After completing military training with the Japanese Army, he returned to China in 1911 and took part in the revolution against the Manchus (see Ch'ing Ch'ing or Manchu , the last of the Imperial dynasties of China.
Background
The Ch'ing dynasty was established by the Manchus, who invaded China and captured Beijing in 1644, and lasted until 1911.
..... Click the link for more information. ). Chiang was active (1913–16) in attempts to overthrow the government of Yüan Shih-kai Yüan Shih-kai , 1859–1916, president of China (1912–16). From 1885 to 1894 he was the Chinese resident in Korea, then under Chinese suzerainty.
..... Click the link for more information. . When Sun Yat-sen Sun Yat-sen , Mandarin Sun Wen, 1866–1925, Chinese revolutionary. He was born near Guangzhou into a farm-owning family. He attended (1879–82) an Anglican boys school in Honolulu, where he came under Western influence, particularly that of
..... Click the link for more information. established (1917) the Guangzhou government, Chiang served as his military aide. In 1923 he was sent by Sun to the USSR to study military organization and to seek aid for the Guangzhou regime. On his return he was appointed commandant of the newly established (1924) Whampoa Military Academy; he grew more prominent in the Kuomintang Kuomintang [Chin.,=national people's party] (KMT), Chinese and Taiwanese political party. Sung Chiao-jen organized the party in 1912, under the nominal leadership of Sun Yat-sen, to succeed the Revolutionary Alliance.
..... Click the link for more information. after the death (1925) of Sun Yat-sen.
In 1926 Chiang launched the Northern Expedition Northern Expedition, in modern Chinese history, the military campaign by which the Kuomintang party overthrew the warlord-backed Beijing government and established a new government at Nanjing.
..... Click the link for more information. , leading the victorious Nationalist army into Hankou, Shanghai, and Nanjing. Chiang followed Sun Yat-sen's policy of cooperation with the Chinese Communists and acceptance of Russian aid until 1927, when he dramatically reversed himself and initiated the long civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communists. By the end of 1927, Chiang controlled the Kuomintang, and in 1928 he became head of the Nationalist government at Nanjing and generalissimo of all Chinese Nationalist forces. Thereafter, under various titles and offices, he exercised virtually uninterrupted power as leader of the Nationalist government.
In 1936 Gen. Chang Hsüeh-liang Chang Hsüeh-liang or Zhang Xueliang , 1898–2001, Chinese warlord, son of Chang Tso-lin. On the death (1928) of his father, he succeeded as military governor of Manchuria.
..... Click the link for more information. seized him at Xi'an, to force him to terminate the civil war against the Communists in order to establish a united front against the encroaching Japanese. Despite the resultant truce, Chiang's release, and the 1937 outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War Sino-Japanese War, Second, 1937–45, conflict between Japanese and Chinese forces for control of the Chinese mainland. The war sapped the Nationalist government's strength while allowing the Communists to gain control over large areas through organization of
..... Click the link for more information. , the agreement between Nationalists and Communists soon broke down. By 1940 Chiang's best troops were being used against the Communists in the northwest. After the Japanese took Nanjing and Hankou, Chiang moved his capital to Chongqing.
As the Sino-Japanese War merged with World War II, Chiang's international prestige increased. He attended the Cairo Conference (1943) with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. He and his third wife, Soong Mei-ling (see Soong Soong , Mandarin Song, Chinese family, prominent in public affairs.
Soong Yao-ju or Charles Jones Soong, 1866–1918, graduated from Vanderbilt Univ. and, after returning to China (1886), was a Methodist missionary in Shanghai.
..... Click the link for more information. , family), were the international symbols of China at war, but Chiang was bitterly criticized by Allied officers, notably Joseph W. Stilwell Stilwell, Joseph Warren, 1883–1946, American general, b. Palatka, Fla. Commissioned in the army in 1904, he fought in World War I and later served for 13 years in China. In Feb., 1942, during World War II, he went back to China, where he became (Mar.
..... Click the link for more information. , and argument raged over his internal policies and his conduct of the war.
After the war ended Chiang failed to achieve a settlement with the Communists, and civil war continued. In 1948 Chiang became the first president elected under a new, liberalized constitution. He soon resigned, however, and his moderate vice president, Gen. Li Tsung-jên Li Tsung-jên , 1890–1969, Chinese Nationalist general and political leader. For 25 years (1925–49) he was a leader of the military clique that ruled Guangxi prov.
..... Click the link for more information. , attempted to negotiate a truce with the Communists. The talks failed, and in 1949 Chiang resumed leadership of the Kuomintang to oppose the Communists, who were sweeping into S China in strong military force and reducing the territories held by the Nationalists.
By 1950 Chiang and the Nationalist government had been driven from the mainland to the island of Taiwan Taiwan , Portuguese Formosa, officially Republic of China, island nation (2005 est. pop. 22,894,000), 13,885 sq mi (35,961 sq km), in the Pacific Ocean, separated from the mainland of S China by the 100-mi-wide (161-km) Taiwan Strait.
..... Click the link for more information. (Formosa) and U.S. aid had been cut off. On Taiwan, Chiang took firm command and established a virtual dictatorship. He reorganized his military forces (U.S. aid resumed with the start of the Korean war) and then instituted limited democratic political reforms. Chiang continued to promise reconquest of the Chinese mainland and at times landed Nationalist guerrillas on the China coast, often to the embarrassment of the United States. His international position was weakened considerably in 1971 when the United Nations expelled his regime and accepted the Communists as the sole legitimate government of China. He remained president until his death in 1975.
Bibliography
Chiang Kai-shek's writings have appeared in English as China's Destiny (1947) and Soviet Russia in China (1957). See also P. P. Y. Loh, The Early Chiang Kai-Shek (1971); and biographies by W. Morwood (1980) and S. Dolan (1988).
Chiang Kai-shek
or Chiang Chieh-shih or Jiang Jieshi)
Chiang Kai-shek, Jiang Jie Shi
Chiang Kai-Shek
(also Chiang Chieh-shih). Born Oct. 31, 1887, in Fenghua, Chekiang Province; died Apr. 5, 1975, in Taipei. Head of the Kuomintang regime; overthrown by the people’s revolution in China in 1949.
The son of a merchant, Chiang Kai-shek graduated from military academies in Paoting and Tokyo. Pretending to be a leftwing member of the Kuomintang, he supported Sun Yat-sen in the first half of the 1920’s. As commander in chief of the National Revolutionary Army he took part in the Northern Campaign of 1926–27. On Apr. 12, 1927, Chiang carried out a counterrevolutionary coup and established a reactionary dictatorship in China. For more than 20 years he wielded enormous power, holding the posts of chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang (from 1926), chairman of the Executive Yuan, president of the republic, and commander in chief of the armed forces; he assumed the title of generalissimo.
Between 1930 and 1934, Chiang undertook five punitive campaigns against the soviet regions (seeSOVIETS IN CHINA). After the Japanese attacked China on July 7,1937, he was forced to form a united anti-Japanese national front, which rested on the agreement of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Kuomintang to carry out combined operations. Chiang continued to use large forces, however, to blockade the region along the Shansi-Kansu-Ninghsia border, which was controlled by the CPC.
After Japan surrendered on Sept. 2, 1945, Chiang rejected the offer of the CPC to form a coalition government and in June 1946 began a new civil war. In late 1949 the People’s Liberation Army of China liberated virtually all mainland China from the Kuomintang. Chiang fled with his remaining troops to Taiwan, where he established himself with the military and financial support of the USA.
V. I. ELIZAROV
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