Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek | |
---|---|
蔣中正 蔣介石 | |
![]() | |
Chairman of the National Government of China | |
In office October 10, 1928 – December 15, 1931 | |
Premier | Tan Yankai Soong Tse-ven |
Preceded by | Gu Weijun (Acting) |
Succeeded by | Lin Sen |
In office August 1, 1943 – May 20, 1948 Acting until October 10, 1943 | |
Premier | Soong Tse-ven |
Preceded by | Lin Sen |
Succeeded by | Himself (as President of the Republic of China) |
Chairman of the National Military Council | |
In office December 15, 1931 – May 31, 1946 | |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Position abolished |
President of the Republic of China | |
In office May 20, 1948 – January 21, 1949 | |
Premier | Chang Chun Wong Wen-hao Sun Fo |
Vice President | Li Zongren |
Preceded by | Himself (as Chairman of the National Government of China) |
Succeeded by | Li Zongren (Acting) |
In office March 1, 1950 – April 5, 1975 | |
Premier | Yen Hsi-shan Chen Cheng Yu Hung-Chun Chen Cheng Yen Chia-kan Chiang Ching-kuo |
Vice President | Li Zongren Chen Cheng Yen Chia-kan |
Preceded by | Li Zongren (Acting) |
Succeeded by | Yen Chia-kan |
Premier of the Republic of China | |
In office December 4, 1930 – December 15, 1931 | |
Preceded by | Soong Tse-ven |
Succeeded by | Chen Mingshu |
In office December 9, 1935 – January 1, 1938 | |
President | Lin Sen |
Preceded by | Wang Jingwei |
Succeeded by | Hsiang-hsi Kung |
In office November 20, 1939 – May 31, 1945 | |
President | Lin Sen |
Preceded by | Hsiang-hsi Kung |
Succeeded by | Soong Tse-ven |
In office March 1, 1947 – April 18, 1947 | |
Preceded by | Soong Tse-ven |
Succeeded by | Chang Chun |
1st, 3rd Director-General of the Kuomintang | |
In office March 29, 1938 – April 5, 1975 | |
Preceded by | Hu Hanmin |
Succeeded by | Chiang Ching-kuo (as Chairman of the Kuomintang) |
Personal details | |
Born | Fenghua, Zhejiang, Qing dynasty | October 31, 1887
Died | April 5, 1975 Taipei, Taiwan | (aged 87)
Resting place | Taoyuan, Taiwan |
Nationality | ![]() |
Political party | ![]() |
Spouse(s) | Mao Fumei Yao Yecheng Chen Jieru Soong May-ling |
Children | Chiang Ching-kuo Chiang Wei-kuo (adopted) |
Alma mater | Baoding Military Academy, Imperial Japanese Army Academy Preparatory School |
Occupation | Soldier (General officer) |
Awards | Order of National Glory, Order of Blue Sky and White Sun, 1st class Order of the Sacred Tripod, Legion of Merit |
Signature | ![]() |
Nickname | "Generalissimo"or "Red General"[2] |
Military service | |
Years of service | 1923–1975 |
Rank | Generalissimo |
Battles/wars | Xinhai Revolution, Northern Expedition, Sino-Tibetan War, Kumul Rebellion, Soviet Invasion of Xinjiang, Chinese Civil War, Second Sino-Japanese War, Kuomintang Islamic Insurgency in China (1950–1958) |
Template:Chinese name Template:Contains Chinese text
Chiang Kai-shek | |||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Traditional Chinese | 蔣介石 | ||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 蒋介石 | ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
Chiang Chung-cheng | |||||||||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 蔣中正 | ||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 蒋中正 | ||||||||||||||||
|
Chiang Kai-shek (October 31, 1887 – April 5, 1975) was a Chinese political and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1975. He is known as Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Chieh-shih, 蔣介石) or Jiang Zhongzheng (Chiang Chung-cheng, 蔣中正) in Standard Chinese. Chiang was an influential member of the Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party, and was a close ally of Sun Yat-sen. He became the Commandant of the Kuomintang's Whampoa Military Academy and took Sun's place as leader of the KMT when Sun died in 1925. In 1926, Chiang led the Northern Expedition to unify the country, becoming China's nominal leader.[3] He served as Chairman of the National Military Council of the Nationalist government of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 to 1948. Chiang led China in the Second Sino-Japanese War (the Chinese theater of World War II), consolidating power from the party's former regional warlords. Unlike Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek was socially conservative, promoting traditional Chinese culture in the New Life Movement and rejecting western democracy and the nationalist democratic socialism that Sun embraced in favour of an authoritarian government.
Chiang's predecessor, Sun Yat-sen, was well-liked and respected by the Communists, but after Sun's death Chiang was not able to maintain good relations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). A major split between the Nationalists and Communists occurred in 1927; and, under Chiang's leadership, the Nationalists fought a nation-wide civil war against the Communists. After Japan invaded China in 1937, Chiang agreed to a temporary truce with the CCP. Despite some early cooperative military successes against Japan, by the time that the Japanese surrendered in 1945 neither the CCP nor the KMT trusted each other nor were actively cooperating.
After American-sponsored attempts to negotiate a coalition government failed in 1946, the Chinese Civil War resumed. The CCP defeated the Nationalists in 1949. Westad says the Communists won the Civil War because they made fewer military mistakes than Chiang Kai-Shek, and because in his search for a powerful centralized government, Chiang antagonized too many interest groups in China. Furthermore, his party was weakened in the war against Japan. Meanwhile the Communists told different groups, such as peasants, exactly what they wanted to hear, and cloaked themselves in the cover of Chinese Nationalism.[4]
Chiang's government and army retreated to Taiwan, where Chiang imposed martial law and persecuted people critical of his rule in a period known as the "White Terror". After evacuating to Taiwan, Chiang's government continued to declare its intention to retake mainland China. Chiang ruled the island securely as President of the Republic of China and General of the Kuomintang until his death in 1975. He ruled mainland China for 22 years, and Taiwan for 30 years.
Early life
This section needs additional citations for verification. (October 2012) |
Childhood
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Chiang_Kaishek_in_Baoding_Military_Academy.jpg/200px-Chiang_Kaishek_in_Baoding_Military_Academy.jpg)
Chiang was born in Xikou, a town approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi)* southwest of downtown Ningbo, in Fenghua, Zhejiang. However, his ancestral home, a concept important in Chinese society, was the town of Heqiao (和橋鎮) in Yixing, Jiangsu, approximately 38 km (24 mi) southwest of downtown Wuxi, and 10 km (6.2 mi) from the shores of Lake Tai. Chiang's father, Jiang Zhaocong (蔣肇聰), and mother, Wang Caiyu (王采玉), were members of an upper-middle to upper-class family of salt merchants. Chiang's father died when he was only eight years of age, and he wrote of his mother as the "embodiment of Confucian virtues".
In Japan: 1905–1911
Chiang grew up in a time period in which military defeats and civil wars among warlords had left China destabilized and in debt, several demands of Western Powers and Japan since the Opium Wars had left China owing millions of Taels of silver;, he decided to pursue a military career. He began his military education at the Baoding Military Academy, in 1906 coincidentally the same year that Japan devalued its paper currency (promissory notes), de-pairing it with gold and silver. He then left for the Tokyo Shinbu Gakko (東京振武學校), an Imperial Japanese Army Academy Preparatory School for Chinese students, 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 of the Kuomintang (KMT) organization. Chiang served in the Imperial Japanese Army from 1909 to 1911.
Return to China
Chiang 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, where he led a regiment in Shanghai under his friend and mentor Chen Qimei, as one of Chen's chief lieutenants. In early 1912, a dispute arose between Chen and Tao Chen-Chang, who was an influential member of the Revolutionary Alliance and who opposed both Sun Yat-sen and Chen. Tao sought to avoid escalating the quarrel by hiding in a hospital but was discovered there by Chiang. Chen dispatched assassins. Chiang may not have taken part in the act but would later assume responsibility to help Chen avoid trouble. Chen valued Chiang despite Chiang's by now legendary quick temper, believing that such bellicosity was useful in a military leader.[5] Alternatively, Professor Pichon Loh reports that Chiang may have killed Tao in the hospital with a pistol.[6]
Chiang's friendship with Chen Qimei signaled an association with Shanghai's criminal syndicate (the Green Gang headed by Du Yuesheng and Huang Jinrong). During Chiang's time in Shanghai, he was watched by British-administered Shanghai International Settlement police, who charged him with various felonies. These charges never resulted in a trial and Chiang was never jailed.[7]
Chiang became a founding member of the KMT after the success of the 1911 Revolution. After the takeover of the Republican government by Yuan Shikai and the failed Second Revolution in 1913, Chiang, like his KMT comrades, divided his time between exile in Japan and the havens of the Shanghai International Settlement. In Shanghai, Chiang cultivated ties with the city's underworld gangs, which were dominated by the notorious Green Gang and its leader Du Yuesheng. On May 18, 1916, agents of Yuan Shikai assassinated Chen Qimei. Chiang then succeeded Chen as leader of the Chinese Revolutionary Party in Shanghai. Sun Yat-sen's political career was at its lowest point during this time when most of his old Revolutionary Alliance comrades refused to join him in the exiled Chinese Revolutionary Party.[8]
Establishment of the Kuomintang in Guangzhou
In 1917, Sun Yat-sen moved his base of operations to Guangzhou, and Chiang joined him in 1918. At this time Sun remained largely sidelined; and, without arms or money, was soon expelled from Guangzhou and exiled again to Shanghai. He was restored to Guangzhou with mercenary help in 1920. After returning to Guangzhou, a rift 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 and had his residence shelled. During a prolonged skirmish between the troops of these opposing forces, Sun and his wife Soong Ching-ling narrowly evaded heavy machine gun fire and were rescued by gunboats under Chiang's direction. The incident earned Chiang the trust of Sun Yat-sen.
