China and Japan
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pursued Meiling to Japan, presented her with papers proving he was di-
vorced, and agreed to read the Bible and study Chris tian ity; this time she
accepted his marriage proposal. She was twenty- nine years old and he was
forty. The Song family gave Chiang access to high- level business circles, and
Meiling, who had attended Wellesley College in the United States, provided
access to both Chinese and Western Christians. During World War II Mei-
ling would prove to be extraordinarily successful during a U.S. speaking tour
in winning American support for China.
For several years before his death in 1925, Sun Yat- sen had managed to
maintain the United Front of Communists and Nationalists within the Na-
tionalist Party. However, after Chiang became head of the Nationalist
Party in 1927, he split with the Communists because of fears of a coup, and
he sought to kill all the Communist leaders. Despite their former alliance,
both parties suspected that many in their midst were in fact spies for the
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other side. By the early 1930s, Chiang became preoccupied with the
growth of the Communist base areas in Jiangxi province. Although he re-
garded the Japa nese as a threat from the outside, he regarded the Commu-
nists as an immediate threat from the inside, a threat to China’s very heart
and soul. He therefore led a series of “encirclement campaigns” against the
Communist forces. In 1934 the Communists were able to break through
Chiang’s fifth encirclement campaign and begin their Long March to
northwestern China, where they established a base in Yan’an.
From 1927 to 1936 Chiang was generally focused on overcoming the re-
sis tance of local leaders, each of whom had his own army, and unifying the
country. In 1927 he drew on the core of officers who had trained at Huangpu
Military Acad emy under his leadership and were committed to national
unity. He linked up with the Huangpu officers and some warlords to lead
the Northern Expedition to overcome re sis tance by other warlords. With
his allies he established a central government that ruled Northern and
Central China from the new capital that Chiang established in Nanjing.
But warlords still retained power in vari ous regions, and even though
Chiang tried to link up with the stronger warlords to unify the country,
that goal was beyond his grasp. Nevertheless, during the “Nanjing de cade”
from 1927 until the outbreak of the Sino- Japanese War in 1937, he was able
to attract able bureaucrats to the capital and to make some pro gress toward
improving the economy, expanding education, and stabilizing the prov-
inces in the vicinity of Nanjing, thus maintaining the semblance of a
small national government.
During a 1927 armed conflict with the Japa nese in Ji’nan, the Japa nese
captured a Chinese official, cut off his tongue, gouged out his eyes, and then
shot him and more than ten of his underlings. That night, writing in his
diary, for the first time Chiang used an old Chinese term of abuse for the
Japanese— “dwarf pirates.” Even though he knew he did not have sufficient
military strength to resist the Japa nese, he wrote in his diary that every day
he would write down another way to kill the Japa nese. Chiang remained
realistic in assessing his own military weaknesses vis- à- vis the Japa nese, and
because of this he was criticized over the years by Communists as well as
by other patriots for not attacking the Japa nese enemies. At several points,
he attempted to carry on discussions with the Japa nese to avoid clashes,
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Biographies of Key Figures
and in Taiwan after 1949 he cooperated with the Japa nese to modernize the
economy and bring stability to the island.
Chiang proved to be remarkably accurate in his assessment of the overall
situation with Japan. In 1934, when he told a group of se nior po liti cal leaders
that the outbreak of war with Japan would occur in less than 1,100 days,
the war actually began 1,057 days later. Like Jiang Baili (see his biography
in this section), in the case of a Japa nese invasion Chiang planned to es-
cape to the southwest and engage in a war of re sis tance. He believed that
the Japa nese would be worn down within ten years. At the time, he had no
way of anticipating the impacts of the Soviets’ entry into the war, the 1945
bombing of Japa nese cities by the United States, and fi nally the dropping
of the atomic bombs. But he was prescient: in fact, the war lasted only
eight years.
During the first months of World War II, Chiang relied on his well-
trained troops to actively fight Japa nese troops in Wuhan and Shanghai,
but thereafter, together with his troops, he retreated to Chongqing, in
Sichuan province, where he braced for a long period of re sis tance. As the
official leader of the Chinese government, he was subjected to criticism by
patriots for not doing more to oppose the Japa nese occupation. While in
Chongqing, with a large national bureaucracy and a military that he was
trying to preserve for later use, he had difficulties maintaining discipline
and morale. He was criticized by American officials and reporters for not
doing more to control the endemic corruption. U.S. general Joseph Stilwell,
a strong critic, referred to him derogatorily as “peanut.” However, after
Chiang’s diary became available in 2005, scholars became more positive about
his efforts to preserve the Nationalists’ strength to fight the Communists
after the war.
