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Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost
With a narrative as briskly paced and vividly detailed as an international thriller, this definitive biography of Chiang Kai-shek masterfully maps the tumultuous political career of Nationalist China's generalissimo as it reevaluates his brave but unfulfilled life. Chiang Kai-shek was one of the most influential world figures of the twentieth century. The leader of the Kuomintang, the Nationalist movement in China, by 1928 he had established himself as head of the government in Nanking. But while he managed to survive the political storms of the 1930s, Chiang's power was continually being undermined by the Japanese on one side and the Chinese Communists on the other. Drawing extensively on original Chinese sources and accounts by contemporaneous journalists, acclaimed author Jonathan Fenby explores little-known international connections in Chiang's story as he unfolds a story as fascinating in its conspiratorial intrigues as it is remarkable for its psychological insights. This is the definitive biography of the man who, despite his best intentions, helped create modern-day China.
564 pages, Paperback
First published November 3, 2003
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About the author
Jonathan Fenby
41 books53 followersJonathan Fenby, CBE, has been the editor of The Observer and the South China Morning Post. He is currently China Director at the research service Trusted Sources.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
August 31, 2014
At one time in China's recent history, Chiang Kai-shek came close to unifying and ruling it. This book by Jonthan Fenby talks about the man and provides some insights into why he failed. By taking the readers through the different stages in his life and exploring how he overcame the challenges and treacheries along the way, the author managed to weave an interesting and rather gripping account of Chiang's life in this book.
This book was structured chronologically as with most biographies, but it was also divided into major sections covering Chiang's childhood, the period when he consolidated his power, followed by the time when he ruled from Nanking, to fighting the Japanese proper after Xi-an, and concluding with how Chiang fought and lost the civil war. What I particularly liked was the weights given to the different sections, putting less attention on Chiang's childhood which I am not quite interested in, but a lot more on the most important parts in his life, and then almost nothing on Chiang's life in Taiwan after 1949. In doing so, the author helped readers to focus only on the consequential parts of Chiang's life and avoided diluting his work with less important or interesting details.
A book on an essentially military person, one can expect the book to talk about many military operations, and because of this, maps are important. In this, the author has done a decent job, providing maps of the major campaigns such as the Northern Expedition and the war with Japan, but one can always ask for more.
My complaint is the lack of a glossary. I do not know if the author knows the Chinese language, somehow I suspect that he didn't because he seemed to have quoted from many translated sources instead of providing his own translation and interpretation of the original Chinese words and the lack of a glossary makes this a big problem. Take for example what is lian zuo fa? Not having the explanation provided, I was hoping that I could at least see the Chinese characters in the glossary, as I would when reading books on China or Japan. But the absence of the glossary means that words and phrases like this become meaningless to most readers. I also feel that the failure to provide the proper context when quoting from Chiang's diaries made some of the things he wrote sounded stupid. For instance, take this sentence quoted from Chiang's diary: "At a time of national humiliation we should lie in faggots and taste gall." "Lying in faggots and taste gall" sounded almost ridiculous at a time of national humiliation, but if one were to know that Chiang actually wrote "卧薪尝胆", he would realise that Chiang was using a Chinese idiom, formulated by someone caught in a somewhat situation in the past. Things like this make me feel that the author was just quoting blindly from a secondary source, without knowing what actually was written.
There were also parts in the narrative of the story that I felt the author did not fill with enough details to let his readers appreciate the actual drama. For example when talking about Wang Jin-wei's formation of a puppet regime in collaboration with the Japanese, the author brought this important event up almost casually despite having talked about Wang on numerous occasions due to his obvious affiliations to Chiang. Mitter (2013) provided a much better description of the intrigue and dilemma Wang faced in taking that fateful step.
Notwithstanding these, the author was successful in directing me to consider some important people and issues surrounding Chiang. Firstly Sun Yat-sen and Zhang Xueliang. Contemporary Chinese history has portrayed these two men very positively; Sun, in particular, is hailed 国父, the father of the nation. Alas, he is but human and has his faults. We were told not only of his lack of political acumen and ability to manage, there were hints throughout that he was even a womaniser (all of which Chiang bettered). Similarly Zhang Xueliang is considered by many as a patriotic figure who risked his life to get Chiang to agree to fight the Japanese rather than the Communists. But one has to remember that Zhang was from Manchuria and has his fortunes tied up there so the possibility of him trying to use the Nationalist army to evict the Japanese from Manchukuo cannot be discounted.
And then there was Soong Meiling, who seemed to mesmerise every man that came into contact with her. I think she was obviously smart, and being educated in the US stood her out from all the Chinese women and most men in China. But almost all descriptions of her was of her beauty, and on occasions with cursory links to the word 'sex'. Current Chinese sentiments of her are not positive, in China for obvious reasons. But even in Taiwan, I do not get the sense of people seeing much in her. In this book, the author's treatment of her was guarded, he acknowledge her contributions and efforts in helping Chiang to rally the Chinese to resist the Japanese and then the Communists. At the same time, he also cited instances of her belligerent behaviours. However not once did he praise or criticise her in his own accords. Praise and criticism always came from other sources he quoted.
In addition to these, the author also talked about Chiang's relationship with the US. It is difficult to fault the US in their handling of their relationship with Chiang. My impression from the book is that the Americans who were on the ground (in China) clearly knew the state of the country, its army, and its leadership. But caught in their own wars in Europe and the Pacific, it was hard to see through the curtain of mist pulled down by Chiang and his relatives (Soong Meiling and T. V. Soong). Eventually they did know who they were dealing with, if for no other reason than Chiang's seemingly insatiable appetite for cash.
The other subject that the author in my opinion rightly put enough emphasis on is that of the warlords. One is able to learn a great deal about them in this book. Not only were descriptions of them scattered throughout the book, depending on when they appeared in Chiang's life, the author also dedicated a chapter to them, it was an educational one.
In so far as Chiang, the subject, was concerned, what the author successfully did was to provide enough information on him to persuade the readers to consider (or re-consider) the person. A lowly peasant-class man by birth, Chiang must be quite something to overcome his unprivileged birth and significant lack of education (at least compared to Soong Meiling) to rise to the position of the person who almost ruled an almost united China. Along the way he had to overcome political enemies, the ever untrustworthy warloards, and even unfaithful relatives. Yet he would lose almost everything to the Communists and his nemesis, Mao Zedong. Many today still think of him as a traitor for not standing up to the Japanese earlier, but he appeared to have a case for going after the Communists first, which was validated by his own defeat in their hands.
Today Taiwan is still in an awkward position in international relations, even though as an entity on its own it is almost self-sufficient, and has a very enterprising, cultured, creative, educated and likeable people. How much of it is due to Chiang? Can one hold Taiwan as an example of what China would be had he succeeded? These are questions readers, especially Chinese readers would think about. But the other question all readers would surely ask themselves is why did Chiang fail? I do not think I can provide an answer, but suspect that this line quoted from the book (pg 349) encompassing a mix of incompetency, delusion, and deceit goes some way into giving a hint.
This book was structured chronologically as with most biographies, but it was also divided into major sections covering Chiang's childhood, the period when he consolidated his power, followed by the time when he ruled from Nanking, to fighting the Japanese proper after Xi-an, and concluding with how Chiang fought and lost the civil war. What I particularly liked was the weights given to the different sections, putting less attention on Chiang's childhood which I am not quite interested in, but a lot more on the most important parts in his life, and then almost nothing on Chiang's life in Taiwan after 1949. In doing so, the author helped readers to focus only on the consequential parts of Chiang's life and avoided diluting his work with less important or interesting details.
A book on an essentially military person, one can expect the book to talk about many military operations, and because of this, maps are important. In this, the author has done a decent job, providing maps of the major campaigns such as the Northern Expedition and the war with Japan, but one can always ask for more.
My complaint is the lack of a glossary. I do not know if the author knows the Chinese language, somehow I suspect that he didn't because he seemed to have quoted from many translated sources instead of providing his own translation and interpretation of the original Chinese words and the lack of a glossary makes this a big problem. Take for example what is lian zuo fa? Not having the explanation provided, I was hoping that I could at least see the Chinese characters in the glossary, as I would when reading books on China or Japan. But the absence of the glossary means that words and phrases like this become meaningless to most readers. I also feel that the failure to provide the proper context when quoting from Chiang's diaries made some of the things he wrote sounded stupid. For instance, take this sentence quoted from Chiang's diary: "At a time of national humiliation we should lie in faggots and taste gall." "Lying in faggots and taste gall" sounded almost ridiculous at a time of national humiliation, but if one were to know that Chiang actually wrote "卧薪尝胆", he would realise that Chiang was using a Chinese idiom, formulated by someone caught in a somewhat situation in the past. Things like this make me feel that the author was just quoting blindly from a secondary source, without knowing what actually was written.
There were also parts in the narrative of the story that I felt the author did not fill with enough details to let his readers appreciate the actual drama. For example when talking about Wang Jin-wei's formation of a puppet regime in collaboration with the Japanese, the author brought this important event up almost casually despite having talked about Wang on numerous occasions due to his obvious affiliations to Chiang. Mitter (2013) provided a much better description of the intrigue and dilemma Wang faced in taking that fateful step.
