170-445: [REDACTED] Republic of China [REDACTED] National Revolutionary Army The Charkhlik revolt ( Chinese : 婼羌暴動 ) was a Uighur uprising in 1935 against Chinese Muslim -dominated Tunganistan , which was administered by the New 36th Division . The Chinese Muslim troops quickly and brutally defeated the Uighur revolt. Over 100 Uighurs were executed. The revolt leader's family were made hostages. This article related to
340-462: A full-scale invasion of China. World War II devastated China, leading to enormous loss of life and material destruction. The war between China and Japan continued until the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II in 1945, which led to Taiwan being placed under Chinese administration. In the aftermath of World War II, civil war resumed between the areas liberated by the KMT and those liberated by
510-764: A one-party state (" Dang Guo ") and made Nanjing the national capital. In 1949, the KMT-led government was defeated in the Chinese Civil War and lost control of the mainland to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP established the People's Republic of China (PRC) while the ROC was forced to retreat to Taiwan and retains control over the " Taiwan Area "; the political status of Taiwan remains in dispute to this day. The Republic of China
680-664: A puppet state controlling limited amounts of territory. The United Front between the Kuomintang and the CCP had salutary effects for the beleaguered CCP, despite Japan's steady territorial gains in northern China, the coastal regions and the rich Yangtze River valley in central China. After 1940, conflicts between the Kuomintang and Communists became more frequent in the areas not under Japanese control . The Communists expanded their influence wherever opportunities presented themselves through mass organizations, administrative reforms and
850-457: 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
1020-415: A 1969 speech, Chiang related a story about his boat trip to Japan at nineteen years old. Another passenger on the ship, a Chinese fellow student who was in the habit of spitting on the floor, was chided by a Chinese sailor who said that Japanese people did not spit on the floor, but instead would spit into a handkerchief. Chiang used the story as an example of how the common man in 1969 Taiwan had not developed
1190-441: A connection with the personal name of the person. As the courtesy name is the name used by people of the same generation to address the person, Chiang soon became known under this new name. Sometime in 1917 or 1918, as Chiang became close to Sun Yat-sen, he changed his name from Chiang Chih-ch‘ing to Chiang Chung-cheng ( Chinese : 蔣中正 ; pinyin : Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng ; Wade–Giles : Chiang Chung -cheng ). By adopting
1360-598: A corrupt authoritarian regime which massacred civilians and suppressed political dissent. He is also criticized for his flooding of the Yellow River and for allowing the Honan Famine during the war with Japan. Chiang is also credited with transforming China from a semi-colony of various imperialist powers to an independent country by amending the unequal treaties signed by previous governments, as well as moving various national treasures and traditional artworks to
1530-639: 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
1700-463: A frontal war against Japan and prioritizing anti-communist suppression was widely unpopular and provoked nationwide protests. In 1932, while Chiang was seeking first to defeat the Communists, Japan launched an advance on Shanghai and bombarded Nanjing. That disrupted Chiang's offensives against the Communists for a time, but it was the northern factions of Hu Hanmin's Guangdong government (notably
1870-536: A helpless lone war. We were alone in a desert, with no available or possible assistance could we look forward to. But our determination was never shaken, nor was hope abandoned. In early 1906, Chiang cut off his queue , the required hairstyle of men during the Ch‘ing dynasty , and had it sent home from school, shocking the people in his hometown. Chiang grew up at a time in which military defeats, natural disasters, famines, revolts, unequal treaties and civil wars had left
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#17327982983712040-406: A military campaign northwards and reunify the rest of China. Sun's death in 1925 precipitated a power struggle that eventually resulted in the rise of General Chiang Kai-shek to KMT chairmanship . Thanks to strategic alliances with warlords and help from Soviet military advisors, Chiang was able to lead a successful " Northern Expedition " from 1926 to 1928. By 1927, Chiang felt secure enough to end
2210-696: 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 and adopted the slogan "first internal pacification, then external resistance." However, his policy of avoiding
2380-618: A pen name for the articles that he published in a Chinese magazine he founded: Voice of the Army ( 軍聲 ). Jieshi is the pinyin romanization of this name, based on Standard Chinese , but the most recognized romanized rendering is Kai-shek which is in Cantonese romanization. Because the Republic of China was based in Canton (a Cantonese-speaking area), Chiang (who never spoke Cantonese but
2550-695: 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
2720-659: A program of massive military and financial aid to the hard-pressed Nationalist Government . In January 1943, both the United States and the United Kingdom led the way in revising their unequal treaties with China from the past. Within a few months a new agreement was signed between the United States and the Republic of China for the stationing of American troops in China as part of the common war effort against Japan. The United States sought unsuccessfully to reconcile
2890-411: A prosperous family of salt merchants . Chiang's father died when he was eight, and he wrote of his mother as the "embodiment of Confucian virtues ". The young Chiang was inspired throughout his youth by the realization that the reputation of an honored family rested upon his shoulders. He was a naughty child. At a young age he was interested in the military. As he grew older, Chiang became more aware of
3060-410: A protracted war were staggering. The economy deteriorated, sapped by the military demands of foreign war and internal strife, by spiraling inflation, and by Nationalist profiteering, speculation, and hoarding. Starvation came in the wake of the war, and millions were rendered homeless by floods and unsettled conditions in many parts of the country. On 25 October 1945, following the surrender of Japan ,
3230-413: A republic was established to replace the monarchy . The Qing dynasty that preceded the republic had experienced instability throughout the 19th century and suffered from both internal rebellion and foreign imperialism. A program of institutional reform proved too little and too late. Only the lack of an alternative regime prolonged the monarchy's existence until 1912. The Chinese Republic grew out of
3400-595: A rival national government in Guangzhou . Sun was finally able to take Guangzhou with the help of weapons, funding, and advisors from the Soviet Union . As a condition of Soviet support, the KMT formed the " First United Front " with the Chinese Communist Party. CCP members joined the KMT and the two parties cooperated to build a revolutionary base in Canton. Sun planned to use this base to launch
