Chiang Kai-Shek
China’s Great Leader?
by
Ardill
Chiang Kai-shek was the leader of China during the Second World War, and presided over a pivotal period for China. He played a major role in Sun Yat-sen’s revolution, acting as Sun’s “loyal right-hand man.”[1] He claimed that his aspiration was “establishing a truly stable foundation for a democratic government,”[2] but he was not in favor of democracy, saying that “in the last several decades we have in vain become drunk with democracy and advocacy of free thought. And what has been the result? We have fallen into a chaotic and irretrievable situation.”[3] An examination of biographical material shows that he was morally reprehensible, corrupt, and too insecure to properly run a country.
Chiang was born at noon on 31 October, 1887 in the village of Xikou.[4] His “father and grandfather sold salt, wine, rice, and sundry goods,”[5] while his mother was “an accomplished seamstress.”[6] As for their social status, the Chiangs were the preeminent family of the village in which they lived.[7] As a young child, Chiang “liked to be at the head of the children,”[8] and would do quite a bit to claim the center of attention.[9] When Chiang’s father, Chiang Shu-an, died in 1895, Chiang’s mother was “no longer the wife of a prominent member of the village,”[10] and Chiang became “the target of insults and maltreatment.”[11] He quickly “learned to erect a protective wall between himself and his surroundings, and to tread warily while never admitting defeat.”[12] He also had significant mood swings, of which traces were still evident in adulthood.[13] It seems that perhaps the loss of power and status he experienced as a child contributed to his paranoia later in life.[14]
Throughout his life, one of Chiang’s notable features was his moral inconsistency. One major manifestation of that was in his married life, in which he showed no faithfulness whatsoever. While married to Mao Fumei, a village girl,[15] he “talked of his uncontrollable urge for alcohol and girls,”[16] apparently “disappearing from headquarters for months at a time into the brothels.”[17] He also married “Yao Yi-cheng, a maid in a Shanghai brothel.”[18] Soon after, he met Chen Jieru, who went by Jennie.[19] He was infatuated with her, asking her to be “his one and only legal wife,”[20] despite the fact that he was nearly twenty years her senior. At one point, he almost raped her, but she “fought like a tigress”[21] and “screamed for help.”[22] He later wrote the following poem for her:
“Oceans may evaporate,
Mountains may crumble
But my love for you
Will never change.”[23]
Chiang then “offered to cut off a finger to show how serious he was.”[24] They were married in 1921. Despite all of his purported love for her, Chiang would go on to deny this after sending her away to California.[25] He said that he “was surprised to learn that one of [his concubines] went to America as [his] wife.”[26] When Jennie wrote her memoirs, they were suppressed “for fear of the embarrassment [they] might cause. The agent handling the book in the United States was attacked and beaten up twice. His office was broken into. He was threatened with lawsuits, and investigated by the FBI.”[27] Chiang later married Soong Meiling, the middle sister in the powerful Soong family, which was wealthy and well-connected.[28] “Her perfect English and connections to the United States made her a most useful ambassador with Westerners, whom she invariably charmed.”[29] Chiang Kai-shek married for beauty, short-lived admiration, money, and power, and showed no faithfulness to any of his wives. But Chiang's unfaithfulness was not only to his wives. Joseph Stilwell (the American sent “to reform the Chinese army”[30]), described him as “a vacillating, tricky, undependable old scoundrel who never keeps his word.”[31]
When it came to power, though, Meiling was a good partner. She had studied at Wellesley College, acquiring her fluency in English along the way. She was the daughter of Charlie Soong, a rising Shanghai businessman.[32] The Soong family was the link among many powerful figures: T. V. Soong “became Nationalist Finance Minister,”[33] Qingling Soong was the wife of Sun Yat-sen,[34] the revolutionary who inspired Chiang,[35] Ailing Soong was married to H. H. Kung,[36] a “banker who became Finance Minister and Prime Minister,”[37] and, of course, Meiling Soong was married to Chiang.[38] She acted as an ambassador to the Western nations, and, crucially, manipulated Chiang and Stilwell so that American aid would continue to flow to China.
