Chiang Kai-Shek Leadership - Research Paper Example

Chiang Kai-Shek Leadership Introduction There is a very popular phrase that goes like “behind every successful man, is a woman”. Similarly, in layman’s language, “behind every successful country; is a leader”. It is an undoubting fact that each and every country around the globe has its own history; a history that identifies with the people of that particular country. China is an autonomous country and has its own special history, citing various leaders through all the different regimes that ever happened to rule the country since time immemorial. This paper delves into the leadership and governance of Chiang Kai-shek, who is one of the most celebrated leaders in China for his contributions. The paper delves into the biography of Chiang Kai-shek, highlighting when he was born to when he got into Chinese politics. In addition, the paper also puts in white and black, the contributions of Chiang Kai-shek to China as a Republic. Chiang Kai-shek Brief Autobiography Chiang Kai-shek passed on in 1975, after living for 88 years. For two decades, Chiang Kai-shek served as the Chinese head of state on the Chinese mainland until 1950 when he served as the president of the Republic of China in Taiwan. He was born on October 30, 1887 in a place known as Chi-k’ou, Chiekang. His father was a salt merchant who died in 1886, leaving the burden of Chiang’s upbringing solely to his mother, who was his third wife. In 1905, Chiang Kai-shek went to Ningpo in pursuit of education where he decided to venture into a military career1. The following year, Chiang Kai-shek travelled to Tokyo, but failed to qualify for military training. This was when he decided to go back to Tokyo, where he studied at the Paoting Military Academy, after which he furthered his education at the Shikan Gakko Military Academy, in Tokyo2. Chiang Kai-shek Political tenure Kai-shek was a very close ally to fellow Chekiangese Ch’en Chi-mei, who sponsored Chiang’s entry into the controversial Sun Yat-Sen’s revolutionary party T’ung-Meng Hui. Chiang returned to Shanghai when a revolution broke out on the 10th of October, 1911, in Wuhan. Cheng returned to fight against their adversaries under Ch’en. A sequence of triumphs by the Ch’en, as well as other revolutionists in the Yangtze Valley, set the ball rolling for the installation of Sun Yat-sen as the official provisional ruler of the Chinese Republic3. In 1913, there was yet another bungled second revolution in which both Chiang Kai-shek and Ch’en Ch’i-mei also fought. By the end of 1913, both of them had already gone back to Japan. The following Year, Chiang Kai-shek made trips to Harbin and Shanghai to undertake assignments for Sun Yat-Sen. However, Ch’en was assassinated on the 18th of May 1916 while travelling to Shanghai. His death was a cold case. Towards the end of 1917, Sun Yat-Sen moved to Canton, where he established an armed forces base with the assistance of Ch’en Chiung-Ming, who was the local warlord. Chiang Kai-shek was dispersed to Ch’en’s staff. In 1918, Chiang Kai-shek instigated convivial relations with a secret society known as “Green Gang”4. This secret society, though kept clandestinely, wielded great power in the underworld of Shanghai. On April 22, 1923, Kai-shek was assigned the duty of Sun’s chief of staff. By this time, Sun had developed immense support for Moscow. As a result, Chiang Kai-shek travelled to the former U.S.S.R. as the head of a team that had travelled there to seek for military assistance. When they came back in December, he was given the opportunity to put what he had learned in Moscow to practical use. In January 1924, he was appointed as a member of the Military Council5. By May of 1924, Chiang Kai-shek was the commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy. While in office, Chiang Kai-shek alongside Soviet advisers, instigated a team of the elite military he named the “Whampoa Clique”. The members of this “elite team” were bound to Chiang Kai-shek by ties of personal allegiance. After Sun had died on the 12th of March, 1925, it is Chiang Kai-shek that won the seat by default6. With the full support of the Chief Soviet advisor Borodin, Chiang Kai-shek put himself at par with the leader of the KMT, Wang Ching-Wei. Chiang Kai-shek’s commitment was discovered to be that of power rather than principle in the Chungshan gunboat confrontation. In 1926, Chiang Kai-shek imprisoned alleged Chinese and Soviet communist plotters and forced Wang Ching-wei to an early retirement. He also eliminated party positions of high and leading communists, as the head of the propaganda department, and Mao Tse-Tung was affected7. Having merged his political powers, Chiang Kai-shek prepared himself to carry on with the dreams that Sun had for China. Sun had the dream of China’s national reunification, a task Chiang Kai-shek put himself to task to accomplish. On July, 9, 1926, Chiang Kai-shek was promoted to the position of commander of the Northern Expeditionary Forces. His hordes struck through Hupei and Hunan, capturing key cities in Wuhan, moving eastwards through Fukien and Kiangsi up to the rich provinces of the Yangtze. Shanghai was officially occupied on the 22nd of March, 1927, Nanking on March 258. In less than one year, Chiang Kai-shek had occupied the populous and wealthy provinces of central, southern