How Do modern chinese Historians Regard Chiang kai-Sheck?

Great Debates
21

Interesting article, but it doesn’t clearly show the size of the German involvement. It also does not sound like a particularly large number of German advisors. Also like to see a comparison vis-a-vis the Americans, French, Russians, English, etc.

For example, this quote: By 1933, the Deutsche Beraterschaft in China (German Advisory Mission in China) had grown to over 50 personnel. It contained three branches, one covering administrative, aviation, economic, industrial, police and railroad development issues, a second covering General Staff issues, and a third covering military education and training.

22

I did not know. What is the extent/nature of their presence there?

23

Nope, this is a standard pre-WW2 Wehrmacht army uniform. The SS, including the Adolf Hitler division (just a regiment at this time) would have the SS lightning flashes on the collar in place of the “Litzen” tabs and a significantly different shape of the eagle insignia on the left arm instead of the breast.

24

Question: when the Nationalists cut a deal with Mao (and “peanuthead” was kidnapped) why did Mao let Chiang go? Was it weakness? :smack:

25

Business, especially manufacturing. Siemens, Bosch, BMW, Daimler, VW, etc have all invested USD billion into China.

26

The one guy who knew was Chang Hsueh-liang (Zhang Xue-liang aka Peter Zhang), the Young Marshall. From his interview in Hawaii after being under house arrest for 50 years following the Xi-an Incident:

Chang said “the ‘Xi’an Incident’ took place under the compelling circumstance”, Chiang Kai-shek rebuked him for failing to use machine guns to suppress the students in the December 9 Demonstration and called him a double-dealer. Chang flushed with anger at Chiang’s words of “turning the machine guns towards students instead of Japanese aggressors”. He decided to “teach Chiang a lesson”. After the “Xi’an Incident”, Chiang Kai-shek was forced to promise cooperation with the Communist Party in fighting against Japan.

Beyond that, all sorts of different theories and WAGs. One is that Mao thought CKS was the KMT leader most advantageous to the Communists. Eg as leader of the KMT, CKS would be the easiest one to beat.

Jung Chang/Jon Halliday argues that Stalin, as China puppet master, ordered the release. IMHO in general her claims requires a general suspension of belief.

I haven’t read all the Chang Xue-liang interviews done in the early 1990’s before his death. He had been under house arrest until after CKS son and successor Chiang Ching-kuo died.

27

In particular, big German firms like VW were some of the very first major Western investors in China at the beginning of the “opening up” in the mid 80s. It was a rather risky move on their part, and for a long time people were skeptical because in the 90s the Chinese market wasn’t anywhere nearly as hot as it is today(in the investor’s perception, anyway), especially for capital intensive and opposed to labour intensive industries like car manufacturing.

To take VW for an example, their Chinese joint ventures didn’t really start raking in the profits until IIRC the late 90s or so, but their early entry put them in a commanding position in the market today.

28

Suspending belief is required with all accounts of such a shady period. Out of interest, which part of Jung Chang’s book was the best, in your opinion?

29

Au Contraire, at least the Nationalist side is well documented, eyewitnessed and researched. It does require spending an awful lot of time in research libraries though. The Communist side has much less “unbiased” documentation but there are still missionary accounts, idealists, military observers, doctors, etc who were there at the time and left accounts.

Disclaimer: Mao was one of the worst tyrants ever. However, there is no need for hyperbole, exaggeration, lies of ommission, and/or deliberate fiction to prove the case.

Honestly, halfway through Mao: The Untold Story, doesn’t leave me with any “best.” The Russian connection and all of the cables, eyewitness reports, reports from people who have read secret documents, etc, might be worthwhile, but frankly I need to see additional confirmation from some respected China scholars before taking them really seriously. BTW, every China scholar that I’ve either read or talked to about the book think it’s basically a crock. The University of California SD as a pretty good website that is academically pointing out obvious flaws in the book

Jung’s book has several major flaws. Number 1 is the authors don’t present evidence, rather they ram dubious conclusions down the readers throats.