Lieutenant-General Joseph Stilwell (often called Vinegar Joe) was an American general, sent to China as Chiang’s Chief of Staff.[39] He was familiar with Chinese language and culture, as he had been there “as a military attaché.”[40] He said that “the trouble with China is simple. We are allied to an ignorant, illiterate, superstitious, peasant son of a [unprintable].”[41] Stilwell had a characteristically low opinion of Chiang: “soon he was referring to Chiang in his diary as ‘Peanut’ - later it became ‘the rattlesnake.’”[42] “The Nationalist leader, he decided, had ‘been boss so long and has so many yes-men around him that he has the idea that he is infallible on any subject… he is not mentally stable, and he will say many things to your face that he doesn’t mean fully or exactly.’”[43] Chiang, while annoyed by Stilwell, was unable to get rid of him, because “Marshall had threatened to cut off aid to China if Chiang could not get along with Stilwell.”[44] Meiling and Ailing tried desperately to improve Chiang’s relationship with Stilwell, “inviting him to teas, boosting his ego, and generally trying to win him over so that he would be more cooperative with China’s war aims.”[45] “The sisters’ campaign was an unqualified success.”[46] Stilwell met with Chiang and “listened politely”[47] to what he described as “balderdash.”[48] Meanwhile, T. V. Soong returned from Washington, “bearing a promise extracted with great effort that Stilwell would be recalled if Chiang so requested.”[49] Chiang, newly reconciled with Stilwell, flew into a rage, replacing “Soong’s capable protégé, Pei Tsu-yi”[50] with H. H. Kung as the head of the Bank of China.[51] “The economy began to deteriorate as a result.”[52]
Chiang’s political party, the Kuomintang, was fraught with flaws and corruption. Much of the coercion of officials was carried out by the Green Gang. Chiang had first made contact with the gang through Chen Qimei,[53] a great friend of his.[54] The leaders of the gang, Big-eared Du and Pockmarked Huang, arranged the deaths of many enemies, such as Wang Shouhua, a powerful union leader.[55] The head of the Bank of China, when he did not cooperate with H. H. Kung, the minister of finance, recorded that he “had been warned by [Du] that he should not raise any opposition ‘for the sake of my health.’”[56] Men from Du’s militia were used to attack unions and kill strikers.[57] One of Du’s favorite methods of intimidation involved delivering a coffin to the doorstep of the victim, “sometimes accompanied by pall-bearers.”[58] The deal between Chiang and the gang was simple: “the gangsters would throw their weight and men behind Chiang and, in return, would be assured of immunity, probably accompanied by an [understanding] that they would enjoy a narcotics monopoly in the city.”[59] “Despite prohibition decrees, opium remained a major source of income for soldiers, officials, local governments and outlaws.”[60] Even though opium was supposedly illegal, Chiang's “regime took much-needed cash from the Green Gang in Shanghai, and from taxing drug shipments on the Yangtze.”[61] His willingness to profit off of the illegal drug trade and pursue his own interests over the country’s interests demonstrates his corruption and dishonesty.
While he was weakening the rule of law by allowing the gangs to run rampant, Chiang was also deliberately weakening the Chinese armies, out of insecurity, mistrust, and fear that he might be overthrown. In one notable incident, Chiang ordered “local troops to fight the Communists, causing both to suffer heavy casualties, while the central government conserved its strength and took control.”[62] The soldiers, understanding the double game that he was playing, refused to fight. The Young Marshal, their commander, sympathized with them and launched a successful effort to kidnap Chiang.[63]
Chiang was also overtly mistrustful of his generals, saying that “they are so dumb they will do a lot of foolishness unless you anticipate them. This is the secret of handling them - you must imagine everything that they can do that would be wrong and warn them against it. This is why I have to write so many letters.”[64] Stilwell wrote that “Chiang Kai-shek… can’t keep his hands off: 1,600 miles from the front, he writes endless instructions to do this and that, based on fragmentary information and a cockeyed conception of tactics. He… thinks he knows everything, and he wobbles this way and that, changing his mind at every change in the action.”[65] Chiang didn’t trust his subordinates, had deep insecurities, and was mortally afraid of betrayal.
Perhaps because of his paranoia, Chiang occupied many posts, at one point holding 82.[66] He gave his generals a very low degree of freedom, and “kept troops out of battle so that they could be used for other purposes at a later date, or station them to check potential domestic rivals.”[67] He wished for “men… who would obey absolutely but who had no talents of their own.”[68] His willingness to use national troops for personal matters was alarming, especially because he was convinced of “his own infallibility.”[69]
Chiang Kai-shek was insecure, corrupt, mistrustful of his subordinates, and unfaithful. He exercised extreme control over his army, often garnering the resentment of the officers. He clashed with Stilwell, the military representative of the Western world; his other foreign policy succeeded only because of Meiling Soong, his wife. He allowed criminal gangs and government corruption to flourish. In short, he set the stage for the Communist takeover in the 1940s.
Sources
Footnotes
[1] Jonathan Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost (New York, NY: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2004), 56.