and eastern China. He placed all these regions under his Nationalist control. However, Chiang Kai-shek’s new found success came across certain hitches. There was a widening rift within the ranks of the elite army. On the 12th of April, 1927, Chiang Kai-shek acted boldly and swiftly against communists suspects in Shanghai, especially those in the labor movement9. This process instigated a “party cleansing” movement that swept swiftly through all the other provinces under Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist government. Chiang Kai-shek openly proclaimed that the national government was rivals with the “KMT” regime that was allied to Borodin and CCP. Hardly two months later, Chiang Kai-shek participated in the crumbling of the Wuhan coalition. He achieved this with the assistance from Feng Yu-Hsiang, a very powerful warlord10. On September 29, 1927, Chiang Kai-shek resigned from his duties and sailed to Japan, where he arranged his marriage to Soong Mei-ling. Soong was a member of one of the leading Christian families of Shanghai. Her sister, Soong Ch’ing-ling was the widow of Sun Yatsen. Conversion to Christianity was one of the conditions of the unions, so Chiang Kai-shek concurred to studying Christianity. Eventually, Chiang Kai-shek became a pious Methodist. Even though Chiang Kai-shek took a brief break from politics, he resumed hardly a year later. In June 1928, he instigated the second stage of his expedition into the Northern regions11. Perking fell into Chiang Kai-shek’s hands in the same month, Nanking becoming the federal capital. Peking (Northern Capital) was soon renamed to Peiping “Northern Peace”. The following decade from 1928 to 1937 was nonviolent, but only in comparison to the years that followed as well as those that preceded it. For Chiang Kai-shek National government, this period was nonetheless years of accomplishment and promises. Not a year passed devoid of bloodletting among Nationalists, Communists, and Militarists not forgetting Japan invaders. As a result, Chiang Kai-shek built up a fearsome opinionated and military machine. The Nationalist government was assisted by the Germans to stock up their arsenal, which they effectively used to oust the Communists from their Kiangsi base12. The communists were forced to take flight to the distant Northwestern periphery of the heartland of China. These ten years were also very fruitful for the people of China. Developments in the urban subdivision in the lower Yangtze Valley and Manchuria saw the Nationalist government secure the cooperation of many foreign-educated individuals, which made education flourish. Around the same time, Chiang Kai-shek initiated a “New Life Movement”, in quest of infusing China’s nationals with enthusiasm for Confucian values revitalized with the spirits of the military spirit and Protestantism. The Japanese occupation of Manchuria slowed down the pace of Chiang Kai-shek’s efforts. He was majorly preoccupied with fighting the communists. On the 12th of December, 1936, Chiang Kai-shek was abducted by Manchurian warlord Chang Hsueh-Liang. He was coerced to accede to Chang’s demands that he joins the Communists in a united front against their greatest adversaries; Japan. He was released two weeks later and was regarded a hero when he embarked to Nanking13. Within the first year of the Second Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945), Chiang Kai-shek’s popularity grew. From September to December 1937, Chiang Kai-shek’s German trained army troops fought an outstanding battle around Nanking and Shanghai, briefly buying the Nationalist government some time to withdraw to Chungking and Wuhan. Finally, in March 1938, Chiang Kai-shek’s supremacy was confirmed when he assumed the title of Tsung-Tsai, translating to the Party Leader, the successor of Sun Yat-Sen is also known as Tsung-Li (Party Director). By 1941, Chiang Kai-shek’s wartime spirit began to diminish. Inflation was slowly running the country’s reserves dry. By the time the United States joined the war, China was war-weary and had become cynical and disillusioned. Chiang Kai-shek welcomed the helping hands of the American Chief of Staff, Lt. Major General Chennault Claire, whose 14th Air Force squadron operated from the Chinese bases14. Many war-related unresolved problems, weakened Chiang Kai-shek’s government, which allowed Mao Tse-tung to expand control over a substantial number of Chinese numbering to more than a hundred million. President Truman intervened on the 27th of October, 1945, in an attempt to act as a mediator between the two opposing sides. This failed to prevent the onset of a civil war. During this time, Chiang Kai-shek was under pressure from the United States as well as local political rivals, who were urging him to democratize his government. On the 1st of January 1947, a new constitution was put into place15. A federal assembly elected Chiang Kai-shek as the president, general Li Tsungjen appointed as vice president. The pomp ceremony held in Nanking was against major backdrops of a series of disasters. On the 1st of November 1948, Mukden fell, closely followed by Peiping three months later. On January 21, 1949, Chiang Kai-shek resigned for the second time from his job, leaving Li Tsung-Jen with the tough duty of salvaging something way beyond repair. Chiang Kai-shek retired to Taiwan