Chiang Kai-shek (; 31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975) was a Chinese military commander, revolutionary, and statesman who was the president of the Republic of China from 1948 to 1975 and the head of the Nationalist government from 1925 to 1948. As the de facto leader of the Republic of China (ROC), he ruled the country through World War II and oversaw the relocation of its government to Taiwan following defeat in the Chinese Civil War. Born in Zhejiang, Chiang received a military education in China and Japan, joined Sun Yat-sen's Tongmenghui in 1908, and, after the 1911 Revolution, participated in the National Protection War. In 1923, he was appointed by Sun as chief of staff of the Army and Navy Marshal stronghold, and served as commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy from 1924 until its closure in 1930. After Sun's death, Chiang wrested control of the party and National Revolutionary Army from Wang Jingwei in the Canton Coup. From 1926 to 1928, Chiang led the Northern Expedition and largely unified China under a Nationalist government based in Nanjing. He broke the First United Front by purging the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members in the Shanghai massacre, triggering the Chinese Civil War. During the Nanjing decade, Chiang pursued modernization of China while prioritizing the suppression of the Communists over confrontation with Japan following the latter's invasion of Manchuria. The Xi'an Incident in 1936 forced him to form a Second United Front with the CCP against Japan. Between 1937 and 1945, Chiang led China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, mostly from the wartime capital of Chongqing, resulting in a victory for the National Revolutionary Army. In 1943, Chiang attended the Cairo Conference to discuss the terms of Japan's surrender, including the retrocession of Taiwan, after which he suppressed the February 28 incident. When World War II ended, the Chinese Civil War resumed. In 1949, Chiang's KMT was defeated by Mao Zedong's CCP and retreated to Taiwan. He imposed martial law and White Terror on the island that lasted until 1987 and 1992, respectively. Beginning in 1948, he was re-elected five times by the same Eternal Parliament with six-year terms as the president of the ROC, the head of a de facto one-party state, for 25 years until his death. Chiang presided over land reform, economic growth, and the Taiwan Strait crises twice in 1954–1955 and in 1958. Taiwan also pursued an ultimately unsuccessful nuclear weapons programme. Chiang was considered the legitimate leader of China by the United Nations until 1971, when the ROC's seat in the Security Council was transferred to the People's Republic of China. Chiang is a controversial figure. Supporters credit him with unifying the nation and ending the century of humiliation, leading the resistance against Japan, fostering economic development and preserving Chinese culture in contrast to Mao's Cultural Revolution. He is also credited with safeguarding the Forbidden City's treasures during the wars, a substantial portion now housed at the Taipei Palace Museum. Critics fault him for his early appeasement of Japan, the deliberate flooding of the Yellow River, cronyism and corruption linked to the four big families, and authoritarian rule on both mainland China and Taiwan.
== Names == At the time of his birth, Chiang's grandfather chose for him a milk name, Chiang Jui-yuan (Chinese: 蔣瑞元; pinyin: Jiǎng Ruìyuán; lit. 'auspicious beginning'), containing the generation name rui (Chinese: 瑞; lit. 'auspicious'). His clan name was Chiang Chou-t'ai (蔣周泰; Jiǎng Zhōutài), meaning lit. 'completely peaceful' or lit. 'boundlessly great'. In August of 1903, Chiang, then 15 years old, chose a school name, Chih-ching (志清; Zhìqīng; 'striving to be honest'), to reflect his ambitions of passing the imperial examinations. In March 1912, by then already a revolutionary, he took on the name Chieh-shih (介石; Jièshí; 'firm as a rock')—a combination of the characters jie and shi from the ancient classic I Ching—and used it as a pen name. According to biographer Alexander Pantsov, when rendered in Cantonese, the name "sounds like Chiang Kai-shek, and that is how Jiang began to be called by that name from early 1918". It was also by the Cantonese pronunciation of this name that Sun Yat-sen knew him. In 1917, Chiang assumed another name, Chiang Chung-cheng (蔣中正; Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng; 'central and correct'), which he took from the second line of the sixteenth hexagram of the I Ching: 不終日貞吉以中正也; Bù zhōngrì zhēnjí yǐ zhōngzhèng yě; '[He sees a thing] without waiting till it has come to pass', 'with his firm correctness there will be good fortune: this is shown by the central and correct position [of the line]'. Chiang's best known titles include Commandant (Chinese: 校長; pinyin: Xiào Zhǎng; lit. 'principal', 'schoolmaster'), used among the alumni of the Whampoa Military Academy; "the Generalissimo" (Chinese: 蒋委員長; pinyin: Jiǎnɡ Wěi Yuán Zhǎng; lit. 'Chairman Chiang of the (Military Affairs) Commission') or "Gissimo" (Chinese: 委座; pinyin: Wěi Zuò; lit. 'Chairman'), used after 1926 when he became the commander in chief of the Nationalist armies.
== Early life == Chiang was born on 31 October 1887 to a distinguished family of merchants in Xikou, then a small village about 48.2 kilometers (30.0 mi) south of the port city of Ningbo. His father, Chiang Chao-tsung (also known as Chiang Shu-an), was a salt-seller who ran the family business, the Yutai Salt Store, and was known for his honesty as a broker of village disputes. His mother, Wang Tsai-yu, was a seamstress, a devout Buddhist, and the daughter of a Buddhist monk. She was Chao-tsung's third wife; at the time of their marriage in 1886, Chao-tsung had a daughter, Chiang Ruichun, and a son, Chiang Ruisheng, from previous marriages. They were a wealthy family descended from the Duke of Zhou who possessed more than thirty mu of rice fields, bamboo groves, and tea bushes. Although salt and wine were state monopolies, Chao-tsung sold both, having obtained a license by means of guanxi. They moved out from the salt store into a new seven-room sanheyuan when Chiang was an infant. Chiang's sister Ruilian was born there in 1890, followed by another sister, Ruiju, in 1892 and a brother, Ruiqing, in 1894. During his childhood, Chiang was described as "sprightly and prankish from disposition, but sickly in body," with a unique capacity for chasing, then escaping, difficult situations. At age three, he survived choking on a pair of chopsticks; in 1892, at age five, he narrowly avoided drowning in a man-sized water jar after climbing in. As a boy, he developed a fitness for swimming and hill-climbing and had a penchant for war games, in which he preferred to be the commander. At the behest of a relative, Chiang's mother committed him to a family tutor when he turned five, but he initially made slow progress in learning the Chinese classics taught to him. When Chiang was seven years old, his paternal grandfather, Yu-piao, died of pneumonia. Months later, on 24 August 1895, Chiang's father died suddenly, at the age of 54. A property dispute left most of the family's estate with Chiang's half-brother Ruisheng, leaving a small parcel of land with Wang, who supported Chiang by weaving linen. Chiang later wrote in a diary in 1917: "After father died and my elder brother refused to take care of the family, everyone cheated us, and my mother quietly suffered, enduring trials and tribulations." In one instance, tax collectors pursued Wang and detained Chiang as collateral. Qing officials brought the boy Chiang before a magistrate's court under threat of imprisonment. Ultimately the sum was paid, but Chiang later referred to the experience as "the first spark that kindled my revolutionary fire."
