Chiang Kai-shek

Born in Zhejiang, Chiang was a member of the Kuomintang, and a lieutenant of Sun Yat-sen in the revolution to overthrow the Beiyang government and reunify China. After the Soviet-led Comintern re-organized the Nationalist and Chinese Communist Party, he headed the Whampoa Military Academy. As commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army, he led the Northern Expedition from 1926 to 1928, nominally reunifying China under a Nationalist government in Nanjing. Midway through the Northern Expedition, the KMT–CCP alliance broke down and Chiang massacred communists and KMT leftists inside the party, triggering a civil war with the CCP, which he eventually lost in 1949.


As the leader of the Republic of China during the Nanjing decade, Chiang sought to modernize and unify the nation, although hostilities with the CCP continued. His government presided over economic and social reconstruction while trying to avoid a debilitating war with Japan. In December 1936 he was kidnapped in the Xi'an Incident, and obliged to form an Anti-Japanese United Front with the CCP. Following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, he mobilized China for the Second Sino-Japanese War. For eight years, he led the war of resistance against a vastly superior enemy, mostly from the wartime capital Chongqing. As the leader of a major Allied power, Chiang met with British prime minister Winston Churchill and American president Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Cairo Conference to discuss terms for the Japanese surrender. When the Second World War ended, the civil war with the communists (by then led by Mao Zedong) resumed. Chiang's nationalists were mostly defeated in a few decisive battles in 1948. In 1949, Chiang's government and army retreated to the island of Taiwan, where Chiang imposed martial law and persecuted critics during the White Terror. Presiding over a period of social reforms and economic prosperity, Chiang won five elections to six-year terms as President of the Republic of China in which he faced minimal opposition or was elected unopposed. Three years into his fifth term as president, and one year before the death of Mao, he died in 1975. He also held the position of director-general within the Kuomintang until his death. Chiang was one of the longest-serving non-royal heads of state in the 20th century and the longest-serving non-royal ruler of China, having held the post for 46 years.


Like Mao, Chiang is a controversial figure. Supporters credit him with a major role in unifying the nation and ending the Century of Humiliation, leading the Chinese resistance against Japan, countering communist influence, and economic development in both mainland China and Taiwan. Critics portray him as a brutal dictator, head of a corrupt authoritarian regime, who massacred civilians and suppressed political dissent, and accuse him of being a fascist. He is also criticized for flooding the Yellow River and allowing the Henan Famine during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Other historians argue that Chiang's ideology differed from right-wing dictators of the 20th century, and that he did not espouse the ideology of fascism. They argue that Chiang made genuine efforts to improve mainland China and Taiwan's economic and social conditions, such as land reform. Chiang is also credited with transforming China from a semi-colony of various imperialist powers to an independent country by amending the unequal treaties signed by previous governments, as well as moving various Chinese national treasures and traditional Chinese artworks to the National Palace Museum in Taipei during the 1949 retreat.

Names[edit]

Like many other Chinese historical figures, Chiang used several names throughout his life. The name inscribed in the genealogical records of his family is Chiang Chou-t‘ai (Chinese: 蔣周泰; pinyin: Jiǎng Zhōutài; Wade–Giles: Chiang³ Chou¹-t‘ai⁴). This so-called "register name" (譜名) is the one by which his extended relatives knew him, and the one he used in formal occasions, such as when he was married. In deference to tradition, family members did not use the register name in conversation with people outside of the family. The concept of a "real" or original name is/was not as clear-cut in China as it is in the Western world. In honor of tradition, Chinese families waited a number of years before officially naming their children. In the meantime, they used a "milk name" (乳名), given to the infant shortly after his birth and known only to the close family. So the name that Chiang received at birth was Chiang Jui-yüan^[3] (Chinese: 蔣瑞元; pinyin: Jiǎng Ruìyuán).


In 1903, the 16-year-old Chiang went to Ningbo as a student, and chose a "school name" (學名). This was the formal name of a person, used by older people to address him, and the one he would use the most in the first decades of his life (as a person grew older, younger generations would use one of the courtesy names instead). Colloquially, the school name is called "big name" (大名), whereas the "milk name" is known as the "small name" (小名). The school name that Chiang chose for himself was Zhiqing (Chinese: 志清; Wade–Giles: Chih-ch‘ing, which means "purity of aspirations"). For the next fifteen years or so, Chiang was known as Jiang Zhiqing (Wade–Giles: Chiang Chi-ch‘ing). This is the name by which Sun Yat-sen knew him when Chiang joined the republicans in Guangdong in the 1910s.


