Chiang Kai-shek
Topic: Paths to Modernisation: Japan, China, Korea · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 7 "Paths to Modernisation"
Meaning
Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) led the Guomindang, China's Nationalist Party, after Sun Yat-sen died in 1925. He fought the warlords (local military strongmen) and the Communists to unite China under his rule. He ran a militarised state. His version of Confucianism did not depend on religion and stressed "habit and instinct for unified behaviour". He told women to stay at home and practise four virtues: "chastity, appearance, speech and work". His party ignored the peasants and never carried out land reform, and it lost the civil war to the Communists.
Example
When the Communists won in 1949, Chiang fled to Taiwan with about US$300 million in gold. There he set up the Republic of China and ruled with harsh, repressive methods.
Don't confuse with
- Sun Yat-sen: he founded the Guomindang and gave the Three Principles. Chiang was the military leader who came after him.
Related concepts
- Xinhai Revolution 1911
- Sun Yat-sen
- Three Principles of the People
- Twenty-One Demands 1915
- May Fourth Movement
- Guomindang