Chiang Kai-shek

Introduction

Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of China during the 20^th Century. He is also known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin.

Chiang (since this name is Asian, the family name is said first) was an influential part of the Kuomintang, the Chinese Nationalist Party, and was a very close ally of Sun Yat-sen. He was the commandant of the KMT’s Whampoa Military Academy, and became the leader of the Kuomintang in 1925. He led the Northern Expedition, and eventually became China’s leader. He led China through the Second Sino-Japanese War, which was integrated into World War II and became the China-Burma-India Theater.

After the war, Chiang lost control of China, and lived in exile in Taiwan. Today, there are still mixed feelings towards him – some viewing him with disdain, while others view him as a hero. During the presidency of Chen Shui-bian (2000-2008), hundreds of his statues were taken down all over Taiwan.

Early Life

Chiang Kai-shek was born on October 31, 1887, to a middle-class family living in Xikou, in the Zhejiang Province. He attended a private school at the age of six, and learned the Chinese classics. Chiang’s grandfather died when he was eight, and his father died when he was 9, leaving the family in poverty. Because of this, he adored his mother all the more.

In China, fatherless families had a harder time fitting in to society, and often had people take advantage of them. Chiang often had to tolerate anger and suffering, but his enthusiasm for learning was kindled. He learned many of the Chinese classics between the ages of ten and sixteen. When he was seventeen, he attended a modern school, and then entered the school at Ningbo to learn current events and western law. While there, he became interested in the revolutionary acts of one Sun Yat-sen. This interest would change his life forever.

Since the fighting between warlords in China left the country destabilized and in much debt, Chiang decided on a military career. He started at the Baoding Military Academy in 1906, and in 1907 he went to the Tokyo Shibu Gakko, an Imperial Japanese Army Academy Preparatory School. During this time, he became a supporter of Sun Yat-sen, the leader of the Tongmenghui (the precursor of the Kuomintang).

Chiang in 1907, Baoding Military Academy

In 1911, Chiang returned to China and joined in the Wuhan Uprising to overthrow the Qing dynasty, leading the regiment that captured Shanghai. Several sources state that his first personal act of violence happened about this time, when he either instigated or performed an assassination of a member of the Revolutionary Alliance who opposed Sun Yat-sen and Chen Qimei. Chiang returned to Japan after the counter-revolution.

In 1917, when Sun Yat-sen established the Kuomintang in Guangzhou, Chiang served as a military aide. Soon Sun Yat-sen was exiled into Shanghai until he retook Guangzhou with help from mercenaries in 1920. However, the governor of the Guangdong province, Chen Jiongming, came upon a disagreement with Sun, wanting to establish a federalist system in Guangdong. On June 16, 1923, Chen launched an attempted assassination of Sun Yat-sen by shelling his residence. Sun and his wife, Soong Ching-ling, had a narrow escape from machine-gun fire, and were rescued by gunboats commanded by Chiang Kai-shek. This earned Chiang Sun’s trust. Sun finally secured Guangzhou in early 1924, again with help from mercenaries from Yunnan.

In 1924, Sun Yat-sen and China traveled to the Soviet Union to learn military strategy. While there, Chiang met with Leon Trotsky and other Soviet leaders, but concluded that Communism was not good for China. Upon Chiang’s return, he was appointed as the commandant of the new Whampoa Military Academy at Guangzhou. After Sun Yat-sen died on March 12, 1925, Chiang’s became the leader of the KMT after a conflict with Wang Ching-wei.

Leadership of China

In 1926, Chiang launched the Northern Expedition, leading the KMT into Shanghai and Nanjing. He cooperated with the Communists, and received aid from Russia. However, in 1927, Chiang reversed Sun Yat-sen’s policy, and started to fight against the Chinese Communist Party, starting a civil war. On April 12, 1927, Chiang instigated the purging of thousands of suspected Communists and dissidents from Shanghai, and had them massacred. This happened all over China. There were 12,000 people killed in Shanghai alone. These killings drove most of the Communists into the countryside, where the Kuomintang was less powerful. Chiang eventually defeated the CCP, and forced them on the “Long March” to Shensi, in North-West China. By the end of 1927, he served as the head of the Kuomintang and became Generalissimo of all the Chinese Nationalist forces, and his power was virtually unlimited.

Chiang established the Nationalist Government in Nanjing. He carried out major financial reforms, improved the education system, and improved the roads and transportation system. In 1934, he established the New Life Movement, promoting the traditional Confucian values. This was to combat Communist ideology.

