World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseChiang Kaishek was born in Xikou, Fenghua, Zhejiang Province, China to Jiang Zhaocong and Wang Caiyu. He married Mao Fumei as arranged by his parents, and would have one son, Chiang Chingkuo (future president of the Republic of China) and one daughter with Mao. At this time, China was undergoing a tumultuous time; the monarch in Beijing was unable to hold the country together at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and foreign countries carved spheres of influence all along the coast. Chiang joined the call of the military in 1906 in hopes that he would be able to help the country. He attended Paoting Military Academy in China in 1906 and then studied at a Japanese military academy in 1907. He served in the Japanese Army from 1909 to 1911, and during this time he joined the movement to overthrow the Qing and set up a Chinese republic. In 1911, the Wuchang Uprising marked the beginning of the Chinese revolution. Chiang returned to China as an officer in the revolutionary forces, and when the revolution was won, he was at the right place at the right time to become a founding father of the Guomingdang (Nationalist) Party that ruled the new republic. Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the visionary behind the new republic's constitution, took in Chiang as his protégé; additionally, Chiang broadened his support by befriending the powerful criminal underworld boss of the Green Gang and a local warlord in Guangdong (Canton). Though officially the revolution was won and a republic was born, China was actually in a state of anarchy. In 1923, Sun moved his base of operations to Guangzhou, Guangdong in southern China and re-established his government with the aid of Comintern. In the same year, Chiang was sent to Moscow to study Russian political ideals. He returned to China in 1924 and took over the Whampoa Military Academy as its commandant. By 1925, he had already developed a small army of officers at Whampoa who were fiercely loyal to Chiang and not necessarily to the government. Sun passed away in 1925, and Chiang maneuvered himself into the position of power. Naming himself the Commander-in-Chief of the National Revolutionary Forces, he launched the Northern Expedition in Jul 1926 that pushed his government's boundaries into the rest of China. Although the Chinese Communists had helped him in his attempt to unify China, in Apr 1927 Chiang decided Communist influence in his government was not what he wanted, and suddenly turned against them brutally around the time he established himself in Nanjing. In 1927, Russian advisors attached to him were expelled back to Moscow, and by Jun 1928 his troops took control of Beijing. China proper was, at least nominally, finally re-unified. On 10 Oct 1928, he was elected the Chairman of the Nationalist Government, which was both the head of state and the head of government.

ww2dbaseAround this time, westerners began referring to Chiang as the "Generalissimo", a nickname that was not used by Chinese people in any way.

ww2dbaseOn 1 Dec 1927, Chiang divorced his first wife and married Song Meiling, the younger sister of Sun's widow. To please Song's family, converted to Christianity in 1929.

ww2dbaseIn 1931, Chiang ordered the arrest of political rival Hu Hanmin, a fellow Nationalist Party member, causing uproar, leading to his resignation as the Chairman of the Nationalist Government. The party elected veteran politician Lin Sen as his successor. In Dec 1935, as scandal of 1931 faded, he was made the Premier of the Republic of China (ie. head of the Executive Yuan); during this period, he consolidated his power over the political stage, effectively regaining his powers while making Lin Sen a ceremonial president. He pushed his government to modernize China, overhaul the legal system, and stabilize the economy. Transportation infrastructure and health systems were also dramatically improved. In the mean time, political instability threatened his government, though Chiang managed to remain in power. He considered the Communist movement his biggest threat, and continued to sternly fight against it, and it drew the attention of Germany. German advisers were sent to Nanjing to train Chinese troops, and prominent figures such as Chiang Weiguo, Chiang's adopted son, traveled to Germany to study (Chiang Weiguo eventually served as a junior officer in the German military until Japan declared war on China). Chiang's slogan of "first internal pacification, then external resistance" kept German interests in China high, along with all the military aid. Domestically, however, this was widely unpopular, as the Chinese majority viewed the Japanese aggression that began in 1931 as a greater source of national shame. On 12 Dec 1936, Zhang Xueliang, a commander loyal to Chiang, instigated the Xi'an Incident where he and General Yang Hu-cheng kidnapped Chiang and forced him to ally with the Communists to fight together against the Japanese. Though he agreed to this temporary unification, throughout the entire war against the Japanese Chiang continuously attacked Communist forces whenever opportunities were presented.

ww2dbaseAlthough Japanese forces occupied northeastern China (ie. the historical region of Manchuria) as early as 1931, the Second Sino-Japanese War did not formally begin until 1937. During the Second Battle of Shanghai, he insisted on fighting a protracted defensive battle against the stronger Japanese forces in order to demonstrate to the western world that China was committed to a war of resistance against the Japanese; while this goal was achieved (leading to British and American condemnation of Japanese aggression, backed up by an economic sanction), this decision of his also cost him 250,000 casualties in his best trained troops. Seeing that direct British and American military aid would not come in sufficient numbers, however, Chiang ordered a major withdraw to western China Proper, thus starting a protracted war that traded space for time, aiming to dwindle Japanese resources. In Jan 1938, he stepped down as the Premier, but held on to significant influence as he became the Director-General of the Nationalist Party two months later. In Nov 1939, he took control of the Executive Yuan once again; he would hold this position until 1948.