3570-447: A rock', is the beginning of line 2 of Hexagram 16 , " 豫 ". Others note that the first character of his courtesy name is also the first character of the courtesy name of his brother and other male relatives on the same generational line, while the second character of his courtesy name shih ( 石 —meaning "stone") suggests the second character of his "register name" tai ( 泰 —the famous Mount Tai ). Courtesy names in China often bore
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#17327982983713740-457: A town in Yixing , Jiangsu, about 38 km (24 mi) southwest of central Wuxi and 10 km (6.2 mi) from the shores of Lake Tai . He was the third child and second son of his father Chiang Chao-Tsung [ zh ] (also Chiang Su-an; 1842–1895; 蔣肇聰 ) and the first child of his father's third wife Wang Tsai-yu [ zh ] (1863–1921; 王采玉 ) who were members of
3910-670: A variety of entities for the international community including the League of Nations along with its successor the United Nations and the Olympic Games . It was hoped by the government that participating in the Olympic Games this could give more legitimacy to the country in the eyes of the international community and "sports could also cultivate modern citizens and a strong nation". The Republic of China sent athletes to
4080-544: 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
4250-688: Is spelled using a Cantonese transliteration he adopted as opposed to Hanyu Pinyin, though pinyin was adopted by the Republic of China government in 2009 as its official romanization. Chiang was born on 31 October 1887, in Hsikow , a town in Fenghua , Zhejiang , China, about 30 kilometers (19 mi) west of central Ningbo . He was born into a family of Wu Chinese-speaking people with their ancestral home —a concept important in Chinese society —in Heqiao,
4420-781: Is the name under which Chiang is still commonly known in Taiwan. Often the name is shortened to "Chung-cheng" only. Many public places in Taiwan are named Chungcheng after Chiang. For many years passengers arriving at the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport were greeted by signs in Chinese welcoming them to the "Chung Cheng International Airport". Similarly, the monument erected to Chiang's memory in Taipei, known in English as Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall ,
4590-731: The 1911 Revolution , he was a founding member of the KMT, becoming one of Sun's closest lieutenants and head of the Whampoa Military Academy . After Sun's death in 1925, Chiang became commander-in-chief of the NRA, and led the Northern Expedition from 1926 to 1928, which nominally reunified China under a Nationalist government in Nanking . During the campaign, the KMT–CCP alliance broke down in 1927 and Chiang massacred
4760-626: The 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris , 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles , 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin and the 1948 Summer Olympics but no athletes won any medals. For 1928 a single athlete was sent. Although athletes were sent to the 1924 games they did not participate in the games. The Republic of China was a member of the League of Nations and participated until it was dissolved. Those in
4930-662: 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 CPC, 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
5100-781: The Canton Coup . The SS Yungfeng , renamed the Chung-shan 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
5270-652: 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. Frederic Wakeman argued that
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5440-627: The Kumul Rebellion , the Sino-Tibetan War , and the Soviet Invasion of Xinjiang . Large areas of China proper remained under the semi-autonomous rule of local warlords such as Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan , provincial military leaders, or warlord coalitions. Nationalist rule was strongest in the eastern regions around the capital Nanjing. The Central Plains War in 1930, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, and
5610-654: The Manchu -dominated Ch‘ing dynasty unstable and in debt. Successive demands of the Western powers and Japan since the Opium War had left China owing millions of taels of silver. During his first visit to Japan to pursue a military career from April 1906 to later that year, he describes himself as having strong nationalistic feelings with a desire, among other things, to 'expel the Manchu Ch‘ing and to restore China'. In
5780-547: 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
5950-419: The Nanjing decade . Sun Yat-sen envisioned three phases for the KMT rebuilding of China – military rule and violent reunification; political tutelage [ zh ] ; and finally a constitutional democracy. In 1930, after seizing power and reunifying China by force, the "tutelage" phase started with the promulgation of a provisional constitution. In an attempt to distant themselves from
6120-565: The National Palace Museum in Taipei during the 1949 retreat . Like many other Chinese historical figures, Chiang used several names throughout his life. The name inscribed in the genealogical records of his family is Chiang Chou-t‘ai ( Chinese : 蔣周泰 ; pinyin : Jiǎng Zhōutài ; Wade–Giles : Chiang Chou -t‘ai ). This so-called "register name" ( 譜名 ) is the one by which his extended relatives knew him, and
6290-566: The Republic of China ( 中華民國 ) and Republic of Korea ( 大韓民國 ) are unique in the choice of the term 民國 ('people's country') as an equivalent to "republic" in other languages. The country was in English known at the time as "the Republic of China" or simply "China". In China today, the period from 1912 to 1949 is often called the "Republican Era" ( simplified Chinese : 民国时期 ; traditional Chinese : 民國時期 ), because from
6460-485: The SS Yungfeng , 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 Canton in early 1923, again with
6630-773: The Shanghai International Settlement police observed him and eventually charged him with various felonies. These charges never resulted in a trial, and Chiang was never jailed. Chiang became a founding member of the Nationalist Party (a forerunner of the KMT) after the success (February 1912) of the 1911 Revolution . After the takeover of the Republican government by Yuan Shikai and the failed Second Revolution in 1913, Chiang, like his KMT comrades, divided his time between exile in Japan and
6800-586: The Soviet Union , Spain , the United Kingdom , the United States , and the Holy See . The Republic of China was able to maintain most of these diplomatic ties, at least initially following the retreat to Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek had vowed to quickly return and "liberate" the mainland, an assurance that became a cornerstone of the ROC's post 1949 foreign policy. The ROC did try to participate in
6970-873: The Supreme Court , Control Yuan , and the General Academy. With the promulgation of the Organic Law of the Nationalist Government in October 1928, the government was reorganized into five different branches, or yuan , namely the Executive Yuan , Legislative Yuan , Judicial Yuan , Examination Yuan as well as the Control Yuan. The Chairman of the National Government was to be the head-of-state and commander-in-chief of
