Chian Kai-Shek: Visionary or Oppressor

Chian Kai-Shek: Visionary or Oppressor.

Chiang Kai-Shek served as Generalissimo of the national government of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 until his death in 1975, taking control of the Kuomintang (KMT) after the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925. Chiang led nationalist troops in the Northern Expedition to unify China and end the Warlord era. He emerged victorious in 1928 as the overall leader of the ROC.[1] Chiang led China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which Chiang's stature within China weakened, but his international prominence grew. Kai-Shek attempted to eradicate the Chinese Communists during the civil war (1927-1949), but ultimately failed, forcing his KMT government to escape to Taiwan, where he continued serving as the President of the Republic of China and Director-General of the KMT for the remainder of his life.

Chiang Kai-shek was born in Xikou, a town that is approximately 20.5 miles (33.0 km) southwest of downtown Ningbo, in Fenghua County, Ningbo Prefecture, Zhejiang Province. However, his ancestral home, a concept important in Chinese society, was the town of Heqiao (е’Њж©‹йЋ®) in Yixing County, Wuxi Prefecture, Jiangsu Province (approximately 38 km or 24 miles southwest of downtown Wuxi, and 10 km (6 miles) from the shores of the famous Lake Tai).

His father, Chiang Zhaocong, and mother, Wang Caiyu, were members of an upper to upper-middle-class family of salt merchants. His father died when Kai-shek was only eight years of age, and he wrote of his mother as the "embodiment of Confucian virtues." In an arranged marriage, Chiang was married to a fellow villager by the name of Mao Fumei.[2] Chiang and Mao had a son Ching-Kuo and a daughter Chien-hua.

Chiang grew up in an era in which military defeats and civil wars among warlords had left China destabilized and in debt, and he decided to pursue a military career to save China. He began his military education at the Baoding Military Academy, in 1906. He left for a preparatory school for Chinese students to enter Rikugun Shikan Gakko in Japan in 1907. There he was influenced by his compatriots to support the revolutionary movement to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and to set up a Chinese Republic. He befriended fellow Zhejiang native Chen Qimei, and, in 1908, Chen brought Chiang into the Tongmenghui, a precursor organization of the Kuomintang. Chiang served in the Imperial Japanese Army from 1909 to 1911.

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, leading a regiment in Shanghai under his friend and mentor Chen Qimei. The revolution which aimed at the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty ultimately succeeded. Chiang became a founding member of the Kuomintang.

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

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

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