In 1898, Ruiqing died at age four, which deeply affected Wang, who focused all of her attention on Chiang thereafter and accelerated his schooling. Chiang had learned to read and write while attending a private village school and, under strict teachers, studied the Four Books and Five Classics. At ten years old he wrote his first essay in Classical Chinese and dedicated it to Ruiqing. In 1899, he began attending a school near his maternal grandmother, where a teacher encouraged him to write short prose essays and verses. In 1901, the year of his arranged teenage marriage to Mao Fumei, Chiang transitioned to a mountain school in Fenghua, where he led a protest for better teaching and was nearly expelled. He spent another two years at a private school in Ningbo before returning to attend middle school in Fenghua, a school whose method of rote memorization of classical texts later influenced his mindset of issuing orders, which he believed were to be followed, and enunciated, in the same way as Confucian truths. One of his teachers, Mao Sicheng, was a distant in-law; under Mao's direction, Chiang studied the I Ching and wrote essays in the classical style. Mao later recalled:He considered class a stage and his fellow students marionettes. He was wild and unrestrainable. But when he was answering at the board, reading, or clenching a writing brush in his hand and thinking over his answer, even thousands of voices around could not distract him from his profound concentration. He alternated between moments of calm and outbursts, sometimes in the course of several minutes. One might think there were two different persons. I found him very intriguing.
In August of 1903, Chiang took the imperial examination at age 15 and sat for the xiucai degree, but, to his great disappointment, failed to pass. He felt the failure keenly and, for a time, isolated himself to intensify his studies to try for a second time. However, the examinations were abolished during the Late Qing reforms, so he moved to a new school in Fenghua which taught the classics, arithmetic, and English. After two years there, he moved again in the spring of 1905, this time to a school—called "Golden Arrow"—in Ningbo founded by Ku Ching-lien, a Japanese-educated pedagogue. Under Ku's tutelage, Chiang studied The Art of War, in addition to the works of Zeng Guofan and Wang Yangming. From Ku, he learned of plans to overthrow the Manchu-led Qing government and of the leader of one such revolutionary movement, Sun Yat-sen (then living in Tokyo), whose 1896 kidnapping in London by Qing officials had a pivotal influence on many young Chinese nationalists, including Chiang. Urged by Ku to study abroad, Chiang sought to continue his schooling in Japan, ideally at a military academy. He spent a few more months studying English in Fenghua under Hollington Tong, whom he later chose as his biographer, then abruptly withdrew from school in April 1906. He wrote in his diaries:
I decided to go abroad because I suffered from the decline of my country and the degradation of the Manchus. Moreover, I experienced orphanhood and the bitter situation of my family, which was deceived and insulted. I very much wanted to rise up and show everyone my own strength. Before boarding a passenger liner bound for Japan in May 1906, Chiang cut off his queue—the required Qing hairstyle of men and a symbol of submission to the ruling Manchu dynasty—and had it sent home from school, a criminal act which shocked the people in his hometown.
== Education in Japan == Chiang chose to settle in Tokyo due to its reputation as the center of Japanese military science and for the opportunity to fraternize with the city's exiled Chinese revolutionaries. A year earlier, in 1905, the Japanese government issued a proclamation forbidding Chinese students from studying in the country if they lacked an official recommendation, so Chiang enrolled in the Qinghua School in the Ushigome neighborhood of Tokyo; founded by Liang Qichao in 1899, it was the only school open to Chinese "from the street". While living among the city's Chinese community, he studied the Japanese language and paid for courses out-of-pocket. He formed a close friendship with Chen Qimei, a fellow student in Japan also from Zhejiang, and the two became inseparable blood brothers.
Through Chen, a member of Sun Yat-sen's underground Tongmenghui, Chiang learned of Sun's political philosophy, the Three Principles of the People. The Tongmenghui had been formed in Tokyo on 20 August 1905 with Sun as president, and espoused socialist and occasionally communist views, advocating for a democratic state with harmony among all social classes. When Sun returned to Tokyo at the end of 1906, 19-year-old Chiang went with Chen to meet him for the first time at the apartment of Tōten Miyazaki in either November or December. Although no records of the meeting survive, sources present indicated that Chiang kept silent but made a positive impression on Sun, who valued obeisance and thoughtfulness. Sun told Chen after the meeting, "That man [Chiang] will be the hero of our Revolution: we need just such a man in our revolutionary movement." On 25 January 1907, Chiang's sister Ruilian was married, and Chiang sailed home to attend the ceremony, ending his first stay in Japan. Next month, he went to Hangzhou, intending to sit the entrance examinations for the Baoding Military Academy, one of best educational institutions in China at the time. The academy reserved only fourteen spaces for new cadets from Zhejiang, with approximately 70 prospective applicants for each space; although ill on the day of the exam, Chiang won a competitive space and enrolled in a six-month accelerated program there in the summer of 1907. He was one of a few successful applicants from the province, despite being disadvantaged for being Han Chinese (non-Manchu) and for having short hair.
At Baoding, Chiang was a diligent student, but sometimes chafed against the academy's officers, most of whom were Japanese. During a lecture on hygiene, he confronted a Japanese officer who used an analogy comparing the Chinese population to microbes on a clod of earth he held, after which Chiang struck the piece down and used the same analogy to describe the population of Japan as microbes on the resulting fragments. Afterwards, the officer reported Chiang for disorderly conduct—an expellable offense—to the academy's superiors, but he ultimately escaped with only a reprimand, as the chancellor of the academy was sympathetic to his nationalism.In the beginning of 1908, the academy held an exam to select a group of cadets to further their education in Japan. Because Chiang was not enrolled in a Japanese-language course, he did not initially qualify and had to petition the head of the academy, who granted Chiang's request that he be considered for having prior studied the language. Chiang, one of the 40 chosen after graduation, received a letter of recommendation to attend Tokyo Shinbu Gakko, a preparatory military school in Tokyo co-founded by the Chinese government to service Chinese cadets. He enrolled there in March 1908, as a member of its 11th class. The curriculum emphasized history, geography, natural sciences, and drawing, with particularly intense courses in Japanese and mathematics. Among his classmates were He Yingqin and Zhang Qun, whom Chiang later named as ministers of military administration and foreign affairs, respectively. He graduated 55th in his class of 62 in November 1910.