Sun regained control of Guangzhou in early 1924, again with the help of mercenaries from Yunnan, and accepted aid from the Comintern. Undertaking a reform of the KMT, he established a revolutionary government aimed at unifying China under the KMT. That same year, Sun sent Chiang to spend three months in Moscow studying the Soviet political and military system. During his trip in Russia, Chiang met Leon Trotsky and other Soviet leaders, but quickly came to the conclusion that the Russian model of government was not suitable for China. Chiang later sent his eldest son, Ching-kuo, to study in Russia. After his father's split from the First United Front in 1927, Ching-kuo was forced to stay there, as a hostage, until 1937. Chiang wrote in his diary, "It is not worth it to sacrifice the interest of the country for the sake of my son."[9][10] Chiang even refused to negotiate a prisoner swap for his son in exchange for the Chinese Communist Party leader.[11] His attitude remained consistent, and he continued to maintain, by 1937, that "I would rather have no offspring than sacrifice our nation's interests." Chiang had absolutely no intention of ceasing the war against the Communists.[12]
Chiang Kai-shek returned to Guangzhou and in 1924 was appointed Commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy by Sun. Chiang resigned from the office for one month in disagreement with Sun's extremely close cooperation with the Comintern, but returned at Sun's demand. The early years at Whampoa allowed Chiang to cultivate a cadre of young officers loyal to both the KMT and himself.
Throughout his rise to power, Chiang also benefited from membership within the nationalist Tiandihui fraternity, to which Sun Yat-sen also belonged, and which remained a source of support during his leadership of the Kuomintang.
Succession of Sun Yat-sen
This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2013) |
Competition with Wang Jingwei
Sun Yat-sen died on March 12, 1925,[13] creating a power vacuum in the Kuomintang. A contest ensued between Chiang, who stood at the right wing of the KMT, and Sun Yat-sen's close comrade-in-arms Wang Jingwei, who leaned towards the left. Although Wang succeeded Sun as Chairman of the National Government, Chiang's relatively low position in the party's internal hierarchy was bolstered by his military backing and adept political maneuvering following the Zhongshan Warship Incident. On June 5, 1926, Chiang became Commander-in-Chief of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA),[14] and on July 27 he launched a military campaign known as the Northern Expedition in order to defeat the warlords controlling northern China and to unify the country under the KMT.
The NRA branched into three divisions: to the west was Wang Jingwei, who led a column to take Wuhan; Bai Chongxi's column went east to take Shanghai; Chiang himself led in the middle route, planning to take Nanjing before pressing ahead to capture Beijing. However, in January 1927, Wang Jingwei and his KMT leftist allies took the city of Wuhan amid much popular mobilization and fanfare. Allied with a number of Chinese Communists and advised by Soviet agent Mikhail Borodin, Wang declared the National Government as having moved to Wuhan. Having taken Nanjing in March (and briefly visited Shanghai, now under the control of his close ally Bai Chongxi), Chiang halted his campaign and prepared a violent break with Wang's leftist elements, which he believed threatened his control of the KMT.
Now with an established national government in Nanjing, and supported by conservative allies including Hu Hanmin, Chiang's expulsion of the Communists and their Soviet advisers led to the beginning of the Chinese Civil War. Wang Jingwei's National Government was weak militarily, and was soon ended by Chiang with the support of a local warlord (Li Zongren of Guangxi). Eventually, Wang and his leftist party surrendered to Chiang and joined him in Nanjing. In the Central Plains War, Beijing was taken on June, 1928, from an alliance of the warlords Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan. In December, the Manchurian warlord Zhang Xueliang pledged allegiance to Chiang's government, completing Chiang's nominal unification of China and ending the Warlord Era.
In 1927, when he was setting up the Nationalist government in Nanjing, he was preoccupied with "the elevation of our leader Dr. Sun Yat-sen to the rank of 'Father of our Chinese Republic'. Dr. Sun worked for 40 years to lead our people in the Nationalist cause, and we cannot allow any other personality to usurp this honored position". He asked Chen Guofu to purchase a photograph that had been taken in Japan around 1895 or 1898. It showed members of the Revive China Society with Yeung Kui-wan (楊衢雲 or 杨衢云, pinyin Yáng Qúyún) as President, in the place of honour, and Sun, as secretary, on the back row, along with members of the Japanese Chapter of the Revive China Society. When told that it was not for sale, Chiang offered a million dollars to recover the photo and its negative. "The party must have this picture and the negative at any price. They must be destroyed as soon as possible. It would be embarrassing to have our Father of the Chinese Republic shown in a subordinate position".[15] Chiang never obtained either the photo or its negative.
Chiang made great efforts to gain recognition as the official successor of Sun Yat-sen. In a pairing of great political significance, Chiang was Sun's brother-in-law: he had married Soong May-ling, the younger sister of Soong Ching-ling, Sun's widow, on December 1, 1927. Originally rebuffed in the early 1920s, Chiang managed to ingratiate himself to some degree with Soong May-ling's mother by first divorcing his wife and concubines and promising to sincerely study the precepts of Christianity. He read the copy of the Bible that May-ling had given him twice before making up his mind to become a Christian, and three years after his marriage he was baptized in the Soong's Methodist church. Although some observers felt that he adopted Christianity as a political move, studies of his recently opened diaries suggest that his faith was strong and sincere and that he felt that Christianity reinforced Confucian moral teachings.[16]
Upon reaching Beijing, Chiang paid homage to Sun Yat-sen and had his body moved to the new capital of Nanjing to be enshrined in a grand mausoleum.
Rising power
In the West and in the Soviet Union, Chiang Kai-shek was known as the "Red General".[2] Movie theaters in the Soviet Union showed newsreels and clips of Chiang. At Moscow, Sun Yat-sen University portraits of Chiang were hung on the walls; and, in the Soviet May Day Parades that year, Chiang's portrait was to be carried along with the portraits of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and other socialist leaders.[17] The United States consulate and other Westerners in Shanghai were concerned about the approach of "Red General" Chiang as his army was seizing control of large areas of the country in the Northern Expedition.[18][19] The Western powers backed the Zhili Clique, and were concerned about either the Soviet-backed Kuomintang or the Japanese-backed Fengtian Clique seizing control of China. The Japanese were also concerned that Chiang might defeat the Fengtian Clique.
On April 12, Chiang carried out a purge of thousands of suspected Communists and dissidents in Shanghai, and began large-scale massacres across the country collectively known as the "White Terror". Throughout April 1927, more than 12,000 people were killed in Shanghai. The killings drove most Communists from urban cities and into the rural countryside, where the KMT was less powerful.[20] In the year after April 1927, over 300,000 people died across China in anti-Communist suppression campaigns executed by the KMT.[21] More liberal estimates regarding the White Terror in China estimate it took millions of lives, most of them in the rural areas.[22] Chiang allowed for the "escape" of Soviet agent and advisor Mikhail Borodin and Soviet military officer Vasily Blücher (Galens) to safety after the purge.[23]
Tutelage of China
This section needs additional citations for verification. (October 2012) |
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Tsuyoshi_Inukai_with_Mitsuru_Toyama_and_Chiang_Kai-shek_cropped.jpg/220px-Tsuyoshi_Inukai_with_Mitsuru_Toyama_and_Chiang_Kai-shek_cropped.jpg)
Carrying out Sun Yat-sen's will
Having gained control of China, Chiang's party remained surrounded by "surrendered" warlords who remained relatively autonomous within their own regions. On October 10, 1928, Chiang was named director of the State Council, the equivalent to President of the country, in addition to his other titles.[24] As with his predecessor Sun Yat-sen, the Western media dubbed him "Generalissimo".[14]
According to Sun Yat-sen's plans, the Kuomintang (KMT) was to rebuild China in three steps: military rule, political tutelage, and constitutional rule. The ultimate goal of the KMT revolution was democracy, which was not considered to be feasible in China's fragmented state. Since the KMT had completed the first step of revolution through seizure of power in 1928, Chiang's rule thus began a period of what his party considered to be "political tutelage" in Sun Yat-sen's name. During this so-called Republican Era, many features of a modern, functional Chinese state emerged and developed.
The decade of 1928 to 1937 saw some aspects of foreign imperialism, concessions and privileges in China, moderated through diplomacy. The government acted to modernize the legal and penal systems, attempted to 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. Not all of these projects were successfully completed. Efforts were made towards improving education standards; and, in an effort to unify Chinese society, the New Life Movement was launched to encourage Confucian moral values and personal discipline. Guoyu ("National language"), was promoted as a standard tongue, and the establishment of communications facilities (including radio) were used to encourage a sense of Chinese nationalism in a way that was not possible when the nation lacked an effective central government.
Challenges and limitations
Any successes that the Nationalists did make, however, were met with constant political and military upheavals. While much of the urban areas were now under the control of the KMT, much of the countryside remained under the influence of weakened yet undefeated warlords and Communists. Chiang often resolved issues of warlord obstinacy through military action, but such action was costly in terms of men and material. The 1930 Central Plains War alone nearly bankrupted the Nationalist government and caused almost 250,000 casualties on both sides. In 1931, Hu Hanmin, Chiang's old supporter, publicly voiced a popular concern that Chiang's position as both premier and president flew in the face of the democratic ideals of the Nationalist government. Chiang had Hu put under house arrest, but he was released after national condemnation after which he left Nanjing and supported a rival government in Guangzhou. The split resulted in a military conflict between Hu's Guangzhou government and Chiang's Nationalist government. Chiang only won the campaign against Hu after a shift in allegiance by the warlord Zhang Xueliang, who had previously supported Hu Hanmin.
Throughout his rule, complete eradication of the Communists remained Chiang's dream. After assembling his forces in Jiangxi, Chiang led his armies against the newly established Chinese Soviet Republic. With help from foreign military advisers, Chiang's Fifth Campaign finally surrounded the Chinese Red Army in 1934. The Communists, tipped off that a Nationalist offensive was imminent, retreated in the Long March, during which Mao Zedong rose from a mere military official to the most influential leader of the Communist Party of China.