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7140-1135: The United Nations (including its Security Council seat) where it maintained until 1971, when the PRC took over its membership in the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 . It was also a member of the Universal Postal Union and the International Olympic Committee . With a population of 541 million in 1949, it was the world's most populous country . Covering 11.4 million square kilometres (4.4 million square miles) of claimed territory, it de jure consisted of 35 provinces , 1 special administrative region , 2 regions, 12 special municipalities , 14 leagues, and 4 special banners. The Republic of China's first president, Sun Yat-sen , chose Zhōnghuá Mínguó ( 中華民國 ; 'Chinese People's State') as
7310-589: The Western Hills Group , began to show soon after the cleansing against 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 Xishan moved in and captured Beiping on behalf of his new allegiance after
7480-541: The Wuchang Uprising against the Qing government, on 10 October 1911, which is now celebrated annually as the ROC's national day , also known as " Double Ten Day ". Sun Yat-sen had been actively promoting revolution from his bases in exile. He then returned and on 29 December, Sun Yat-sen was elected president by the Nanjing assembly, which consisted of representatives from seventeen provinces. On 1 January 1912, he
7650-437: The Wuchang uprising , Chiang returned to China in 1911, intending to fight as an artillery officer. He served in the revolutionary forces, leading a regiment in Shanghai under his friend and mentor Chen Qimei , as one of Chen's chief lieutenants. 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
7820-459: The Yalta Conference in February 1945—dismantled and removed more than half the industrial equipment left there by the Japanese. Although the Chinese had not been present at Yalta, they had been consulted and had agreed to have the Soviets enter the war, in the belief that the Soviet Union would deal only with the Kuomintang government. However, the Soviet presence in northeast China enabled the Communists to arm themselves with equipment surrendered by
7990-633: The attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. 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
8160-490: The death of Zhang Zuolin in 1928. His successor, Zhang Xueliang , accepted the authority of the KMT leadership, and the Northern Expedition officially concluded, completing Chiang's nominal unification of China and ending the Warlord Era . After the Northern Expedition ended in 1928, Yan, Feng, Li Zongren and Zhang Fakui broke off relations with Chiang shortly after a demilitarization conference in 1929, and together they formed an anti-Chiang coalition to openly challenge
8330-455: The CCP gradually rebuilt its strength by focusing on organizing peasants in the countryside. Warlords who resented Chiang's attempts to take away their autonomy and incorporate their military units into the National Revolutionary Army repeatedly led devastating uprisings, most significantly the Central Plains War . In 1931, the Japanese invaded Manchuria . They continued a series of smaller territorial encroachments until 1937, when they launched
8500-456: The CCP. After the Marco Polo Bridge incident in 1937, Chiang mobilised China for the Second Sino-Japanese War , and over the next eight years led the war of resistance, mostly from Chungking . As the leader of a major Allied power , Chiang attended the Cairo Conference to discuss terms for the Japanese surrender . When the Second World War ended, the civil war with the Communists (led by Mao Zedong ) resumed; in 1949, Chiang's government
8670-415: The CCP. The CCP's People's Liberation Army began to gain upper hand in 1948 over a larger and better-armed Republic of China Armed Forces due to better military tactics and internal corruption of the ROC leadership. In 1949, the ROC repeatedly moved its capital to avoid the Communist advance—first to Guangzhou, followed by Chongqing , Chengdu , and lastly to Taipei . In October 1949, the CCP established
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#17327982983718840-497: The Chinese government's perspective the ROC ceased to exist in 1949. In Taiwan, these years are called the "Mainland period" ( 大陸時期 ; 大陆时期 ), since it was when the ROC was based on the mainland. A republic was formally established on 1 January 1912 following the Xinhai Revolution, which itself began with the Wuchang uprising on 10 October 1911, successfully overthrowing the Qing dynasty and ending over two thousand years of imperial rule in China. From its founding until 1949,
9010-434: The Comintern, but returned at Sun's demand, and accepted Chou En-lai 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 Tien-ti-hui fraternity, to which Sun Yat-sen also belonged, and which remained a source of support during his leadership of
9180-409: The Communists and their Soviet advisers led to the beginning of the Chinese Civil War . Wang Jingwei's National Government was weak militarily, and was soon ended by Chiang with the support of a local warlord ( Li Zongren of Guangxi ). Eventually, 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,
9350-405: The Constitution. This Constitution was promulgated on 25 December 1946 and came into effect on 25 December 1947. Under it, the Central Government was divided into the presidency and the five yuans, each responsible for a part of the government. None was responsible to the other except for certain obligations such as the president appointing the head of the Executive Yuan. Ultimately, the president and
9520-419: The Dang Guo 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
9690-564: The Fourth Plenary Session of the 2nd Kuomintang National Congress, held in Nanjing, passed the Reorganization of the Nationalist Government Act. This act stipulated that the Nationalist Government was to be directed and regulated under the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, with the Committee of the Nationalist Government being elected by the KMT Central Committee. Under the Nationalist Government were seven ministries—Interior, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Transport, Justice, Agriculture and Mines, and Commerce, in addition to institutions such as
9860-480: The Japanese in the Second United Front , an event now known as the Xi'an Incident . Chinese resistance stiffened after 7 July 1937, when a clash occurred between Chinese and Japanese troops outside Beijing near the Marco Polo Bridge . This skirmish led to open, although undeclared, warfare between China and Japan. Shanghai fell after a three-month battle during which Japan suffered extensive casualties in both its army and navy. Nanjing fell in December 1937, which
10030-421: 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
10200-403: The KMT until his death in 1975, and was succeeded by his son Chiang Ching-kuo , who became president in 1978. Like Mao, Chiang is a controversial figure. Supporters credit him with unifying the nation and ending the Century of Humiliation , leading the resistance against Japan, and economic development in mainland China and Taiwan. Critics portray him as a brutal right-wing dictator and head of
10370-553: The KMT were offered 1,000 pounds . Yuan maintained power locally by sending generals to be provincial governors or by obtaining the allegiance of those already in power. When Yuan died, the parliament of 1913 was reconvened to give legitimacy to a new government. However, the real power passed to military leaders, leading to the warlord period. The impotent government still had its use; when World War I began, several Western powers and Japan wanted China to declare war on Germany, to liquidate German holdings in China. In February 1928,
