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Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost, by Jonathan Fenby
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With a narrative as briskly paced and vividly detailed as an international thriller, this definitive biography of Chiang Kai-shek masterfully maps the tumultuous political career of Nationalist China's generalissimo as it reevaluates his brave but unfulfilled life. Chiang Kai-shek was one of the most influential world figures of the twentieth century. The leader of the Kuomintang, the Nationalist movement in China, by 1928 he had established himself as head of the government in Nanking. But while he managed to survive the political storms of the 1930s, Chiang's power was continually being undermined by the Japanese on one side and the Chinese Communists on the other. Drawing extensively on original Chinese sources and accounts by contemporaneous journalists, acclaimed author Jonathan Fenby explores little-known international connections in Chiang's story as he unfolds a story as fascinating in its conspiratorial intrigues as it is remarkable for its psychological insights. This is the definitive biography of the man who, despite his best intentions, helped create modern-day China.
- Sales Rank: #420246 in eBooks
- Published on: 2009-04-27
- Released on: 2009-04-27
- Format: Kindle eBook
From Publishers Weekly
Chiang Kai-shek's life (18871975) coincided with some of the most violent and chaotic decades of Chinese history, and as this son of a salt merchant from the lower Yangtze came into his own, his destiny became increasingly entwined with the agonizing destiny of China. Many of Chiang's actions, including his 1949 flight to Taiwan, directly shaped that destiny. In this chronicle of his life, Fenby, former editor of the Observer and the South China Morning Post, recounts the generalissimo's rise amid the gruesome power struggles of warlords; the political machinations that enabled his gradual assumption of political power during the Kuomintang regime; his tortuous attempts to fend off Japanese imperial expansion while also trying to exterminate the fledgling Communist movement; and his eventual defeat at the hands of Mao's Red Army. Fenby's account of Chiang's early life is the most detailed part of the book and relies heavily on excerpts from a memoir by Chiang's second wife (whom he cast aside to forge a political marriage and strategic alliance with the youngest daughter of the powerful Soong family) and on journalistic tidbits from Western observers and participants; these accounts are always colorful and engaging if sometimes less than analytical. Whatever one might think of the man-depicted here as explosive-tempered, superhumanly ambitious, profoundly conservative and authoritarian, and not above forging alliances with underworld gang leaders-one cannot read this biography without marveling at the sheer magnitude of his arc of power and the scope and unifying impact of his life on a once-decentralized nation. B&w photos, maps.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
During the American political wars of the mid-1950s, "Who lost China?" was a question used by the Left and the Right to bludgeon each other. Of course, China was never ours to lose. If any single person can be accused of "losing" the most populous nation on earth, it has to be Chiang Kai Shek. Journalist Fenby has written the first comprehensive biography of Chiang in the past 30 years and makes skillful use of newly available sources from mainland China, Taiwan, and the West. The result is a fascinating, often surprising portrait of the man and his nation as it endured the trials of revolution, foreign occupation, and civil war. This is no simplistic exercise in Chiang bashing. Fenby consistently pays tribute to Chiang's dedication to lifting his nation out of its morass. But, as Fenby shows time and again, Chiang's egotism, stubbornness, and his often shocking ignorance of his own people doomed him to failure. This is an important work that will deepen our understanding of the past, present, and future of China. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"This is an important work that will deepen our understanding of the past, present, and future of China."
Most helpful customer reviews
36 of 41 people found the following review helpful.
Finally, a modern biography of Chiang Kai-Shek
By wutanglen
I have been waiting for this book for a long time. Not particularly this book, but any modern updated biography of Chiang Kai Shek. In recent years we have gotten updated biographies of Mao and Ho Chi Minh and now finally Chiang Kai-Shek.
First and foremost, this is a well written, well researched book. It is easy to read and never boring. So on that sense it is a good biography. The book also has some great pictures and good maps at the beginning of the book.
