Chiang Kai-shek was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and military leader. He was the head of the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party, the Generalissimo of the National Revolutionary Army, and the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) in mainland China from 1928 until 1949. 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.
Soong Mei-ling, also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek or Madame Chiang, was a Chinese political figure who was First Lady of the Republic of China, the wife of President Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China. Soong played a prominent role in the politics of the Republic of China and was the sister-in-law of Sun Yat-sen, the founder and the leader of the Republic of China. She was active in the civic life of her country and held many honorary and active positions, including chairwoman of Fu Jen Catholic University. During World War II, she rallied against the Japanese; and in 1943 conducted an eight-month speaking tour of the United States to gain support.
Chiang Ching-kuo was a Chinese politician of the Republic of China. The eldest and only biological son of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, he held numerous posts in the government of the Republic of China and ended martial law in 1987. He served as premier of the Republic of China between 1972 and 1978 and was president of the Republic of China from 1978 until his death in 1988.
Claire Lee Chennault was an American military aviator best known for his leadership of the "Flying Tigers" and the Chinese Nationalist Air Force in World War II.
Joseph Warren "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell was a United States Army general who served in the China Burma India Theater during World War II. An early American popular hero of the war for leading a column walking out of Burma pursued by the victorious Imperial Japanese Armed Forces, his implacable demands for units debilitated by disease to be sent into heavy combat resulted in Merrill's Marauders becoming disenchanted with him. Infuriated by the 1944 fall of Changsha to a Japanese offensive, Stilwell threatened the Chinese Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, that lend-lease aid to China would be cut off, which made Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley decide that Stilwell had to be replaced. Chiang had been intent on keeping Lend-Lease supplies to fight the Chinese Communist Party, but Stilwell had been obeying his instructions to get the Communists and the Nationalists to co-operate against Japan.
Patrick Jay Hurley was an American politician and diplomat. He was the United States Secretary of War from 1929 to 1933, but is best remembered for being Ambassador to China in 1945, during which he was instrumental in getting Joseph Stilwell recalled from China and replaced with the more diplomatic General Albert Coady Wedemeyer. A man of humble origins, Hurley's lack of what was considered to be a proper ambassadorial demeanor and mode of social interaction made professional diplomats scornful of him. He came to share pre-eminent army strategist Wedemeyer's view that the Chinese Communists could be defeated and America ought to commit to doing so even if it meant backing the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek to the hilt. Frustrated, Hurley resigned as Ambassador to China in 1945, publicised his concerns about high-ranking members of the State Department, and alleged they believed that the Chinese Communists were not totalitarians and that America's priority was to avoid allying with a losing side in the civil war.
The Tanggu Truce, sometimes called the Tangku Truce, was a ceasefire unequal treaty that was signed between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan in Tanggu, Tianjin, on May 31, 1933. It formally ended the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, which had begun in 1931.
The term China Hand originally referred to 19th-century merchants in the treaty ports of China, but came to be used for anyone with expert knowledge of the language, culture, and people of China. In 1940s America, the term China Hands came to refer to a group of American diplomats, journalists, and soldiers who were known for their knowledge of China and influence on American policy before, during, and after World War II. During and after the Cold War, the term China watcher became popularized: and, with some overlap, the term sinologist also describes a China expert in English, particularly in academic contexts or in reference to the expert's academic background.
Hu Zongnan, courtesy name Shoushan (壽山), was a Chinese general in the National Revolutionary Army and then the Republic of China Army. Together with Chen Cheng and Tang Enbo, Hu, a native of Zhenhai, Ningbo, formed the triumvirate of Chiang Kai-shek's most trusted generals during the Second Sino-Japanese War. After the retreat of the Nationalists to Taiwan in 1949, he also served as the President's military strategy advisor until his death in 1962.
The Wartime perception of the Chinese Communists in the United States and other Western nations before and during World War II varied widely in both the public and government circles. The Soviet Union, whose support had been crucial to the Chinese Communist Party from its founding, also supported the Chinese Nationalist government to defeat Japan and to protect Soviet territory.
Yao Yecheng, along with Chen Jieru was among the two concubines of Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek during the time when Chiang was also in an arranged marriage to Mao Fumei. In 1921, Chiang married Jennie. In 1927, Chiang divorced Mao Fumei and exiled Jennie—denying any association with the latter. In the busy year of 1927, Chiang also dropped Yao and married Soong Mei-ling.
Hermann Kriebel was a lieutenant colonel and former Bavarian staff officer.
The Demilitarized Zone Peace Preservation Corps was a police force created by the Tanggu Truce to patrol and maintain order in the demilitarized zone extending from south of the Great Wall, to a line north east of the Bai River in Hebei province in northern China during the late 1930s.
William Henry Donald was an Australian journalist who worked in China from 1903 until World War II. He had considerable direct and indirect influence on events in China, as expressed in a biography.
The Kuomintang (KMT) is a Chinese political party that ruled mainland China from 1927 to 1949 prior to its relocation to Taiwan as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The name of the party translates as "China's National People's Party" and was historically referred to as the Chinese Nationalists. The Party was initially founded on 23 August 1912, by Sun Yat-sen but dissolved in November 1913. It reformed on October 10, 1919, again led by Sun Yat-sen, and became the ruling party in China. After Sun's death, the party was dominated from 1927 to 1975 by Chiang Kai-shek. After the KMT lost the civil war with the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, the party retreated to Taiwan and remains a major political party of the Republic of China based in Taiwan.
The historical Kuomintang socialist ideology is a form of socialist thought developed in mainland China during the early Republic of China. The Tongmenghui revolutionary organization led by Sun Yat-sen was the first to promote socialism in China.
The Battle of Taierzhuang took place during the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1938. It was fought between the armies of the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The battle was that war's first major Chinese victory. It humiliated the Japanese military and its reputation as an invincible force; for the Chinese, it represented a tremendous morale boost.
The Canton Merchants' Corps Uprising or Canton Merchants' Corps Incident was an armed conflict between the Canton Merchants' Volunteer Corps and the Nationalist army in Guangzhou, China, in late 1924. It ended in a decisive government victory.
Ye Ju (1881–1925), formerly romanized as Yeh Chü, was a Chinese Nationalist general and governor of Guangdong Province.
Chiangism, also known as the Political Philosophy of Chiang Kai-shek, or Chiang Kai-shek Thought, is the political philosophy of President Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, who used it during his rule in China under the Kuomintang on both the mainland and Taiwan. It is a right-wing authoritarian nationalist political ideology which is based on mostly Confucian and Tridemist ideologies, and was used in the New Life Movement in China and the Chinese Cultural Renaissance movement in Taiwan. It is a syncretic mix of many political ideologies, including revolutionary nationalism, Tridemism, socialism, militarism, Confucianism, state capitalism, constitutionalism, fascism, authoritarian capitalism, and paternalistic conservatism, as well as Chiang's Methodist Christian beliefs.