Ideology: nationalism, anti-capitalism, and anti-communism
Chiang, as a nationalist and a Confucianist, was against the iconoclasm of the May Fourth Movement. Motivated by his sense of nationalism, he viewed some Western ideas as foreign, and he believed that the great introduction of Western ideas and literature that the May Fourth Movement promoted was not beneficial to China. He and Dr. Sun criticized the May Fourth intellectuals as corrupting the morals of China's youth.[25]
Contrary to Communist propaganda that Chiang was pro-capitalism, Chiang Kai-shek antagonized the capitalists of Shanghai, often attacking them and confisticating their capital and assets for the use of the government. Chiang confiscated the wealth of capitalists even while he denounced and fought against communists.[26] Chiang crushed pro-communist worker and peasant organizations and rich Shanghai capitalists at the same time. Chiang continued Dr. Sun Yat-sen's anti capitalist ideology, directing Kuomintang media to openly attack capitalists and capitalism, demanding government controlled industry instead.[27]
Chiang has often been interpreted as being pro-capitalist, but this conclusion may be problematic. Shanghai capitalists did briefly support him out of fear of communism in 1927, but this support eroded in 1928 when Chiang turned his tactics of intimidation on them. The relationship between Chiang Kai-shek and Chinese capitalists remained poor throughout the period of his administration.[28] Chiang blocked Chinese capitalists from gaining any political power or voice within his regime. Once Chiang Kai-shek was done with his White Terror on pro-communist laborers, he proceeded to turn on the capitalists. Gangster connections allowed Chiang to attack them in the International Settlement, successfully forcing capitalists to back him up with their assets for his military expeditions.[28]
Views on Imperialism
Chiang viewed Japan, America, the Soviet Union, France, and Britain as all being imperialists with nobody elses' interests in mind but their own, seeing them as hypocritical to condemn each other for imperialism which they all practiced.[29][30] He manipulated America, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union to regain lost territories for China as he viewed all the powers as imperialists trying to curtail and supress China's power and national resurrection.[31]
Wartime leader of China
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/Chiang_Kai-shek_on_right_Ma_Buqing_on_left_Ma_Bufang_second_from_left.png/220px-Chiang_Kai-shek_on_right_Ma_Buqing_on_left_Ma_Bufang_second_from_left.png)
This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2013) |
Chinese Civil War: 1927–1937
In Nanjing on April 1931 Chiang Kai-shek attended a national leadership conference with Zhang Xueliang and Muslim General Ma Fuxiang, in which Chiang and Zhang dauntlessly upheld that Manchuria was part of China in the face of the Japanese invasion.[32] After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Chiang resigned as Chairman of the National Government. He returned shortly afterwards, adopting the slogan "first internal pacification, then external resistance". However, this policy of avoiding a frontal war against the Japanese was widely unpopular. In 1932, while Chiang was seeking first to defeat the Communists, Japan launched an advance on Shanghai and bombarded Nanjing. This disrupted Chiang's offensives against the Communists for a time, although it was the northern factions of Hu Hanmin's Guangzhou (Canton) government (notably the 19th Route Army) that primarily led the offensive against the Japanese during this skirmish. Brought into the Nationalist army immediately after the battle, the 19th Route Army's career under Chiang would be cut short after it was disbanded for demonstrating socialist tendencies.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/Chiang_Kai-shek_TIME_Cover_1933.jpg/220px-Chiang_Kai-shek_TIME_Cover_1933.jpg)
In December 1936, Chiang flew to Xi'an to coordinate a major assault on the Red Army and the Communist Republic that had retreated into Yan'an. However, Chiang's allied commander Zhang Xueliang, whose forces were used in his attack and whose homeland of Manchuria had been recently invaded by the Japanese, did not support the attack on the Communists. On December 12, Zhang and several other Nationalist generals kidnapped Chiang 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. After releasing Chiang and returning to Nanjing with him, Zhang was placed under house arrest and the generals who had assisted him were executed. Chiang's commitment to the Second United Front was nominal at best, and it was all but broken up in 1941.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/Chiang_Kai_Shek_and_wife_with_Lieutenant_General_Stilwell.jpg/220px-Chiang_Kai_Shek_and_wife_with_Lieutenant_General_Stilwell.jpg)
Second Sino-Japanese War: 1937–1945
The Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in July 1937, and in August of that year Chiang sent 600,000 of his best-trained and equipped soldiers to defend Shanghai. With over 200,000 Chinese casualties, Chiang lost the political cream of his Whampoa-trained officers. Though Chiang lost militarily, the battle dispelled Japanese claims that it could conquer China in three months and demonstrated to the Western powers that the Chinese would continue the fight. By December, the capital city of Nanjing had fallen to the Japanese resulting in the Rape of Nanking. Chiang moved the government inland, first to Wuhan and later to Chongqing. Having lost most of China's economic and industrial centers, Chiang withdrew into the hinterlands, stretching the Japanese supply lines and bogging down Japanese soldiers in the vast Chinese interior. As part of a policy of protracted resistance, Chiang authorized the use of scorched earth tactics, resulting in many civilian deaths. During the Nationalists' retreat from Nanjing, the dams around the city were deliberately destroyed by the Nationalist army in order to delay the Japanese advance, killing 500,000 people in the subsequent 1938 Yellow River flood.
After heavy fighting, the Japanese occupied Wuhan in the fall of 1938 and the Nationalists retreated farther inland, to Chongqing. While en route to Chongqing, the Nationalist army intentionally started the "fire of Changsha", as a part of the scorched earth policy. The fire destroyed much of the city, killed twenty thousand civilians, and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. Due to an organizational error (it was claimed), the fire was begun without any warning to the residents of the city. The Nationalists eventually blamed three local commanders for the fire and executed them. Newspapers across China blamed the fire on (non-KMT) arsonists, but the blaze contributed to a nation-wide loss of support for the KMT.[33]
In 1939 Muslim leaders Isa Yusuf Alptekin and Ma Fuliang were sent by Chiang to several Middle eastern countries, including Egypt, Turkey, and Syria, to gain support for the Chinese War against Japan, and to express his support for Muslims.[34]
The Japanese, controlling the puppet-state of Manchukuo and much of China's eastern seaboard, appointed Wang Jingwei as a Quisling-ruler of the occupied Chinese territories around Nanjing. Wang named himself President of the Executive Yuan and Chairman of the National Government (not the same 'National Government' as Chiang's), and led a surprisingly large[quantify] minority of anti-Chiang/anti-Communist Chinese against his old comrades. He died in 1944, within a year of the end of World War II.
In 1942 Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek personally went on tour in northwestern China in Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, and Qinghai, where he met both Muslim Generals Ma Buqing and Ma Bufang.[35] He also met the Muslim Generals Ma Hongbin and Ma Hongkui separately.
A border crisis erupted with Tibet in 1942. Under orders from Chiang Kai-shek, Ma Bufang repaired Yushu airport to prevent Tibetan separatists from seeking independence.[citation needed] Chiang also ordered Ma Bufang to put his Muslim soldiers on alert for an invasion of Tibet in 1942.[36][37] Ma Bufang complied and moved several thousand troops to the border with Tibet.[38] Chiang also threatened the Tibetans with aerial bombardment if they worked with the Japanese. Ma Bufang attacked the Tibetan Buddhist Tsang monastery in 1941.[39] He also constantly attacked the Labrang monastery.[40]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Cairo_conference.jpg/220px-Cairo_conference.jpg)
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, known in the United States as "Madame Chiang", held the 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 in the China war zone. He was created a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath by King George VI of the United Kingdom in 1942.[41]
General Joseph Stilwell, an American military adviser to Chiang during World War II, strongly criticized Chiang and his generals for what he saw as their incompetence and corruption.[42] In 1944, the United States Army Air Corps commenced Operation Matterhorn in order to bomb Japan's steel industry from bases to be constructed in mainland China. This was meant to fulfill President Roosevelt's promise to Chiang Kai-shek to begin bombing operations against Japan by November 1944. However, Chiang Kai-shek's subordinates refused to take airbase construction seriously until enough capital had been delivered to permit embezzlement on a massive scale. Stilwell estimated that at least half of the $100 million spent on construction of airbases was embezzled by Nationalist party officials.[43]
Relationship with the United States
Chiang did not like the Americans and was suspicious of their motives.[44] When he suspected that the American Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA) was showing an interest in seizing control of Chiang's regime, Chiang ordered the plotters arrested and executed.[45] Chiang felt no friendship towards the United States, and viewed it as pursuing imperialist motives in China. Chiang did not want to be subordinate to either the United States or the Soviet Union but jockeyed for room between the two and wanted to get the most out of the Soviet Union and the Americans without taking sides.[46] He predicted that war would come between the two and that they would both seek China's alliance, which he would use to China's advantage. Abusive incidents followed a drunk American general making comments about Chiang's regime, and a low point in Sino-American relations followed the rape of a Chinese university student by American marines shortly after World War II.[46] American officials, notably Stilwell, found Chiang to be incompetent and corrupt.
Chiang also differed from the Americans in ideological issues. He organized the Kuomintang as a Leninist-style party, oppressed dissension, and banned democracy.[47] By the end of World War II, Chiang had come to believe that democracy was impossible for China to achieve.[48]
Chiang played off the Soviets and Americans against each other during the war. He first told the Americans that they would be welcome in talks between the Soviet Union and China then secretly told the Soviets that the Americans were unimportant and that their opinions would not be considered. Chiang also used American support and military power in China against the ambitions of the Soviet Union to dominate the talks, stopping the Soviets from taking full advantage of the situation in China with the threat of American military action against the Soviets.[49]
Refusal of French Indochina
Franklin D. Roosevelt, through General Stilwell, privately made it clear that they preferred that the French not reacquire French Indochina (modern day Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) after the war was over. Roosevelt offered Chiang control of all of Indochina. It was said that Chiang replied: "Under no circumstances!"[50]
After the war, 200,000 Chinese troops under General Lu Han were sent by Chiang Kai-shek to northern Indochina (north of the 16th parallel) to accept the surrender of Japanese occupying forces there, and remained in Indochina until 1946, when the French returned.[51] The Chinese used the VNQDD, the Vietnamese branch of the Chinese Kuomintang, to increase their influence in Indochina and to put pressure on their opponents.[52] Chiang Kai-shek threatened the French with war in response to maneuvering by the French and Ho Chi Minh's forces against each other, forcing them to come to a peace agreement. In February 1946 he also forced the French to surrender all of their concessions in China and to renounce their extraterritorial privileges in exchange for the Chinese withdrawing from northern Indochina and allowing French troops to reoccupy the region. Following France's agreement to these demands, the withdrawal of Chinese troops began in March 1946.[53][54][55][56]
Ryukyus
During the Cairo Conference in 1943, Roosevelt asked Chiang whether China would like to claim the Ryukyu Islands from Japan in addition to retaking Taiwan, the Pescadores and Manchuria. Chiang said he was in favor of an international presence on the islands.[57] However, the U.S. became the sole protector of the Ryukyus in 1945 and reverted control to the Japanese in 1972.