ww2dbaseAs soon as the United States entered WW2 in Dec 1941, Chiang's American-educated wife acted as his personal ambassador to the United States, lobbying for US support in China. In the temporary war-time capital of Chongqing, Chiang used the resources from the United States to fight a defensive war against the Japanese, which pleased the Allies, but his main aim was to strengthen his power among the Chinese leaders, and particularly to defeat the Communists. As a result, instead of using the munitions against the Japanese, a great part of them were stored away for the post-WW2 fight against the Communists. To make matters worse, he was unable or unwilling to control the rampant corruption common in his government and military hierarchies. Some westerners, his American chief-of-staff Joseph Stilwell being one, thought little of him, noting he was but a fascist leader whose reputation was built on intrigue rather than ability. Some time in May 1943, Stilwell would note to US President Franklin Roosevelt that Chiang was "a vacillating, tricky, undependable old scoundrel who never keeps his word". Interestingly, American air force leader Claire Chennault, who also worked closely with Chiang, thought the complete opposite, noting also in 1943 that "I think the generalissimo is one of the two or three greatest military and political leaders in the world today. He has never broken a commitment or promise he made to me".

ww2dbaseIn Sep 1943, shortly after Lin Sen's death, Chiang was selected to succeed Lin as the Chairman of the Nationalist Government, thus he once again became the official head of state of the Republic of China. He officially took office on 10 Oct 1943.

ww2dbaseIn Nov 1943, Chiang participated in the Cairo Conference with Franklin Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill, in which it was decided that Japanese was to return northeastern China (Manchuria), Taiwan, and the Pescadores islands to the Republic of China.

ww2dbaseAfter WW2, the constitution that went into effect in Dec 1947 led to a reform of the top leadership positions of the Republic of China. The position of the Chairman of the Nationalist Government was abolished, and Chiang was elected by the National Assembly as the first President of the Republic of China under the new constitution. By this time, the Communists were growing popularity, especially in China's vast rural areas. As the conflict soon broke out to a full-scale civil war, Nationalist troops suffered one defeat after another, and the corrupt government officials corroded away people's confidence. On 21 Jan 1949, Chiang resigned his presidency (with Vice President Li Zongren stepping up to become his successor) but continued to lead the Nationalist troops. On 10 Dec 1949, Communist troops surrounded the city of Chengdu, the last major Nationalist stronghold, where Chiang and his son Chiang Chingkuo had been located. Later on the same day, they were evacuated to Taiwan, and eventually the entire Republic of China government retreated there as well. The seat of the Republic of China would remain in Taiwan through the time of this writing. On 1 Mar 1950, he resumed his presidential duties. He was re-elected as president in 1954, 1960, 1966, and 1972, although these elections, conducted under martial law (the "Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion") during the Cold War, offered no true alternative candidates. Throughout his presidency he sternly laid claims on all of China, despite strong Communist holding over the land. During the Korean War, Chiang offered his troops to fight in South Korea, and General Douglas MacArthur went as far as recommending the use of Chiang's troops to make small raids on the Chinese coast, but the United States government turned down these possibilities to prevent an escalation of the conflict; furthermore, American naval forces were sent to the Taiwan Strait to prevent Chiang from raiding China.

ww2dbaseChiang passed away in 1975 while still in office. Even though in recent years Chiang's popularity had declined, the Chinese people in Taiwan remained respectful of his perseverance against Communist expansion, his work in setting the foundation for Taiwan to become an economic powerhouse decades later, and his efforts to slowly rid the Republic of China government of the corruption which had doomed itself during the 1930s and 1940s. In Communist China, however, he was vilified as a dictator who selfishly expanded his personal influence during a time of national crisis. Chiang was buried in Taiwan upon his death; his grave site was considered a temporary one, as it was his wish to be re-buried in mainland China when his homeland would become liberated from Communism.

ww2dbaseSpecial Note on the Romanization of Chiang Kaishek's Name

ww2dbaseAs seen above, the name he was best known in western literature, Chiang Kaishek, was drawn from two different Chinese dialects, with his family name Chiang from Mandarin (using the Wade-Giles romanization method), and his given name Kaishek from the Wu dialect of his home province Zhejiang; the use of "sh", rather than "s", in his given name is unusual by today's convention.

ww2dbaseSpecial Note on Chiang's Names

ww2dbaseIn an earlier era, it was standard practice for Chinese people, especially men, of upper and middle-upper class families to bear different names during their lifetimes. Although this practice slowly lost popularity after the establishment of the republic in 1911, Chiang Kaishek's family continued this tradition. The names he had used during his life were as follows:

Famous Quote(s)

• "Since peace is now beyond hope, we can but fight to the end."
      » 31 Jul 1937

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