Revolutionary years
Recommended by Chen Qimei and endorsed by two other revolutionary friends, Chiang was inducted into the Tongmenghui in a secret ceremony while in Japan and swore an oath of allegiance to the Three Principles of the People in 1908. In the next two years, revolutionaries under Sun Yat-sen launched at least seven armed rebellions with the goal of igniting a revolution to overthrow the Manchu government—all of which proved unsuccessful. Chiang made repeated efforts to join the cause but was turned away to focus on his education, recalling that "great hopes were placed upon me as a future warrior, therefore my comrades did not allow me [for now] to take part in military operations." During his student years in Japan, Chiang occupied himself with revolutionary literature and discussed them with Zhang Qun and a new confidant, Dai Jitao, a Chinese student who earned a place at a Japanese university and whose precociousness made a deep impression on him. Chiang was greatly influenced by the anti-Manchu pamphlet The Revolutionary Army, written by Zou Rong, which called for a violent revolution in China and the establishment of a parliament and a constitution. He also read the newspaper of choice among Chinese exiles, Min Kuo Jih Pao (then edited by Wang Jingwei and Hu Hanmin), which exposed him to Western thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Stuart Mill. The newspaper advocated for the violent overthrow of the Manchu-dominated Qing and the nationalization of property across the globe. Increasingly extreme left-wing views, such as those espoused in Min Pao and adopted by overseas Chinese such as Chiang, drew the ire of ruling Japanese oligarchs and contributed to the government's decision to expel Sun Yat-sen from the country in 1907. After graduating from Tokyo Shinbu Gakko, Chiang was commissioned a second-class junior officer in a field artillery regiment, the 19th Field Artillery Regiment of the 13th IJA Division, stationed in Niigata Prefecture; to have active service in the army was a prerequisite for aspiring officers who wished to enter the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. Standing at 5 feet 7 inches and weighing just 130 pounds, Chiang was ill-suited to the regiment's forced marches and winter drills, but was known for his dedication as a soldier. Japanese officers in the regiment remembered him for his discipline and loyalty; a sergeant described Chiang as having an "impressive and forbidding expression." He rose to a first-class soldier on 1 June 1911 and was promoted artillery leader on 1 August that same year. His division commander, general Nagaoka Gaishi, wrote years later—in 1929—an article attributing Chiang's military successes in China to his dedication to "loyalty and gratitude" during his years in the Japanese army.
=== Return to China === Sometime in October 1911, Chiang received a telegram from Chen Qimei notifying him of a finally successful anti-Qing uprising—the Wuchang Uprising—taking place in Wuchang, Hubei, where a mutiny of government soldiers transformed into an outright rebellion which brought control of the city under a friendly revolutionary group, the Society for Common Progress (Chinese: 共進會; pinyin: Gòngjìnhuì). On October 11, Manchu control over Wuchang's neighboring cities, Hankou and Hanyang, was also overthrown, inspiring a wave of anti-Qing movements across China. The uprising, which is now commemorated on Double Ten Day, proved to give the decisive momentum for a national revolution in China, marking the end of the Qing dynasty. News of the Wuchang Uprising shocked Chiang, who immediately applied to leave military service in order to return to China. At Chen's request, Chiang, along with Zhang Qun and 118 other Chinese cadets, boarded a ship at Nagasaki bound for Shanghai on October 13 to join the revolutionary cause. Shortly before leaving they were honorably discharged from military service. In accordance with bushido custom, Chiang and Zhang drank glasses of water at their farewell in Japan, signifying their determination not to return alive. Chiang intended to fight as an artillery officer. He served in the revolutionary forces, leading a regiment in Shanghai under Chen Qimei as one of Chen's chief lieutenants. 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. 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 and charged him with various felonies. These charges never resulted in a trial, and Chiang was never jailed. Chiang became a founding member of the KMT after the 1911 Revolution. Following the takeover of the Republican government by Yuan Shikai and the failed Second Revolution against Yuan in 1913, Chiang, like his KMT comrades, divided his time between exile in Japan and the havens of the Shanghai International Settlement. On 18 May 1916, agents of Yuan Shikai assassinated Chen Qimei. Chiang succeeded Chen as leader of the Chinese Revolutionary Party in Shanghai. Sun Yat-sen's political career reached its lowest point during this time, as most of his old Tongmenghui comrades refused to join him in the exiled Chinese Revolutionary Party.
== Establishing the Kuomintang's position == In 1917, Sun Yat-sen moved his base of operations to Guangzhou, where Chiang joined him in 1918. At this time Sun remained largely sidelined; without arms or money, he was soon expelled from the city and exiled again to Shanghai, only to return to Guangdong with mercenary help in 1920. After his return, a rift developed between Sun, who sought to militarily unify China under the KMT, and Guangdong Governor Chen Jiongming, who wanted to implement a federalist system with Guangdong as a model province. On 16 June 1922 Ye Ju, a general of Chen's whom Sun had attempted to exile, led an assault on Guangdong's Presidential Palace. Sun had already fled to the naval yard and boarded the SS Haiqi, but his wife Soong Ching-ling narrowly evaded shelling and rifle-fire as she fled. They met on the SS Yongfeng, where Chiang joined them as soon as he could return from Shanghai, where he was ritually mourning his mother's death. For about 50 days, Chiang stayed with Sun, protecting and caring for him and earning his lasting trust. They abandoned their attacks on Chen on 9 August, taking a British ship to Hong Kong and traveling to Shanghai by steamer.
Sun regained control of Guangdong in early 1923, again with the help of mercenaries from Yunnan and of the Comintern. Undertaking a reform of the KMT, he established a revolutionary government aimed at unifying China under the KMT. That same year Sun sent Chiang to Moscow, where he spent three months studying the Soviet political and military system. There Chiang met Leon Trotsky and other Soviet leaders, but quickly came to the conclusion that the Russian model of government was not suitable for China. Chiang later sent his eldest son, Chiang Ching-kuo, to study in the Soviet Union. After his father's split from the First United Front in 1927, Ching-kuo was retained there as a hostage until 1937. Chiang wrote in his diary, "It is not worth it to sacrifice the interest of the country for the sake of my son." In the West and in the Soviet Union, Chiang Kai-shek was known as the "Red General". At Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow, portraits of Chiang were hung on the walls; and, in the Soviet May Day parades that year, Chiang's portrait was to be carried along with the portraits of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and other Communist leaders. The United States consulate and other Westerners in Shanghai were concerned about the approach of "Red General" Chiang as his army was seizing control of large areas of the country in the Northern Expedition. When Chiang returned in 1924 Sun appointed him Commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy. Chiang resigned after one month in disagreement with Sun's close cooperation with the Comintern, but returned at Sun's demand, and accepted Zhou Enlai as his political commissar. The early years at Whampoa allowed Chiang to cultivate a cadre of young officers loyal to both the KMT and himself. Throughout his rise to power, Chiang also benefited from membership within the nationalist Tiandihui fraternity, to which Sun Yat-sen also belonged, and which remained a source of support during his leadership of the Kuomintang.
