Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek, better known in China as Jiang Jieshi or Jiang Zhongzheng, was a Chinese political and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1975. Chiang was an influential member of the Kuomintang, the Chinese Nationalist Party, and was a close ally of Sun Yat-sen. He became the Commandant of the Kuomintang's Whampoa Military Academy and took Sun's place as leader of the KMT following the Canton Coup in early 1926. Having...
NationalityChinese
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth31 October 1887
CityXikou, China
CountryChina
Our late Leader, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, with his universal sympathy for all oppressed and his profound understanding of Jesus' revolutionary spirit of love and sacrifice, carried on his revolutionary work for forty years and brought about at last the liberation of the Chinese people.
My impressions of the Russian Revolution can be divided into two periods. The first period was when I showed deep sympathy. My second period is one of disappointment. This change was the result of close observation on the spot.
In the early days of the Russian Revolution in 1917, I was completely in sympathy with it. I felt that it established a new era in the history of the modern world. I was so overwhelmed by it that, if people made any unfriendly comment, I would vigorously defend it. If people condemned the Communist party, I would speak in its defense.
We Chinese are instinctively democratic, and Dr. Sun's objective of universal suffrage evokes from all Chinese a ready and unhesitating response.
Contempt for China on the part of the enemy is his weak point. Knowledge of this weak point is our strong point.
I should like very much to go to America. I have heard so much of the great industrial and economic development of that great land, and I wish to see things for myself.
The modern world is one wherein every nation has to develop the strength of which its citizens are capable. The independent status of the individual, his thoughts and actions become a thing of the past.
China, with her five thousand years of history, her vast territory and her enormous population stands like a mountain peak among the nations of the world. Her contribution to the civilization of mankind is imperishable. She has been a keen lover of peace; she has had a deep respect for international justice.
Modern warfare is by no means merely a matter of military operations. Economic affairs stand together with them in the first rank of the factors of importance.
I have always told my subordinates that when they commit any mistakes, the blame must be laid on the superior officers.
I have implicit faith in Sun Yat-sen, not because I am his blind follower, but because he really arouses the deepest respect in everybody. I do not know of another person in China who has such a broad and international outlook, whose ideas are so constructive, and who has such deep faith and confidence in his own mission.
My father died when I was 9 years old. The miserable condition of my family at that time is beyond description. My family, solitary and without influence, became at once the target of much insult and abuse.
For a period of 17 years - from the age of 9 until I was 25 years old - my mother never spent a day free from domestic difficulties.
My good health is due to a soup made of white doves. It is simply wonderful as a tonic.