When Japan surrendered in 1945, Chiang did not want to see Japan side
with the Communists, so he did not demand that the Japa nese pay war
reparations. During the Civil War with the Communists (1946–1949),
Chiang failed to develop a program that matched the Communists’ appeal
to the poor peasants, who hoped to benefit from the Communist land re-
form policy, and that also satisfied the superpatriots who insisted on stronger
actions against the Japa nese. As the army’s top commander but also a mi-
cromanager, Chiang tried to provide advice to his local military leaders.
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Biographies of Key Figures
However, he was not always well- enough informed about the situation on
the battlefield to make wise decisions.
After Chiang lost the Civil War and fled to Taiwan, he undertook some
progressive mea sures there, such as land reform, but he also used his Na-
tionalist Army to maintain tight control over the local people, who came to
regard him as a military dictator. He persisted, initially with U.S. support,
in pursuing the announced goal of retaking the mainland, a goal that be-
came increasingly unlikely, and then, after 1971 when mainland China re-
placed Taiwan in the UN, impossible.
For further reading, see Jay Taylor, The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai- shek
and the Strug gle for Modern China (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 2009) .
Deng Xiaoping, 1904–1997
As the top leader of China from December 1978 until October 1992, Deng
Xiaoping introduced policies o
f reform and opening that transformed China
and, within four de cades, enabled its development from a poor backward
economy into the largest economy in the world, as mea sured by purchasing
power parity. In 1978 China’s per capita income was less than $200 in U.S.
dollars. By 2018 it was more than $8,000.
From 1937 to 1945 Deng Xiaoping was a high- level po liti cal commissar
in the Chinese Army, engaged in fighting Japan during the Sino- Japanese
War. However, between 1973 and 1976 he represented China in welcoming
Japa nese leaders to visit China. A master po liti cal strategist, in 1978 he
toured Japan, where he won over prominent Japa nese financial and tech-
nical leaders who would later play crucial roles in launching China’s indus-
trialization in the 1980s.
By the time Deng became the de facto top leader of China in De-
cember 1978, he had had an incredible range of experiences to prepare him
for ruling. He had spent five years in France from 1920 to 1925, observing
the operations of a modern Western country while also working as a la-
borer in a factory and participating in study groups on Marxism- Leninism
and the Rus sian Revolution. While in France he joined the Communist
Party and worked in the party office. Thereafter, he was part of the first class
established in the Soviet Union to train Chinese leaders for the Interna-
tional Communist Movement. After returning to China, he helped guide
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Biographies of Key Figures
the Communist insurrection in Guangxi province, took part in the Com-
munist under ground in Shanghai under Zhou Enlai, worked in Guangxi
under Mao Zedong, participated in the Long March, and took part in po-
liti cal work in Yan’an. For twelve years he was a leading po liti cal commissar
in the Chinese Communist Army, sharing responsibilities with one of
China’s ablest generals, Liu Bocheng. From 1949 to 1952, after the Commu-
nists had divided up the country into six large administrative regions, he
was appointed party secretary of the Southwest Region, which had a popu-
lation of more than 100 million, and was responsible for establishing party
rule. In 1952 he was recalled to Beijing, where he worked in the party Sec-
retariat. For one year, 1953 to 1954, he was minister of finance. From 1956
to 1966 he served as general secretary of the party, responsible for the ad-
ministration of nationwide party activities. He was thus in a key position
to observe the prob lems of the Great Leap Forward and its aftermath.
In the 1950s Deng was considered one of Mao’s leading choices to be
his successor, but in 1966, during the Cultural Revolution, he became Mao’s
number- two target, after Liu Shaoqi. While “rusticating” in Jiangxi prov-
ince for more than three years, from October 1969 to February 1973, Deng
had ample opportunities to ruminate about the party’s errors and to con-
template which policies should be changed and how he could manage to
end Mao’s policies without splitting the country, should he be given a chance
to return to a high position in Beijing. By the time Mao allowed Deng to
return to office in 1973, Zhou Enlai was suffering from cancer and Deng
became Zhou’s understudy in conducting foreign policy and meeting for-
eign leaders.
Japan normalized relations with China in 1972, and between 1973 and
1976, as the leader responsible for foreign policy, Deng received more than
forty Japa nese del e ga tions to China, more than he received from any other
country. Deng was convinced that, in spite of fifty years of antagonism be-
tween China and Japan, the two countries should develop good, peaceful
relations that would enable Japan to help China in its modernization ef-
forts. Because he had fought the Japa nese during the Sino- Japanese War,
he could espouse this new policy without being criticized for being too
soft on Japan.