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#173279829837110540-407: The KMT, and Canton Governor Chen Chiung-ming , who wanted to implement a federalist system with Canton 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 Canton's Presidential Palace . Sun had already fled to the naval yard and boarded the SS Haichi , but his wife narrowly evaded shelling and rifle-fire as she fled. They met on
10710-481: The KMT. These elections, though praised by at least one US observer, were poorly received by the Communist Party, which would soon start an open, armed insurrection. Before the Nationalist government was ousted from the mainland, the Republic of China had diplomatic relations with 59 countries , including Australia, Canada, Cuba , Czechoslovakia , Estonia , France , Germany , Guatemala , Honduras , Italy , Japan , Latvia , Lithuania , Norway , Panama , Siam ,
10880-403: The Kuomintang. Sun Yat-sen died on 12 March 1925, creating a power vacuum in the Kuomintang. A contest ensued among Wang Ching-wei , Liao Chung-k‘ai , and Hu Han-min . In August, Liao was assassinated and Hu was arrested for his connections to the murderers. Wang Ching-wei , who had succeeded Sun as chairman of the Canton regime, seemed ascendant but was forced into exile by Chiang following
11050-429: The League of Nations, China wanted to see the unequal treaties revised. The ROC thought that by being in the League they could improve their international standing. Under the Charter of the United Nations , the Republic of China was entitled to a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC). Though multiple objections were raised that the seat belonged to the lawful government of China, which had to many become
11220-411: The Nanjing government nor the earlier Beiyang government succeeded in consolidating governance in rural China. In 1945, at the end of World War II , the Empire of Japan surrendered control of Taiwan and its island groups to the Allies ; and Taiwan was placed under the Republic of China's administrative control. The communist takeover of mainland China in 1949, after the Chinese Civil War, left
11390-421: 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
11560-405: The National Revolutionary Army. Chiang Kai-shek was appointed as the first chairman, a position he would retain until 1931. The Organic Law also stipulated that the Kuomintang, through its National Congress and Central Executive Committee, would exercise sovereign power during the period of "political tutelage", that the KMT's Political Council would guide and superintend the Nationalist Government in
11730-403: 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
11900-453: 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
12070-466: 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 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
12240-670: The PRC even arguably prior to the official conclusion of the Chinese Civil War, the ROC retained the permanent seat reserved for China on the UNSC until 1971 when it was supplanted by the PRC. The Republic of China retained hereditary nobility like the Han Chinese nobles Duke Yansheng and Celestial Masters and Tusi chiefdoms like the Chiefdom of Mangshi , Chiefdom of Yongning , who continued possessing their titles in
12410-455: The People's Republic of China . Remnants of the ROC government would hang on in mainland China until late 1951. The KMT dominated ROC politics for 72 years and ruled the island of Taiwan for around 54 years until they lost the presidential election in 2000 to the Taiwanese nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The ROC was a founding member of the League of Nations and later
12580-505: The Red Army's Long March in 1934 led to more power for the central government, but there continued to be foot-dragging and even outright defiance, as in the Fujian Rebellion of 1933–1934. Reformers and critics pushed for democracy and human rights, but the task seemed difficult if not impossible. The nation was at war and divided between Communists and Nationalists. Corruption and lack of direction hindered reforms. Chiang told
12750-612: The Republic of China from the previous dynasties. Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and military commander who was the leader of the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party and commander-in-chief and Generalissimo of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) from 1926, and leader of the Republic of China (ROC) in mainland China from 1928. After Chiang
12920-582: The Soviets, the Chinese government sought assistance from Germany . According to Lloyd Eastman, Chiang Kai-shek was influenced by European fascist movements, and he launched the Blue shirts and the New Life Movement in imitation of them, in an effort to counter the growth of Mao's communism as well as resist both Western and Japanese imperialism. According to Stanley Payne , however, Chiang's KMT
13090-538: The State Council: "Our organization becomes worse and worse... many staff members just sit at their desks and gaze into space, others read newspapers and still others sleep." Few Chinese had any illusions about Japanese desires on China. Hungry for raw materials and pressed by a growing population, Japan initiated the seizure of Manchuria in September 1931, and established the former emperor Puyi as head of
13260-692: The West. In 1919, a student protest against the government's weak response to the Treaty of Versailles , considered unfair by Chinese intellectuals, led to the May Fourth movement , whose demonstrations were against the danger of spreading Western influence replacing Chinese culture. It was in this intellectual climate that Marxist thought began to spread. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded in 1921. After Sun's death in March 1925, Chiang Kai-shek became
13430-545: 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
13600-405: The administration of Taiwan and Penghu Islands were handed over from Japan to China. After the end of the war, United States Marines were used to hold Beijing and Tianjin against a possible Soviet incursion, and logistic support was given to Kuomintang forces in north and northeast China. To further this end, on 30 September 1945 the 1st Marine Division , charged with maintaining security in
13770-478: The allegiance of sections of the population. The United States aided the Nationalists with massive economic loans and weapons but no combat support. Belatedly, the Republic of China government sought to enlist popular support through internal reforms. However, the effort was in vain, because of rampant government corruption and the accompanying political and economic chaos. By late 1948 the Kuomintang position
13940-632: The alliance with the Soviet Union and purged the Communists from the KMT. In 1928, the last major independent warlord pledged allegiance to the KMT's Nationalist government in Nanjing. China was then nominally reunified in 1928 by the Nanking -based government led by Chiang Kai-shek, who after the Northern Expedition ruled the country as a one-party state under the Kuomintang, and subsequently received international recognition as
14110-408: 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