Second, the Long March was actually a cunning plan by CKS to show the Russians he could have wiped out the Jiangxi soviet, then stage managed the entire Long March so that Mao would end up in Yan’an, and several years later when the Japanese finally engaged in a full scale war with China, then Japanese would wipe out the communists. All this so that CKS could get his son Chiang Ching-kuo back from being Stalin’s hostage. It get’s better but I think you get my drift.

Third one that jumps out is that the reader is supposed to buy that CKS fought the Japanese and was generally supported by the Chinese population. The authors just assumes the reader will accept this claim at face value. Puh-leese this view was debunked at the time, debunked later, and is still debunked. Start by reading Stilwell and the American experience in China "Her analysis reveals how America’s romantic enchantment with China and the idealized, false image of Chiang Kai-shek’s regime as a democracy evolved, causing far-reaching consequences for America after 1945. "

Author’s claims of not fighting or engaging the Japanese are based on the undisputed fact that the communists did not fight major, pitched battles against the Japanese. It does not follow that not fighting major battles = not fighting the Japanese. The Chinese communists were guerrillas. Now maybe one can try make the case that the Chinese communists did not wage a guerrilla war against the Japanese, but this is not a case the authors address.

Fourth thing is that every Mao victory was because of Russian help or secret communist moles in the KMT that became the top leaders. *Every * Mao failure, Mao over ruled the advice of his generals. There is no attempt at balance or to give credit where credit is due.

That’s just a start :slight_smile:

30

I have the advantage over you of having read the book in its entirety, and have to say that the authors don’t make these strong claims.

31

The authors do make the claim the CKS fought the Japanese. See p. 305 has an example (I don’t have the book in front of me but made that note on the plane yesterday) and there’s a lot more examples as i just finished that session .

The authors do not make the case that the communists did NOT wage guerrilla warfare against the Japanese. The authors do make the case that the communists did not fight traditional pitched battles against the Japanese. heck, even the commubists admit that was the case.

32

In 1936 Chiang Kai-shek ignores the pressure to resist Japan, both from his own generals and from the Communists in Yenan. He is kidnapped by his own generals and pressured to fight Japan and He is only released when he agrees to a united front with the Communists.

Is that accurate? Are you saying different?

After that happens does he fight the Japanese? Or, are you saying [in the rest of your posts] he does not?

33

Basically, yes, that’s what happened.

Basically, CKS did not fight the Japanese before or after the Xi-an Incident. US Military documents multiple incidents of CKS’s well trained, US equiped, professionally led army avoid encounter after encounter with the Japanese. Plenty of other international sources out there that collaborate this view.

Disclaimer, the following is painting with a broad brush and not fact checking 100% before posting.

The Young Marshall isn’t exactly one of CKS’ “generals” in a modern professional military sense. The only ones at the time that might be considered so were the Whampoa Military graduates. CKS’ generals were often warlords that became allies or marriages of convenience. The alliegence of their army was to the warlord, the warlord to CKS (not to the Chinese government or nation). The warlords were obviously not nation builders by nature.

The Young Marshall was an opium addicted playboy, and a Manchurian rather than Han Chinese. After his father was assassinated by the Japanese (conspiracy theorists alternately also blame the Russians, Communists and KMT), he did an about face, stepped up to being a leader. Took his army out of Manchuria (instead of almost certain annihilation by the Japanese Kwantung Army and supposedly to avoid massive suffering fighting would have caussed among the civilian population), and set up in Northern China.

The Young Marshall and CKS had a very close relationship. Almost a familial one. CKS promptly arrested the Young Marshall after the Xi-an Incident, kept him under house arrest until his successor son passed away in 1989, and dragged him all over China when fleeing the Japanese and eventually to Taiwan.