Notwithstanding these, the author was successful in directing me to consider some important people and issues surrounding Chiang. Firstly Sun Yat-sen and Zhang Xueliang. Contemporary Chinese history has portrayed these two men very positively; Sun, in particular, is hailed 国父, the father of the nation. Alas, he is but human and has his faults. We were told not only of his lack of political acumen and ability to manage, there were hints throughout that he was even a womaniser (all of which Chiang bettered). Similarly Zhang Xueliang is considered by many as a patriotic figure who risked his life to get Chiang to agree to fight the Japanese rather than the Communists. But one has to remember that Zhang was from Manchuria and has his fortunes tied up there so the possibility of him trying to use the Nationalist army to evict the Japanese from Manchukuo cannot be discounted.
And then there was Soong Meiling, who seemed to mesmerise every man that came into contact with her. I think she was obviously smart, and being educated in the US stood her out from all the Chinese women and most men in China. But almost all descriptions of her was of her beauty, and on occasions with cursory links to the word 'sex'. Current Chinese sentiments of her are not positive, in China for obvious reasons. But even in Taiwan, I do not get the sense of people seeing much in her. In this book, the author's treatment of her was guarded, he acknowledge her contributions and efforts in helping Chiang to rally the Chinese to resist the Japanese and then the Communists. At the same time, he also cited instances of her belligerent behaviours. However not once did he praise or criticise her in his own accords. Praise and criticism always came from other sources he quoted.
In addition to these, the author also talked about Chiang's relationship with the US. It is difficult to fault the US in their handling of their relationship with Chiang. My impression from the book is that the Americans who were on the ground (in China) clearly knew the state of the country, its army, and its leadership. But caught in their own wars in Europe and the Pacific, it was hard to see through the curtain of mist pulled down by Chiang and his relatives (Soong Meiling and T. V. Soong). Eventually they did know who they were dealing with, if for no other reason than Chiang's seemingly insatiable appetite for cash.
The other subject that the author in my opinion rightly put enough emphasis on is that of the warlords. One is able to learn a great deal about them in this book. Not only were descriptions of them scattered throughout the book, depending on when they appeared in Chiang's life, the author also dedicated a chapter to them, it was an educational one.
In so far as Chiang, the subject, was concerned, what the author successfully did was to provide enough information on him to persuade the readers to consider (or re-consider) the person. A lowly peasant-class man by birth, Chiang must be quite something to overcome his unprivileged birth and significant lack of education (at least compared to Soong Meiling) to rise to the position of the person who almost ruled an almost united China. Along the way he had to overcome political enemies, the ever untrustworthy warloards, and even unfaithful relatives. Yet he would lose almost everything to the Communists and his nemesis, Mao Zedong. Many today still think of him as a traitor for not standing up to the Japanese earlier, but he appeared to have a case for going after the Communists first, which was validated by his own defeat in their hands.
Today Taiwan is still in an awkward position in international relations, even though as an entity on its own it is almost self-sufficient, and has a very enterprising, cultured, creative, educated and likeable people. How much of it is due to Chiang? Can one hold Taiwan as an example of what China would be had he succeeded? These are questions readers, especially Chinese readers would think about. But the other question all readers would surely ask themselves is why did Chiang fail? I do not think I can provide an answer, but suspect that this line quoted from the book (pg 349) encompassing a mix of incompetency, delusion, and deceit goes some way into giving a hint.
'Inflation,inflation! There is no inflation in China! If people want to pay twenty five dollars for a fountain pen, that’s their business, it’s not inflation. They’re crazy, that’s all. They shouldn’t pay it.’ H.H. Kung, Finance Minister
January 7, 2022
Fenby's biography of Chiang Kai-Shek, the Generalissimo of the Republic of China and leader of the Kuomintang during the Second World War and its aftermath, is satisfactory as a biography but albeit an incomplete one.
Fenby narrates the pre-war and wartime career and life of Chiang, from the Northern Expedition, the Nanjing Decade, and the Anti-Japanese War up until the eventual defeat of the KMT during the Civil War and the mass exodus to Taiwan.
Readable and well-researched (though often Fenby relies too much on single sources and does not take advantage of Chiang's personal archives), the main flaw in this biography is that Chiang's post-war career on Taiwan is not covered. Furthermore, the overall perception of Chiang given by Fenby is overwhelmingly negative: he alone must bear the blame, it seems, for his defeat while receiving little credit for his victories.
Nevertheless, this is an acceptable introduction to the Generalissimo but an introduction nonetheless. For a revisionist biography of Chiang, one should read The Generalissimo by Jay Taylor since it benefits from Chiang's personal archives and diaries to give a more nuanced viewpoint on this most controversial figure in Chinese modern history.
Fenby narrates the pre-war and wartime career and life of Chiang, from the Northern Expedition, the Nanjing Decade, and the Anti-Japanese War up until the eventual defeat of the KMT during the Civil War and the mass exodus to Taiwan.
Readable and well-researched (though often Fenby relies too much on single sources and does not take advantage of Chiang's personal archives), the main flaw in this biography is that Chiang's post-war career on Taiwan is not covered. Furthermore, the overall perception of Chiang given by Fenby is overwhelmingly negative: he alone must bear the blame, it seems, for his defeat while receiving little credit for his victories.
Nevertheless, this is an acceptable introduction to the Generalissimo but an introduction nonetheless. For a revisionist biography of Chiang, one should read The Generalissimo by Jay Taylor since it benefits from Chiang's personal archives and diaries to give a more nuanced viewpoint on this most controversial figure in Chinese modern history.
December 25, 2017
An excellent book, not only as a biography of Chaing Kai-shek, but as a complete history of post-Manchu China from 1911 up until Mao's ultimate conquest in 1949. It could make for an epic historical TV war drama series on HBO or the History Channel. The most engrossing historical narrative I've ever read.
July 15, 2012
This is one of the best-researched China books I have read. It is brimful with detail and depicts the early-to-mid portion of the twentieth century through a Nationalist Party lens. There are many books about Mao, but though the upheaval Mao unleashed is worth reading about, Mao, as a figure, is not always that interesting. Though he was literate and had some integrity in his youth, he remained an ignorant peasant; an evil, vengeful man responsible for the deaths of tens of millions. But Chiang, his rival, was more complicated; not nearly as bloodthirsty, for starters. Part gangster, part businessman, Chiang Kai-shek was one of the twentieth century’s great dictators, yet this is one of the only biographies about him. The volume is outstanding, plotting the life of the tempestuous and self-centred “Jie shi” from his village of Xikou to shortly after his rag-tag, press-ganged army lost to the communists and beat their hurried retreat to Formosa.
My only complaint is that the book does not cover Chiang’s reign on Taiwan (and no book that I know of does), though the subtitle should have given that away. Fenby’s Chiang biography is long and involved – for the serious China reader. Any expat living on Taiwan should read this book. Unlike Mao, Chiang had a few redeeming qualities, but his Confucian principles (read: controlling nature) and his corruption, ineptitude, and gangster background all contributed to his “losing” China. Chiang’s flaws helped change history. If the Nationalists had retained China, we would be living in a much different world. I recommend this book highly.
Troy Parfitt is the author of Why China Will Never Rule the World
My only complaint is that the book does not cover Chiang’s reign on Taiwan (and no book that I know of does), though the subtitle should have given that away. Fenby’s Chiang biography is long and involved – for the serious China reader. Any expat living on Taiwan should read this book. Unlike Mao, Chiang had a few redeeming qualities, but his Confucian principles (read: controlling nature) and his corruption, ineptitude, and gangster background all contributed to his “losing” China. Chiang’s flaws helped change history. If the Nationalists had retained China, we would be living in a much different world. I recommend this book highly.
Troy Parfitt is the author of Why China Will Never Rule the World
February 17, 2016
The subject of this fascinating book is a complex character. After reading this book I found myself wanting to learn more about Chiang Kai Shek, in particular what happened during his tenure of rule in Taiwan until his death there in 1975. This book does not talk about that episode, it ends with Chiang fleeing to Taiwan in 1949 when it became painfully clear that the Communists had succeeded in taking over China. The author uses the Xian Incident as the opening and from there we are taken on a vivid and tumultuous ride throughout many parts of China, accompanying the man_all the while becoming privy to his faults, thoughts, scheming, and decisions (good or bad)_who felt it was his destiny to unify and rule China. Besides stamping out the warlord era, Chiang faced the twin enemies of the Communists and the Japanese in his home-front, all the while navigating the political waters with both the Soviet Union and the U.S. to bring advantage for himself and propel his own agenda. Perhaps disturbingly, Fenby's intimate and detailed portrayal of Chiang left me feeling high regard for this man despite his flaws. Chiang's legacy is significant. Yes he lost China. But his journey was not totally devoid of meaning. Readers can make their own judgment about the legacy of this man.
March 5, 2023
Fenby proves just how knowledgeable he is in the complexities surrounding Chiang Kai-Shek’s efforts to unify China amidst the domestic, economic and military disasters of the first half of the 20th Century.
