Chiang Kai-shek | Wikipedia audio article
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Chiang Kai-shek
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SUMMARY
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Chiang Kai-shek (; 31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Generalissimo Chiang or Chiang Chungcheng and romanized as Chiang Chieh-shih or Jiang Jieshi, was a politician and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1975, first in mainland China until 1949 and then in exile in Taiwan. He was recognized by much of the world as the head of the legitimate government of China until the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Chiang was an influential member of the Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party, as well as a close ally of Sun Yat-sen's. Chiang became the Commandant of the Kuomintang's Whampoa Military Academy and took Sun's place as leader of the KMT following the Canton Coup in early 1926. Having neutralized the party's left wing, Chiang then led Sun's long-postponed Northern Expedition, conquering or reaching accommodations with China's many warlords.From 1928 to 1948, Chiang served as chairman of the National Government of the Republic of China (ROC). Chiang was socially conservative, promoting traditional Chinese culture in the New Life Movement. Unable to maintain Sun's good relations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Chiang purged them in a massacre at Shanghai and repressed uprisings at Kwangtung (Canton region) and elsewhere.
At the onset of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which later became the Chinese theater of World War II, Manchurian warlord Zhang Xueliang kidnapped Chiang and obliged him to establish a Second United Front with the CCP. After the defeat of the Japanese, the American-sponsored Marshall Mission, an attempt to negotiate a coalition government, failed in 1946. The Chinese Civil War resumed, with the CCP led by Mao Zedong defeating the KMT and declaring the People's Republic of China in 1949. Chiang's government and army retreated to Taiwan, where Chiang imposed martial law and persecuted critics in a period known as the White Terror. After evacuating to Taiwan, Chiang's government continued to declare its intention to retake mainland China. Chiang ruled Taiwan securely as President of the Republic of China and General of the Kuomintang until his death in 1975, just one year before Mao's death.Like Mao, Chiang is regarded as a controversial figure. Supporters credit him with playing a major part in the Allied victory of World War II and unifying the nation and a national figure of the Chinese resistance against Japan as well as his staunch anti-Soviet and anti-communist stance. Detractors and critics denounce him as a dictator at the front of an authoritarian autocracy who suppressed and purged opponents and critics and arbitrarily incarcerated those he deemed as opposing to the Kuomintang among others.