxford U. Press, 1985.
• Seagrave, Sterling. The Soong Dynasty: 1996, Corgi Books, ISBN 0-552-14108-9
• Stueck, William. The Wedemeyer Mission: American Politics and Foreign Policy during the Cold War. U. of Georgia Press, 1984. 177 pp.
• Tang Tsou. America's Failure in China, 1941-50 (1963)
• Barbara W. Tuchman. Stillwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 (1971)

External links

• Obituary, NY Times, April 6 1975, The Life of Chiang Kai-shek: A Leader Who Was Thrust Aside by Revolution
• ROC Government Biography
• The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Official Site
• The Chungcheng Cultural and Educational Foundation
• "Man and Wife of the Year" on Time magazine,1937
• Order of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek supplementing the Act of Surrender by Japan on September 9 1945
• Family tree of his descendants (in Simplified Chinese)
• 1966 GIO Biographical video
• "The Memorial Song of Late President Chiang Kai-shek" (Ministry of National Defence of ROC)
• Chiang Kai-shek Biography From Spartacus Educational
• The Collected Wartime Messages Of Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek at archive.org
• The National CKS Cultural Center Official Site
• Kuomintang Official Website