Losing Mainland China
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Chiang_Kai-shek%2C_Li_Zongren_and_XGOA_microphone_19480520.jpg/220px-Chiang_Kai-shek%2C_Li_Zongren_and_XGOA_microphone_19480520.jpg)
This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2013) |
Treatment and use of Japanese soldiers
In 1945, when Japan surrendered, Chiang's Chongqing government was ill-equipped and ill-prepared to reassert its authority in formerly Japanese-occupied China, and asked the Japanese to postpone their surrender until Kuomintang (KMT) authority could arrive to take over. This was an unpopular move among a population that, for many, had spent more than a decade under often brutal foreign occupation. American troops and weapons soon bolstered KMT forces, allowing them to reclaim cities. The countryside, however, remained largely under Communist control.
For over a year after the Japanese surrender, rumours circulated throughout China that the Japanese had entered into a secret agreement with Chiang, in which the Japanese would assist the Nationalists in fighting the Communists in exchange for the protection of Japanese persons and property there. Many top nationalist generals, including Chiang, had studied and trained in Japan before the Nationalists had returned to the mainland in the 1920s, and maintained close personal friendships with top Japanese officers. The Japanese general in charge of all forces in China, General Okamura, had personally trained officers who later became generals in Chiang's staff. Reportedly, General Okamura, before surrendering command of all Japanese military forces in Nanjing, offered Chiang control of all 1.5 million Japanese military and civilian support staff then present in China. Reportedly, Chiang seriously considered accepting this offer, but declined only in the knowledge that the United States would certainly be outraged by the gesture. Even so, armed Japanese troops remained in China well into 1947, with some noncommissioned officers finding their way into the Nationalist officer corps.[58] That the Japanese in China came to regard Chiang as a magnanimous figure to whom many Japanese owed their lives and livelihoods was a fact attested by both Nationalist and Communist sources.[59]
Conditions during the Chinese Civil War
Following the war, the United States encouraged peace talks between Chiang and Communist leader Mao Zedong in Chongqing. Due to concerns about widespread and well-documented corruption in Chiang's government throughout his rule, the U.S. government limited aid to Chiang for much of the period of 1946 to 1948, in the midst of fighting against the People's Liberation Army led by Mao Zedong. Alleged infiltration of the U.S. government by Chinese Communist agents may have also played a role in the suspension of American aid.[60]
Chiang's right-hand man, the secret police Chief Dai Li, was both anti-American and anti-Communist.[61] Dai ordered Kuomintang agents to spy on American officers.[62] Earlier, Dai had been involved with the Blue Shirts Society, a fascist-inspired paramilitary group within the Kuomintang, which wanted to expel Western and Japanese imperialists, crush the Communists, and eliminate feudalism.[63] Dai Li died in a plane crash, which was suspected to be an assassination orchestrated by Chiang.[64]
Though Chiang had achieved status abroad as a world leader, his government deteriorated as the result of corruption and inflation. In his diary on June 1948, Chiang wrote that the KMT had failed, not because of external enemies but because of rot from within.[65] The war had severely weakened the Nationalists, while the Communists were strengthened by their popular land-reform policies,[66] and by a rural population that supported and trusted them. The Nationalists initially had superiority in arms and men, but their lack of popularity, infiltration by Communist agents, low morale, and disorganization soon allowed the Communists to gain the upper hand in the civil war.
Competition with Li Zongren
A new Constitution was promulgated in 1947, and Chiang was formally elected by the National Assembly as the first term President of the Republic of China on May 20, 1948. This marked the beginning of what was termed the "democratic constitutional government" period by the KMT political orthodoxy, but the Communists refused to recognize the new Constitution, and its government, as legitimate. Chiang resigned as President on January 21, 1949, as KMT forces suffered bitter losses and defections to the Communists. After Chiang's resignation the vice-president of the ROC, Li Zongren, became China's president.
Shortly after Chiang's resignation the Communists halted their advances and attempted to negotiate the virtual surrender of the ROC. Li attempted to negotiate milder terms that would have ended the civil war, but without success. When it became clear that Li was unlikely to accept Mao's terms, the Communists issued an ultimatum in April 1949, warning that they would resume their attacks if Li did not agree within five days. Li refused.[67]
Li's attempts to carry out his policies faced varying degrees of opposition from Chiang's supporters, and were generally unsuccessful. Chiang especially antagonized Li by taking possession of (and moving to Taiwan) US$200 million of gold and US dollars belonging to the central government that Li desperately needed to cover the government's soaring expenses. When the Communists captured the Nationalist capital of Nanjing in April 1949, Li refused to accompany the central government as it fled to Guangdong, instead expressing his dissatisfaction with Chiang by retiring to Guangxi.[68]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Lizhongren2.jpg)
The former warlord Yan Xishan, who had fled to Nanjing only one month before, quickly insinuated himself within the Li-Chiang rivalry, attempting to have Li and Chiang reconcile their differences in the effort to resist the Communists. At Chiang's request Yan visited Li in order to convince Li not to withdraw from public life. Yan broke down in tears while talking of the loss of his home province of Shanxi to the Communists, and warned Li that the Nationalist cause was doomed unless Li went to Guangzhou. Li agreed to return under the condition that Chiang surrender most of the gold and US dollars in his possession that belonged to the central government, and that Chiang stop overriding Li's authority. After Yan communicated these demands and Chiang agreed to comply with them, Li departed for Guangdong.[68]
In Guangdong, Li attempted to create a new government composed of both Chiang supporters and those opposed to Chiang. Li's first choice of premier was Chu Cheng, a veteran member of the Kuomintang who had been virtually driven into exile due to his strong opposition to Chiang. After the Legislative Yuan rejected Chu, Li was obliged to choose Yan Xishan instead. By this time Yan was well known for his adaptability, and Chiang welcomed his appointment.[68]
Conflict between Chiang and Li persisted. Although he had agreed to do so as a prerequisite of Li's return, Chiang refused to surrender more than a fraction of the wealth that he had sent to Taiwan. Without being backed by gold or foreign currency, the money issued by Li and Yan quickly declined in value until it became virtually worthless.[69]
Although he did not hold a formal executive position in the government, Chiang continued to issue orders to the army, and many officers continued to obey Chiang rather than Li. The inability of Li to coordinate KMT military forces led him to put into effect a plan of defense that he had contemplated in 1948. Instead of attempting to defend all of southern China, Li ordered what remained of the Nationalist armies to withdraw to Guangxi and Guangdong, hoping that he could concentrate all available defenses on this smaller, and more easily defensible, area. The object of Li's strategy was to maintain a foothold on the Chinese mainland in the hope that the United States would eventually be compelled to enter the war in China on the Nationalist side.[69]
Final Communist advance
Chiang opposed Li's plan of defense because it would have placed most of the troops still loyal to Chiang under the control of Li and Chiang's other opponents in the central government. To overcome Chiang's intransigence Li began ousting Chiang's supporters within the central government. Yan Xishan continued in his attempts to work with both sides, creating the impression among Li's supporters that he was a "stooge" of Chiang, while those who supported Chiang began to bitterly resent Yan for his willingness to work with Li. Because of the rivalry between Chiang and Li, Chiang refused to allow Nationalist troops loyal to him to aid in the defense of Guangxi and Guangdong, with the result that Communist forces occupied Guangdong in October 1949.[70]
After Guangdong fell to the Communists, Chiang relocated the government to Chongqing, while Li effectively surrendered his powers and flew to New York for treatment of his chronic duodenum illness at the Hospital of Columbia University. Li visited the President of the United States, Harry S. Truman, and denounced Chiang as a dictator and an usurper. Li vowed that he would "return to crush" Chiang once he returned to China. Li remained in exile, and did not return to Taiwan.[71]
In the early morning of December 10, 1949, Communist troops laid siege to Chengdu, the last KMT controlled city in mainland China, where Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo directed the defense at the Chengdu Central Military Academy. Chiang Kai-shek, father and son, sang the Republic of China National Anthem while leaving the Academy all the way to the airfield.[citation needed] The aircraft May-ling evacuated them to Taiwan on the same day. Chiang Kai-shek would never return to the mainland.
Chiang did not formally re-assume the presidency until March 1, 1950. On January 1952, Chiang commanded the Control Yuan, now in Taiwan, to impeach Li in the "Case of Li Zongren's Failure to carry out Duties due to Illegal Conduct" (李宗仁違法失職案). Chiang officially relieved Li of the position as vice-president in the National Assembly on March 1954.
Presidency in Taiwan: 1950–1975
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/DoubleTenDayParadeOctober101966.jpg/250px-DoubleTenDayParadeOctober101966.jpg)
This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2013) |
Preparations to retake the mainland
Chiang moved the government to Taipei, Taiwan, where he formally resumed duties as President of the Republic of China on March 1, 1950.[72] Chiang was reelected by the National Assembly to be the President of the Republic of China (ROC) on May 20, 1954, and again in 1960, 1966, and 1972. He continued to claim sovereignty over all of China, including the territories held by his government and the People's Republic, as well as territory the latter ceded to foreign governments, such as Tuva and Outer Mongolia. In the context of the Cold War, most of the Western world recognized this position and the ROC represented China in the United Nations and other international organizations until the 1970s.