The book does a terrific job showing the politics going on in China between 1911 and 1945. The books strongest points about Chiang Kai-Shek are on his battles against the warlords and desires to eliminate the communists. I also felt the book did a great job discussing his wife, and her famous family the Soongs.
That being said, I felt the book was weak in its overall assessment of Chiang Kai-Shek. I got the impression that the author really did not want to make any strong judgements about Chiang Kai Shek. He does not hold back any facts, but just does not make strong judgements. However, the author is highly critical of Sun Yatsen, and General Stillwell. Two great men in history, this author is not afraid to judge, but Chiang Kai Shek he does not.
Sun Yatsen was a great leader and had such a vision for China, but Fenby is highly critical of him. Stillwell was exactly right on how Chiang Kai-Shek would lose China and was dead on in his assessment of KMT corruption. Instead, Fenby is critical of Stillwell. For a better look at Stillwell look at the Recent book on the Burma Road.
Also, I was surprized at how rushed the author gets at the end on the ultimate Communist victory. Fenby is great in discussing the Marshall visit and attempt to broker a peace, but his description of the Nationalist collapse and retreat to Taiwan was rushed in my opinion. Also, there is little to no information about Chiang Kai Shek on Taiwan.
But I am being picky. I enjoyed this book very much and am glad Fenby wrote it. Had Chiang Kai Shek been a better leader the history of Asia and the world would be very different.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
China Chiang lost and won
By Sergey Radchenko
Fenby chose the Xi'an incident of December 1936 as the prologue for the book, exposing his readers right away to the drama of Chiang's detention, a key turning point in the Generalissimo's struggle for China. If Zhang Xueliang, who arrested Chiang, instead supported his commander in the final assault on the Communist positions, perhaps China would be reunified there and then. These ifs - Chiang's long list of lost opportunities - are brought vividly to light in this excellent biography, highlighting Chiang's numerous failures, as well as his remarkable ability to bounce back from the brink of defeat.
Chiang's main problem, in Fenby's account, was his method of leadership. Chiang was a master of political intrigue, of playing one rival faction against another, of forging and breaking alliances. But often Chiang's scheming, even if it achieved his immediate narrow ends, undermined his long-term objectives, fatally weakening the Generalissimo at crucial turning points in the struggle against the Japanese and the Communists. A micromanager, Chiang lacked a broader vision of what he wanted to accomplish: ultimately, even though he won many battles, he lost the war.
Fenby pulls no punches in his account of Chiang's relationship with his main ally and sponsor, the United States. The stars of the powerplay - the Generalissimo and "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell - were both at fault for allowing their personal vendettas interfere with the broader war effort. Each side pulled strings in Washington, leaving Roosevelt at a loss as to what to do about China, which was anyhow way down his list of priorities. But Stillwell, in particular, is criticized for his vanity, presumptuousness and stubbornness, and for putting his glorious campaign in Burma above the needs of the China theatre, especially at the time of the crucial Ichigo offensive. Had not Chiang and Swillwell worked at cross-purposes, perhaps China would have done better in the protracted war against Japan, leaving the GMD in a better position to cope with the Communist challenge.
Who lost China? Fenby is ambiguous on this point. He does seem to blame George Marshall at one point for his naïve efforts to bring the Guomindang and the Communists to the negotiating table, which allowed the CCP forces to regroup and may have ultimately cost Chiang his victory in the Civil War. At the same time, Fenby's account of the GMD's difficulties - rampant inflation, corruption, loss of support in the countryside - suggests that Washington could do very little to save the regime from collapse.
Equally ambiguous is Fenby's treatment of the Chiang-Mao talks in the early postwar. In places he seems to argue that if Chiang showed more willingness to compromise and if he had adopted democratic reforms, some modus vivendi could have been reached with the Communists. But elsewhere, Fenby relapses into a more fatalistic view that Chiang and Mao would fight to the death, and that there really was not ground for a compromise solution.