on December the 10th, 1949 after he was completely unable to build resistance in Southern China. Chiang Kai-shek’s many dreams that never materialized in China did so in Taiwan. He gained unlimited power, where under emergency law, was reelected to the presidency. His diplomats obstinately held onto the “Chinese” seats in the United Nations because Chiang Kai-shek viewed Taiwan as a model province, and not a country. However, in 1972, representatives of the Communist China replaced Nationalist China at the United Nations. Chiang Kai-shek was elected for his fifth six-year presidential term the same year. The same year was pivotal for Taiwan and Chiang Kai-shek because the United States President Richard Nixon paid the people of the Republic of China a visit. He concurred to the fact that Taiwan was part and parcel of China. This setback, coupled with pneumonia, had many wondering whether Chiang Kai-shek was fit to hold office. His son, Chiang Ching-Kuo was employed premier in May he same year, assuming most of his father’s contractual obligations. For the following three years before his death, he was a ceremonial leader, his son being the handy principal16. Ultimately, on the 5th of April 1975, Chiang Kai-shek experienced a lethal heart attack that led to his demise, ending a legacy of a true Chinese leader17. The next section of the paper looks into the milestones achieved by Chiang Kai-shek during his time in power. Contributions of Chiang Kai-shek in China Chiang Kai-shek is definitely one of the founding fathers of the contemporary China. The most contribution he is widely acknowledged for is forming coalitions with the U.S.S.R and Germany alongside other allies. As a result of these coalitions, China managed to improve their arsenal. Without the much-needed connection to Germany and USSR, China would have been left miles behind. The weapons added to their arsenal were the major contributors to China’s success against Japan. Germany, being one of the most prolific weapon manufacturers, equipped China’s republic arsenal with highly sophisticated and intricate weapons that were no match for their adversaries18. In addition, Chiang Kai-shek contributed to the improvement of the educational standard in China. Developments in the urban subdivision in the lower Yangtze Valley and Manchuria saw the Nationalist government secure the collaboration of many foreign-educated individuals, which made education flourish. Many foreign-educated individuals were invited to China, where most were absorbed as lecturers and tutors. Many kids who were going to school in China had never attended finally school got the opportunity to get an education, thanks to the collaborations of Chiang Kai-shek and highly educated foreign individuals19. What resulted was a flourishing of the Chinese education system, and the effect still felt in contemporary China. Chiang Kai-shek also created a team of “elite armies”. These groups of armies conducted the most sensitive missions in China. As a matter of fact, it is Chiang Kai-shek that set the foundation for the elite squad of police structure as it currently is in China. The “Whampoa Clique”, as it was initially referred to, was the very first team of elite army officers. Ever since the team was instigated, it has been modified and re-named but not removed. Its importance was marked from the time it was incepted, and still does exist to date. In addition to this, Chiang Kai-shek instituted modest programs including infrastructure improvements, financial reforms and a revival of the element of Confucianism, greatly supported by “New Life Movement” campaign. Because of Chiang Kai-shek’s inclusion of China among the big four powers, the international reputation of the country skyrocketed20. Conclusion It is evident that Chiang Kai-shek is one of the Chinese leaders regarded to have elicited the most quantifiable and tangible transformations to the Republic of China. Born as a poor peasant’s son, Chiang Kai-shek rose to become the president of the Republic of China for more than five six-year presidential terms. His indulgence in Chinese politics did yield many results for the Chinese. The county improved in infrastructure, education, armory and reputation wise. The codes of living among Chinese were transformed into the program dubbed “New Life Movement”. The lives of many Chinese nationals changed, thanks to this program Chiang Kai-shek instigated when he was still in office. Therefore, it is evident that Chiang Kai-shek, as a historical Chinese leader, did, in fact, influence majorly the lives and culture of the contemporary China. Bibliography Bian, Morris L. "Building a new nation state: an examination of chiang kai-shek's critical contribution to the making of modern China." Chinese Historical Review 17, no. 1 (Spring2010 2010): 6-15. Historical Abstracts, EBSCOhost (accessed April 2, 2015). Fenby, Jonathan. Chiang Kai shek : China's Generalissimo and the nation he lost. New York : Carroll & Graf, 2005. Hahn, Emily. Chiang Kai-shek : an unauthorized biography. Garden City, N. Y. : Doubleday, 1955. Hill, Emily M. "The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China." Review of Politics 72, no. 1 (Winter2010 2010): 180. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed April 2, 2015). Huang, Grace C. 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