During his presidency in Taiwan, Chiang continued to prepare to take back mainland China. He developed the ROC army to prepare for an invasion of the mainland, and to defend Taiwan in case of an attack by the Communist forces. He also financed armed groups in mainland China, such as Muslim soldiers of the ROC Army left in Yunnan under Li Mi, to continue to fight. It was only in the 1980s that these troops were airlifted to Taiwan.[73] He promoted the Uyghur Yulbars Khan to Governor during the Kuomintang Islamic Insurgency in China (1950–1958) for resisting the Communists, even though the government had already evacuated to Taiwan.[74] He planned an invasion of the mainland in 1962.[75] In the 1950s Chiang's airplanes dropped supplies to Kuomintang Muslim insurgents in Amdo.[76]
Dictatorships
Despite the democratic constitution, the government under Chiang was a one-party state, consisting almost completely of mainlanders; the "Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion" greatly enhanced executive powers, and the goal of retaking mainland China allowed the KMT to maintain a monopoly on power and the prohibition of 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 Kuomintang (KMT) were still in a state of war. Seeking to promote Chinese nationalism, Chiang's government actively ignored and suppressed local cultural expression, even forbidding the use of local languages in mass media broadcasts or during class sessions.
The first decades after the Nationalists moved the seat of government to the province of Taiwan are associated with the organized effort to resist Communism known as the "White Terror", during which about 140,000 Taiwanese were imprisoned for their real or perceived opposition to the Kuomintang. Most of those prosecuted were labeled by the Kuomintang as "bandit spies" (匪諜), meaning spies for Chinese Communists, and punished as such.
Under Chiang, the government recognized limited civil and economic freedoms, property rights (personal[citation needed] and intellectual) and other liberties. Despite these restrictions, free debate within the confines of the legislature was permitted. Under the pretext that new elections could not be held in Communist-occupied constituencies, the National Assembly, Legislative Yuan, and Control Yuan members held their posts indefinitely. The Temporary Provisions also allowed Chiang to remain as president beyond the two-term limit in the Constitution. He was reelected by the National Assembly as president four times—doing so in 1954, 1960, 1966, and 1972.
Believing that corruption and a lack of morals were key reasons that the KMT lost mainland China to the Communists, Chiang attempted to purge corruption by dismissing members of the KMT accused of graft. Some major figures in the previous mainland China government, such as H. H. Kung and T. V. Soong, exiled themselves to the United States. Though politically authoritarian and, to some extent, dominated by government-owned industries, Chiang's new Taiwanese state also 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 Four Asian Tigers.
After Chiang's death, the next president, Chiang's son, Chiang Ching-kuo, and Chiang Ching-kuo's successor, Lee Teng-hui a native Taiwanese, would, in the 1980s and 1990s, increase native Taiwanese representation in the government and loosen the many authoritarian controls of the early era of ROC control in Taiwan.
Relationships with foreign governments
Japan
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Chiang_Kai-shek_memorial_amk.jpg/300px-Chiang_Kai-shek_memorial_amk.jpg)
In 1971, shortly after he had switched his country's diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China, the Australian Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, visited Japan. After meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister, Eisaku Sato, Whitlam observed that the reason Japan at that time was hesitant to withdraw recognition from the Nationalist government was "the presence of a treaty between the Japanese government and that of Chiang Kai-shek". Sato explained that the continued recognition of Japan towards the Nationalist government was due largely to the personal relationship that various members of the Japanese government felt towards Chiang. This relationship was rooted largely in the generous and lenient treatment of Japanese prisoners-of-war by the Nationalist government in the years immediately following the Japanese surrender in 1945, and was felt especially strongly as a bond of personal obligation by the most senior members then in power.[77]
Although Japan eventually recognized the People's Republic in 1972, shortly after Kakuei Tanaka succeeded Sato as Prime Minister of Japan, the memory of this relationship was strong enough to be reported by The New York Times (April 15, 1978) as a significant factor inhibiting trade between Japan and the mainland. There is speculation that a clash between Communist forces and a Japanese warship in 1978 was caused by Chinese anger after Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda attended Chiang's funeral. Historically, Japanese attempts to normalize their relationship with the People's Republic were met with accusations of ingratitude in Taiwan.[77]
United States
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Eisenhower_visits_Taiwan_%28June_1960%29.jpg/250px-Eisenhower_visits_Taiwan_%28June_1960%29.jpg)
Chiang was suspicious that covert operatives of the United States plotted a coup against him. In 1950, Chiang Ching-kuo became director of the secret police (Bureau of Investigation and Statistics), which he remained until 1965. Chiang was suspicious of politicians who were overly friendly to the United States, and considered them his enemies. In 1953, seven days after surviving an assassination attempt, Wu Kuo-chen lost his position as governor of Taiwan Province to Chiang Ching-kuo. After fleeing to United States the same year, he became a vocal critic of Chiang's family and government.[78]
Chiang Ching-kuo, educated in the Soviet Union, initiated Soviet-style military organization in the Republic of China Military. He reorganized and Sovietized the political officer corps, and propagated Kuomintang ideology throughout the military. Sun Li-jen, who was educated at the American Virginia Military Institute, was opposed to this.[79]
Chiang Ching-kuo orchestrated the controversial court-martial and arrest of General Sun Li-jen in August 1955, for plotting a coup d'état with the American CIA against his father Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang. The CIA allegedly wanted to help Sun take control of Taiwan and declare its independence.[78][80]
Death
This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2013) |
In 1975, 26 years after Chiang came 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.
A month of mourning was declared. Chinese music composer Hwang Yau-tai wrote the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Song. In mainland China, 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 body was put in a copper coffin and temporarily interred at his favorite residence in Cihu, Dasi, Taoyuan. When his son Chiang Ching-kuo died in 1988, he was 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 it was possible. In 2004, Chiang Fang-liang, the widow of Chiang Ching-kuo, asked that both father and son be buried at Wuzhi Mountain Military Cemetery in Xizhi, Taipei County (now New Taipei City). Chiang's ultimate funeral ceremony became a political battle between the wishes of the state and the wishes of his family.
Chiang was succeeded as President by Vice President Yen Chia-kan and as Kuomintang 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's presidency was interim; Chiang Ching-kuo, who was the Premier, became President after Yen's term ended three years later.
Cult of personality
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5f/Chiang_KaiShek_Portrait_Tiananmen_Beijing.jpg/300px-Chiang_KaiShek_Portrait_Tiananmen_Beijing.jpg)
![]() | This section's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. (November 2013) |
Chiang's portrait hung over the gate of the Forbidden City before Mao's portrait was set up in its place.[81] People also put portraits of Chiang in their homes and in public on the streets.[82][83][84] Until recently, it was a widespread practice for Taiwanese people to hang portraits of Chiang in their homes.
Chiang was popular among many people and dressed in plain, simple clothes, unlike contemporary Chinese warlords who dressed extravagantly.[85]
Quotes from the Quran and Hadith were used by Muslims in the Kuomintang-controlled Muslim publication, the Yuehua, to justify Chiang Kai-shek's rule over China.[86]
When the Muslim General and Warlord Ma Lin was interviewed, Ma Lin was described as having "high admiration and unwavering loyalty to Chiang Kai-shek".[87]
Philosophy
![]() | This section's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. (November 2013) |
The Kuomintang used traditional Chinese religious ceremonies, and promoted Martyrdom in Chinese culture. Kuomintang ideology promoted the view that the souls of Party martyrs who died fighting for the Kuomintang, the revolution, and the party founder Dr. Sun Yatsen were sent to heaven. Chiang Kai-shek believed that these martyrs witnessed events on earth from heaven.[88][89][90][91]
When the Northern Expedition was complete, Kuomintang Generals led by Chiang Kai-shek paid tribute to Dr. Sun's soul in heaven with a sacrificial ceremony at the Xiangshan Temple in Beijing in July 1928. Among the Kuomintang Generals present were the Muslim Generals Bai Chongxi and Ma Fuxiang.[92]
Chiang Kai-shek considered both the Han Chinese and all the minority peoples of China, the Five Races Under One Union, as descendants of Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor and semi mythical founder of the Chinese nation, and belonging to the Chinese Nation Zhonghua Minzu and he introduced this into Kuomintang ideology, which was propagated into the educational system of the Republic of China.[93][94][95]
Contemporary public perception
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Chiang_Kai-shek%2C_Yangmingshan_02.jpg/250px-Chiang_Kai-shek%2C_Yangmingshan_02.jpg)
This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2013) |
Chiang's legacy has been the target of heated debates because of the different views held about him. For some, Chiang was a national hero who led the victorious Northern Expedition against the Beiyang Warlords in 1927, achieving Chinese unification, and who subsequently led China to ultimate victory against Japan in 1945. Some blamed him for not doing enough against the Japanese forces in the lead-up to, and during, the Second Sino-Japanese War, preferring to withhold his armies for the fight against the Communists, or merely waiting and hoping that the United States would get involved. Some also see him as a champion of anti-Communism, being 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 presided over purges, political authoritarianism, and graft during his tenure in mainland China, and ruled throughout a period of imposed martial law. His governments were accused of being corrupt even before he even took power in 1928. He also allied with known criminals like Du Yuesheng for political and financial gains. Some opponents charge that Chiang's efforts in developing Taiwan were mostly to make the island a strong base from which to one day return to mainland China, and that Chiang had little regard for the long-term prosperity and well-being of the Taiwanese people.
Today, Chiang's popularity in Taiwan is divided along political lines, enjoying greater support among Kuomintang supporters. He is generally unpopular among Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) voters and supporters. In sharp contrast to his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, and to Sun Yat-sen, his memory is rarely invoked by current political parties, including the Kuomintang.
