Chiang's nationalists were mostly defeated in a few decisive battles in 1948. When the Second World War ended, the civil war with the communists (by then led by Mao Zedong) resumed. Roosevelt in the Cairo Conference to discuss terms for the Japanese surrender. As the leader of a major Allied power, Chiang met with British prime minister Winston Churchill and American president Franklin D. For eight years, he led the war of resistance against a vastly superior enemy, mostly from the wartime capital Chongqing. Following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, he mobilized China for the Second Sino-Japanese War. In December 1936 he was kidnapped in the Xi'an Incident, and obliged to form an Anti-Japanese United Front with the CCP. His government presided over economic and social reconstruction while trying to avoid a debilitating war with Japan. Midway through the Northern Expedition, the KMT–CCP alliance broke down and Chiang massacred communists and KMT leftists inside the party, triggering a civil war with the CCP, which he eventually lost in 1949.Īs the leader of the Republic of China during the Nanjing decade, Chiang sought to modernize and unify the nation, although hostilities with the CCP continued. As commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army, he led the Northern Expedition from 1926 to 1928, nominally reunifying China under a Nationalist government in Nanjing. After the Soviet-led Comintern re-organized the Nationalist and Chinese Communist Party, he headed the Whampoa Military Academy.

After being defeated in the Chinese Civil War by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949, he led the ROC on the island of Taiwan until his death in 1975.īorn in Zhejiang, Chiang was a member of the Kuomintang, and a lieutenant of Sun Yat-sen in the revolution to overthrow the Beiyang government and reunify China.

He was the head of the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party, General of the National Revolutionary Army, known as Generalissimo, and the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) in mainland China from 1928 until 1949. Himself as Director-General of the KuomintangĬhiang Ching-kuo (as Chairman of the Kuomintang)Ĭhairman of the Military Affairs CommissionĬhiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and military leader. Position established (himself as Chairman of the Nationalist government) Position abolished (himself as President of the Republic of China) Chairman of the National Government of China

Ho sai gai