After the Japanese invaded Manchuria, Chiang resigned as the Chairman of the National Government, but returned shortly thereafter. He attempted to avoid an all-out war with Japan, but this was not a very popular policy. While attempting to destroy the Communists in 1932, the Japanese advanced on Shanghai and bombarded Nanjing. This disrupted his offensive against the Communists, who were led by Mao Zedong.

In December of 1936, Chiang flew to Xi’an to coordinate a major assault on the Chinese Communist Party’s forces which had retreated to Yan’an. However, his allied commander Zhang Xueliang, who had controlled Manchuria and lost it to the Japanese, disagreed with Chiang about fighting the Communists. On December 12, Zhang and several other collaborators kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek for two weeks to force him to make a “Second United Front” with the Communists against Japan, which Chiang had to accept. After Chiang’s release, Zhang Xueliang was placed under house arrest, and the other generals that assisted in the kidnapping were executed. Chiang kept his side of the agreement to ally with the Communists, but this treaty disintegrated in 1941 when some of Chiang’s troops clashed with CCP troops.

The Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in July of 1937, and in August of that year Chiang sent 600,000 of his best-trained and equipped men to defend Shanghai. They suffered over 200,000 casualties. Though it was a military defeat, Chiang showed the Japanese that they could not capture China, as they claimed, in three months. But still the Japanese pressed inland. In December, Nanjing fell, and Chiang was forced to move the government to Wuhan. When Wuhan fell, the government was moved to Chongqing. He moved his army to the hinterlands so as to bog down the Japanese in the Chinese interior.

Chiang Kai-shek, Soong May-ling (wife), Joseph Stilwell

After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Sino-Japanese war merged into the greater conflict of World War II, and Chiang’s international prestige increased. China received financial aid from the United States. General Joseph Stilwell was sent over, and he became the head of the allied forces in the China-Burma-India Theater. Stilwell was very critical of Chiang, arguing that he was an inept leader and ignorant of the fundamentals of modern warfare. Stilwell was accused of being pro-Communist, and was recalled to the US in October of 1944.

Chiang Kai-shek with Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in Cairo

During World War II, FDR privately made it clear that he did not want the French to retake French Indochina (modern-day Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos). When Chiang was offered control of Indochina, Chiang refused. When the war ended, 200,000 Chinese troops under General Lu Han were sent to Indo-China to accept the surrender of the Japanese there. They remained until 1946, when the French returned. The Chinese used the VNQDD, the Vietnamese branch of the KMT, to increase their influence in Indochina, and pressure their opposition. Chiang threatened war with France in response to the French maneuvering their forces against Ho Chi Minh, which forced the French to choose peace. In February of 1946, Chiang forced the French to surrender all of their concessions in China, and renounce the extraterritorial privileges in exchange for the Chinese withdrawing from northern Indochina and allowing the French to reoccupy. The French agreed, and Chiang withdrew his troops in March of 1946.

But Chiang still had a disagreement with the Communists. The United States encouraged peace talks between Chiang and Mao Zedong in Chongqing, but they gave very limited aid to the Nationalists throughout 1946 and 1948. An alleged infiltration of the US government by Chinese communists may have helped in the suspension of aid.

Chiang Kai-shek being inaugurated as the President of the Republic of China, 1947

While several political difficulties within the KMT went on, the Communists were pushing into China. In early December of 1949, the Communists laid siege to Chengdu, the last KMT-controlled city on the Chinese mainland. Chiang directed the defense from the Chengdu Military Academy. Before the Communists broke in, Chiang was evacuated to Taiwan, never to return.

In Exile

In Taiwan, Chiang established a dictatorship. He continued to promise to re-conquer China, and landed Chinese guerillas on the Chinese coast. He published his autobiography, Summing Up At Seventy, in 1957.

Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan, 1966

Chiang’s international position was weakened in 1971 when the United Nations expelled his regime, and accepted the Communists as the government of China. Chiang Kai-shek died on April 5, 1971, in a hospital in Taiwan. A month of mourning was declared, and the Chinese composer Hwang Yau-tai wrote the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Song. Mainland Chinese newspapers gave the brief headline, “Chiang Kai-shek Has Died”.

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

Chiang Kai-shek's body entombed in Cihu

Sources:

www.library.thinkquest.org

www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk

www.wikipedia.org