Rising power
Sun Yat-sen died on 12 March 1925, creating a power vacuum in the Kuomintang. A contest ensued among Wang Jingwei, Liao Zhongkai, and Hu Hanmin. In August, Liao was assassinated and Hu was arrested for his connections to the murderers. Wang Jingwei, who had succeeded Sun as the first president of the Nationalist government, then controlling only Guangdong province, seemed ascendant but was forced into exile by Chiang following the Canton Coup. During the coup, the SS Yongfeng, renamed the Zhongshan in Sun's honour, had appeared off Changzhou, the location of the Whampoa Academy, on apparently-falsified orders and amid a series of unusual phone calls trying to ascertain Chiang's location. He initially considered fleeing Guangdong and even booked passage on a Japanese steamer but then decided to use his military connections to declare martial law on 20 March 1926 and to crack down on Communist and Soviet influence over the National Revolutionary Army, the military academy, and the party. The right wing of the party supported him, and Joseph Stalin, anxious to maintain Soviet influence in the area, had his lieutenants agree to Chiang's demands on a reduced Communist presence in the KMT leadership in exchange for certain other concessions. The rapid replacement of leadership enabled Chiang to effectively end civilian oversight of the military after 15 May, though his authority was somewhat limited by the army's own regional composition and divided loyalties. On 5 June 1926, he was named commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA); on 27 July, he launched Sun's long-delayed Northern Expedition, aimed at conquering the northern warlords and bringing China together under the KMT. The NRA branched into three divisions: to the west was Wang Jingwei, who returned from his exile in France to lead a column to take Wuhan; Bai Chongxi's column went east to take Shanghai; Chiang himself led in the middle route, planning to take Nanjing before pressing ahead to capture Beijing. However, in January 1927, Wang Jingwei and his KMT leftist allies took the city of Wuhan amid much popular mobilization and fanfare. Allied with a number of Chinese Communists and advised by Soviet agent Mikhail Borodin, Wang declared the Nationalist government as having moved to Wuhan. In 1927, when Chiang was setting up a rival Nationalist government in Nanjing, he was preoccupied with the elevation of Sun Yat-sen to the Father of a Republic. He asked Chen Guofu to purchase a photograph that had been taken in Japan c. 1895 or 1898. It showed members of the Revive China Society with Yeung Ku-wan as president, in the place of honor, and Sun, as secretary, on the back row, along with members of the Japanese Chapter of the Revive China Society. When told that it was not for sale, Chiang offered a million dollars to recover the photo and its negative, "The party must have this picture and the negative at any price. They must be destroyed as soon as possible. It would be embarrassing to have our Father of the Chinese Republic shown in a subordinate position". On 12 April 1927, Chiang carried out a purge of thousands of suspected Communists and dissidents in Shanghai, and began large-scale massacres across the country collectively known as the "White Terror". During April, more than 12,000 people were killed in Shanghai. The killings drove most Communists from urban cities and into the rural countryside, where the KMT was less powerful. In the year after April 1927, over 300,000 people died across China in the anti-communist suppression campaigns, executed by the KMT. Some estimates claim the White Terror took millions of lives, most of them in rural areas. No concrete number can be verified. Chiang allowed Soviet agent and advisor Mikhail Borodin and Soviet general Vasily Blücher to "escape" to safety after the purge. The NRA formed by the KMT swept through southern and central China until it was checked in Shandong, where confrontations with the Japanese garrison escalated into armed conflict. The conflicts were collectively known as the Jinan incident of 1928. Now with an established national government in Nanjing, and supported by conservative allies including Hu Hanmin, Chiang's expulsion of the Communists and their Soviet advisers led to the Chinese Civil War. Wang Jingwei's Nationalist government was weak militarily, and was soon ended by Chiang with the support of a local warlord (Li Zongren of Guangxi). Wang and his leftist party surrendered to Chiang and joined him in Nanjing. However, the cracks between Chiang and Hu's traditionally right-wing KMT faction, the Western Hills Group, began to show soon after the purge of the Communists, and Chiang later imprisoned Hu.
Though Chiang had consolidated the power of the KMT in Nanjing, it was still necessary to capture Beijing to claim the legitimacy needed for international recognition. Beijing was taken in June 1928, from an alliance of the warlords Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan. Yan moved in and captured Peiping on behalf of his new allegiance after the death of Zhang Zuolin in 1928. His successor, Zhang Xueliang, accepted the authority of the KMT leadership, and the Northern Expedition officially concluded, marking the end of the Warlord Era. After the Northern Expedition, Yan, Feng, Li Zongren and Zhang Fakui broke off relations with Chiang shortly after a demilitarization conference in 1929. Joined by Wang Jingwei, they formed an anti-Chiang coalition to openly challenge the legitimacy of the Nanjing government. They were defeated in the Central Plains War. Chiang made great efforts to gain recognition as the official successor of Sun Yat-sen. In a pairing of great political significance, Chiang was Sun's brother-in-law. He had married Soong Mei-ling, the younger sister of Soong Ching-ling, Sun's widow, on 1 December 1927. Originally rebuffed in the early 1920s, Chiang managed to ingratiate himself to some degree with Soong Mei-ling's mother by first divorcing his wife and concubines and promising to sincerely study the precepts of Christianity. He read the copy of the Bible that Mei-ling had given him twice before making up his mind to become a Christian, and three years after his marriage he was baptized in the Soong's Methodist church. Although observers felt that he adopted Christianity as a political move, studies of his autobiographical accounts and recently opened diaries suggest that his faith was strong and sincere and that he felt that Christianity reinforced Confucian teachings. Upon reaching Beijing, Chiang paid homage to Sun Yat-sen and had his body moved from the Temple of Azure Clouds to the new capital of Nanjing to be enshrined in the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum.
Rule
Having gained control of China, Chiang's party remained surrounded by defeated warlords who remained relatively autonomous within their own regions. On 10 October 1928, Chiang was named director of the State Council, the equivalent to President of the country, in addition to his other titles. As with his predecessor Sun Yat-sen, the Western media dubbed him "Generalissimo".
According to Sun Yat-sen's plans, the KMT was to rebuild China in three steps: military rule, political tutelage, and constitutional rule. The ultimate goal of the KMT revolution was democracy, which was not considered to be feasible in China's fragmented state. Since the KMT had completed the first step of revolution through seizure of power in 1928, Chiang's rule thus began a period of what his party considered to be "political tutelage" in Sun Yat-sen's name. During this so-called Republican Era, many features of a modern, functional Chinese state emerged and developed.Communist revolution is fundamentally unsuited to China. Any revolution animated by hatred cannot accord with the moral character of the Chinese people. For once hatred becomes the motivating force, action inevitably descends into cruelty and moral debasement, seeking advantage through the injury of others. Such conduct stands in direct opposition to the ethical foundations of Chinese civilization. For several millennia, China's moral tradition has been oriented toward altruism rather than self-interest. The inherent disposition of the Chinese people has been one of peacefulness, magnanimity, and moral luminosity. They do not wish to endure cruelty inflicted by others, nor do they wish to impose cruelty upon others. They neither accept ignoble means applied to themselves, nor do they consent to employ ignoble means against others. Accordingly, methods characterized by cruelty and moral baseness cannot take root in China; at the very least, they will never command the approval of the great majority of the people.