In the United States and Europe, Chiang was often perceived negatively as the one who lost China to the Communists. His constant demands for Western support and funding also earned him the nickname of "General Cash-My-Check". In the West he has been criticized for his poor military skills. He had a record of issuing unrealistic orders and persistently attempting to fight unwinnable battles, leading to the loss of his best troops.[96]
In recent years, there has been an attempt to find a more moderate interpretation of Chiang. Chiang is now increasingly perceived as a man simply overwhelmed by the events in China, having to fight simultaneously Communists, Japanese and provincial warlords while having to reconstruct and unify the country. His sincere, albeit often unsuccessful attempts to build a more powerful nation have been noted by scholars such as Jonathan Fenby and Rana Mitter. Mitter has observed that, ironically, today's China is closer to Chiang's vision than to Mao Zedong's. He argues that the Communists, since the 1980s, have essentially created the state envisioned by Chiang in the 1930s. Mitter concludes by writing that "one can imagine Chiang Kai-shek's ghost wandering round China today nodding in approval, while Mao's ghost follows behind him, moaning at the destruction of his vision".[97] Liang Shuming opined that Chiang Kai-shek's "greatest contribution was to make the CCP successful. If he had been a bit more trustworthy, if his character was somewhat better, the CCP would have been unable to beat him".[98]
Formosa Betrayed, one of the few American movies concerning the process of democratization in Taiwan, depicts Chiang Kai-shek as a brutal dictator, responsible for the execution of thousands native Taiwanese during the days following the 228 Incident.
Names
Courtesy Name | |||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Traditional Chinese | 蔣介石 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 蒋介石 | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
Associated name to Zhongshan | |||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Traditional Chinese | 蔣中正 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 蒋中正 | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
| class="col-break " |
"Register Name"(譜名) | |||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Traditional Chinese | 蔣周泰 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 蒋周泰 | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
"Milk Name"(乳名) | |||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Traditional Chinese | 蔣瑞元 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 蒋瑞元 | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
| class="col-break " |
"School name"(學名) | |||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Traditional Chinese | 蔣志清 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 蒋志清 | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2013) |
Like many other Chinese historical figures, Chiang used several names throughout his life. That inscribed in the genealogical records of his family is Jiang Zhoutai (Chinese: 蔣周泰; Wade–Giles: Chiang Chou-tai). 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. In deference to tradition, family members did not use the register name in conversation with people outside of the family. In fact, the concept of real or original name is not as clear-cut in China as it is in the Western world.
In honor of tradition, 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 received at birth was Jiang Ruiyuan (Chinese: 蔣瑞元; Wade–Giles: Chiang Jui-yuan).
In 1903, the 16-year-old Chiang 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 chose for himself was Zhiqing (Chinese: 志清; Wade–Giles: Chi-ching; means "purity of intentions"). For the next fifteen years or so, Chiang was known as Jiang Zhiqing (Wade-Giles: Chiang Chi-ching). This is the name under which Sun Yat-sen knew him when Chiang joined the republicans in Guangzhou in the 1910s.
In 1912, when Jiang Zhiqing was in Japan, he started to use the name Chiang Kai-shek (Chinese: 蔣介石; Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chiang Chieh-shih) as a pen name for the articles that he published in a Chinese magazine he founded (Voice of the Army (Chinese: 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 Canton (a Cantonese speaking area, now commonly known as Guangzhou), Chiang 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)
"Kai-shek" soon became his courtesy name (字). Some think the name was chosen from the classic Chinese book the I Ching; others 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 soon became known under this new name.
Sometime in 1917 or 1918, as Chiang became close to Sun Yat-sen, he changed his name from Jiang Zhiqing to Jiang Zhongzheng (Chinese: 蔣中正; Wade–Giles: Chiang Chung-cheng). By adopting the name Chung-cheng ("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 Chinese Nationalist Party and is the name under which Chiang Kai-shek is still commonly known in Taiwan. Often the name is shortened to "Chung-cheng" only ("Zhongzheng" in Pinyin). For many years passengers arriving at the Chiang Kai-shek 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. In Singapore, Chung Cheng High School was named after him.
His name is also written in Taiwan as "The Late President 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 name Chiang Chung-cheng, in Taiwan.
Wives
-
Mao Fumei (毛福梅, 1882–1939) Died in the Second Sino-Japanese War during a bombardment. Mother to his son and successor Chiang Ching-kuo.
-
Yao Yecheng (姚冶誠, 1889–1972) Came to Taiwan and died in Taipei.
-
Chen Jieru (陳潔如, "Jennie", 1906–1971) Lived in Shanghai. Moved to Hong Kong later and died there.
-
Soong May-ling (宋美齡, 1898–2003) Moved to the United States after Chiang Kai-shek's death. Arguably his most famous wife. She bore him no children.
In an arranged marriage, Chiang was married to a fellow villager named Mao Fumei. While married to Mao, Chiang adopted two concubines (concubinage was still a common practice for well-to-do, non-Christian males in China): he married Yao Yecheng (姚冶誠, 1889–1972) in 1912 and Chen Jieru (陳潔如, 1906–1971) in December 1921. While he was still living in Shanghai, Chiang and Yao adopted a son, Wei-kuo. Chen adopted a daughter in 1924, named Yaoguang (瑤光), who later adopted her mother's surname. Chen's autobiography refuted the idea that she was a concubine. Chen claiming that, by the time she married Chiang, he had already divorced Mao, and that Chen was therefore his wife. Chiang and Mao had a son, Ching-kuo.[99]
According to the memoirs of Chen Jieru, Chiang's second wife, she contracted gonorrhea from Chiang soon after their marriage. He told her that he acquired this disease after separating from his first wife and living with his concubine Yao Yecheng, as well as with many other women he consorted with. His doctor explained to her that Chiang had sex with her before completing his treatment for the disease. As a result, both Chiang and Ch'en Chieh-ju believed they had become sterile, which would explain why he had only one child, by his first wife; however, a purported miscarriage by Soong May-ling in August 1928 would, if it actually occurred, cast serious doubt on whether this was true.[18][100]
Family Tree
- Dashed lines represent marriages.
- Dotted lines represent adoptions and extra-marital relationships.
- Solid lines represent descendants.
Soong May-ling | Chen Jieru (concubine) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mao Fumei | Chiang Kai-shek | Yao Yecheng (concubine) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chiang Fang-liang | Chiang Ching-kuo | Chang Ya-juo (mistress) | Chiang Chien-hua | Shih Chin-i | Chiang Wei-kuo (adopted) | Chiu Ju-hsüeh | Chiang Yao-kuang (adopted) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chiang Hsiao-wen | Chiang Hsiao-chang | Chiang Hsiao-wu | Chiang Hsiao-yung | Chang Hsiao-tzu | Chiang Hsiao-yen | Chiang Hsiao-kang | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Relationships with generals, ethnic minorities, and religions
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/Chiang_Kaishek_with_Muslim_General_Ma_Fushou.jpg/250px-Chiang_Kaishek_with_Muslim_General_Ma_Fushou.jpg)
This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2013) |
Chiang personally dealt extensively with religions and power figures in China during his regime.
Relationship with Muslims
Chiang Kai-shek developed relationships with other Generals. Chiang became a sworn brother of the Muslim General Ma Fuxiang and appointed him to high ranking positions. Chiang addressed Ma Fuxiang's son Ma Hongkui as Shao Yun Shixiong[101] Ma Fuxiang attended national leadership conferences with Chiang during Battles against Japan.[102] Ma Hongkui was eventually scapegoated for the failure of the Ningxia Campaign against the Communists, so he moved to the US instead of remaining in Taiwan with Chiang.
When Chiang became President of China after the Northern Expedition, he carved out Ningxia and Qinghai out of Gansu province, and appointed Muslim Generals as Military Governors of all three provinces: Ma Hongkui, Ma Hongbin, and Ma Qi. The three Muslim governors, known as Xibei San Ma (lit. the three Mas of the Northwest), controlled armies composed entirely of Muslims. Chiang called on the three and their suboordinates to wage war against the Soviet peoples, Tibetans, Communists, and the Japanese. Chiang continued to appoint Muslims as Governors of the three provinces, including Ma Lin and Ma Fushou. Chiang's appointments, the first time that Muslims had been appointed as governors of Gansu, increased the prestige of Muslim officials in northwestern China. The armies raised by this "Ma Clique", most notably their Muslim cavalry, were incorporated into the KMT army. Chiang appointed a Muslim General, Bai Chongxi, as the Minister of National Defence of the Republic of China, which controlled the ROC military.
Chiang also supported the Muslim General Ma Zhongying, whom he had trained at Whampoa Military Academy during the Kumul Rebellion, in a Jihad against Jin Shuren, Sheng Shicai, and the Soviet Union during the Soviet Invasion of Xinjiang. Chiang designated Ma's Muslim army as the 36th Division (National Revolutionary Army) and gave his troops Kuomintang flags and uniforms. Chiang then supported Muslim General Ma Hushan against Sheng Shicai and the Soviet Union in the Xinjiang War (1937). All Muslim Generals commissioned by Chiang in the National Revolutionary Army paid alleigance to him. Several, like Ma Shaowu and Ma Hushan were loyal to Chiang and Kuomintang hardliners.
The Ili Rebellion and Pei-ta-shan Incident plagued relations with the Soviet Union during Chiang's rule and caused trouble with the Uyghurs. During the Ili Rebellion and Peitashan incident, Chiang deployed Hui troops against Uyghur mobs in Turfan, and against Soviet Russian and Mongols at Peitashan.
During Chiang's rule, attacks on foreigners by Kuomintang forces flared up in several incidents. One of these was the Battle of Kashgar (1934) where a Muslim army loyal to the Kuomintang massacred 4,500 Uyghurs, and killed several British at the British consulate in Kashgar. The British were unable to retaliate.
Hu Songshan, a Muslim Imam, backed Chiang Kai-shek's regime and gave prayers for his government. ROC flags were saluted by Muslims in Ningxia during prayer along with exhortations to nationalism during Chiang's rule. Chiang sent Muslim students abroad to study at places like Al Azhar and Muslim schools throughout China taught loyalty to his regime.