What he does NOT do is keep a pace that allows the reader to stick along for the ride; a single page covering the scope and scale of such events as natural disasters, military defeats, inter political rivalries and seemingly minor events that left me out of breath mentally.
Probably the best part was his final chapter or Epilogue which not only beautifully summarized the book but asks one of the most insightful questions I’ve ever heard regarding the controversial Chiang: “What would have happened to China if he had NOT been in power?” (Juxtaposed to the more popular armchair historical question of what transpired BECAUSE he was in power).
Was it worth the read to get to the epilogue? Probably not, hence the 3 stars.
Spoilers ahead from Epilogue:
Implications if Chiang had not been in power:
1. “Odds would have been on a continuation of the warlord era, and the fragmentation of China into eternally conflicting fiefdoms.”
2. “Pro-Japanese elements may have allied themselves to Tokyo … vast Chinese army trained by imperial officers ISO Japanese war aims.”
3. Washington may have felt obliged to “turn China into another divided Cold War nation, split along Yangtze.”
What he does NOT do is keep a pace that allows the reader to stick along for the ride; a single page covering the scope and scale of such events as natural disasters, military defeats, inter political rivalries and seemingly minor events that left me out of breath mentally.
Probably the best part was his final chapter or Epilogue which not only beautifully summarized the book but asks one of the most insightful questions I’ve ever heard regarding the controversial Chiang: “What would have happened to China if he had NOT been in power?” (Juxtaposed to the more popular armchair historical question of what transpired BECAUSE he was in power).
Was it worth the read to get to the epilogue? Probably not, hence the 3 stars.
Spoilers ahead from Epilogue:
Implications if Chiang had not been in power:
1. “Odds would have been on a continuation of the warlord era, and the fragmentation of China into eternally conflicting fiefdoms.”
2. “Pro-Japanese elements may have allied themselves to Tokyo … vast Chinese army trained by imperial officers ISO Japanese war aims.”
3. Washington may have felt obliged to “turn China into another divided Cold War nation, split along Yangtze.”
December 8, 2007
Very readable.
May 8, 2023
Book Review
"Chiang Kai-shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation he Lost."
5/5 stars
"UNIMAGINABLE Chinese suffering after the collapse of the Qing dynasty"
Of the book:
-507 pages @27 chapters=19 pps/ chapter; 5 parts
-Range, 8 to 29 pages per chapter
-Bibliography=393 sources
-934 citations; 1.85/page OR ≈35/chapter>
-Includes an excellent index and dramatis personae (and that is very useful, because it is difficult to keep track of all of the many characters / monikers).
-Each chapter needs to be reskimmed and resynopsized because the information overload makes it a bit difficult to follow.
Short Attention Span Lessons:
1. China does not learn from the past, and the Chinese future is the past. And vice versa.
2. From the American perspective: neutrality and non-alignment are the wisest choices.
*******
There is a great deal of information here, and all the chapters have to be re-skimmed.
The overwhelming events and bloodshed after the Communist take over of China have made it such that the years between the end of Qing and the beginning of the CCP dynasty seem to be a nebulous, overlooked period of history. But, a lot of events did happen during those times and this book fills in some of those blanks.
I read/have read a lot of these books on Chinese history, and these days I can only read one or two of them per year; the desparate-yet-futile misery makes these books too draining. And many historians and students of history are frustrated by the circular nature of Chinese history and their EXTREME OBDURACY to learning from it. (The present reviewer shares that frustration.)
Even as inane as the events around the rise and fall of the Nationalist party may be, in reality they are just variations on a theme of Chinese events that repeat incessantly throughout history: One emperor gets knocked over to be superseded by another emperor who, in turn, gets knocked over by another. And so on, ad infinitum. In between, there is untold human misery and suffering.
In that way, Chiang Kai-shek may have been the snowflake that caused the avalanche of events that made it such that China is what it is. But, in reality any other snowflake could have caused the same avalanche and in some way, the events of the revolution and
Civil War were quite predictable.
Out of all these many "Regional Generals" (and this is the nicer term for "warlord") it's not hard to imagine that one of them would eventually get the upper hand. And it was, incidentally, CKS.
Some of the book is working out trying to understand the triangular involvement between the Nationalists, Communists and the Japanese.
As many different accounts of theas events as I have read, it may be a fool's errand to try to determine which is true:
∆Version 1 is that the Nationalists cooperated with the Japanese (every single episode of state-run CCTV since 1949);
∆Version 2 is that they left the Japanese alone so that they could wear themselves down trying to colonize a country that was way too big for them (Simon winchester, "The Man Who Loved China");
∆Version 3 is that the Nationalists allowed the Communists to survive at the behest of the Russians, who held CKS's son hostage. (Jung Chang and Jon Halliday). This book suggests that that NEVER happened, and he could have been exchanged for a Polish Communist in whom the Russians were interested. (CKS refused [p.205]: "It is not worth it to sacrifice the interests of the country for the sake of my son.... Chiang reflected that a person would be remembered for moral integrity and achievements, not because he has an heir.") Also, Chiang Ching-Kuo had returned from Russia with his wife at the point that the Communists were at their weakest point and almost destroyable (p.285).
*******
The same question keeps coming up over and over, which is: WHY did it have to be this way?
Even at the time of the events in this book, there had been a Chinese state for over 2,200 years. And yet: Orderly and regular changes of government were still not figured out. Nor military technology, nor central banking
The number of shifting alliances between this or that Regional General and the Central Government are just dizzying.
*******
Much of this story is predictable based on my long experience with Chinese people:
1. Typical Chinese intransigence to learning anything new. (Most clearly illustrated in the chapter about the attempts of Chinese speaking General Stillwell to help CKS in his quest to build a modern military. All the suggestions that still well made and actually been made by the Germans a long time ago when they were trying to help the Nationalists build a military.)
2. Given a choice between 2 steps to do something the right way and 5 steps to try to outfox someone to convince that it is done the right way then they will take the latter path.
3. Some boss somewhere brings a foreign expert to a country only to ignore his advice/actively subvert the management process. (BEEN THERE, DONE THAT).
4. (p.400) "China has already invented everything that can be invented and has nothing to learn from anyone else." (You may laugh at this, but I have been told before that "we Chinese have such a long history we have already invented every word and there are no new ones to be invented.") Foreign ways / ideas are the problem and traditional Chinese culture is the cure.
5. Playing foreigners against each other (p.450).
*******
Second order thoughts:
1. Some things are the same everywhere: when you have some men get into power, the first thing they do is set about the business of trying to mount every woman in the country.
-Sun "Baby Daddy" Yat-sen was a whoremaster, and you "couldn't keep him off the women" (p.37).
-CKS had several marriages and ultimately ended up sterile because of an STD contracted from one of his MANY liaisons.
-If Chairman Mao didn't screw every single person in the country, it's not because he didn't try.
-Honorable mentions: Zhang Zuolin (5 wives); Zhang Zongchang (so many concubines that he gave them numbers because he couldn't remember their names; French, Russian, Korean, Japanese, American, White Russian).
2. In terms of military coups / targeted assassinations /other attempts to take over: the Africans have NOTHING on the Chinese. Simple, matter of fact changes of government at periodic intervals are things that Chinese have not mastered even in 2,300 years of statecraft.
3. The Chinese future is the past. And vice versa. The Nationalist Revolution (KMT) claimed to be about overthrowing imperial overlords and building a republic. But, Yuan Shikai set about the business of trying to make himself Emperor only 3 years after the collapse of Qing. And then CKS. And Mao *was* the emperor for 27 years.
4. Looking at these events just around the Republican revolution, I would say that in terms of terrorist attacks: the Arabs have NOTHING on the Chinese.
5. Who is who in this game of musical chairs? The KMT was trained by the Russians; CKS received his first military training in Japan; Ho Chi Minh (a.k.a. Nguyen Ai Quoc) was trained in China by the KMT (p.68); Communists were allowed to join the KMT as individuals but not as Communists; certain of the warlords model themselves on George Washington (p.104).
6. African levels of brutality. ("Wrapped in whiting and burned alive/slits made in their bodies in which candles were inserted and burned before they were hacked to death / the leader of a railway strike is beheaded on the station platform / two prisoners of battle are cut up in the streets and their hearts and livers hung in a cook shop" [p.104]. Or: "they found the decapitated, bound bodies of all Gu's family except for his younger son." [p.195]. Or: "The commander of the first unit was taken prisoner and tortured is he crawled around confessing his sins. His tongue was cut out, and his cheeks pierced before his head was cut off, wrapped in a red cloth, nailed to a board by the ears, and floated down the river toward the retreating forces." [p.198].)
7. African levels of kleptocracy. 27 taxes unsolved. Paper taxed 11 times going down the Yangtze to 160% of its value. 673 different types of land taxes. "Welcome subsidies." Central government trains robbed. President of China embezzles $20 million 1925. Opium is outlawed but monopolies at least to the highest bidder. Opium Suppression Bureaux raise money through fines.