Moreover, revolutions prosecuted through cruel and ignoble means have never escaped failure. Since Communist revolution adopts precisely such methods, it is destined to encounter the opposition of the Chinese people as a whole—or, at minimum, of their overwhelming majority. Any revolutionary action that fails to secure the moral sympathy of the majority can never be legitimately undertaken. This constitutes the first and fundamental reason why the Soviet-style Communist revolution is incompatible with China.—Chiang, "The Differences Between Our Party's National Revolution and the Soviet Communist Revolution," 25 April 1929. From 1928 to 1937, known as the Nanjing decade, various aspects of foreign imperialism, concessions and privileges in China were moderated by diplomacy. The government acted to modernize the legal and penal systems and attempted to stabilize prices, amortize debts, reform the banking and currency systems, build railroads and highways, improve public health facilities, legislate against traffic in narcotics, and augment industrial and agricultural production. Efforts were made to improve education standards, and the national academy of sciences, Academia Sinica, was founded. In an effort to unify Chinese society, the New Life Movement was launched to encourage Confucian moral values and personal discipline. Guoyu ("national language") was promoted as the official language, and the establishment of communications facilities (including radio) was used to encourage a sense of Chinese nationalism in a way that had not been possible when the nation lacked an effective central government. Under that context, the Chinese Rural Reconstruction Movement was implemented by some social activists who graduated as professors of the United States with tangible but limited progress in modernizing the tax, infrastructural, economic, cultural, and educational equipment and the mechanisms of rural regions. The social activists actively co-ordinated with the local governments in the towns and villages since the early 1930s. However, the policy was subsequently neglected and canceled by Chiang's government because of rampant wars and the lack of resources after the Japanese War and the civil war. Despite being a conservative, Chiang supported modernization policies such as scientific advancement, universal education, and women's rights. The Kuomintang supported women's suffrage and education and the abolition of polygamy and foot binding. Under Chiang's leadership, the Republic of China government also enacted a women's quota in the parliament, with reserved seats for women. During the Nanjing Decade, average Chinese citizens received education that they had been denied by the dynasties. That increased the literacy rate across China and also promoted the ideals of Tridemism of democracy, republicanism, science, constitutionalism, and Chinese nationalism based on the Dang Guo system of the KMT. Any successes that the Nationalists achieved, however, were met with constant political and military upheavals. Many of the urban areas were now under the control of the KMT, but much of the countryside remained under the influence of weakened but undefeated warlords, landlords, and Communists. Chiang often resolved issues of warlord obstinacy through military action, but such action was costly in terms of men and material. The Central Plains War alone nearly bankrupted the Nationalist government and caused almost 250,000 casualties on both sides. In 1931, Hu Hanmin, an old supporter of Chiang, publicly voiced a popular concern that Chiang's position as both premier and president flew in the face of the democratic ideals of the Nationalist government. Chiang had Hu put under house arrest, but Hu was released after national condemnation. Hu then left Nanjing and supported a rival government in Guangzhou. The split resulted in a military conflict between Hu's Guangdong government and Chiang's Nationalist government.
Throughout his rule, complete eradication of the Communists remained Chiang's dream. After he had assembled his forces in Jiangxi, Chiang led his armies against the newly established Chinese Soviet Republic. With help from foreign military advisers such as the German Max Bauer and Alexander von Falkenhausen, Chiang's Fifth Campaign finally surrounded the Chinese Red Army in 1934. The Communists, tipped off that a Nationalist offensive was imminent, retreated in the Long March during which Mao rose from a mere military official to the most influential leader of the Chinese Communist Party. Some academics and historians have classified Chiang's rule as fascist. The New Life Movement, initiated by Chiang, was based upon Confucianism mixed with Christianity, nationalism, and authoritarianism that have some similarities to fascism, which some historians alleged was an imitation of Nazism. Frederic Wakeman argued that the New Life Movement was "Confucian fascism". Chiang also sponsored the creation of the Blue Shirts Society, in conscious imitation of the Blackshirts in the Italian National Fascist Party and the Sturmabteilung of the Nazi Party. Its ideology was to expel foreign (Japanese and Western) imperialists from China and to crush communism. Close ties with Nazi Germany also gave the Nationalist government access to German military and economic assistance during the mid-1930s. In a 1935 speech, Chiang stated that "fascism is what China now most needs" and described fascism as the stimulant for a declining society. Mao once derogatorily compared Chiang to Adolf Hitler, referring to him as the "Führer of China". However, other scholars have opposed or questioned the view of some scholars that Chiang Kai-shek is a "fascist". Jay Taylor argues that Chiang's ideology does not espouse the general ideology of fascism despite his growing sympathies with fascist ideas in the 1930s. Chiang repeatedly attacked his enemies such as the Empire of Japan as fascistic and ultra-militaristic; he also declared his opposition to the fascist ideology in the 1940s. A. James Gregor rejects categorising Chiang's rule as fascist, arguing that the regime lacked the totalitarian mass mobilization of European fascism and functioned instead as a form of developmental nationalism or military authoritarianism. In July 1932, Chiang expressed his opposition to attempts to introduce a fascist system in China in front of reporters, asking, "how is this any different from the Communists' desire to turn China into a communist state?" Chiang believed that the Three Principles of the People was the best ideology, and he demanded that his subordinates "ideologically, if they lean to the left, must not emulate the communists; if they lean to the right, must not emulate the fascists.". Sino-German relations deteriorated as Germany grew closer to Japan and almost completely broke down when Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China in 1937, which Germany failed to mediate. However, China, throughout the 1930s, refrained from declaring war on the Axis powers, including Germany and Italy. China also did not formally declare war on Japan until after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, which led to it officially declaring war on Japan, Germany, and Italy. Chinese Communists and many conservative anti-communist writers have argued that Chiang was pro-capitalist based on the alliance thesis (the alliance between Chiang and the capitalists to purge the communist and the leftist elements in Shanghai, as well as in the resulting civil war). However, Chiang also antagonized the capitalists of Shanghai by often attacking them and confiscating their capital and assets for government use even while he denounced and fought against communists. Critics have called that "bureaucratic capitalism". Historian Parks M. Coble argues that the phrase "bureaucratic capitalism" is too simplistic to adequately characterize this phenomenon. Instead, he says, the regime weakened all social forces so that the government could pursue policies without being responsible nor responsive to any outside political groups. By defeating any potential challenge to its power, government officials could amass sizable fortunes. With that motive, Chiang cracked down pro-communist worker and peasant organizations, as well as rich Shanghai capitalists. Chiang also continued the anti-capitalist rhetoric of Sun Yat-sen and directed the Kuomintang media to attack the capitalists and capitalism openly. He supported government-controlled industries instead. Coble says that the rhetoric had no impact on governmental policy and that its use was to prevent the capitalists from claiming legitimacy within the party or society and to control them and their wealth. Authority within the Nationalist government ultimately lay with Chiang. All major policy changes on military, diplomatic, or economic issues required his approval. According to historian Odd Arne Westad, "no other leader within the [KMT] had the authority to force through even the simplest decisions. The practical power of high-ranking officials like ministers or the head of the Executive Yuan was more closely tied to their relationship with Chiang than with the formal authority of their position". Chiang created multiple layers of power in his administration which he sometimes played off against each other to prevent individuals or cliques from gathering power that could oppose his authority. Contrary