14280-527: The areas of the Shandong Peninsula and the eastern Hebei , arrived in China. In January 1946, through the mediation of the United States, a military truce between the Kuomintang and the Communists was arranged, but battles soon resumed. Public opinion of the administrative incompetence of the Nationalist government was incited by the Communists during the nationwide student protest against
14450-531: The billions that we sent to Chiang. They stole it, and it's invested in real estate down in São Paolo 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
14620-548: The communists in Shanghai , triggering the Chinese Civil War . As the leader of the ROC during the Nanking decade , Chiang sought to modernise and unify the nation, although hostilities with the CCP continued. His government presided over economic and social reconstruction while trying to avoid a war with Japan. In 1936, he was kidnapped in the Sian Incident , and obliged to form an anti-Japanese Second United Front with
14790-557: The complicated nation-building process in China during his time, especially given the wide range of both domestic and foreign challenges it faced on many different concurrent fronts. Several major government institutions were founded during this period, including the Academia Sinica and the Central Bank of China . In 1932, China sent its first team to the Olympic Games . Campaigns were mounted and laws passed to promote
14960-532: The country's foreign relations were among the most stable of those working in the government in terms of composition. The ROC was a non-permanent member of the League Council for the League of Nations being a non-permanent member of the League Council from: 1921–1923, 1926–1928, 1931–1932, 1934, and 1936. Although the ROC lobbied to be a permanent member of the League Council it never became one. At
15130-553: The country's official Chinese name. The name was derived from the language of the Tongmenghui 's 1905 party manifesto, which proclaimed that the four goals of the Chinese revolution were "to expel the Manchu rulers, revive China ( Zhōnghuá ), establish a people's state ( mínguó ), and distribute land equally among the people." On 15 July 1916, in his welcoming speech to the Cantonese delegates in Shanghai, Sun explained why
15300-488: 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
15470-425: The deal. On 12 February 1912, regent Empress Dowager Longyu signed the abdication decree on behalf of Puyi, ending several millennia of monarchical rule. In 1913, elections were held for provincial assemblies, which would then chose delegates for a new National Assembly. The Kuomintang emerged as the formal political party that replaced the revolutionary organization Tongmenghui , and at the 1913 elections, it won
15640-674: The execution of important national affairs, and that the Political Council has the power to interpret or amend the Organic Law. Shortly after the Second Sino-Japanese War, a long-delayed constitutional convention was summoned to meet in Nanjing in May 1946. Amidst heated debate, this convention adopted many constitutional amendments demanded by several parties, including the KMT and the Communist Party, into
15810-414: The exiled Chinese Revolutionary Party. In 1917, Sun Yat-sen moved his base of operations to Canton, 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 Canton with mercenary help in 1920. After his return, a rift developed between Sun, who sought to militarily unify China under
15980-528: 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. During April 1931, Chiang Kai-shek attended
16150-578: The form of a parallelism : an emperor's country is ruled by only one emperor ( 帝國是以皇帝一人為主 ), a people's country is ruled by all four hundred million people ( 民國是以 四萬萬 人為主 ). Both the " Beiyang government " (from 1912 to 1928), and the " Nationalist government " (from 1928 to 1949) used the name "Republic of China" as their official name. In Chinese, the official name was often shortened to Zhōngguó ( 中國 ; 'Middle Country'), Mínguó ( 民國 ; 'People's Country'), or Zhōnghuá ( 中華 ; 'Middle Huaxia '). The choice of
16320-470: 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
16490-558: 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. 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,
16660-574: The havens of the Shanghai International Settlement . In Shanghai, Chiang cultivated ties with the city's underworld gangs, which were dominated by the notorious Green Gang and its leader Du Yuesheng. On 18 May 1916 agents of Yuan Shikai assassinated Chen Qimei. Chiang then succeeded Chen as leader of the Chinese Revolutionary Party in Shanghai. Sun Yat-sen's political career reached its lowest point during this time—most of his old Revolutionary Alliance comrades refused to join him in
16830-590: 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
17000-473: The history of China is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Republic of China (1912%E2%80%931949) The Republic of China ( ROC ) began as a sovereign state in mainland China on 1 January 1912 following the 1911 Revolution , which overthrew the Manchu -led Qing dynasty and ended China's imperial history . From 1927, the Kuomintang (KMT) reunified the country and ruled it as
17170-576: The influence of compatriots to support the revolutionary movement to overthrow the Manchu -dominated Qing dynasty and to set up a Han -dominated Chinese republic. He befriended Chen Qimei , and in 1908 Chen brought Chiang into the Tungmenghui , an important revolutionary brotherhood of the era. Finishing his military schooling at Tokyo Shinbu Gakko, Chiang served in the Imperial Japanese Army from 1909 to 1911. After learning of
17340-560: The issues that surrounded him and in his speech to the Kuomintang in 1945 said: As you all know I was an orphan boy in a poor family. Deprived of any protection after the death of her husband, my mother was exposed to the most ruthless exploitation by neighbouring ruffians and the local gentry. The efforts she made in fighting against the intrigues of these family intruders certainly endowed her child, brought up in such an environment, with an indomitable spirit to fight for justice. I felt throughout my childhood that my mother and I were fighting
17510-697: The land- and tax-reform measures favoring the peasants and, the spread of their organizational network, while the Kuomintang attempted to neutralize the spread of Communist influence. Meanwhile, northern China was infiltrated politically by Japanese politicians in Manchukuo using facilities such as the Manchukuo Imperial Palace . After its entry into the Pacific War during World War II, the United States became increasingly involved in Chinese affairs. As an ally, it embarked in late 1941 on
17680-547: The largest share of seats in both houses of the National Assembly and in some provincial assemblies. Song Jiaoren led the Kuomintang Party to electoral victories by fashioning his party's program to appeal to the gentry, landowners, and merchants. Song was assassinated on 20 March 1913, at the behest of Yuan Shikai. Yuan was elected president of the ROC in 1913. He ruled by military power and ignored
17850-526: The leader of the Beiyang Army . Yuan quickly became authoritarian and used his military power to control the administration, which consequently became known as the " Beiyang government " (or the First Republic of China ). Yuan even attempted to replace the Republic with his own imperial dynasty until popular unrest forced him to back down. When Yuan died in 1916, the country fragmented between