8. Something that is unique about Communism in Asia is that the military is an arm of the party that controls the government. Let's be absolutely clear that: the fight between the Communists and the KMT was not about controlling a government that owned / finance the military. Instead, it was about putting A Party in charge (p.197) who's military was the property of the party only. A similar stories is told in North Korea.
Interesting factoids:
1. CKS was actually initially trained in Japan and his military target at first was the Manchurians who were the sovereigns of the Qing dynasty.
2. Even as brutal and graphic as was the rape of Nanjing, over a full order of magnitude more people died just in the Great Famine.
3. Final death tolls (p.497): Civil war, 5 million; Sino-japanese conflict, 10 million; 3 million in other CKS campaigns. (18 million total).
4. CKS ruled over Taiwan for 26 years come and he was buried above ground because he was waiting on the reunification of Taiwan with the Mainland. Taiwan has moved on from him, and they were starting to remove him from banknotes as of the time of this book's publication (2003). 20 years later, his picture has been removed from all of the bank notes and statues of him and Sun-Yat Sen are being relocated is Taiwan develops its own identity apart from the KMT.
A few interesting things from each chapter :
1. CKS: a) A mama's boy; b) Yet, a woman beater (p.24)--at the powerful height of 5'6 and 130 lbs.
2. Taiping Rebellion= 20 million dead. Sun Yat-sen was baptized as an Xtian. Yuan Shikai as an 83-day emperor, and the commencement of another warlord/"regional general" period.
3 CKS picks up yet another wife (and he also courteously sterilized her with his STDs). He is Chief of Staff of the KMT at this point.
4. KMT (this is the era of Sun Yat-sen) was a *regional* party in control of Guangzhou, and they were extremely corrupt even then (extortion taxes, bribes, and "duties" all over the place). The Soviet Union is the one that did the training of the KMT army at Whampoa (Russians initially thought that they were a sure bet than the fledgling Communist movement), and it is at this point that CKS was able to demonstrate exceptional administrative talents. Sun Yat-sen died in 1925.
5. CKS is Garrison Commander at this point, and later becomes the top KMT military figure --of Guangzhou-- after absorbing 30K troops from a Hakka Regional General. The national government of the Republic of China is proclaimed on July 1, 1925. There was a currency in use at that time just for the city of Guangzhou. Enter T.V. Soong, the Harvard trained finance minister. There is the typical Chinese trick of playing the foreigners (Russians in this case) one against the other.
6. A chapter on Chinese Regional Generals (a.k.a "warlords"), of which CKS was but one of many. We are introduced to the characters Zhang Zuolin, Wu Peifu, Yan Xishan, Zhang Zongchang, Feng Yuxiang.
Soldiers<-->Bandits. Almost complete lawlessness and Hobbesian each against all. 4 to 6 million people dead in just one famine come in 1920-1921.
7. (p.201). WW2 started in Asia 8 years before hostilities broke out in Europe.
8. Characterization of that den of iniquity, Shanghai (as well as the foreign concessions). Opium dens and prostitution as far as the eye can see. Mafia and extortion as well. (If you want to understand the PRC Chinese aversion to opiates and why they execute smugglers so readily, you need to look no further than these historical events.)
9. The Nationalists cooperated with mobsters (Big Eared Du shows up a lot), and they summarily executed Communists and labor union rivals. KMT's links with the Chinese Mafia was helpful in extorting money from businessman by ransoming their children (p.150). By this point, the Nationalists still do not have the full cooperation of regional generals - - who are an active threat.
10. Disentangling the convoluted connections of the Soong--Chiang--Sun family. (In Hanyu Pinyin: Song--Jiang--Sun.) CKS coldly dumped Wife Number Three to marry Meiling Soong of the wealthy Soong banking dynasty. Sun-Yat Sen (intellectual architect of the Republican Revolution) married into the same family, making him the brother-in-law of CKS. T.V. Soong, Meiling's brother, was a wealthy man who took care of a lot of the financing of the KMT. (The Soong family was also strangely Westernized: 1. They were methodists; 2. Who ever heard of Chinese people willingly eating jellied consomme, pigeon breast, and mangoes?)
11. CKS overtakes several warlords, and several competing politicians. He pushes back the Communists. One famine after another (6 million died just in one).
12. Mukden (Shenyang) Incident. Japan engineered a pretext to take over Manchuria. CKS knew that the KMT military could not overpower Japan, but that caused Communists to see / portray the Nationalists as weak and accommodating.
13. More Sino-Japanese skirmishes, this time in nanjing. More shifting alliances between CKS and Regional generals. The Japanese setup lots of incidents to deliberately make Chinese government officials lose face (p.223)
14. CKS was conservative, Sinocentric, and committed to preserving the rural status quo of wealthy landlords lording over impoverished peasants (who were farming with poor techniques/technical competence and getting low crop yields - - in spite of claiming 50 centuries of farming). The situation in the country was so bad that even though CKS became leader, he could not remedy it dash dash which may have been a task too much to ask of any mortal.
15. (p.262). The Long March started out with 80-100Kmen and 2000 women and ended 369 days later with 5,000 people. They were chased by the KMT and practiced survival by avoidance fighting only intermittent skirmishes
16. CKS prioritized getting rid of the Communists over fighting the Japanese. His strategy had been to let the huge country and the tenacious Chinese people slowly wear down the Japanese, but his hand was forced for political reasons: he had to appear to have nationalist character in order to claim legitimately leadership. The war dragged on for 8 years and casualties were somewhere between 10-11.7 million. CKS I had 31 divisions. Poorly trained and poorly equipped. Japan had 17 divisions, but properly manned. It took three fully staffed Chinese divisions to match even one Japanese.
17. Rape of Nanking. 300K civilian Chinese dead in 6 weeks. KMT lost somewhere between 180K and 300K as against the Japanese 70K. The farming area between Shanghai and Nanjing was the graveyard of nearly 1 million Chinese. The end result was forfeiture of China's wealthiest city and drawing the Japanese into the central government's base area. One scene after another of Japanese brutality.
18. CKS: "I am the state!" Madame CKS's flawless English and social skills help to charm Western diplomats and larger audiences. Chinese casuals up to this date were about 1 million, as against 62,000 Japanese (12,600 of whom died from illness). Apparently Japanese thought that death in battle was glorious (p.331).
19. The Generalissimo spent 6 years in Chongqing and brought ≈600K of Jiangsu refugees with him. Appalling conditions. Run by factions of regional generals, with an illiterate population that took drinking water from a river where 500 tons of sewage flowed each day. Rampant tuberculosis, dysentery, cholera, and smallpox.
20. Japanese made Chongqing the most heavily bomb city in the world as well as making use of biological warfare. Their campaign was total warfare: kill all, burn all, destroy all.
21. CKS, the idiot, and his interactions with Joseph Stilwell in the latter's attempt to train the Nationalist army and bring it up to speed. Stillwell was the highest Foreigner in the Chinese government of the time, but it was impossible for him to get his subordinates to follow orders and cks was simultaneously unable to delegate anything and unwilling to listen to expert advice. The beginning of a lot of unforced errors.
22. Exposition of Madame CKS: a very charismatic figured that was able to endear the Americans to the Chinese cause. Because of her acting as interpreter, she was able to insinuate herself into processes for which she was not qualified (p.398). Famine in the heavily bombed Chongqing, and mother's exchanged children. ("You eat mine, I'll eat yours". p.398)
23. Unforced errors by CKS, one right after another: 200,000 Nationalist troops guarding 50,000 Red troops while Chongqing is raped; unwillingness to form a united front with the Communists. Unwillingness to fight in Burma to open up land supply lines for Chinese troops.
Chinese troops were poorly trained, with a kill ratio of 40 Chinese to 1 Japanese. (Peasants also HATED the corrupt KMT troops, even burying them alive when they fled from the Japanese.) CKS would not send equipment to his soldiers (for fear of independent-minded generals), with the result that there was 1 gun for every 3 soldiers.
Some of the provinces collaborated with the Japanese. Some of the Nationalist troops even sold food to Japanese as Chinese people starved. The KMT was fatally weakened by the Japanese "Operation Ichigo."
24. This is the period after the defeat and unconditional surrender of Japan, and the surviving world powers are recalibrating their strategy based on this new information. Patrick Hurley (about as mentally sharp as the Joe Biden of 2023) became the point man on China. His American colleagues describe him as a senile old man who couldn't keep his mind on any subject (p
438). The Communists are still relatively weak at this point.
25. CKS had ≈half a dozen fully operational divisions, each with 11,000 men. On paper it was one thing, but in reality it was another very weak thing. The junta government very determindely sets about making enemies of the common people (bad inflation / economic conditions / confiscatory taxes while the KMT lived in luxury). US tried repeatedly to get him to make friends with the Communists, but he would not. Several truces have the Communists time to regroup.
26. Hyperinflation creates more official corruption, and the Communists make friends with land reform. Nationalists stay in cities and ignore the vastly more numerous countryside. More missteps cost CKS 100,000 men and the numerical advantage in favor of the Nationalist shrinks from 3:1 to 2:1. By mid November, the Communists were in control of all of Manchuria. At this point, CKS has used up all of his chances, and Truman is aware that the aid ends up mostly in the bank accounts of the "Four Families" (Songs/Chiangs/Kungs/Chen brothers).