In 1975 Mao chose Vice Premier Hua Guofeng as his successor. Deng
was again criticized and removed from his position. But in the summer of
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Biographies of Key Figures
1977, Deng was allowed to return to work under Hua. He volunteered to
be responsible for education and culture, areas that were not threatening
to Hua’s po liti cal power. In August 1977 Deng held a meeting of leading
educators, and with their support he de cided to reinstate the university en-
trance examinations after a ten- year hiatus. Deng believed China needed
high- quality education to train new leaders, and he helped create opportu-
nities for bright Chinese gradu ates to go abroad to acquire advanced skills
that they would later bring back to China.
In the summer of 1978, Deng overcame the obstacles to the signing of
the Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Japan by agreeing to include a
clause that stated that the treaty was not being formed against any third
party (i.e., the Soviet Union). In October 1978 Deng set out for the treaty
signing in Japan, where he was very well received. The trip paved the way
for impor tant Japa nese assistance to China in the 1980s.
In December 1978, at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Com-
mittee, se nior Communist Party leaders, who believed that Deng had the
authority, re spect, and wisdom to manage a dramatic change in party policy,
chose him as the top party leader. By quoting Mao’s saying, “Seek truth from
facts,” Deng was able to show re spect for Mao while at the same time put-
ting an end to some of his most disastrous policies that had plagued the
country. To avoid social unrest among the unemployed urban youth who
had just returned from the countryside, Deng allowed them to start their
own enterprises. Conservatives found this method of opening markets ac-
ceptable, even though in years past such activities would have been vilified
as pursuing the cap i tal ist path. He told Wan Li, party secretary of Anhui
province, to find ways to end the starvation in his province. When some
villages discovered that allowing the local brigade or production team to
contract work down to the family unit led to increased production, thus
ending the starvation, Deng allowed Wan Li and others to publicize their
success. When other areas found that this method worked, Deng said that
where local conditions were appropriate and villa gers were amenable, the
government would not oppose contracting down to the house hold to solve
China’s production prob lems. Even conservatives found it difficult to op-
pose this new policy, and before long most areas had eliminated the com-
munes that Mao had promoted and were permitting house hold farming.
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Biographies of Key Figures
Deng greatly expanded freedom of public expression, but when student
movements in December 1986 threatened stability, he tightened controls.
On May 20, 1989, when traffic in Beijing was blocked by huge demonstra-
tions of students and local civilians, Deng brought in unarmed troops to
restore order. However, or ga nized groups of protesters blocked them as
they began to move through the city, so the troops withdrew to the sub-
urbs and the demonstrators continued to occupy Tian anmen Square. On
June 3, Deng directed radio and tele vi sion broadcasts to announce that
every one should clear the streets. That night, Deng gave orders that the
troops should do what ever was necessary to end the demonstrations. The
implication was that they had permission to use weapons against the dem-
onstrators. Estimates of the numbers killed on the streets during the night
of June 3 and the early morning of June 4 range from several hundred to
three thousand. Although many leaders in China felt that there had been
no other way to restore order, Deng was strongly denounced both in China
and abroad.
Deng resigned from all his formal government positions in 1989, but in
January– February 1992, when he felt that conservative leaders had stalled
China’s pro gress, he took a “ family vacation,” that is, his “southern tour” that
relit the fire for continuing the nation’s reform and opening policies. Deng
retired completely after the Fourteenth Party Congress in October 1992
and remained removed from politics until his death in 1997.
For further reading, see Ezra F. Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transfor-
mation of China (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2011) .
Ishibashi Tanzan, 1884–1973
A brilliant and influential essayist on po liti cal and economic issues, Ishi-
bashi Tanzan opposed Japa nese colonial ambitions and attacks on China
in the 1920s and the 1930s because he could foresee the consequences. But
his warnings fell on deaf ears as Japan’s aggressive military leaders and com-
pliant po liti cal leaders moved ahead with the Manchurian invasion of 1931
and then an invasion of China in 1937. After World War II, Ishibashi served
as finance minister in 1946 in Prime Minister Yoshida’s first cabinet, as min-
ister of trade and industry under Prime Minister Hatoyama Ichiro in 1953,
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Biographies of Key Figures
and briefly as prime minister, from December 1956 to February 1957. At that
time, his rival for the post of prime minister was Kishi Nobusuke, who sup-
ported very diff er ent policies. Kishi ran on a platform of allying with the
United States during the Cold War, whereas Ishibashi ran on a platform
of neutrality and supporting the reestablishment of relations with China.