18020-472: The leader of the Kuomintang . In 1926, Chiang led the Northern Expedition with the intention of defeating the Beiyang warlords and unifying the country. Chiang received the help of the Soviet Union and the CCP. However, he soon dismissed his Soviet advisers, being convinced that they wanted to get rid of the KMT and take control. Chiang decided to purge the Communists, massacring thousands in Shanghai . At
18190-632: The legitimacy of the Nanjing government. In the Central Plains War , they were defeated. 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
18360-515: 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
18530-467: The long war with Japan and in-fighting among various generals. They were also losing the propaganda war to the Communists, with a population weary of Kuomintang corruption and yearning for peace. In January 1949, Beiping was taken by the Communists without a fight, and its name changed back to Beijing. Following the capture of Nanjing on 23 April, major cities passed from Kuomintang to Communist control with minimal resistance, through November. In most cases
18700-405: 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
18870-429: The meantime, they used a " milk name " ( 乳名 ), given to the infant shortly after his birth and known only to the close family. So the name that Chiang received at birth was Chiang Jui-yüan ( Chinese : 蔣瑞元 ; pinyin : Jiǎng Ruìyuán ). In 1903, the 16-year-old Chiang went to Ningbo as a student, and chose a " school name " ( 學名 ). This was the formal name of a person, used by older people to address him, and
19040-538: 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". Sino-German relations rapidly 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 did not declare war on Germany, Italy, or even Japan until after
19210-438: 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] and, on 27 July, he finally 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
19380-476: The mishandling of the Shen Chong rape case in early 1947 and during another national protest against monetary reforms later that year. The United States—realizing that no American efforts short of large-scale armed intervention could stop the coming war—withdrew Gen. George Marshall's American mission . Thereafter, the Chinese Civil War became more widespread; battles raged not only for territories but also for
19550-411: The name Chung-cheng, he was choosing a name very similar to the name of Sun Yat-sen, who is known among Chinese as Chung-shan ( 中山 —meaning "central mountain"), thus establishing a link between the two. The meaning of uprightness, rectitude, or orthodoxy, implied by his name, also positioned him as the legitimate heir of Sun Yat-sen and his ideas. It was readily accepted by members of the Kuomintang , and
19720-401: 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
19890-422: The national government as having moved to Wuhan. In 1927, when he was setting up the Nationalist government in Nanjing, he was preoccupied with "the elevation of our leader Dr. Sun Yat-sen to the rank of 'Father of our Chinese Republic'. Dr. Sun worked for 40 years to lead our people in the Nationalist cause, and we cannot allow any other personality to usurp this honored position". He asked Chen Guofu to purchase
20060-574: 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
20230-555: The new capital of Nanjing to be enshrined in a mausoleum, the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum . In the West and in the Soviet Union, Chiang Kai-shek was known as the "Red General". Movie theaters in the Soviet Union showed newsreels and clips of Chiang. At Moscow, Sun Yat-sen University 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
20400-519: The next fifteen years or so, Chiang was known as Chiang Chih-ch‘ing Chinese : 蔣志清 ; pinyin : Jiang Zhīqīng ; Wade–Giles : Chiang Chih -ch‘ing . This is the name by which Sun Yat-sen knew him when Chiang joined the republicans in Kwangtung in the 1910s. In 1912, when Chiang was in Japan, he started to use the name Chiang Kai-shek ( Chinese : 蔣介石 ; pinyin : Jiǎng Jièshí ; Wade–Giles : Chiang Chieh -shih ) as
20570-459: The one he used in formal occasions, such as when he was married. In deference to tradition, family members did not use the register name in conversation with people outside of the family. The concept of a "real" or original name is/was not as clear-cut in China as it is in the Western world. In honor of tradition, Chinese families waited a number of years before officially naming their children. In
20740-463: The one he would use the most in the first decades of his life (as a person grew older, younger generations would use one of the courtesy names instead). Colloquially, the school name is called "big name" ( 大名 ), whereas the "milk name" is known as the "small name" ( 小名 ). The school name that Chiang chose for himself was Chih-ch‘ing ( Chinese : 志清 ; pinyin : Zhīqīng ; Wade–Giles : Chih-ch‘ing , which means "purity of aspirations"). For
20910-462: The people. Later on 20 October 1923, at a national conference for youths in Guangzhou, to explain the core idea behind mínguó ( 民國 ; 'people's country'), he pithily compared the phrase "Empire of China" ( 中華帝國 ; Zhōnghuá Dìguó ; 'Chinese Emperor's Country') to "Republic of China" ( 中華民國 ; Zhōnghuá Mínguó ; 'Chinese People's Country') in
21080-521: 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
21250-477: 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. 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
21420-655: The precepts of Christianity. He read the copy of the Bible that May-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 some observers felt that he adopted Christianity as a political move, studies of his recently opened diaries suggest that his faith was strong and sincere and that he felt that Christianity reinforced Confucian moral teachings. Upon reaching Beijing, Chiang paid homage to Sun Yat-sen and had his body moved to
21590-476: The provincial system; however, this move angered the gentry along with the provincial governors, who were usually military men. Yuan's changes to government caused many provinces to declare independence and become warlord states. Increasingly unpopular and deserted by his supporters, Yuan abdicated in 1916 and died of natural causes shortly thereafter. China then declined into a period of warlordism. Sun, having been forced into exile, returned to Guangdong in
21760-470: The puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932. The loss of Manchuria, and its potential for industrial development and war industries, was a blow to the Kuomintang economy. The League of Nations , established at the end of World War I, was unable to act in the face of Japanese defiance. The Japanese began to push south of the Great Wall into northern China and the coastal provinces. Chinese fury against Japan
21930-510: 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
22100-590: 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,
22270-471: The representative legitimate from China. The Nationalist government can also be referred as the Second Republic of China . While there was relative prosperity during the following ten years under Chiang Kai-shek, the ROC continued to be destabilized by the Chinese Civil War, revolts by the KMT's warlord allies, and steady territorial encroachments by Japan. Although heavily damaged by the purge,