34

Do you mean that exclusive as it reads? That CKS never fought the Japanese ever? or you really saying that CKS ducked and dodged and took American money and hood-winked everyone and did the bare minimum of what he had to do?

I was under the impression that the operation ending with the infamous “Rape of Nanking” and the first full out Sino-Japanese hostilities was the end result of the Japanese actions following the Chinese (completely understandable and internationally legal) attack at Shanghai in 1937.

If we agree on that, then am fairly sure the common history is that on August 12, Chiang Kai-shek ordered a general offensive against the Japanese and at dawn the Chinese 87th division, with a nascent airforce, attacked the Japanese military and commercial positions around Shanghai. With almost no airforce they were even able to damage the ship Japanese flagship there.

By August 21, China had signed a military pact with the Soviet Union and the Red Army was reorganized into the Eighth Route Army, to fight under the centralized command of Chiang Kai-shek, to advance eastward against the Japanese and to carry on guerrilla warfare. The Communist Party announced its “unswerving loyalty” and “unqualified support” for Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.

Now, I know it all ended in tears but isn’t it overtstating (maybe “some” or “not by a lot”) to say CKS never fought the Japanese? I raise this point not on behalf of CKS but for the Chinese Nationalists who died as allies of “the right side” in WWII --at what I think were CKS orders)

35

Short answers with qualifications on a message board based on IIRC by necessity are not 100% black and white answers. That said, yes, it is not fair to say that the KMT never fought the Japanese. More qualified stuff to follow:

Ther are records with details of every one of these battles (not sure if available on line but certainly in research libraries and IIRC about 30 engagements?) from the KMT side and likely from the Japanese side as well.

IIRC one will find that the majority of these battles were fought early on as the KMT retreated to Chongqing and other inland areas. Arguably justifiably at the time that the KMT retreated more than fought in the face of Japanese superiority.

One will also find that after the US entered the war, trained and armed KMT troops, that the KMT leadership starting with CKS did everything possible to avoid battle. This is when Japanese troops are at the end of a several thousand mile supply chain, no longer have air superiority, are outnumbered, and physically weakend. Again, direct you to Stilwell as he’s the one I’m most familiar with, although numerous other Western military people in China at the time back that up.

CKS military record was well documented at the time, researched afterwards and I would have thought been a given today. It may require spending a lot of time in the research stacks of libraries (which is where I learned a lot of this stuff).

36

I agree with all this but would add:
is when Japanese troops are at the end of a several thousand mile supply chain, when they were receiving supplies at all which was not even close to a given for most of the Japanese Imperial Army in China at this point, no longer have air superiority, are outnumbered, and physically weakend. Ag

37

your post was trucated

38

I just stopped quoting you. Basically my point was I agree and I think your last post could be even stronger on the the supplies.

39

These were a bunch of ex-US Army Airforce pilots who flew P40 fighters, for the nationalist chinese Airforce. It was a really weird arrange ment-the US supplied the airplanes and spare parts, and the pilots were (officially) commissioned officers in the Chinese Air Force. Their planes carried Chinese Insignia, and from what i read, they were pretty successful, in spite of flying obsolete aircraft. they were lead by gen. Claire Chenault, who was 9I believe) married to a memeber of the Soong family. Anybody know how long this arrngement lasted?

40

Claire married Nell Thompson December 24, 1911, and they had eight children…six sons and two daughters. They were divorced in 1946. Claire married Anna Chan (陳香梅), December 21, 1947 in Shanghai. They were the parents of two daughters.

Haven’t found much on Anna Chan’s background beyond Peking born, Hong Kong educated Anna Chan. No mention of a Soong Dynasty connection

Or you search on Chennault & Anna Chan for some hits. There’s a book about her, and seems like she wrote a book published in China (in chinese?) called Anna “Chennault and Me”

Now, this book looks pretty interesting if you wanna know *everything * :wink: about the Flying Tigers