Chiang Kai-shek

I

Introduction

Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), Chinese statesman and military leader, who was a pivotal figure in the history of modern China.

Chiang was born in Fenghua, Zhejiang (Chekiang) Province, on October 31, 1887. After some training at the National Military Academy in Baoding (Pao-ting), he went to Tokyo in 1907. There he attended the Military Staff College and met Sun Yat-sen. Chiang joined Sun's United Revolutionary League (Tongmenghui), a secret organization and the forerunner of the Guomindang or Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist party. When the 1911 uprising broke out in China, Chiang returned to Shanghai, where he took part in the overthrow of the imperial government and the establishment of the Republic of China (1912). He also participated in the subsequent Second Revolution (1913) and the campaign (1915-1916) against the warlord Yuan Shikai, in office from 1915 to 1916. In 1923, when seeking assistance from the Soviet government, Sun sent Chiang to the USSR to study the Soviet military and social systems. In 1924 he became superintendent of Whampoa Military Academy, the training centre for the KMT army.

II

Leader of Nationalist China

Internal struggles troubled the KMT soon after Sun's death in 1925, but military power remained in the hands of Chiang, and as commander in chief of the National Revolutionary Army he emerged as the most forceful leader of the party. In 1926 he embarked on the Northern Expedition to crush the warlords in the north. While the campaign was still under way in 1927, Chiang, about to marry into the Soong family, a house of wealthy and Western-educated bankers, ended the KMT's alliance with the Communists and ordered their liquidation. He gradually developed an authoritarian Confucian ideology, the New Life Movement, as his alternative to Communism.

After he had unified China under his own leadership, Chiang launched a new series of campaigns in the early and mid-1930s against the Communists under Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) and Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai), while also offering resistance to the Japanese, who had invaded Dongbei in 1931. This policy forced the Communists to begin their Long March in 1934. It also induced the Nationalist general Chang Hsüeh-liang (Zhang Xueliang) to kidnap Chiang—the so-called Xi’an Incident—in 1936. After his release, a national united front against Japan began to emerge. He was elected leader of the KMT in 1938.

Full-scale war with Japan broke out the following year. During that war (1937-1945), a phase of World War II known as the Sino-Japanese Conflict, Chiang emerged as a national and world leader. While continuing his efforts to contain the Communists, he mobilized China's national resources in an effort to resist the Japanese invasion. In 1942 he became the supreme commander of the Allied forces in the China theatre and a year later represented China at the Cairo Conference.

III

In Taiwan

When the Japanese were finally expelled in 1945, Chiang was immediately confronted with the Communist challenge for supremacy, and the civil war erupted again. United States attempts to mediate between the two sides failed, and in 1947 the Communist army conducted a general offensive, scoring victories in Henan (Ho-nan) and northern Hebei (Ho-pei). The Battle of Huaihai (1948-1949) was another disaster for Chiang, and when General Fu Zuoyi (1895-1974), commander of the Beijing-Tianjin region, surrendered to the Communists in early 1949, the Nationalist forces collapsed. After that the Communists rapidly won control of the entire country, and Chiang was forced to move to the island of Taiwan.

On Taiwan, with military and economic assistance from the United States, Chiang was able to stabilize the situation and carry out an ambitious economic development programme. He also broadened his political base by reforming the KMT and injecting native Taiwanese talent into his government, which remained an authoritarian personal rule. Under his leadership, Taiwan began to modernize its agriculture and industry, and the island became highly competitive in foreign trade.

In the early 1970s Chiang's government suffered serious setbacks on the international front when both Japan and the United States, under the leadership of President Richard Nixon, began to improve relations with the Chinese Communist government. Chiang died after a prolonged illness on April 5, 1975, having installed his son Chiang Ching-kuo as his successor.

IV

Evaluation

Known for his strong will, nationalism, and unyielding anti-Communist stance, Chiang, who became a Christian on marrying his second wife, made important contributions both to the unification of China in the late 1920s and to the defeat of Japan during World War II. His achievements on Taiwan included economic development, political stability, and land reform, effectively creating Republican China as an independent state. Chiang ranks as one of the most important leaders of modern China, and his impact on the development of republican China was perhaps greater than that of any other single person except Sun Yat-sen.