Fenby opens a revealing window into the Generalissimo's personal life, his relationship with his mother, his son, and, most intriguingly, with his wives, especially Soong Meiling, the "empress" of China. Fenby draws a fascinating portrait of Madame Chiang - attractive, intelligent but also vain and vicious, a pillar of support for her aloof husband but also a tireless plotter who at one point even had an affair with Wendell Willkie and conspired to rule the world hand-in-hand with the Republican hopeful. Chiang, despite his occasional womanizing, comes across as a family man (certainly, compared to Mao), a fatherly Confucian figure who treated his wives and children as he treated his nation: sternly but with some benevolence.
Was the cup half-empty or half-full? While stressing the Guomindang's multiple failures, Fenby gives credit to Chiang for implementing crucial, if aborted, reforms during the Nanjing decade, for uniting China, for raising her international profile to the exalted (even if superficial) status as one of the Great Four, for persisting in the war against Japan in the face of dire odds. Even if Chiang lost China, China was not lost. In part through his efforts it returned to the world stage as a nation, rather than a motley assembly of warring fiefdoms.
In his conclusion, Fenby addresses deeper questions of the meaning of China's encounter with modernity. Today's China in some ways has come to resemble China of the Nanjing decade, and the CCP, mired in corruption and in-fighting, looks more and more like the Guomindang of old. Yet China has also made a leap to modernity of the kind that would have tallied well with Chiang's hopes for his nation. In a strange way, then, the CCP continues Chiang's revolution. In the meantime, Chiang's republic in Taiwan made a leap of another kind - to democracy and rule of law, which are still absent in the mainland. This, then, is the irony of Chiang's life and times: China's present-day is more his than Mao's and, who knows, perhaps China's future is also his. One day, if and when China is democratized and reunified, Chiang's embalmed remains will return to the country that he had lost but also won.
24 of 28 people found the following review helpful.
Important, Needed Addition to the Field of China Studies
By Prince Roy
This important book fills a glaring void that exists in the historical record of modern China. While historians have always provided ready attention to Mao Zedong and communist China, they never accorded the same serious examination to the role and legacy of Chiang Kai-shek. Before this book, most of the resources on Chiang dated from the 1970s and earlier, largely consisting of hagiographic accounts penned by pro-KMT Chinese living in Taiwan or abroad, or similar propaganda fluff pieces financed by the Henry Luce China Lobby. A well-reasoned, independent account of Chiang's life was thus long overdue, and Fenby comes through in a huge way.
He writes an engaging narrative of Chiang, a person of quite humble origins, who became one of the world's most famous and powerful figures. Fenby also provides detailed, careful background on the China of Chiang's time, particularly that of the 1911 Revolution and subsequent warlord period. This is important in understanding why Chiang allied with the types of people and strata of society that he did, and why this alliance alienated vast numbers of Chinese, providing moral fodder and legitimacy for the alternative offered by Mao. Much of Fenby's information regarding Chiang's early political career comes from an autobiography written by his largely-forgotten second wife, Chen Jieru (Jennie). While this relationship is common knowledge in Taiwan, she is practically unknown in the west. Her book is entitled Chiang Kai-shek's Secret Past, and what Fenby was able to glean from it has whetted my appetite to read the book myself.
Fenby is at his best when he examines the decades-long struggle for control of China between Chiang and Mao. Indeed, theirs was a clash of legendary, tragic proportions, and it is hard to find a more riveting story elsewhere in history, not just because of the mythic stature and personal auras these two men obtained during their own lifetimes, but also due to the enormous cruelty and unimaginable suffering both inflicted on the country they would rule and the populace they would win to their cause. Chapter 15, "The Long Chase" opens with a brilliant juxtaposition between the two, and proceeds to analyze the showdown during the Long March in which Mao gained primacy in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the CCP escaped certain extinction during Chiang's Fifth Extermination Campaign in Jiangxi. He attributes the CCP's success in escaping to Yan'an, not as the result of a secret deal Chiang brokered with Moscow to guarantee the return of his son Chiang Ching-kuo, as argued by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday in their biography of Mao, but to the superior strategy of Mao and Zhu De: they planned the route through areas of the country largely held by warlords who often actively assisted the Red Army in getting through their territories, or gave passive half-hearted chase, because the last thing they wanted was Chiang coming in with his huge armies and wresting political control away from them.