to the critique that Chiang was highly corrupt, he was not involved in corruption himself. However his wife, Soong Mei-ling, ignored her family's involvement in corruption. The Soong family embezzled $20 million in the course of the 1930s and the 1940s when the Nationalist government's revenues were less than $30 million per year. The Soong family's eldest son, T.V. Soong, was the Chinese premier and finance minister, and the eldest daughter, Soong Ai-ling, was the wife of Kung Hsiang-hsi, the wealthiest man in China. The second daughter, Soong Ching-ling, was the wife of Sun Yat-sen, China's founding father. The youngest daughter, Soong Mei-ling, married Chiang in 1927, and following the marriage, both families became intimately connected, which created the "Soong dynasty" and the "Four Families". However, Soong was also credited for her campaign for women's rights in China, including her attempts to improve the education, culture, and social benefits of Chinese women. Critics have said that the "Four Families" monopolized the regime and looted it. The US sent considerable aid to the Nationalist government but soon realized the widespread corruption. Military supplies that were sent appeared on the black market. Significant sums of money that had been transmitted through T. V. Soong, China's finance minister, soon disappeared. President Truman famously referred to the Nationalist leaders, "They're thieves, every damn one of them." He also said, "They stole $750 million out of the billions that we sent to Chiang. They stole it, and it's invested in real estate down in São Paulo and some right here in New York." Soong Mei-ling and Soong Ai-ling lived luxurious lifestyles and held millions in property, clothes, art, and jewelry. Soong Ai-ling and Soong Mei-ling were also the two richest women in China. Despite living a luxurious life for almost her entire life, Soong Mei-ling left only a $120,000 inheritance, and the reason is that according to her niece, that she donated most of her wealth when she was still alive. Chiang, requiring support, tolerated corruption with people in his inner circles, as well as high-ranking nationalist officials, but not of lower-ranking officers. In 1934, he ordered seven military officers who embezzled state property to be shot. In another case, several division commanders pleaded with Chiang to pardon a criminal officer, but as soon as the division commanders had left, Chiang ordered him shot. The deputy editor and chief reporter at the Central Daily News, Lu Keng, made headline international news by exposing the corruption of two senior officials, Kong Xiangxi (H. H. Kung) and T. V. Soong. Chiang then ordered a thorough investigation of the Central Daily News to find the source. However, Lu risked execution by refusing to comply and protecting his journalists. Chiang wanting to avoid an international response and so jailed Lu instead. Chiang realized the widespread problems that corruption was creating, so he undertook several anti-corruption campaigns before and after World War II with varying success. Before the war, both campaigns, the Nanjing Decade Cleanup of 1927–1930 and the Wartime Reform Movement of 1944–1947, failed. Both campaigns following World War II and the KMT retreat to Taiwan, the Kuomintang Reconstruction of 1950–1952 and the Governmental Rejuvenation of 1969–1973, succeeded. Chiang, who viewed all of the foreign great powers with suspicion, wrote in a letter that they "all have it in their minds to promote the interests of their own respective countries at the cost of other nations" and saw it as hypocritical for any of them to condemn one another's foreign policy. He used diplomatic persuasion on the United States, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union to regain lost Chinese territories, as he viewed all foreign powers as imperialists that were attempting to exploit China.
First phase of Chinese Civil War
During April 1931, Chiang Kai-shek attended a national leadership conference in Nanjing with Zhang Xueliang and General Ma Fuxiang during which Chiang and Zhang dauntlessly upheld that Manchuria was part of China in the face of the Japanese invasion. After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Chiang resigned as Chairman of the National Government. He returned shortly afterward. Chiang adopted the slogan "first internal pacification, then external resistance," contending that warlords and the CCP had to be eliminated before the invading Japanese could be opposed. This policy of avoiding a frontal war against Japan and prioritizing anti-communist suppression was widely unpopular and provoked nationwide protests. The CCP called for an end to civil war and a united front against the Japanese. Chiang's policy of non-resistance to Japan contributed to a decrease in support for the Nationalists and an increase in support for the CCP. In 1932, while Chiang was seeking first to defeat the CCP, Japan launched an advance on Shanghai and bombarded Nanjing. That disrupted Chiang's offensives against the CCP for a time, but it was the northern factions of Hu Hanmin's Guangdong government (notably the 19th Route Army) that primarily led the offensive against the Japanese during the skirmish. Brought into the NRA immediately after the battle, the 19th Route Army's career under Chiang would be cut short by being disbanded for demonstrating socialist tendencies. In December 1936, Chiang flew to Xi'an to co-ordinate a major assault on the Red Army and the CCP, which had retreated into Yan'an. However, Chiang's allied commander Zhang Xueliang, whose forces were used in his attack and whose homeland of Manchuria had been recently invaded by the Japanese, did not support the attack on the Communists. On 12 December, Zhang and several other Nationalist generals, headed by Yang Hucheng of Shaanxi, kidnapped Chiang for two weeks in what is known as the Xi'an Incident. They forced Chiang into making a "Second United Front" with the Communists against Japan. After releasing Chiang and returning to Nanjing with him, Zhang was placed under house arrest, and the generals who had assisted him were executed. The Second United Front had a commitment by Chiang that was nominal at best and was all but dissolved in 1941.
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in July 1937, and in August, Chiang sent 600,000 of his best-trained and equipped soldiers to defend Shanghai. With over 200,000 Chinese casualties, Chiang lost the political cream of his Whampoa-trained officers. Although Chiang lost militarily, the battle dispelled Japan's claims that it could conquer China in three months and also demonstrated to the Western powers that the Chinese would continue the fight. By December, the capital city of Nanjing had fallen to the Japanese resulting in the Nanjing Massacre. Chiang moved the government inland first to Wuhan and later to Chongqing. Having lost most of China's economic and industrial centers, Chiang withdrew into the hinterlands, stretched the Japanese supply lines, and bogged down Japanese soldiers in the vast Chinese interior. As part of a policy of protracted resistance, Chiang authorized the use of scorched-earth tactics, which resulted in many civilian deaths. During the Nationalists' retreat from Zhengzhou, the dams around the city were deliberately destroyed by the National Revolutionary Army to delay the Japanese advance, and the subsequent 1938 Yellow River flood killed 800,000 to one million people. Four million Chinese were left homeless. Chiang and the KMT were slow to provide disaster relief. After heavy fighting, the Japanese occupied Wuhan in the fall of 1938, and the Nationalists retreated farther inland to Chongqing. En route to Chongqing, the Nationalist Army intentionally started the Changsha Fire as a part of its scorched-earth policy. The fire destroyed much of the city, killed 20,000 civilians, and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. An organizational error (it was claimed) caused the fire to be started without any warning to the residents of the city. The Nationalists eventually blamed three local commanders for the fire and executed them. Newspapers across China blamed the fire on (non-KMT) arsonists, but the blaze contributed to a nationwide loss of support for the KMT. In 1939, the Muslim leaders Isa Yusuf Alptekin and Ma Fuliang were sent by Chiang to several Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt, Turkey, and Syria, to gain support for the war against Japan and to express his support for Muslims. The Japanese, controlling the puppet state of Manchukuo and much of China's eastern seaboard, appointed Wang Jingwei as a puppet ruler of the occupied Chinese territories around Nanjing. Wang named himself President of the Executive Yuan and chairman, and he led a surprisingly large minority of anti-Chiang and anti-Communist Chinese against his old comrades. He died in 1944, a year before the end of World War II. The Hui Xidaotang sect pledged allegiance to the Kuomintang after the party's rise to power, and Hui general Bai Chongxi acquainted Chiang with the Xidaotang Juaozhu Ma Mingren in 1941 in Chongqing. In 1942 Chiang went on tour in northwestern China in Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, and Qinghai, where he met the Muslim Generals Ma Buqing and Ma Bufang. He also met the Muslim Generals Ma Hongbin and Ma Hongkui separately.