22440-480: The republic was based on mainland China. Central authority waxed and waned in response to warlordism (1915–1928), a Japanese invasion (1937–1945), and a full-scale civil war (1927–1949), with central authority strongest during the Nanjing Decade (1927–1937), when most of China came under the control of the authoritarian, one-party military dictatorship of the nationalist Kuomintang party (KMT). Neither
22610-428: The republican institutions established by his predecessor, threatening to execute Senate members who disagreed with his decisions. He soon dissolved the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party, banned "secret organizations" (which implicitly included the KMT), and ignored the provisional constitution. Ultimately, Yuan declared himself Emperor of China in 1915. The new ruler of China tried to increase centralization by abolishing
22780-485: The rights of women. In the 1931 Civil Code, women were given equal inheritance rights, banned forced marriage and gave women the right to control their own money and initiate divorce. No nationally unified women's movement could organize until China was unified under the Kuomintang Government in Nanjing in 1928; women's suffrage was finally included in the new Constitution of 1936, although the constitution
22950-568: The rival Kuomintang and Communists, to make for a more effective anti-Japanese war effort. In December 1943, the Chinese Exclusion Acts of the 1880s, and subsequent laws, enacted by the United States Congress to restrict Chinese immigration into the United States were repealed. The wartime policy of the United States was meant to help China become a strong ally and a stabilizing force in postwar East Asia. During
23120-460: The ruling Kuomintang with control over only Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands . With the loss of the mainland, the ROC government retreated to Taiwan and the KMT declared Taipei the provisional capital . Meanwhile, the CCP took over all of mainland China and founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing. In 1912, after over two thousand years of dynastic rule,
23290-682: 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. One of the most famous quotes from Chiang (during that time) was, that he would rather mistakenly kill 1,000 innocent people, than allow one Communist to escape. Some estimates claim the White Terror in China 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 (Galens) to "escape" to safety after
23460-559: The same time, other violent conflicts were taking place in China: in the South, where the CCP had superior numbers, Nationalist supporters were being massacred. Chiang Kai-shek pushed the CCP into the interior and established a government, with Nanjing as its capital, in 1927. By 1928, Chiang's army overthrew the Beiyang government and unified the entire nation, at least nominally, beginning
23630-484: The south in 1917 and 1922, with the help of warlords, and set up successive rival governments to the Beiyang government in Beijing, having re-established the KMT in October 1919. Sun's dream was to unify China by launching an expedition against the north. However, he lacked the military support and funding to turn it into a reality. Meanwhile, the Beiyang government struggled to hold onto power, and an open and wide-ranging debate evolved regarding how China should confront
23800-574: The spirit of public sanitation that Japan had. Chiang decided to pursue a military career. He began his military training at the Baoding Military Academy in 1906, the same year Japan left its bimetallic currency standard, devaluing the Japanese yen . He left for Tokyo Shinbu Gakko , a preparatory school for the Imperial Japanese Army Academy intended for Chinese students, in 1907. There, he came under
23970-589: The surrounding countryside and small towns had come under Communist influence long before the cities. Finally, on 1 October 1949, Communists led by Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China . Chiang Kai-shek declared martial law in May 1949, whilst a few hundred thousand Nationalist troops and two million refugees, predominantly from the government and business community, fled from mainland China to Taiwan. There remained in China itself only isolated pockets of resistance. On 7 December 1949, Chiang proclaimed Taipei
24140-527: The temporary capital of the Republic of China. During the Chinese Civil War both the Nationalists and Communists carried out mass atrocities, with millions of non-combatants killed by both sides. Benjamin Valentino has estimated atrocities in the civil war resulted in the death of between 1.8 million and 3.5 million people between 1927 and 1949, including deaths from forced conscription and massacres. The first Republic of China national government
24310-534: The term mínguó ( 民國 ; 'people's country') was chosen over the Japanese-derived gònghéguó ( 共和國 ). He associated the label gònghé ( 共和 ) with the limiting and authoritarianism-prone Euro-American models of representative republicanism. What he strived for was a more grass-roots model, which he termed zhíjiē mínquán ( 直接民權 ; ' direct people's rights '), and which he thought would allow more checks and balances by
24480-599: The term mínguó ( 民國 ; 'people's country'; "republic") in 1912, as well as its similar semantic formation to dìguó ( 帝國 ; 'emperor's country'; "empire"), may have influenced the choice of the Korean term minguk ( 민국/民國 ) by the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (founded in 1919 within the Republic of China), which replaced Daehan Jeguk ( 대한제국/大韓帝國 ) with Daehan Minguk ( 대한민국/大韓民國 ). Today,
24650-572: The various local commanders of the Beiyang Army. This began the Warlord Era defined by decentralized conflicts between rival cliques. The most powerful of these cliques, notably the Zhili and Fengtian cliques , at times used their control of Beijing to assert claims to govern the entire Republic. Meanwhile, the nationalist KMT under Sun's leadership attempted multiple times to establish
24820-709: The war, China was one of the Big Four Allies, and later one of the Four Policemen , which was a precursor to China having a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council . In August 1945, with American help, Nationalist troops moved to take the Japanese surrender in North China. The Soviet Union—encouraged to invade Manchuria to hasten the end of the war and allowed a Soviet sphere of influence there as agreed to at
24990-529: The west was the returned Wang Jingwei, who led 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
25160-900: The widespread problems that corruption was creating and 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. After the World War II and the Civil War, both campaigns, the Kuomintang Reconstruction of 1950–1952 and the Governmental Rejuvenation of 1969–1973, succeeded. Chiang, who viewed all of
25330-399: The withdrawing Japanese army. In 1945, after the end of the war, the Nationalist Government moved back to Nanjing. The Republic of China emerged from the war nominally a great military power but actually a nation economically prostrate and on the verge of all-out civil war. The problems of rehabilitating the formerly Japanese-occupied areas and of reconstructing the nation from the ravages of
25500-403: The world, but it is not clear that the group possessed the full qualities of an intrinsic fascist movement....The Blue Shirts probably had some affinity with and for fascism, a common feature of nationalisms in crisis during the 1930s, but it is doubtful that they represented any clear-cut Asian variant of fascism." Still other historians have noted that Chiang and the KMT's exact ideology itself