The Yuehua, a Chinese Muslim publication, quoted the Quran and Hadith to justify submitting to Chiang Kai-shek as the leader of China, and as justification for Jihad in the war against Japan.[103]
The Yihewani (Ikhwan al Muslimun a.k.a. Muslim brotherhood) was the predominant Muslim sect backed by the Chiang government during Chiang's regime. Other Muslim sects, like the Xidaotang and Sufi brotherhoods like Jahriyya and Khuffiya were also supported by his regime. The Chinese Muslim Association, a pro-Kuomintang and anti-Communist organization, was set up by Muslims working in his regime. Salafism attempted to gain a foothold in China during his regime, but the Yihewani and Hanafi Sunni Gedimu denounced the Salafis as radicals, engaged in fights against them, and declared them heretics, forcing the Salafis to form a separate sect.[104][105][106][107] Ma Ching-chiang, a Muslim General, served as an advisor to Chiang Kai-shek. Ma Buqing was another Muslim General who fled to Taiwan along with Chiang. His government donated money to build the Taipei Grand Mosque on Taiwan.[108]
Relationship with Buddhists and Christians
Chiang had uneasy relations with the Tibetans. He fought against them in the Sino-Tibetan War, and he supported the Muslim General Ma Bufang in his war against Tibetan rebels in Qinghai. Chiang ordered Ma Bufang to prepare his Islamic army to invade Tibet several times, to deter Tibetan independence, and threatened them with aerial bombardment.[citation needed] After the war, Chiang appointed Ma Bufang as ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
Chiang incorporated Methodist values into the New Life Movement under the influence of his wife. Dancing and Western music were discouraged. In one incident, several youths splashed acid on people wearing Western clothing, although Chiang was not directly responsible for these incidents. Despite being a Methodist, he made reference to the Buddha in his diary, and encouraged the establishment of a Buddhist political party under Master Taixu.
See also
- Chekiang Province, Republic of China
- Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
- Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Song
- Chiang Kai-shek statues
- Cihu Mausoleum
- Claire Lee Chennault
- Flying Tigers
- Free area of the Republic of China
- Guesthouses of Chiang Kai-shek
- History of the Republic of China
- Republic of China Armed Forces
- Politics of the Republic of China
- Republic of China (1912–1949)
- Shilin Official Residence
- Sino-German cooperation until 1941
Notes
- ^ Jay Taylor. The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-Shek and the Struggle for Modern China. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009) p. 2.
- ^ a b Hannah Pakula (2009). The last empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the birth of modern China. Simon and Schuster. p. 346. ISBN 1-4391-4893-7. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Zarrow, Peter Gue (2005). China in War and Revolution, 1895–1949. pp. 230–231.
- ^ Odd Arne Westad, Restless Empire: China and the World Since 1750 (2012) p. 291
- ^ Taylor 2009, pp. 24, 31
- ^ Loh, Pichon (1971). The Early Chiang Kai-shek. Columbia University Press. p. 27.
- ^ Loh 1971, pp. 20, 133.
- ^ Taylor 2009, pp. 25–26
- ^ Jay Taylor (2000). The Generalissimo's son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the revolutions in China and Taiwan. Harvard University Press. p. 59. ISBN 0-674-00287-3. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Jonathan Fenby (2005). Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 205. ISBN 0-7867-1484-0. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Hannah Pakula (2009). The last empress: Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the birth of modern China. Simon and Schuster. p. 247. ISBN 1-4391-4893-7. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Jay Taylor (2000). The Generalissimo's son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the revolutions in China and Taiwan. Harvard University Press. p. 74. ISBN 0-674-00287-3. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Eileen, Tamura (1998). China: Understanding Its Past. p. 174.
- ^ a b Taylor 2009, p. 57
- ^ '"Chiang Kai-Shek's Secret Past: The Memoir of His Second Wife, Ch'en Chieh-ju" by Ch'en Chieh-ju and George Chan, ed. by Lloyd E. Eastman, Westview Press, Boulder, 1993, pp. 248–249.
- ^ Taylor 2009, p. 91
- ^ Jay Taylor (2000). The Generalissimo's Son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the revolutions in China and Taiwan. Harvard University Press. p. 42. ISBN 0-674-00287-3. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ a b Jay Taylor (2009). The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the struggle for modern China, Volume 39. Harvard University Press. p. 602. ISBN 0-674-03338-8. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Robert Carver North (1963). Moscow and Chinese Communists. Stanford University Press. p. 94. ISBN 0-8047-0453-8. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Mayhew, Bradley (March 2004). Shanghai (2nd ed.). Lonely Planet. p. 51. ISBN 978-1-74059-308-3. Retrieved July 22, 2009.
- ^ Barnouin, Barbara and Yu Changgen. Zhou Enlai: A Political Life. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. ISBN 962-996-280-2. Retrieved at <http://books.google.com/books?id=NztlWQeXf2IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=zhou+enlai&hl=en&ei=wBkuTdKyB4H_8AaJucigAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false> on March 12, 2011. p. 38
- ^ Maurice Meisner. Mao's China: A History of the People's Republic. Google Books. ISBN 978-0-7456-3106-6. Retrieved July 22, 2009.
- ^ "Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek". TIME. January 3, 1938. Retrieved May 22, 2011.
- ^ Taylor 2009, p. 84
- ^ Joseph T. Chen (1971). The May fourth movement in Shanghai: the making of a social movement in modern China. Brill Archive. p. 13. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Frank J. Coppa (2006). Encyclopedia of modern dictators: from Napoleon to the present. Peter Lang. p. 58. ISBN 0-8204-5010-3. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
- ^ Parks M. Coble (1986). The Shanghai capitalists and the Nationalist government, 1927–1937. Vol. Volume 94 of Harvard East Asian monographs (2, reprint, illustrated ed.). Harvard Univ Asia Center. p. 263. ISBN 0-674-80536-4. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
{{cite book}}
:|volume=
has extra text (help) - ^ a b Parks M. Coble (1986). The Shanghai capitalists and the Nationalist government, 1927–1937. Vol. Volume 94 of Harvard East Asian monographs (2, reprint, illustrated ed.). Harvard Univ Asia Center. p. 264. ISBN 0-674-80536-4. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
{{cite book}}
:|volume=
has extra text (help) - ^ Hsiung, Shih-i (1948). The life of Chiang Kai-shek. Peter Davies. p. 211. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
- ^ Hahn, Emily (1955). Chiang Kai-shek: An Unauthorized Biography. Doubleday. p. 84. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
- ^ School of Social Science Georgia Institute of Technology John W. Garver Assistant Professor (1988). Chinese-Soviet Relations, 1937-1945 : The Diplomacy of Chinese Nationalism: The Diplomacy of Chinese Nationalism. Oxford University Press. p. 177. ISBN 0195363744. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
- ^ Taylor, Jay (2009). The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China (illustrated ed.). Harvard University Press. p. 93. ISBN 0674033388. Retrieved April 24, 2014.
{{cite book}}
: Invalid|ref=harv
(help) - ^ Barnouin, Barbara and Yu Changgen. Zhou Enlai: A Political Life. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. ISBN 962-996-280-2. Retrieved on March 12, 2011. pp. 74–75
- ^ Hsiao-ting Lin (2010). Modern China's Ethnic Frontiers: A Journey to the West. Taylor & Francis. p. 90. ISBN 0-415-58264-4. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ "CHINA: He Who Has Reason". TIME. October 5, 1942. Retrieved April 11, 2011.
- ^ Lin, Hsiao-ting. "War or Stratagem? Reassessing China's Military Advance towards Tibet, 1942–1943". Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ [1]
- ^ David P. Barrett, Lawrence N. Shyu (2001). China in the anti-Japanese War, 1937–1945: politics, culture and society. Peter Lang. p. 98. ISBN 0-8204-4556-8. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ University of Cambridge. Mongolia & Inner Asia Studies Unit (2002). Inner Asia, Volume 4, Issues 1–2. The White Horse Press for the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit at the University of Cambridge. p. 204. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Paul Kocot Nietupski (1999). Labrang: a Tibetan Buddhist monastery at the crossroads of four civilizations. Snow Lion Publications. p. 35. ISBN 1-55939-090-5. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ "BATTLE OF ASIA: Land of Three Rivers". Time. May 4, 1942. Retrieved April 28, 2010.
- ^ Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problem, p. 369.
- ^ "True Airpower". Wings: Clash of Wings. Episode 11. Discovery Channel.
- ^ Jonathan Fenby (2005). Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 413. ISBN 0-7867-1484-0. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Jonathan Fenby (2005). Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 412. ISBN 0-7867-1484-0. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ a b Jonathan Fenby (2005). Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 464. ISBN 0-7867-1484-0. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Jonathan Fenby (2005). Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 504. ISBN 0-7867-1484-0. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Jonathan Fenby (2005). Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 226. ISBN 0-7867-1484-0. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Jonathan Fenby (2005). Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 256. ISBN 0-7867-1484-0. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Barbara Wertheim Tuchman (1985). The march of folly: from Troy to Vietnam. Random House, Inc. p. 235. ISBN 0-345-30823-9. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
- ^ Larry H. Addington (2000). America's war in Vietnam: a short narrative history. Indiana University Press. p. 30. ISBN 0-253-21360-6. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
- ^ Peter Neville (2007). Britain in Vietnam: prelude to disaster, 1945-6. Psychology Press. p. 119. ISBN 0-415-35848-5. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
- ^ Van Nguyen Duong (2008). The tragedy of the Vietnam War: a South Vietnamese officer's analysis. McFarland. p. 21. ISBN 0-7864-3285-3. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
- ^ Stein Tønnesson (2010). Vietnam 1946: how the war began. University of California Press. p. 41. ISBN 0-520-25602-6. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
- ^ Elizabeth Jane Errington (1990). The Vietnam War as history: edited by Elizabeth Jane Errington and B.J.C. McKercher. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 63. ISBN 0-275-93560-4. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
- ^ "The Vietnam War Seeds of Conflict 1945–1960". The History Place. 1999. Retrieved December 28, 2010.
- ^ Foreign Relations of the United State: The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943 p. 324 "Chinese Summary Record".
- ^ Gillin, Donald G. and Etter, Charles. "Staying On: Japanese Soldiers and Civilians in China, 1945–1949." The Journal of Asian Studies. Vol. 42, No. 3, May, 1983. pp. 499–500. Retrieved at: <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2055515>. February 23, 2011.
- ^ Gillin, Donald G. and Etter, Charles. "Staying On: Japanese Soldiers and Civilians in China, 1945–1949." The Journal of Asian Studies. Vol. 42, No. 3, May, 1983. p. 505. Retrieved at: <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2055515>. February 23, 2011.