A border crisis erupted with Tibet in 1942. Under orders from Chiang, Ma Bufang repaired Yushu Airport to prevent Tibetan separatists from seeking independence. Chiang also ordered Ma Bufang to put his Muslim soldiers on alert for an invasion of Tibet in 1942. Ma Bufang complied and moved several thousand troops to the Tibetan border. Chiang also threatened the Tibetans with aerial bombardment if they worked with the Japanese. Ma Bufang attacked the Tibetan Buddhist Tsang monastery in 1941. He also constantly attacked the Labrang Monastery. After the attack on Pearl Harbor and the opening of the Pacific War, China became one of the Allies. During and after World War II, Chiang and his American-educated wife, Soong Mei-ling, known in the United States as "Madame Chiang", held the support of the American China Lobby, which saw in them the hope of a Christian and democratic China. Chiang was even named the Supreme Commander of Allied forces in the China war zone. He was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1942. General Joseph Stilwell, an American military advisor to Chiang during World War II, strongly criticized Chiang and his generals for what Stilwell saw as their incompetence and corruption. In 1944, the United States Army Air Corps commenced Operation Matterhorn to bomb Japan's steel industry from bases to be constructed in mainland China. That was meant to fulfill US President Franklin D. Roosevelt's promise to Chiang to begin bombing operations against Japan by November 1944. However, Chiang's subordinates refused to take air base construction seriously until enough capital had been delivered to permit embezzlement on a massive scale. Stilwell estimated that at least half of the $100 million spent on construction of air bases was embezzled by Nationalist party officials. The poor performance of Nationalist forces during the Japanese Ichigo campaign contributed to the view that Chiang was incompetent. Their poor performance irreparably damaged Chiang and the Nationalists in the view of the Roosevelt administration. Chiang argued that the United States, and Stillwell in particular, were at fault for the failure because they had moved too many Chinese troops into the Burma campaign. After the Japanese surrender, Chiang had to rely on the assistance of the United States in order to transport his troops to regain control of occupied areas. Non-Chinese found the behavior of these troops and accompanying officials as undercutting Nationalist legitimacy, as Nationalist forces engaged in a "botched liberation" characterized by corruption, looting, and inefficiency. Chiang tried to balance the influence of the Soviets and the Americans in China during the war. He first told the Americans that they would be welcome in talks between the Soviet Union and China and then secretly told the Soviets that the Americans were unimportant and that their opinions would not be considered. Chiang also used American support and military power in China against Soviet ambitions to dominate the talks. That stopped the Soviets from taking full advantage of the situation in China by the threat of American military action against them. Chiang's Nationalist government made laws on abortion in China more restrictive during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
=== French Indochina === President Roosevelt, through General Stilwell, privately made it clear that he preferred for the French not to reacquire French Indochina (now Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) after the war was over. Roosevelt offered Chiang control of all of Indochina. It was said that Chiang replied in English, "Under no circumstances!" After the war, 200,000 Chinese troops under General Lu Han were sent by Chiang to northern Indochina (north of the 16th parallel) to accept the surrender of Japanese occupying forces there, and the Chinese forces remained in Indochina until 1946, when the French returned. The Chinese used the VNQDD, the Vietnamese branch of the Kuomintang, to increase their influence in Indochina and to put pressure on their opponents. Chiang threatened the French with war in response to maneuvering by the French and Ho Chi Minh's forces against each other and forced them to come to a peace agreement. In February 1946, he also forced the French to surrender all of their concessions in China and to renounce their extraterritorial privileges in exchange for the Chinese withdrawing from northern Indochina and allowing French troops to reoccupy the region. After France's agreement to those demands, 20,000 French soldiers landed in Haiphong, North Vietnam, on 6 March 1946, under the leadership of general Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, followed by the withdrawal of Chinese troops which began in March 1946.
=== Ryukyus === According to Republic of China's notes of a dinner meeting during the Cairo Conference in 1943, Roosevelt asked Chiang whether China desired the Ryukyu Islands as territories restored from Japan. Chiang said he would be agreeable to joint occupation and administration by China and the United States.
Second phase of Chinese Civil War
Treatment and use of Japanese soldiers
Because of Chiang's focus on his communist opponents, he allowed some Japanese forces and forces from the Japanese puppet regimes to remain on duty in occupied areas in an effort to prevent the communists from accepting their surrender. American troops and weapons soon bolstered the Nationalist forces, which allowed them to reclaim the cities. The countryside, however, remained largely under Communist control. Chiang implemented his war-time phrase "repay evil with good" and made a huge effort to protect elements of the Japanese invading army. In 1949, a Nationalist court acquitted General Okamura Yasuji, the chief commander of Japanese forces in China, of alleged war crimes, retaining him as an advisor. Nationalist China repeatedly intervened to protect Okamura from repeated American requests to testify at the Tokyo war crimes trial. Many top Nationalist generals, including Chiang, had studied and trained in Japan before the Nationalists had returned to the mainland in the 1920s and maintained close personal friendships with top Japanese officers. The Japanese general in charge of all forces in China, General Okamura, had personally trained officers who later became generals in Chiang's staff. Reportedly, Chiang seriously considered accepting this offer but declined only because he knew that the United States would certainly be outraged by the gesture. Even so, armed Japanese troops remained in China well into 1947, with some non-commissioned officers finding their way into the Nationalist officer corps. The Japanese in China came to regard Chiang as a magnanimous figure to whom many of them owed their lives and livelihoods; that fact was attested by both Nationalist and Communist sources.
Conditions during Chinese Civil War
Chiang did not de-mobilize his troops after the defeat of the Japanese, instead remaining on a war footing to prepare for the resumption of civil war against the Communists. This further strained the economy of Nationalist-era China, worsening deficits. A significant body of evidence suggests that much of the Nationalist military budget in this period was wasted. One factor in military budget waste included that troop counts were inflated above actual head counts and that officers embezzled the salaries of the non-existent soldiers. Another was the power of military commanders over local branches of the Bank of China, which they could require to provide currency outside of the normal budget process. Although Chiang had achieved status abroad as a world leader, his government deteriorated as the result of corruption and hyperinflation. In his diary in June 1948, Chiang wrote that the KMT had failed not because of external enemies but because of rot from within. The war had severely weakened the Nationalists, and the Communists were strengthened by their popular land reform policies and by a rural population that supported and trusted them. The Nationalists initially had superiority in arms and men, but their lack of popularity, infiltration by Communist agents, low morale, and disorganization soon allowed the Communists to gain the upper hand in the civil war.