The Communists had more boots on the ground in the countryside, and therefore more contacts. They also believed in total annihilation.
The Americans (yet again) have a confused policy and poor understanding of the facts on the ground.
The Huai-Hai campaign (Xuzhou) cost the Nationalists 200,000 men.
Epilogue: Final collapse and flight to Taiwan. (A cute play on the famous Jewish phrase: "Next year in Jerusalem" as "Next year in Nanking.") Final assessment of CKS, and speculation about counterfactual scenarios.
FINAL VERDICT: A very tough read. Not for the faint of heart.
Vocabulary:
Comprador
Satrap
Puttee
brigandage
incommoded
strafe
marcelled hair style
flapper dress
pine marten
solar topi
Yalta agreement
"Chiang Kai-shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation he Lost."
5/5 stars
"UNIMAGINABLE Chinese suffering after the collapse of the Qing dynasty"
Of the book:
-507 pages @27 chapters=19 pps/ chapter; 5 parts
-Range, 8 to 29 pages per chapter
-Bibliography=393 sources
-934 citations; 1.85/page OR ≈35/chapter>
-Includes an excellent index and dramatis personae (and that is very useful, because it is difficult to keep track of all of the many characters / monikers).
-Each chapter needs to be reskimmed and resynopsized because the information overload makes it a bit difficult to follow.
Short Attention Span Lessons:
1. China does not learn from the past, and the Chinese future is the past. And vice versa.
2. From the American perspective: neutrality and non-alignment are the wisest choices.
*******
There is a great deal of information here, and all the chapters have to be re-skimmed.
The overwhelming events and bloodshed after the Communist take over of China have made it such that the years between the end of Qing and the beginning of the CCP dynasty seem to be a nebulous, overlooked period of history. But, a lot of events did happen during those times and this book fills in some of those blanks.
I read/have read a lot of these books on Chinese history, and these days I can only read one or two of them per year; the desparate-yet-futile misery makes these books too draining. And many historians and students of history are frustrated by the circular nature of Chinese history and their EXTREME OBDURACY to learning from it. (The present reviewer shares that frustration.)
Even as inane as the events around the rise and fall of the Nationalist party may be, in reality they are just variations on a theme of Chinese events that repeat incessantly throughout history: One emperor gets knocked over to be superseded by another emperor who, in turn, gets knocked over by another. And so on, ad infinitum. In between, there is untold human misery and suffering.
In that way, Chiang Kai-shek may have been the snowflake that caused the avalanche of events that made it such that China is what it is. But, in reality any other snowflake could have caused the same avalanche and in some way, the events of the revolution and
Civil War were quite predictable.
Out of all these many "Regional Generals" (and this is the nicer term for "warlord") it's not hard to imagine that one of them would eventually get the upper hand. And it was, incidentally, CKS.
Some of the book is working out trying to understand the triangular involvement between the Nationalists, Communists and the Japanese.
As many different accounts of theas events as I have read, it may be a fool's errand to try to determine which is true:
∆Version 1 is that the Nationalists cooperated with the Japanese (every single episode of state-run CCTV since 1949);
∆Version 2 is that they left the Japanese alone so that they could wear themselves down trying to colonize a country that was way too big for them (Simon winchester, "The Man Who Loved China");
∆Version 3 is that the Nationalists allowed the Communists to survive at the behest of the Russians, who held CKS's son hostage. (Jung Chang and Jon Halliday). This book suggests that that NEVER happened, and he could have been exchanged for a Polish Communist in whom the Russians were interested. (CKS refused [p.205]: "It is not worth it to sacrifice the interests of the country for the sake of my son.... Chiang reflected that a person would be remembered for moral integrity and achievements, not because he has an heir.") Also, Chiang Ching-Kuo had returned from Russia with his wife at the point that the Communists were at their weakest point and almost destroyable (p.285).
*******
The same question keeps coming up over and over, which is: WHY did it have to be this way?
Even at the time of the events in this book, there had been a Chinese state for over 2,200 years. And yet: Orderly and regular changes of government were still not figured out. Nor military technology, nor central banking
The number of shifting alliances between this or that Regional General and the Central Government are just dizzying.
*******
Much of this story is predictable based on my long experience with Chinese people:
1. Typical Chinese intransigence to learning anything new. (Most clearly illustrated in the chapter about the attempts of Chinese speaking General Stillwell to help CKS in his quest to build a modern military. All the suggestions that still well made and actually been made by the Germans a long time ago when they were trying to help the Nationalists build a military.)
2. Given a choice between 2 steps to do something the right way and 5 steps to try to outfox someone to convince that it is done the right way then they will take the latter path.
3. Some boss somewhere brings a foreign expert to a country only to ignore his advice/actively subvert the management process. (BEEN THERE, DONE THAT).
4. (p.400) "China has already invented everything that can be invented and has nothing to learn from anyone else." (You may laugh at this, but I have been told before that "we Chinese have such a long history we have already invented every word and there are no new ones to be invented.") Foreign ways / ideas are the problem and traditional Chinese culture is the cure.
5. Playing foreigners against each other (p.450).
*******
Second order thoughts:
1. Some things are the same everywhere: when you have some men get into power, the first thing they do is set about the business of trying to mount every woman in the country.
-Sun "Baby Daddy" Yat-sen was a whoremaster, and you "couldn't keep him off the women" (p.37).
-CKS had several marriages and ultimately ended up sterile because of an STD contracted from one of his MANY liaisons.
-If Chairman Mao didn't screw every single person in the country, it's not because he didn't try.
-Honorable mentions: Zhang Zuolin (5 wives); Zhang Zongchang (so many concubines that he gave them numbers because he couldn't remember their names; French, Russian, Korean, Japanese, American, White Russian).
2. In terms of military coups / targeted assassinations /other attempts to take over: the Africans have NOTHING on the Chinese. Simple, matter of fact changes of government at periodic intervals are things that Chinese have not mastered even in 2,300 years of statecraft.
3. The Chinese future is the past. And vice versa. The Nationalist Revolution (KMT) claimed to be about overthrowing imperial overlords and building a republic. But, Yuan Shikai set about the business of trying to make himself Emperor only 3 years after the collapse of Qing. And then CKS. And Mao *was* the emperor for 27 years.
4. Looking at these events just around the Republican revolution, I would say that in terms of terrorist attacks: the Arabs have NOTHING on the Chinese.
5. Who is who in this game of musical chairs? The KMT was trained by the Russians; CKS received his first military training in Japan; Ho Chi Minh (a.k.a. Nguyen Ai Quoc) was trained in China by the KMT (p.68); Communists were allowed to join the KMT as individuals but not as Communists; certain of the warlords model themselves on George Washington (p.104).
6. African levels of brutality. ("Wrapped in whiting and burned alive/slits made in their bodies in which candles were inserted and burned before they were hacked to death / the leader of a railway strike is beheaded on the station platform / two prisoners of battle are cut up in the streets and their hearts and livers hung in a cook shop" [p.104]. Or: "they found the decapitated, bound bodies of all Gu's family except for his younger son." [p.195]. Or: "The commander of the first unit was taken prisoner and tortured is he crawled around confessing his sins. His tongue was cut out, and his cheeks pierced before his head was cut off, wrapped in a red cloth, nailed to a board by the ears, and floated down the river toward the retreating forces." [p.198].)
7. African levels of kleptocracy. 27 taxes unsolved. Paper taxed 11 times going down the Yangtze to 160% of its value. 673 different types of land taxes. "Welcome subsidies." Central government trains robbed. President of China embezzles $20 million 1925. Opium is outlawed but monopolies at least to the highest bidder. Opium Suppression Bureaux raise money through fines.
8. Something that is unique about Communism in Asia is that the military is an arm of the party that controls the government. Let's be absolutely clear that: the fight between the Communists and the KMT was not about controlling a government that owned / finance the military. Instead, it was about putting A Party in charge (p.197) who's military was the property of the party only. A similar stories is told in North Korea.
Interesting factoids:
1. CKS was actually initially trained in Japan and his military target at first was the Manchurians who were the sovereigns of the Qing dynasty.
2. Even as brutal and graphic as was the rape of Nanjing, over a full order of magnitude more people died just in the Great Famine.
3. Final death tolls (p.497): Civil war, 5 million; Sino-japanese conflict, 10 million; 3 million in other CKS campaigns. (18 million total).
4. CKS ruled over Taiwan for 26 years come and he was buried above ground because he was waiting on the reunification of Taiwan with the Mainland. Taiwan has moved on from him, and they were starting to remove him from banknotes as of the time of this book's publication (2003). 20 years later, his picture has been removed from all of the bank notes and statues of him and Sun-Yat Sen are being relocated is Taiwan develops its own identity apart from the KMT.
A few interesting things from each chapter :
1. CKS: a) A mama's boy; b) Yet, a woman beater (p.24)--at the powerful height of 5'6 and 130 lbs.
2. Taiping Rebellion= 20 million dead. Sun Yat-sen was baptized as an Xtian. Yuan Shikai as an 83-day emperor, and the commencement of another warlord/"regional general" period.