[2] CNN, "He Had China and Lost It," CNN, 2001, , accessed May 28, 2019, http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/china.50/inside.china/profiles/chiang.kaishek/.
[3] Hannah Pakula, The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the Birth of Modern China (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2009), 218.
[4] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, 17
[5] Ibid., 18
[6] Ibid., 19
[7] Ibid., 18.
[8] Ibid., 19.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid., 20.
[11] Ibid., 21.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid., 90.
[14] Janice R. Kuo et al., "Childhood Trauma and Current Psychological Functioning in Adults with Social Anxiety Disorder," Journal of Anxiety Disorders, May 25, 2011, accessed May 28, 2019, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3074005/.
[15] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, 22.
[16] Ibid., 43.
[17] Pakula, The Last Empress, 91.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, 45. She was also known by the name “Ah Feng.”
[20] Ibid., 50.
[21] Ibid., 46.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid., 50.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid., 167.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid., 45.
[28] Ibid., 134.
[29] Ibid., 170.
[30] Pakula, The Last Empress, xviii
[31] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, 400.
[32] Laura Tyson Li, Madame Chiang Kai-Shek: China's Eternal First Lady (New York, NY: Grove Press, 2007), 6.
[33] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, xxvii.
[34] Pakula, The Last Empress, xviii.
[35] Jay Taylor, The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2011), 48.
[36] Pakula, The Last Empress, xviii.
[37] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, xxv.
[38] Ibid., xxvi.
[39] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, 369-70.
[40] Ibid., 370.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Ibid.
[43] Ibid., 375
[44] Li, Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, 240.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid.
[47] Ibid.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Ibid., 240-1.
[50] Ibid., 241.
[51] Ibid.
[52] Ibid.
[53] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, 31.
[54] Ibid., 25.
[55] Ibid., 147.
[56] Ibid., 238.
[57] Ibid., 147.
[58] Ibid., 141.
[59] Ibid., 146.
[60] Ibid., 183.
[61] Ibid.
[62] Ibid., 282.
[63] Ibid., 283.
[64] Ibid., 345.
[65] Ibid., 375.
[66] Ibid., 244.
[67] Ibid., 345.
[68] Ibid.
[69] Ibid.
Chiang was born at noon on 31 October, 1887 in the village of Xikou.[4] His “father and grandfather sold salt, wine, rice, and sundry goods,”[5] while his mother was “an accomplished seamstress.”[6] As for their social status, the Chiangs were the preeminent family of the village in which they lived.[7] As a young child, Chiang “liked to be at the head of the children,”[8] and would do quite a bit to claim the center of attention.[9] When Chiang’s father, Chiang Shu-an, died in 1895, Chiang’s mother was “no longer the wife of a prominent member of the village,”[10] and Chiang became “the target of insults and maltreatment.”[11] He quickly “learned to erect a protective wall between himself and his surroundings, and to tread warily while never admitting defeat.”[12] He also had significant mood swings, of which traces were still evident in adulthood.[13] It seems that perhaps the loss of power and status he experienced as a child contributed to his paranoia later in life.[14]
Throughout his life, one of Chiang’s notable features was his moral inconsistency. One major manifestation of that was in his married life, in which he showed no faithfulness whatsoever. While married to Mao Fumei, a village girl,[15] he “talked of his uncontrollable urge for alcohol and girls,”[16] apparently “disappearing from headquarters for months at a time into the brothels.”[17] He also married “Yao Yi-cheng, a maid in a Shanghai brothel.”[18] Soon after, he met Chen Jieru, who went by Jennie.[19] He was infatuated with her, asking her to be “his one and only legal wife,”[20] despite the fact that he was nearly twenty years her senior. At one point, he almost raped her, but she “fought like a tigress”[21] and “screamed for help.”[22] He later wrote the following poem for her:
“Oceans may evaporate,
Mountains may crumble
But my love for you
Will never change.”[23]
Chiang then “offered to cut off a finger to show how serious he was.”[24] They were married in 1921. Despite all of his purported love for her, Chiang would go on to deny this after sending her away to California.[25] He said that he “was surprised to learn that one of [his concubines] went to America as [his] wife.”[26] When Jennie wrote her memoirs, they were suppressed “for fear of the embarrassment [they] might cause. The agent handling the book in the United States was attacked and beaten up twice. His office was broken into. He was threatened with lawsuits, and investigated by the FBI.”[27] Chiang later married Soong Meiling, the middle sister in the powerful Soong family, which was wealthy and well-connected.[28] “Her perfect English and connections to the United States made her a most useful ambassador with Westerners, whom she invariably charmed.”[29] Chiang Kai-shek married for beauty, short-lived admiration, money, and power, and showed no faithfulness to any of his wives. But Chiang's unfaithfulness was not only to his wives. Joseph Stilwell (the American sent “to reform the Chinese army”[30]), described him as “a vacillating, tricky, undependable old scoundrel who never keeps his word.”[31]
When it came to power, though, Meiling was a good partner. She had studied at Wellesley College, acquiring her fluency in English along the way. She was the daughter of Charlie Soong, a rising Shanghai businessman.[32] The Soong family was the link among many powerful figures: T. V. Soong “became Nationalist Finance Minister,”[33] Qingling Soong was the wife of Sun Yat-sen,[34] the revolutionary who inspired Chiang,[35] Ailing Soong was married to H. H. Kung,[36] a “banker who became Finance Minister and Prime Minister,”[37] and, of course, Meiling Soong was married to Chiang.[38] She acted as an ambassador to the Western nations, and, crucially, manipulated Chiang and Stilwell so that American aid would continue to flow to China.