After World War II, the United States encouraged peace talks between Chiang and the Communist leader, Mao Zedong, in Chongqing. Concerns about widespread and well-documented corruption in Chiang's government throughout his rule made the US government limit aid to Chiang for much of the period of 1946 to 1948 despite the fighting against Mao's Red Army. Alleged infiltration of the US government by CCP agents may have also played a role in the suspension of American aid. Chiang's right-hand man, the secret police chief Dai Li, was anti-American and anti-Communist and a self-declared fascist. Dai ordered Kuomintang agents to spy on American officers. Earlier, Dai had been involved with the Blue Shirts Society, a fascist-inspired paramilitary group within the Kuomintang that wanted to expel Western and Japanese imperialists, crush the Communists, and eliminate feudalism. Dai Li died in a plane crash, which some suspect to be an assassination orchestrated by Chiang; however, the assassination was also rumoured to have been arranged by the American Office of Strategic Services because of Dai's anti-Americanism and since it happened on an American plane.
==== Conflict with Li Zongren ==== A new constitution was promulgated in 1947, and Chiang was elected by the National Assembly as the first President of the Republic of China on 20 May 1948. That marked the beginning of what was termed the "democratic constitutional government" period by the KMT political orthodoxy, but the Communists refused to recognize the new Constitution, and its government as legitimate. Chiang resigned as president on 21 January 1949, as Nationalist forces suffered terrible losses and defections to the Communists. After Chiang's resignation, vice-president Li Zongren became China's acting president. Shortly after Chiang's resignation, the Communists halted their advances and attempted to negotiate the Nationalists' virtual surrender. Li tried to negotiate milder terms to end the civil war but had no success. When it became clear that Li was unlikely to accept Mao's terms, the Communists issued an ultimatum in April 1949 that warned that they would resume their attacks if Li did not agree within five days. Li refused. Li's attempts to carry out his policies faced varying degrees of opposition from Chiang's supporters and were generally unsuccessful. Taylor has noted that Chiang had a superstitious belief in holding Manchuria. After the Nationalist military defeat in the province, Chiang lost faith in winning the war and started to prepare for the retreat to Taiwan. Chiang especially antagonized Li by taking possession of and moving to Taiwan US$200 million of gold and US dollars that belonged to the central government. Li desperately needed them to cover the government's soaring expenses. When the Communists captured the Nationalist capital of Nanjing in April 1949, Li refused to accompany the central government as it fled to Guangdong and instead expressed his dissatisfaction with Chiang by retiring to Guangxi.
The former warlord Yan Xishan, who had fled to Nanjing only one month earlier, quickly insinuated himself within the Li-Chiang rivalry and attempted to have Li and Chiang reconcile their differences in the effort to resist the Communists. At Chiang's request, Yan visited Li to convince Li not to withdraw from public life. Yan broke down in tears while he talked of the loss of his home province of Shanxi to the Communists, and he warned Li that the Nationalist cause was doomed unless Li went to Guangdong. Li agreed to return if Chiang surrendered most of the gold and US dollars in his possession that belonged to the central government, and Chiang stopped overriding Li's authority. After Yan communicated those demands and Chiang agreed to comply with them, Li departed for Guangdong. In Guangdong, Li attempted to create a new government composed of both supporters and opponents of Chiang. Li's first choice of premier was Chu Cheng, a veteran member of the Kuomintang who had been virtually driven into exile for his strong opposition to Chiang. After the Legislative Yuan jas rejected Chu, Li was obliged to choose Yan Xishan instead. By then, Yan was well known for his adaptability, and Chiang welcomed his appointment. The conflict between Chiang and Li persisted. Although he had agreed to do so as a prerequisite of Li's return, Chiang refused to surrender more than a fraction of the wealth that he had sent to Taiwan. Without being backed by gold or foreign currency, the money that was issued by Li and Yan quickly declined in value until it became virtually worthless. Although he did not hold a formal executive position in the government, Chiang continued to issue orders to the army, and many officers continued to obey Chiang, rather than Li. The inability of Li to co-ordinate KMT military forces led him to put into effect a plan of defense that he had contemplated in 1948. Instead of attempting to defend all of southern China, Li ordered what remained of the Nationalist armies to withdraw to Guangxi and Guangdong. He hoped that he could concentrate all available defenses on the smaller area, which would be more easily defensible. The object of Li's strategy was to maintain a foothold on the Chinese mainland in the hope that the United States would eventually be compelled to enter the war in China on the Nationalist side.
Final Communist advance
Chiang opposed Li's plan of defense because it would have placed most of the troops who were still loyal to Chiang under the control of Li and Chiang's other opponents in the central government. To overcome Chiang's intransigence, Li began ousting Chiang's supporters within the central government. Yan Xishan continued in his attempts to work with both sides, which created the impression among Li's supporters that he was a stooge of Chiang, and those who supported Chiang began to bitterly resent Yan for his willingness to work with Li. Because of the rivalry between Chiang and Li, Chiang refused to allow Nationalist troops loyal to him to aid in the defense of Guangxi and Guangdong. That let Communist forces occupy Guangdong in October 1949. After Guangdong fell to the Communists, Chiang relocated the government to Chongqing, and Li effectively surrendered his powers and flew to New York for treatment of his chronic duodenum illness at the Hospital of Columbia University. Li visited President Truman, and denounced Chiang as a dictator and an usurper. Li vowed that he would "return to crush" Chiang once he returned to China. Li remained in exile and did not return to Taiwan. In the early morning of 10 December 1949, Communist troops laid siege to Chengdu, the last KMT-controlled city in mainland China, where Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo directed the defense at the Chengtu Central Military Academy. Flying out of Chengdu Fenghuangshan Airport, father and son were evacuated to Taiwan via Guangdong on the aircraft May-ling and arrived the same day. Chiang Kai-shek would never return to the mainland. Historian Odd Arne Westad says the Communists won the Civil War because they made fewer military mistakes than Chiang had. Also, his search for a powerful centralized government made Chiang antagonize too many interest groups in China. Furthermore, his party was weakened by the war against Japan. Meanwhile, the Communists told different groups, such as peasants, exactly what they wanted to hear and cloaked themselves in the cover of Chinese nationalism. Chiang did not reassume the presidency until 1 March 1950. In January 1952, Chiang commanded the Control Yuan, now in Taiwan, to impeach Li in the "Case of Li Zongren's Failure to carry out Duties due to Illegal Conduct" (李宗仁違法失職案). Chiang relieved Li of the position as vice-president of the National Assembly in March 1954.