3 CKS picks up yet another wife (and he also courteously sterilized her with his STDs). He is Chief of Staff of the KMT at this point.
4. KMT (this is the era of Sun Yat-sen) was a *regional* party in control of Guangzhou, and they were extremely corrupt even then (extortion taxes, bribes, and "duties" all over the place). The Soviet Union is the one that did the training of the KMT army at Whampoa (Russians initially thought that they were a sure bet than the fledgling Communist movement), and it is at this point that CKS was able to demonstrate exceptional administrative talents. Sun Yat-sen died in 1925.
5. CKS is Garrison Commander at this point, and later becomes the top KMT military figure --of Guangzhou-- after absorbing 30K troops from a Hakka Regional General. The national government of the Republic of China is proclaimed on July 1, 1925. There was a currency in use at that time just for the city of Guangzhou. Enter T.V. Soong, the Harvard trained finance minister. There is the typical Chinese trick of playing the foreigners (Russians in this case) one against the other.
6. A chapter on Chinese Regional Generals (a.k.a "warlords"), of which CKS was but one of many. We are introduced to the characters Zhang Zuolin, Wu Peifu, Yan Xishan, Zhang Zongchang, Feng Yuxiang.
Soldiers<-->Bandits. Almost complete lawlessness and Hobbesian each against all. 4 to 6 million people dead in just one famine come in 1920-1921.
7. (p.201). WW2 started in Asia 8 years before hostilities broke out in Europe.
8. Characterization of that den of iniquity, Shanghai (as well as the foreign concessions). Opium dens and prostitution as far as the eye can see. Mafia and extortion as well. (If you want to understand the PRC Chinese aversion to opiates and why they execute smugglers so readily, you need to look no further than these historical events.)
9. The Nationalists cooperated with mobsters (Big Eared Du shows up a lot), and they summarily executed Communists and labor union rivals. KMT's links with the Chinese Mafia was helpful in extorting money from businessman by ransoming their children (p.150). By this point, the Nationalists still do not have the full cooperation of regional generals - - who are an active threat.
10. Disentangling the convoluted connections of the Soong--Chiang--Sun family. (In Hanyu Pinyin: Song--Jiang--Sun.) CKS coldly dumped Wife Number Three to marry Meiling Soong of the wealthy Soong banking dynasty. Sun-Yat Sen (intellectual architect of the Republican Revolution) married into the same family, making him the brother-in-law of CKS. T.V. Soong, Meiling's brother, was a wealthy man who took care of a lot of the financing of the KMT. (The Soong family was also strangely Westernized: 1. They were methodists; 2. Who ever heard of Chinese people willingly eating jellied consomme, pigeon breast, and mangoes?)
11. CKS overtakes several warlords, and several competing politicians. He pushes back the Communists. One famine after another (6 million died just in one).
12. Mukden (Shenyang) Incident. Japan engineered a pretext to take over Manchuria. CKS knew that the KMT military could not overpower Japan, but that caused Communists to see / portray the Nationalists as weak and accommodating.
13. More Sino-Japanese skirmishes, this time in nanjing. More shifting alliances between CKS and Regional generals. The Japanese setup lots of incidents to deliberately make Chinese government officials lose face (p.223)
14. CKS was conservative, Sinocentric, and committed to preserving the rural status quo of wealthy landlords lording over impoverished peasants (who were farming with poor techniques/technical competence and getting low crop yields - - in spite of claiming 50 centuries of farming). The situation in the country was so bad that even though CKS became leader, he could not remedy it dash dash which may have been a task too much to ask of any mortal.
15. (p.262). The Long March started out with 80-100Kmen and 2000 women and ended 369 days later with 5,000 people. They were chased by the KMT and practiced survival by avoidance fighting only intermittent skirmishes
16. CKS prioritized getting rid of the Communists over fighting the Japanese. His strategy had been to let the huge country and the tenacious Chinese people slowly wear down the Japanese, but his hand was forced for political reasons: he had to appear to have nationalist character in order to claim legitimately leadership. The war dragged on for 8 years and casualties were somewhere between 10-11.7 million. CKS I had 31 divisions. Poorly trained and poorly equipped. Japan had 17 divisions, but properly manned. It took three fully staffed Chinese divisions to match even one Japanese.
17. Rape of Nanking. 300K civilian Chinese dead in 6 weeks. KMT lost somewhere between 180K and 300K as against the Japanese 70K. The farming area between Shanghai and Nanjing was the graveyard of nearly 1 million Chinese. The end result was forfeiture of China's wealthiest city and drawing the Japanese into the central government's base area. One scene after another of Japanese brutality.
18. CKS: "I am the state!" Madame CKS's flawless English and social skills help to charm Western diplomats and larger audiences. Chinese casuals up to this date were about 1 million, as against 62,000 Japanese (12,600 of whom died from illness). Apparently Japanese thought that death in battle was glorious (p.331).
19. The Generalissimo spent 6 years in Chongqing and brought ≈600K of Jiangsu refugees with him. Appalling conditions. Run by factions of regional generals, with an illiterate population that took drinking water from a river where 500 tons of sewage flowed each day. Rampant tuberculosis, dysentery, cholera, and smallpox.
20. Japanese made Chongqing the most heavily bomb city in the world as well as making use of biological warfare. Their campaign was total warfare: kill all, burn all, destroy all.
21. CKS, the idiot, and his interactions with Joseph Stilwell in the latter's attempt to train the Nationalist army and bring it up to speed. Stillwell was the highest Foreigner in the Chinese government of the time, but it was impossible for him to get his subordinates to follow orders and cks was simultaneously unable to delegate anything and unwilling to listen to expert advice. The beginning of a lot of unforced errors.
22. Exposition of Madame CKS: a very charismatic figured that was able to endear the Americans to the Chinese cause. Because of her acting as interpreter, she was able to insinuate herself into processes for which she was not qualified (p.398). Famine in the heavily bombed Chongqing, and mother's exchanged children. ("You eat mine, I'll eat yours". p.398)
23. Unforced errors by CKS, one right after another: 200,000 Nationalist troops guarding 50,000 Red troops while Chongqing is raped; unwillingness to form a united front with the Communists. Unwillingness to fight in Burma to open up land supply lines for Chinese troops.
Chinese troops were poorly trained, with a kill ratio of 40 Chinese to 1 Japanese. (Peasants also HATED the corrupt KMT troops, even burying them alive when they fled from the Japanese.) CKS would not send equipment to his soldiers (for fear of independent-minded generals), with the result that there was 1 gun for every 3 soldiers.
Some of the provinces collaborated with the Japanese. Some of the Nationalist troops even sold food to Japanese as Chinese people starved. The KMT was fatally weakened by the Japanese "Operation Ichigo."
24. This is the period after the defeat and unconditional surrender of Japan, and the surviving world powers are recalibrating their strategy based on this new information. Patrick Hurley (about as mentally sharp as the Joe Biden of 2023) became the point man on China. His American colleagues describe him as a senile old man who couldn't keep his mind on any subject (p
438). The Communists are still relatively weak at this point.
25. CKS had ≈half a dozen fully operational divisions, each with 11,000 men. On paper it was one thing, but in reality it was another very weak thing. The junta government very determindely sets about making enemies of the common people (bad inflation / economic conditions / confiscatory taxes while the KMT lived in luxury). US tried repeatedly to get him to make friends with the Communists, but he would not. Several truces have the Communists time to regroup.
26. Hyperinflation creates more official corruption, and the Communists make friends with land reform. Nationalists stay in cities and ignore the vastly more numerous countryside. More missteps cost CKS 100,000 men and the numerical advantage in favor of the Nationalist shrinks from 3:1 to 2:1. By mid November, the Communists were in control of all of Manchuria. At this point, CKS has used up all of his chances, and Truman is aware that the aid ends up mostly in the bank accounts of the "Four Families" (Songs/Chiangs/Kungs/Chen brothers).
The Communists had more boots on the ground in the countryside, and therefore more contacts. They also believed in total annihilation.
The Americans (yet again) have a confused policy and poor understanding of the facts on the ground.
The Huai-Hai campaign (Xuzhou) cost the Nationalists 200,000 men.
Epilogue: Final collapse and flight to Taiwan. (A cute play on the famous Jewish phrase: "Next year in Jerusalem" as "Next year in Nanking.") Final assessment of CKS, and speculation about counterfactual scenarios.
FINAL VERDICT: A very tough read. Not for the faint of heart.
Vocabulary:
Comprador
Satrap
Puttee
brigandage
incommoded
strafe
marcelled hair style
flapper dress
pine marten
solar topi
Yalta agreement
May 2, 2015
Buku biografi ini merupakan antara buku terbaharu yang menyentuh mengenai Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek. Buku ini diterbitkan pada tahun 2004. Boleh dianggap baharu kerana diterbitkan pada permulaan abad ke-21. Secara umumnya,tidak melampau jika saya katakan kandungan buku ini lebih bersifat revision atau summary mengenai tokoh yang terkenal dari China (atau Taiwan) ini. Jika anda mahukan bahan bacaan yang lebih mendalam mengenainya,adalah disarankan anda membaca buku-buku autobiografi/memoir rasmi. Namun demikian,ini tidak bermakna buku ini hanya melakukan cut and paste berdasarkan kajian-kajian terdahulu. Penulis buku ini,Jonathan Fenby juga turut melakukan analisa dan rumusannya yang tersendiri mengenai Chiang Kai-Shek.
