Chiang Kai-shek

Where they went

9 related events

1. 1
   1924 – 1927First United Frontparticipant

   In 1924 Sun Yat-sen’s Nationalist Party adopted the policies of “alliance with the Soviet Union, admission of communists, and support for peasants and workers”, letting Communists join as individuals, and founded the Whampoa Military Academy to prepare to overthrow the warlords.

2. 2
   1926 – 1928Northern Expeditioncommander

   In July 1926 the National Revolutionary Army under Chiang Kai-shek marched north from Guangzhou to destroy the warlords; in 1928 it took Beijing, and with Zhang Xueliang’s submission China was formally unified.

3. 3
   1927Shanghai Coup and the Nanjing National Governmentleader

   On 12 April 1927, in the middle of the Northern Expedition, Chiang Kai-shek violently purged Communists and labour organizations in Shanghai, and on 18 April set up a National Government in Nanjing. The First United Front was broken.

4. 4
   1931 – 1932Manchurian Incidentrelated figure

   On 18 September 1931 Japan’s Kwantung Army blew up a section of the South Manchuria Railway at Liutiaohu near Shenyang, blamed Chinese troops, and launched an offensive that occupied most of Manchuria within six months.

5. 5
   1934 – 1935Long Marchrelated figure

   Driven from its base at Ruijin in Jiangxi by Nationalist encirclement campaigns, the Communist Red Army walked about 12,000 km over a year from October 1934 to northern Shaanxi; along the way Mao Zedong took the leadership.

6. 6
   1936Xi’an Incidentrelated figure

   On 12 December 1936 Chiang Kai-shek was detained in Xi’an by his own commanders, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, who pressed him to stop fighting the Communists and turn against Japan. Mediation by the Communist Zhou Enlai won Chiang’s release, paving the way for the Second United Front.

7. 1937 – 1945Second Sino-Japanese Warcommander

   A clash at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beiping on 7 July 1937 became the occasion for Japan’s full-scale invasion of China. China resisted for eight years through the United Front; from 1941 the war merged with the Pacific War, ending with Japan’s surrender in 1945.

8. 7
   1937 – 1941Second United Frontleader

   When the war with Japan broke out, the Nationalists and Communists joined hands again in September 1937 to form an anti-Japanese national united front; the Red Army was reorganized as the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army.

9. 8
   1946 – 1949Chinese Civil Warcommander

   After Japan’s surrender, full-scale civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists resumed in 1946. Having won over the peasants through land reform, the Communists triumphed in three great campaigns in 1948–1949, and the Nationalist government moved to Taiwan.

People who appear alongside

• Zhou Enlai1898 – 1976

  First premier of the People’s Republic of China (1949–1976), long in charge of diplomacy, who arranged Nixon’s 1972 visit

• Mao Zedong1893 – 1976

  Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party who won the civil war and founded the People’s Republic in 1949, and launched the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution

• Zhang Xueliang1901 – 2001

  Son of the Fengtian warlord Zhang Zuolin who joined the Nationalist government after Japanese officers killed his father; in the 1936 Xi’an Incident he detained Chiang Kai-shek to demand resistance to Japan

• Sun Yat-sen1866 – 1925

  Leader of the Chinese revolution who led the Tongmenghui under the Three Principles of the People and became provisional president of the Republic of China after the Xinhai Revolution

• Inukai Tsuyoshi1855 – 1932

  Party politician who led the movement to protect constitutional government and became prime minister (1931–1932) as Seiyūkai president; murdered in his residence by young naval officers in the May 15 Incident

• Konoe Fumimaro1891 – 1945

  Aristocratic prime minister (1937–1939, 1940–1941) who widened the war in China and built the wartime order — the National Mobilization Law, the “New Order in East Asia” and the Imperial Rule Assistance Association; he took his own life when named a war-crimes suspect

• Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa)1901 – 1989

  Emperor of Japan (r. 1926–1989), sovereign during the war with China and the Pacific War, who announced the surrender by radio on 15 August 1945

• Wang Jingwei1883 – 1944

  Veteran Nationalist leader and follower of Sun Yat-sen who collaborated with Japan during the war and set up a client regime in Nanjing in 1940

Themes this person appears in

• Republican China and Imperial Japan1912 – 1949

  The age when the Republic of China, born of the 1911 Revolution, passed through warlord division, the May Fourth Movement, the United Front and the Northern Expedition, fought Japan’s invasion and split in civil war — as Japan moved from Taishō democracy through the Manchurian Incident and military coups to the war in China and the Co-Prosperity Sphere, and colonized Korea resisted through the March First Movement and armed struggle