- ^ Haynes, John Earl; Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, New Haven: Yale University Press (2000), ISBN 0-300-08462-5, pp. 142–145
- ^ Jonathan Fenby (2005). Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 414. ISBN 0-7867-1484-0. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Jonathan Fenby (2005). Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 413. ISBN 0-7867-1484-0. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Frederic E. Wakeman (2003). Spymaster: Dai Li and the Chinese secret service. University of California Press. p. 75. ISBN 0-520-23407-3. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Jonathan Fenby (2005). Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 460. ISBN 0-7867-1484-0. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Bethell, Tom (2007). "HOOVER ARCHIVES: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for China". hoover.org. The Hoover Institution. Archived from the original on July 30, 2007. Retrieved November 7, 2014.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help); line feed character in|title=
at position 17 (help) - ^ Ray Huang, cong dalishi jiaodu du Jiang Jieshi riji (Reading Chiang Kai-shek's dairy from a macro-history perspective), Chinatimes Publishing Press, Taipei, 1994, pp. 441–43
- ^ Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China, W.W. Norton and Company. 1999. ISBN 0-393-97351-4. p. 486
- ^ a b c Gillin, Donald G. Warlord: Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi Province 1911–1949. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 1967. p. 289
- ^ a b Gillin, Donald G. Warlord: Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi Province 1911–1949. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 1967. p. 290
- ^ Gillin, Donald G. Warlord: Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi Province 1911–1949. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 1967. p. 291
- ^ "CHINA: Return of the Gimo". TIME Magazine. Monday, Mar. 13, 1950. Retrieved at <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,812143,00.html> on May 16, 2011.
- ^ ROC Chronology: Jan 1911 – Dec 2000
- ^ "Muslims in Taiwan". Government Information Office (ROC).
- ^ Andrew D. W. Forbes (1986). Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: a political history of Republican Sinkiang 1911–1949. Cambridge, England: CUP Archive. p. 225. ISBN 0-521-25514-7. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Dale C. Tatum (2002). Who influenced whom?: lessons from the Cold War. University Press of America. p. 118. ISBN 0-7618-2444-8. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ John W. Garver (1997). The Sino-American alliance: Nationalist China and American Cold War strategy in Asia. M.E. Sharpe. p. 169. ISBN 0-7656-0025-0. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ a b Gillin, Donald G. and Etter, Charles. "Staying On: Japanese Soldiers and Civilians in China, 1945–1949". The Journal of Asian Studies. Vol. 42, No. 3, May 1983. p. 516. JSTOR 2055515.
- ^ a b Peter R. Moody (1977). Opposition and dissent in contemporary China. Hoover Press. p. 302. ISBN 0-8179-6771-0. Retrieved November 30, 2010.
- ^ Jay Taylor (2000). The Generalissimo's son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the revolutions in China and Taiwan. Harvard University Press. p. 195. ISBN 0-674-00287-3. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Nançy Bernkopf Tucker (1983). Patterns in the dust: Chinese-American relations and the recognition controversy, 1949–1950. Columbia University Press. p. 181. ISBN 0-231-05362-2. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Jay Taylor (2009). The generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the struggle for modern China, Volume 39. Harvard University Press. p. 402. ISBN 0-674-03338-8. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Jonathan Fenby (2005). Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 337. ISBN 0-7867-1484-0. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Hannah Pakula (2009). The last empress: Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the birth of modern China. Simon and Schuster. p. 531. ISBN 1-4391-4893-7. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Laura Tyson Li (2007). Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China's Eternal First Lady. Grove Press. p. 448. ISBN 0-8021-4322-9. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Shih-i Hsiung (1948). The life of Chiang Kai-shek. Peter Davies. p. 256. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Stéphane A. Dudoignon, Hisao Komatsu, Yasushi Kosugi (2006). Intellectuals in the modern Islamic world: transmission, transformation, communication. Taylor & Francis. p. 134. ISBN 0-415-36835-9. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Hartford Seminary Foundation (1941). The Moslem World, Volumes 31–34. Hartford Seminary Foundation. p. 183. Retrieved May 8, 2011.
- ^ Jieru Chen, Lloyd E. Eastman (1993). Chiang Kai-shek's secret past: the memoir of his second wife, Chʻen Chieh-ju. Westview Press. p. 236. ISBN 0-8133-1825-4. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Hans J. Van de Ven (2003). War and nationalism in China, 1925–1945. Psychology Press. p. 100. ISBN 0-415-14571-6. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Linda Chao, Ramon H. Myers (1998). The first Chinese democracy: political life in the Republic of China on Taiwan. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 45. ISBN 0-8018-5650-7. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Kai-shek Chiang. President Chiang Kai-shek's selected speeches and messages, 1937–1945. China Cultural Service. p. 137. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Hsiao-ting Lin (2006). Tibet and nationalist China's frontier: intrigues and ethnopolitics, 1928–49 (PDF). UBC Press. p. 29. ISBN 0-7748-1301-6. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Murray A. Rubinstein (1994). The Other Taiwan: 1945 to the present. M.E. Sharpe. p. 416. ISBN 1-56324-193-5. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ James A. Millward (2007). Eurasian crossroads: a history of Xinjiang. Columbia University Press. p. 208. ISBN 0-231-13924-1. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Paul Hibbert Clyde, Burton F. Beers (1971). The Far East: a history of the Western impact and the Eastern response (1830–1970). Prentice-Hall. p. 409. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Fenby, Jonathan. History of Modern China. p. 279.
- ^ Mitter, Rana. Modern China. p. 73.
- ^ In an interview reported in "Has Man a Future?", p. 224
- ^ http://www.nndb.com/people/974/000086716/
- ^ Chiang Kai-shek's Secret Past. pp. 83–85.
- ^ Stephen R. MacKinnon, Diana Lary, Ezra F. Vogel (2007). Familiar China at war: regions of China, 1937–1945. Stanford University Press. p. 77. ISBN 0-8047-5509-4. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Jay Taylor (2009). Government The generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the struggle for modern China. Harvard University Press. p. 93. ISBN 0-674-03338-8. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Stéphane A. Dudoignon, Hisao Komatsu, Yasushi Kosugi (2006). Intellectuals in the modern Islamic world: transmission, transformation, communication. Taylor & Francis. p. 375. ISBN 0-415-36835-9. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Leif O. Manger (1999). Muslim diversity: local Islam in global contexts. Routledge. p. 127. ISBN 0-7007-1104-X. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ Gladney, Dru C. (2004). Dislocating China: reflections on Muslims, minorities and other subaltern subjects. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 321. ISBN 1-85065-324-0.
- ^ Maris Boyd Gillette (2000). Between Mecca and Beijing: modernization and consumption among urban Chinese Muslims. Stanford University Press. p. 279. ISBN 0-8047-3694-4. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ John L. Esposito (1999). The Oxford history of Islam. Oxford University Press US. p. 458. ISBN 0-19-510799-3. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ [2]
Further reading
- Ch'en Chieh-ju. 1993. Chiang Kai-shek's Secret Past: The Memoirs of His Second Wife. Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-1825-4
- Crozier, Brian. 2009. The Man Who Lost China. ISBN 0-684-14686-X
- Fairbank, John King, and Denis Twitchett, eds. 1983. The Cambridge History of China: Volume 12, Republican China, 1912–1949, Part 1. ISBN 0-521-23541-3
- Fenby, Jonathan. 2003. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek and the China He Lost. The Free Press, ISBN 0-7432-3144-9
- Li, Laura Tyson. 2006. Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China's Eternal First Lady. Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-4322-9
- May, Ernest R. 2002. "1947–48: When Marshall Kept the U.S. out of War in China." Journal of Military History 66(4): 1001–1010. Issn: 0899-3718 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Jstor
- Pakula, Hannah, The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the Birth of Modern China (London, Weidenfeld, 2009). ISBN 978-0-297-85975-8
- Romanus, Charles F., and Riley Sunderland. 1959. Time Runs Out in CBI. Official U.S. Army history online edition
- Sainsbury, Keith. 1985. The Turning Point: Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill, and Chiang-Kai-Shek, 1943. The Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran Conferences. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-285172-1
- Seagrave, Sterling. 1996. The Soong Dynasty. Corgi Books. ISBN 0-552-14108-9
- Stueck, William. 1984. The Wedemeyer Mission: American Politics and Foreign Policy during the Cold War. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0-8203-0717-3
- Tang Tsou. 1963. America's Failure in China, 1941–50. University of California Press. ISBN 0-226-81516-1
- Taylor, Jay. 2009. The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts ISBN 978-0-674-03338-2
- Tuchman, Barbara W. 1971. Stillwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45. ISBN 0-8021-3852-7
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
- Time magazine's "Man and Wife of the Year", 1937
- The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Official Site
- The Chungcheng Cultural and Educational Foundation
- Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek Association Hong Kong
- 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)
- The Chiang Kai-shek Index at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
- 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 Chiang Kai-shek Cultural Center Official Site
- Chiang Kai-shek Diaries at the Hoover Institution Archives
- Chiang Kai-shek
- 1887 births
- 1975 deaths
- Baoding Military Academy cadets
- Cardiovascular disease deaths in Taiwan
- Chiang Kai-shek family
- Chinese anti-communists
- Chinese Methodists
- Chinese military personnel of World War II
- Chinese Nationalist heads of state
- Chinese revolutionaries
- Cold War leaders
- Converts to Christianity
- Foreign recipients of the Legion of Merit
- Generalissimos
- Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
- Kuomintang politicians in Taiwan
- Marshals of China
- Members of the Kuomintang
- Recipients of the Order of Leopold (Belgium)
- Politicians from Ningbo
- People of the Chinese Civil War
- People of the Xinhai Revolution
- Premiers of the Republic of China
- Presidents of the Republic of China on Taiwan
- Recipients of the Order of the White Lion
- Republic of China (1912–49)
- Republic of China politicians from Zhejiang
- Tongmenghui members
- World War II political leaders
- Knights of the Order of the Rajamitrabhorn
- Recipients of the Order of the Sacred Tripod