Lieutenant-General Joseph Stilwell (often called Vinegar Joe) was an American general, sent to China as Chiang’s Chief of Staff.[39] He was familiar with Chinese language and culture, as he had been there “as a military attaché.”[40] He said that “the trouble with China is simple. We are allied to an ignorant, illiterate, superstitious, peasant son of a [unprintable].”[41] Stilwell had a characteristically low opinion of Chiang: “soon he was referring to Chiang in his diary as ‘Peanut’ - later it became ‘the rattlesnake.’”[42] “The Nationalist leader, he decided, had ‘been boss so long and has so many yes-men around him that he has the idea that he is infallible on any subject… he is not mentally stable, and he will say many things to your face that he doesn’t mean fully or exactly.’”[43] Chiang, while annoyed by Stilwell, was unable to get rid of him, because “Marshall had threatened to cut off aid to China if Chiang could not get along with Stilwell.”[44] Meiling and Ailing tried desperately to improve Chiang’s relationship with Stilwell, “inviting him to teas, boosting his ego, and generally trying to win him over so that he would be more cooperative with China’s war aims.”[45] “The sisters’ campaign was an unqualified success.”[46] Stilwell met with Chiang and “listened politely”[47] to what he described as “balderdash.”[48] Meanwhile, T. V. Soong returned from Washington, “bearing a promise extracted with great effort that Stilwell would be recalled if Chiang so requested.”[49] Chiang, newly reconciled with Stilwell, flew into a rage, replacing “Soong’s capable protégé, Pei Tsu-yi”[50] with H. H. Kung as the head of the Bank of China.[51] “The economy began to deteriorate as a result.”[52]
Chiang’s political party, the Kuomintang, was fraught with flaws and corruption. Much of the coercion of officials was carried out by the Green Gang. Chiang had first made contact with the gang through Chen Qimei,[53] a great friend of his.[54] The leaders of the gang, Big-eared Du and Pockmarked Huang, arranged the deaths of many enemies, such as Wang Shouhua, a powerful union leader.[55] The head of the Bank of China, when he did not cooperate with H. H. Kung, the minister of finance, recorded that he “had been warned by [Du] that he should not raise any opposition ‘for the sake of my health.’”[56] Men from Du’s militia were used to attack unions and kill strikers.[57] One of Du’s favorite methods of intimidation involved delivering a coffin to the doorstep of the victim, “sometimes accompanied by pall-bearers.”[58] The deal between Chiang and the gang was simple: “the gangsters would throw their weight and men behind Chiang and, in return, would be assured of immunity, probably accompanied by an [understanding] that they would enjoy a narcotics monopoly in the city.”[59] “Despite prohibition decrees, opium remained a major source of income for soldiers, officials, local governments and outlaws.”[60] Even though opium was supposedly illegal, Chiang's “regime took much-needed cash from the Green Gang in Shanghai, and from taxing drug shipments on the Yangtze.”[61] His willingness to profit off of the illegal drug trade and pursue his own interests over the country’s interests demonstrates his corruption and dishonesty.