The book does have two important weaknesses, one minor and one major. First, Fenby provides little insight into what I think would be one of the most important and intriguing relationships of Chiang's life, that with his son Chiang Ching-kuo. Ching-kuo, after all, publicly denounced his father after the 1927 White Terror purges in Shanghai and Guangzhou, and attempted to join the Communist Party while living in the USSR. However, Fenby spends hardly any time at all with them. Considering the role that Ching-kuo played later in the democratization of Taiwan, this is unfortunate.
Fenby devotes three chapters and 65 pages to the stormy relationship between General Joseph Stilwell and Chiang Kai-shek. It is in his negative assessment of General Stilwell where his normally astute and deft powers of analysis fail him when he needs them most. It is not my desire here to delve too deeply into Stilwell's legacy or become embroiled in the Stilwell vs. Claire Chennault debate, but as Fenby comes perilously close to maligning Stilwell's military competence, I feel I must come to his defense, because for all his faults, General Stilwell was truly a great American and a first-rate military mind. He earned the trust and respect of the highest leadership in the US military and received promotion over those much senior to him, at the insistence of no less than Marshall and Eisenhower, two of the finest generals America has ever produced.
When describing Stilwell's march of his command out of Burma into India, an epic journey of over 150 miles taken under extreme conditions and threat of imminent discovery by the Japanese imperial army, Fenby terms it a `grave dereliction of duty', because he argues that Stilwell should have stayed behind to organize the retreat of other Chinese units in the theater. It is important to realize the true situation: the Japanese had put the Allies to rout. Commands and units had completely disintegrated by this point. Indeed, Fenby notes just a few pages earlier that before the main Japanese advance had even begun, Chinese commanders refused to obey Stilwell's orders (almost certainly under instructions from Chiang) and rather than send needed supplies and materiel to units on the front lines, Chinese commanders were hoarding these and trucking them back to China to sell on the black market. Once the Japanese began their assault, there was soon no `retreat' left for Stilwell to organize. In this case, he did what duty required of him: save his personal command. This he accomplished admirably: not one of the persons in his care perished or fell into Japanese hands.
Fenby seems to have bought into Chennault's air-intensive strategy as the way to defeat the Japanese in China, yet he never does manage to explain how air power can be the decisive factor when there is no means to defend air bases with no adequate ground support, and there would be insufficient supply lines for fuel and parts without ground troops defending the major supply routes from India. These were Stilwell's main arguments as to the necessity to win back Burma. Fenby overstates the effectiveness of Chennault's air battles, not surprising since his sources on this come only from autobiographies by Chennault himself and one of his men. This is a disappointing lapse of scrutiny by Fenby.
It is also important to note that on practically every point concerning Chiang, his military ineffectiveness and strategic incompetence, his regime, the venal corruption of the KMT and its likelihood of success in a civil war against the CCP, subsequent events proved General Stilwell correct, and Chennault, Henry Luce and countless others wrong. In fact, Fenby even quotes Chennault as absurdly saying that "I think the Generalissimo is one of the two or three greatest military and political leaders in the world today."
Notwithstanding these faults, Fenby gets the big picture right. His depiction of China's domestic situation and the political machinations of the KMT and CCP is compelling, absorbing history. He is fair-handed in his treatment to both sides, and is horribly effective in revealing the brutality of the Japanese occupation. Fenby manages to present a sympathetic portrait of Chiang, at his heart a true nationalist and personally incorruptible, but a man too bound by his steeply conservative Confucian tradition, enamored with fascism, and blind to the corruption of his family and associates, to ever have a hope of realizing his ultimate ambition.
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