Saya mendapati Fenby berjaya menyampaikan kisah Chiang Kai-Shek ini secara objektif dan tidak berat sebelah. Jika terdapat perkara yang dilakukan Chiang patut dipuji,beliau akan lakukannya. Begitu juga sebaliknya. Fenby tidak segan untuk mengkritik subjek kajiannya. Chiang Kai-Shek merupakan contoh pemimpin yang di dalam dirinya terdapat paradoks di dalam personalitinya. Melalui kepimpinannya,beliau berjaya menyatukan sebahagian besar China yang bermula dengan Northern Expedition pada 1 Julai 1926. China,juga pada era pemerintahannya,mengalami pemodenan yang agak memberansangkan. Namun,pada masa yang sama,gaya pemerintahannya yang dicemari kronisme,nepotisme,bersekongkol dengan kongsi gelap dan rasuah akhirnya akan membawa kejatuhan kepada kerajaannya. Ini ditambah pula dengan faktor-faktor yang lain seperti ancaman Komunisme,peperangan dengan Jepun,bencana alam,ketidakcekapan pentadbiran,tingkah laku hipokrit dan sifat Chiang sendiri yang mengamalkan realpolitik. Dia sanggup melakukan apa sahaja untuk memastikan kedudukan politiknya tidak terjejas,walaupun tindakannya itu akan merugikan kerajaan tadbirannya,terutamanya pada masa panjang.
Turut disertakan beberapa peta yang berkaitan dengan beberapa peristiwa penting dan bersejarah sepanjang pemerintahan Chiang Kai-Shek. Juga terdapat beberapa gambar hitam putih untuk tatapan para pembaca.
Saya mendapati Fenby berjaya menyampaikan kisah Chiang Kai-Shek ini secara objektif dan tidak berat sebelah. Jika terdapat perkara yang dilakukan Chiang patut dipuji,beliau akan lakukannya. Begitu juga sebaliknya. Fenby tidak segan untuk mengkritik subjek kajiannya. Chiang Kai-Shek merupakan contoh pemimpin yang di dalam dirinya terdapat paradoks di dalam personalitinya. Melalui kepimpinannya,beliau berjaya menyatukan sebahagian besar China yang bermula dengan Northern Expedition pada 1 Julai 1926. China,juga pada era pemerintahannya,mengalami pemodenan yang agak memberansangkan. Namun,pada masa yang sama,gaya pemerintahannya yang dicemari kronisme,nepotisme,bersekongkol dengan kongsi gelap dan rasuah akhirnya akan membawa kejatuhan kepada kerajaannya. Ini ditambah pula dengan faktor-faktor yang lain seperti ancaman Komunisme,peperangan dengan Jepun,bencana alam,ketidakcekapan pentadbiran,tingkah laku hipokrit dan sifat Chiang sendiri yang mengamalkan realpolitik. Dia sanggup melakukan apa sahaja untuk memastikan kedudukan politiknya tidak terjejas,walaupun tindakannya itu akan merugikan kerajaan tadbirannya,terutamanya pada masa panjang.
Turut disertakan beberapa peta yang berkaitan dengan beberapa peristiwa penting dan bersejarah sepanjang pemerintahan Chiang Kai-Shek. Juga terdapat beberapa gambar hitam putih untuk tatapan para pembaca.
November 6, 2014
I greatly enjoyed this biography of Chiang Kai Shek which portrays him as a brilliant and a courageous soldier outdone by a vulgarity in this personal habits that undermined his relations with his American allies which led to the communists seizing control of mainland China in 1948.
Chiang Kai Shek was a giftedd young man of modest origins who rose to become the leader of Nationalist China through his talent and marriage into the Soong Dynasty. His entire life was an extraordinary balancing act. He had to convince the Russians to give him subsidies while conducting a 30 year War with the Chinese communist party. He had to motivate his generals who were all jockeying for his place to support his plans wholeheartedly. Finally he had to convince his American backers that he was the right man to support despite the fact that the funds they gave him to pay and feed his army typically disappeared elsewhere.
Ultimately it failed. The Russians simply out manoeuvred him. They invaded Manchuria immediately after Japan surrendered, took the surrender from the Japanese Manchurian army and then turned it over to Mao. At the same time they heavily bribed Chiang Kai Shek's generals and then persuaded them to switch sides once they felt the time was right to seize power. Chiang Kai Shek fled to Taiwan which he ruled until his death and was replaced in power by his son.
Fenby spends a great deal of time recounting incidents from the life of Chiang Kai Shek's legendary wife and siren Soong May-Ling portraying her as a fabulous vamp cut from the same cloth as the notorious Dragon Lady of Terry and the Pirates. While it is impossible not to enjoy reading about the still notorious Soong May-Ling, Fenby's treatment of her considerably undermines the reader's confidence in Fenby's scholarly judgement.
Chiang Kai Shek was a giftedd young man of modest origins who rose to become the leader of Nationalist China through his talent and marriage into the Soong Dynasty. His entire life was an extraordinary balancing act. He had to convince the Russians to give him subsidies while conducting a 30 year War with the Chinese communist party. He had to motivate his generals who were all jockeying for his place to support his plans wholeheartedly. Finally he had to convince his American backers that he was the right man to support despite the fact that the funds they gave him to pay and feed his army typically disappeared elsewhere.
Ultimately it failed. The Russians simply out manoeuvred him. They invaded Manchuria immediately after Japan surrendered, took the surrender from the Japanese Manchurian army and then turned it over to Mao. At the same time they heavily bribed Chiang Kai Shek's generals and then persuaded them to switch sides once they felt the time was right to seize power. Chiang Kai Shek fled to Taiwan which he ruled until his death and was replaced in power by his son.
Fenby spends a great deal of time recounting incidents from the life of Chiang Kai Shek's legendary wife and siren Soong May-Ling portraying her as a fabulous vamp cut from the same cloth as the notorious Dragon Lady of Terry and the Pirates. While it is impossible not to enjoy reading about the still notorious Soong May-Ling, Fenby's treatment of her considerably undermines the reader's confidence in Fenby's scholarly judgement.
July 3, 2019
Excels in pretty much every respect. Reading it proved very fruitful both with regard to its abundance of empirical data and its historiography. The author spends just the right amount of time and effort on the various, relevant aspects of Chiang's life, and organizes his presentation of material perfectly and proportionately. Contrast this, for example, with authors like Doris Kearns Goodwin, who will spend twenty pages discussing trivial details about her subject's life but will spend only that many pages dealing with how the subject's actions were pivotal in the unfolding of world events.
Fenby pulls no punches in depicting all warring powers in early- and mid-twentieth century China -- the Nationalists under Chiang, the Communists under Mao, and the barbarous Japs, plus the semiautonomous warlords -- as the blood-thirsty savages they all were. I also agree fully with his conclusion that although Chiang was a monster, China today would be far better off today (more like Taiwan) if he, and not Mao, had triumphed. He seems, furthermore, to have a firm grasp of sound economic theory, something sorely lacking in the knowledge of most historians. I look forward to reading other works by this author.
Fenby pulls no punches in depicting all warring powers in early- and mid-twentieth century China -- the Nationalists under Chiang, the Communists under Mao, and the barbarous Japs, plus the semiautonomous warlords -- as the blood-thirsty savages they all were. I also agree fully with his conclusion that although Chiang was a monster, China today would be far better off today (more like Taiwan) if he, and not Mao, had triumphed. He seems, furthermore, to have a firm grasp of sound economic theory, something sorely lacking in the knowledge of most historians. I look forward to reading other works by this author.
February 22, 2018
A fairly entertaining read, following Chiang Kai Shek's rise to power amidst a China struggling to modernize and unify. Unfortunately, Japan's brutal invasion and arrogation of vast amounts of Chinese territory would kill millions of civilians and ruin Chiang's mandate of heaven, paving the way for the resurgent communists under Mao.
After the Kuomintang and Chiang flee to Taiwan...the biography stops abruptly. Considering I picked up this book primarily to see how he ruled his island state and navigated it through the turbulent waters of the Cold War, I was severely disappointed. How did he handle the Taiwan Strait Crises? Did he ever lose hope of trying to retake the mainland? Did the same corruption and administrative inefficiency that plagued him earlier in his life continue? I feel this biography is not at all complete, though it served to whet my appetite for a study of mid to late 20th century Taiwan.
After the Kuomintang and Chiang flee to Taiwan...the biography stops abruptly. Considering I picked up this book primarily to see how he ruled his island state and navigated it through the turbulent waters of the Cold War, I was severely disappointed. How did he handle the Taiwan Strait Crises? Did he ever lose hope of trying to retake the mainland? Did the same corruption and administrative inefficiency that plagued him earlier in his life continue? I feel this biography is not at all complete, though it served to whet my appetite for a study of mid to late 20th century Taiwan.