While he was weakening the rule of law by allowing the gangs to run rampant, Chiang was also deliberately weakening the Chinese armies, out of insecurity, mistrust, and fear that he might be overthrown. In one notable incident, Chiang ordered “local troops to fight the Communists, causing both to suffer heavy casualties, while the central government conserved its strength and took control.”[62] The soldiers, understanding the double game that he was playing, refused to fight. The Young Marshal, their commander, sympathized with them and launched a successful effort to kidnap Chiang.[63]
Chiang was also overtly mistrustful of his generals, saying that “they are so dumb they will do a lot of foolishness unless you anticipate them. This is the secret of handling them - you must imagine everything that they can do that would be wrong and warn them against it. This is why I have to write so many letters.”[64] Stilwell wrote that “Chiang Kai-shek… can’t keep his hands off: 1,600 miles from the front, he writes endless instructions to do this and that, based on fragmentary information and a cockeyed conception of tactics. He… thinks he knows everything, and he wobbles this way and that, changing his mind at every change in the action.”[65] Chiang didn’t trust his subordinates, had deep insecurities, and was mortally afraid of betrayal.
Perhaps because of his paranoia, Chiang occupied many posts, at one point holding 82.[66] He gave his generals a very low degree of freedom, and “kept troops out of battle so that they could be used for other purposes at a later date, or station them to check potential domestic rivals.”[67] He wished for “men… who would obey absolutely but who had no talents of their own.”[68] His willingness to use national troops for personal matters was alarming, especially because he was convinced of “his own infallibility.”[69]
Chiang Kai-shek was insecure, corrupt, mistrustful of his subordinates, and unfaithful. He exercised extreme control over his army, often garnering the resentment of the officers. He clashed with Stilwell, the military representative of the Western world; his other foreign policy succeeded only because of Meiling Soong, his wife. He allowed criminal gangs and government corruption to flourish. In short, he set the stage for the Communist takeover in the 1940s.
Sources
- CNN. "He Had China and Lost It." CNN. 2001. Accessed May 28, 2019. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/china.50/inside.china/profiles/chiang.kaishek/.
- Fenby, Jonathan. Chiang Kai-Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2004.
- Kuo, Janice R., Philippe R. Goldin, Kelly Werner, Richard G. Heimberg, and James J. Gross. "Childhood Trauma and Current Psychological Functioning in Adults with Social Anxiety Disorder." Journal of Anxiety Disorders. May 25, 2011. Accessed May 28, 2019. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3074005/.
- Li, Laura Tyson. Madame Chiang Kai-Shek: China's Eternal First Lady. New York, NY: Grove Press, 2007.
- Pakula, Hannah. The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the Birth of Modern China. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2009.
- Taylor, Jay. The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2011.
Footnotes
[1] Jonathan Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost (New York, NY: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2004), 56.
[2] CNN, "He Had China and Lost It," CNN, 2001, , accessed May 28, 2019, http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/china.50/inside.china/profiles/chiang.kaishek/.
[3] Hannah Pakula, The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the Birth of Modern China (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2009), 218.
[4] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, 17
[5] Ibid., 18
[6] Ibid., 19
[7] Ibid., 18.
[8] Ibid., 19.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid., 20.
[11] Ibid., 21.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid., 90.
[14] Janice R. Kuo et al., "Childhood Trauma and Current Psychological Functioning in Adults with Social Anxiety Disorder," Journal of Anxiety Disorders, May 25, 2011, accessed May 28, 2019, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3074005/.
[15] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, 22.
[16] Ibid., 43.
[17] Pakula, The Last Empress, 91.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, 45. She was also known by the name “Ah Feng.”
[20] Ibid., 50.
[21] Ibid., 46.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid., 50.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid., 167.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid., 45.
[28] Ibid., 134.
[29] Ibid., 170.
[30] Pakula, The Last Empress, xviii
[31] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, 400.
[32] Laura Tyson Li, Madame Chiang Kai-Shek: China's Eternal First Lady (New York, NY: Grove Press, 2007), 6.
[33] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, xxvii.
[34] Pakula, The Last Empress, xviii.
[35] Jay Taylor, The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2011), 48.
[36] Pakula, The Last Empress, xviii.
[37] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, xxv.
[38] Ibid., xxvi.
[39] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, 369-70.
[40] Ibid., 370.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Ibid.
[43] Ibid., 375
[44] Li, Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, 240.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid.
[47] Ibid.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Ibid., 240-1.
[50] Ibid., 241.
[51] Ibid.
[52] Ibid.
[53] Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek, 31.
[54] Ibid., 25.
[55] Ibid., 147.
[56] Ibid., 238.
[57] Ibid., 147.
[58] Ibid., 141.
[59] Ibid., 146.
[60] Ibid., 183.
[61] Ibid.
[62] Ibid., 282.
[63] Ibid., 283.
[64] Ibid., 345.
[65] Ibid., 375.
[66] Ibid., 244.
[67] Ibid., 345.
[68] Ibid.
[69] Ibid.