Chiang Kai-shek

Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 18875 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 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 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 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 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 was defeated and retreated 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 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 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 the National Palace Museum in Taipei during the 1949 retreat. Provided by Wikipedia