October 21, 2009
It is so rare that you find a book on a man with so much power and impact on history...that you have hardly heard about, we have all heard of Mao but few outside of China know of the leader of the Kummontang (mispelled, I know) and how he could of changed world history.
The book itself is full of info about the man and the nation he lived in and moulded, it talks about the early days of the Nationalists and China at the time (including Shanghi, which was a world in its own at the time) then, in full detail it go's on with its civil wars, Japan, the rise of Mao and his "Long March" and Shek's fall and retreat to Formosa.
If you like to know about the underdog, lost gods of there time, or even insights and truths revealed about icons that you never knew...then you got it in this read and half
The book itself is full of info about the man and the nation he lived in and moulded, it talks about the early days of the Nationalists and China at the time (including Shanghi, which was a world in its own at the time) then, in full detail it go's on with its civil wars, Japan, the rise of Mao and his "Long March" and Shek's fall and retreat to Formosa.
If you like to know about the underdog, lost gods of there time, or even insights and truths revealed about icons that you never knew...then you got it in this read and half
September 1, 2015
This book is hard going, but well worth the effort of sticking with to the end. Fenby shows how Chiang's military life and his personal foibles shaped modern China despite the fact that he ultimately lost control of the country to Mao and the CCP, this is a very broad canvas examined in minute detail. I was most impressed by the chapter in which he summed up the complexities of the post-Xinhai Revolution "warlord era." But like other readers I wished there had been more analysis of the post-1949 era, his administration in Taiwan, and the last years of his life, as without this the book feels distinctly unfinished - both if you are reading it as a history book or as a straight biography.
November 7, 2012
This is one of the best pieces of non-fiction I have ever read. Fenby is one of those rare writers of history who is able to convey both the large scale sweeps and the minutiae of a single person's life in the form of a well-paced and highly engaging story.
It also helps that Chiang is both a fascinating character in and of himself, and that the he lived (and stumbled China through) one of the most interesting periods of Chinese, and world, history. Everything about this book is riveting, and anyone with an interest in history or China will not be able to put it down.
It also helps that Chiang is both a fascinating character in and of himself, and that the he lived (and stumbled China through) one of the most interesting periods of Chinese, and world, history. Everything about this book is riveting, and anyone with an interest in history or China will not be able to put it down.
July 6, 2010
Very readable, and as the author notes the man and this period of history have been a bit neglected. The only criticism I'd have is his reliance on unreliable sources - for example, the improbable (but very colourful) story that Song Meiling seduced Wendel Willkie comes from only one man (Cowles) - but here it's reported as fact. Still, makes it a much more interesting read to include all that kind of stuff...
December 25, 2017
An excellent book, not only as a biography of Chaing Kai-shek, but as a complete history of post-Manchu China from 1911 up until Mao's ultimate conquest in 1949. It could make for an epic historical TV war drama series on HBO or the History Channel. The most engrossing historical narrative I've ever read.
October 13, 2019
A marvellous biography of a man at the heart of China. Sadly ignored by the current regime as a terrorist, this man helped make the country what it is today.
Time to name drop - he decorated a great uncle of mine during the war for his flying exploits against the Japanese.
Time to name drop - he decorated a great uncle of mine during the war for his flying exploits against the Japanese.
June 17, 2008
Covers the currupt nationalist regime from 1900 through 1949. Between the 3 books I have now read you have 2000 pages of Chinese history which covered 1900-2005. Great info on a Country that is impacting the planet so much.
July 6, 2008
I have to admit this one is gonna be a hard read. I bought it, so I must read it. I am hoping it gets better as I go along. Maybe the rating will improve. This is about one man, a Chinese General and it goes hand in hand with, "The Rape of Nanking".
April 28, 2009
Although I had read quite a lot of Chinese History and the times and people involved in the formation of the KMT and over throw of the Ching dynasty, this book brought to light further details of his life and career.
December 19, 2010
Fantastic book for getting a sense of modern Chinese history and especially useful for those who are living in mainland China and hear only Communist propaganda. So much of what we read on China is about Mao. It's nice to hear about the other guy.
July 27, 2011
A hell of a slog. A bit like reading an absurdly long essay.
Very enlightening though.
Very enlightening though.
January 6, 2015
Highly readable and very engaging biography of one of Asia's more difficult and tragic historical figures. And a good way to get a handle on the China front of WWII.
April 15, 2015
A very detailed history of the generalissmo until 1949 when he lost the war to Mao. An interesting read.
November 18, 2017
Lots of interesting detail here. It may be a very good choice for a college student delving into the details, but for a more casual reader it is a bit much.
January 1, 2020
The author anticipates that if there were no Chiang Kai-shek in China, it would have been likely that China had entered an endless feudal state. He also said that if Jean-Jess was murdered in Xi'an in 1936, it was likely that the pro-Japanese factions in the Nationalist government had allied with Tokyo and the Chinese army had been included in Japan. If so, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union from the west, the Japanese would invade the Soviet Union from the east, presuming that the history of World War II would have been completely reversed.
I sympathize with the author's opinion, but on the other hand, I expect this. If there was no Chiang Kai-shek, the anti-communist sentiment was more overwhelming, there would have been no Shanghai Great House. If so, the communist uprisings that occurred at similar times would have been difficult for the KMT to suppress. Also, without the centripetal power of Chiang Kai-shek, who would use the Nationalist ideology to gain support from the masses, the Nationalist forces would not have grown significantly after Sun Yat-sen. With all of this in mind, it is likely that the Chinese Communist Party took the lead in taking the lead over the KMT.
https://singingdalong.blogspot.com/20...
I sympathize with the author's opinion, but on the other hand, I expect this. If there was no Chiang Kai-shek, the anti-communist sentiment was more overwhelming, there would have been no Shanghai Great House. If so, the communist uprisings that occurred at similar times would have been difficult for the KMT to suppress. Also, without the centripetal power of Chiang Kai-shek, who would use the Nationalist ideology to gain support from the masses, the Nationalist forces would not have grown significantly after Sun Yat-sen. With all of this in mind, it is likely that the Chinese Communist Party took the lead in taking the lead over the KMT.
https://singingdalong.blogspot.com/20...
August 31, 2022
At the time it was published in 2003 this was certainly a vast improvement on any other biography Chasing in English both in research and readability but, although I enjoyed it immensely I serious reservations. First because it is not clear how extensive Mr. Fenby's knowledge of Chinese is, I wouldn't dare suggest he knows none, but he appears to use mainly translated sources. This really isn't very satisfactory the days when Chasing and his times were non events in mainland China are long gone. A great deal has been published recently, much of it sympathetic, on Chasing on mainland China. As a result one must approach books like this with at the very least an open mind. The other flaw is a that it ends in 1949 and doesn't deal with his years in Taiwan. This is unfortunate because it is like writing a life of de Gaulle and ending it in 1949 - there is a lot more of importance to come and some is relevant to what went before.
So, with reservations, a good biography, but not in any way definitive and maybe a bit dated.
So, with reservations, a good biography, but not in any way definitive and maybe a bit dated.
October 4, 2021
A pretty well researched book not just about Chiang but also about a general history of China from 1910s to 1949. So I also came to know quite a lot of fun facts about various warlords, such as Christian General Fengb who lived a luxury life but pretended to be a frugal peasant. Also some interesting stories about Chen Jieru, and how Chiang pursued her in Shanghai like a really crazy love story.
The best part of the book is about Chiang in his teenage and youth in Xikou, Japan and Shanghai, and also Canton before his North Expedition.
What happened after that, is relatively familiar to me after my reading of such books as Soong Meiling, Stilwell, China 1945, and Marshall Program.
Finally the author has a pretty decent judgment on Chiang as a historical figure. Basically he has his pros and cons, but it seems that he is the right person chosen by history to lead China defeating Jap and was destined to lose China in the end because he has nothing new to offer to Chinese people.
The best part of the book is about Chiang in his teenage and youth in Xikou, Japan and Shanghai, and also Canton before his North Expedition.
What happened after that, is relatively familiar to me after my reading of such books as Soong Meiling, Stilwell, China 1945, and Marshall Program.
Finally the author has a pretty decent judgment on Chiang as a historical figure. Basically he has his pros and cons, but it seems that he is the right person chosen by history to lead China defeating Jap and was destined to lose China in the end because he has nothing new to offer to Chinese people.
June 21, 2022
No holds barred. Chiang and his Madam were ruthless corrupt people who successfully managed to gain the confidence of Roosevelt and later Truman in order to keep themselves in power. Madam's family, the Soongs, insinuated themselves into the highest circles of power in the United States, leading to years of misguided support of Chiang and the Chinese Nationalists. I remember as an eight year old going to the movies where the "News of The World" ran reel after reel of propaganda extolling the Madam and her husband. I read this book in conjunction with Tuchman's wonderful read "Stilwell and the American Experience in China". Our leaders were completely taken in and deceived by Chiang and Co. A pattern later repeated in Vietnam and other countries where we obsessed with corrupt ineffectual leadership.
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