In 1912, when Chiang was in Japan, he started to use the name Chiang Kai-shek (Chinese: 蔣介石; pinyin: Jiǎng Jièshí; Wade–Giles: Chiang³ Chieh⁴-shih²) as a pen name for the articles that he published in a Chinese magazine he founded: Voice of the Army (軍聲). Jieshi is the pinyin romanization of this name, based on Standard Chinese, but the most recognized romanized rendering is Kai-shek which is in Cantonese^[3] romanization. Because the Republic of China was based in Canton (a Cantonese-speaking area, now known as Guangdong), Chiang (who never spoke Cantonese but was a native Wu speaker) became known by Westerners under the Cantonese romanization of his courtesy name, while the family name as known in English seems to be the Mandarin pronunciation of his Chinese family name, transliterated in Wade–Giles.


"Kai-shek"/"Jieshi" soon became Chiang's courtesy name (字). Some think the name was chosen from the classic Chinese book the I Ching; "介于石"; '[he who is] firm as a rock"', is the beginning of line 2 of Hexagram 16, "豫". Others note that the first character of his courtesy name is also the first character of the courtesy name of his brother and other male relatives on the same generational line, while the second character of his courtesy name shi (石—meaning "stone") suggests the second character of his "register name" tai (泰—the famous Mount Tai). Courtesy names in China often bore a connection with the personal name of the person. As the courtesy name is the name used by people of the same generation to address the person, Chiang soon became known under this new name.


Sometime in 1917 or 1918, as Chiang became close to Sun Yat-sen, he changed his name from Jiang Zhiqing to Jiang Zhongzheng (Chinese: 蔣中正; pinyin: Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng). By adopting the name Chung-cheng, he was choosing a name very similar to the name of Sun Yat-sen, who is known among Chinese as Zhongshan (中山—meaning "central mountain"), thus establishing a link between the two. The meaning of uprightness, rectitude, or orthodoxy, implied by his name, also positioned him as the legitimate heir of Sun Yat-sen and his ideas. It was readily accepted by members of the Kuomintang, and is the name under which Chiang is still commonly known in Taiwan. Often the name is shortened to "Chung-cheng" only. Many public places in Taiwan are named Chungcheng after Chiang. For many years passengers arriving at the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport were greeted by signs in Chinese welcoming them to the "Chung Cheng International Airport". Similarly, the monument erected to Chiang's memory in Taipei, known in English as Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, was named "Chung Cheng Memorial Hall" in Chinese. In Singapore, Chung Cheng High School was named after him.


His name is also written in Taiwan as "The Late President Honorable Chiang" (先總統 蔣公), where the one-character-wide space in front of his name known as Nuo tai shows respect. He is often called Honorable Chiang.


In this context, his surname "Chiang" in this article is spelled using the Wade–Giles system of transliteration for Standard Chinese as opposed to Hanyu Pinyin^[4] though the latter was adopted by the Republic of China government in 2009 as its official romanization.

Returning to China[edit]

After learning of the Wuchang uprising, Chiang returned to China in 1911, 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, as one of Chen's chief lieutenants.^[14] In early 1912 a dispute arose between Chen and Tao Chengzhang, an influential member of the Revolutionary Alliance who opposed both Sun Yat-sen and Chen. Tao sought to avoid escalating the quarrel by hiding in a hospital, but Chiang discovered him there. Chen dispatched assassins. Chiang may not have taken part in the assassination, but would later assume responsibility to help Chen avoid trouble. Chen valued Chiang despite Chiang's already legendary temper, regarding such bellicosity as useful in a military leader.^[15]


Chiang's friendship with Chen Qimei signaled an association with Shanghai's criminal syndicate (the Green Gang headed by Du Yuesheng and Huang Jinrong). During Chiang's time in Shanghai, the Shanghai International Settlement police observed him and eventually charged him with various felonies. These charges never resulted in a trial, and Chiang was never jailed.^[16]


Chiang became a founding member of the Nationalist Party (a forerunner of the KMT) after the success (February 1912) of the 1911 Revolution. After the takeover of the Republican government by Yuan Shikai and the failed Second Revolution in 1913, Chiang, like his KMT comrades, divided his time between exile in Japan and the havens of the Shanghai International Settlement. In Shanghai, Chiang cultivated ties with the city's underworld gangs, which were dominated by the notorious Green Gang and its leader Du Yuesheng. On 18 May 1916 agents of Yuan Shikai assassinated Chen Qimei. Chiang then succeeded Chen as leader of the Chinese Revolutionary Party in Shanghai. Sun Yat-sen's political career reached its lowest point during this time—most of his old Revolutionary Alliance comrades refused to join him in the exiled Chinese Revolutionary Party.^[17]