25670-405: The yuans reported to the National Assembly, which represented the will of the citizens. Under the new constitution the first elections for the National Assembly occurred in January 1948, and the assembly was summoned to meet in March 1948. It elected the president of the republic on 21 March 1948, formally bringing an end to the KMT party rule started in 1928, although the president was a member of
25840-468: Was "normally classified as a multi-class populist or 'nation-building' party but not a fitting candidate for fascism (except by old-line Communists)." He also stated that, "Lloyd Eastman has called the Blue Shirts, whose members admired European fascism and were influenced by it, a Chinese fascist organization. This is probably an exaggeration. The Blue Shirts certainly exhibited some of the characteristics of fascism, as did many nationalist organizations around
26010-416: Was a native Wu speaker ) became known by Westerners under the Cantonese romanisation of his courtesy name, while the family name as known in English seems to be the Mandarin pronunciation of his Chinese family name, transliterated in Wade–Giles. "Kai-shek" soon became Chiang's courtesy name ( 字 ). Some think the name was chosen from the classic Chinese book the I Ching ; "介于石" ; '[he who is] firm as
26180-452: Was bleak. The demoralized and undisciplined National Revolutionary Army proved to be no match for the Communists' motivated and disciplined People's Liberation Army . The Communists were well established in the north and northeast. Although the Kuomintang had an advantage in numbers of men and weapons, controlled a much larger territory and population than their adversaries, and enjoyed considerable international support, they were exhausted by
26350-419: 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
26520-401: Was defeated and retreated to the island of Taiwan , where he imposed martial law and persecuted critics in the White Terror , which lasted until his death. Presiding over a period of economic reforms and prosperity , from 1948 Chiang won five elections to six-year terms as President of the ROC in which he faced minimal opposition or was elected unopposed. He was also Director-General of
26690-429: Was defeated in the Chinese Civil War by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949, he continued to lead the Republic of China on the island of Taiwan until his death in 1975. He was considered the legitimate head of China by the United Nations until 1971 . Born in Chekiang , Chiang received a military education in China and Japan and joined Sun Yat-sen 's Tungmenghui revolutionary organization in 1908. After
26860-418: Was established on 1 January 1912, in Nanjing, with a constitution stating Three Principles of the People , which state that "[the ROC] shall be a democratic republic of the people, to be governed by the people and for the people." Sun Yat-sen was the provisional president. Delegates from the provinces sent to confirm the government's authority formed the first parliament in 1913. The power of this government
27030-470: Was followed by mass murders and rapes known as the Nanjing Massacre . The national capital was briefly at Wuhan , then removed in an epic retreat to Chongqing, the seat of government until 1945. In 1940, the Japanese set up the collaborationist Wang Jingwei regime , with its capital in Nanjing, which proclaimed itself the legitimate "Republic of China" in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek's government, although its claims were significantly hampered due to its being
27200-444: Was limited, with generals controlling both the central and northern provinces of China , and short-lived. The number of acts passed by the government was few and included the formal abdication of the Qing dynasty and some economic initiatives. The parliament's authority soon became nominal: violations of the Constitution by Yuan were met with half-hearted motions of censure. Kuomintang members of parliament who gave up their membership in
27370-406: Was named "Chung Cheng Memorial Hall" in Chinese. In Singapore, Chung Cheng High School was named after him. His name is also written in the free area of the Republic of China as "The Late President Honorable Chiang" ( 先總統 蔣公 ), where the one-character-wide space in front of his name known as Nuo tai shows respect. He is often called Honorable Chiang . The "Chiang Kai-shek" in this article
27540-410: 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
27710-409: 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. From 1928 to 1937, known as
27880-413: Was not implemented until 1947. Addressing social problems, especially in remote villages, was aided by improved communications. The Rural Reconstruction Movement was one of many that took advantage of the new freedom to raise social consciousness. The Nationalist government published a draft constitution on 5 May 1936. Continual wars plagued the government. Those in the western border regions included
28050-512: Was not suitable for China. Chiang later sent his eldest son, Chiang Ching-Kuo , to study in Russia. 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." 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
28220-414: Was officially inaugurated and pledged "to overthrow the despotic government led by the Manchu, consolidate the Republic of China and plan for the welfare of the people". Sun's new government lacked military strength. As a compromise, he negotiated with Yuan Shikai the commander of the Beiyang Army , promising Yuan the presidency of the republic if he were to remove the Qing emperor by force. Yuan agreed to
28390-419: Was officially proclaimed on 1 January 1912 by the revolutionaries and Sun Yat-sen , the first provisional president of the new republic, following the success of the Xinhai revolution. Puyi , who had reigned as the Xuantong Emperor of the Qing dynasty, abdicated on 12 February 1912. Sun Yat-sen, the ROC's founder and provisional president, served only briefly before handing over the presidency to Yuan Shikai ,
28560-421: Was predictable, but anger was also directed against Chiang and the Nanjing government, which at the time was more preoccupied with anti-Communist extermination campaigns than with resisting the Japanese invaders. The importance of "internal unity before external danger" was forcefully brought home in December 1936, when Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped by Zhang Xueliang and forced to ally with the Communists against
28730-573: Was released after national condemnation. Hu then left Nanjing and supported a rival government in Canton. 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 Max Bauer and Alexander von Falkenhausen , Chiang's Fifth Campaign finally surrounded
28900-555: Was very complex and oscillated over time, with different factions of his government cooperating with both the Soviets and Germans as they saw fit, and that Chiang eventually became disillusioned with the Blue Shirts, which officially disbanded by 1938, something Payne also mentions as "possibly because of competition with the KMT itself." Some have also noted that in contrast to older historians from decades ago, Chiang's efforts have been increasingly seen by newer Western and Chinese historians alike as an arguably necessary if austere part of
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