China and the free world lost an immortal just before midnight on rain-swept Ching Ming, the traditional tomb-sweeping day of the Chinese people. The day was April 5 by the solar calendar and the twenty-fourth day of the second moon by the lunar calendar. President and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, who was 87 years old last October 31, had been recovering from a lengthy illness. He was stricken by a heart attack and died an hour and a half later. Madame Chiang Kai-shek, his elder son, Premier Chiang Ching-kuo, and other members of the family were at the bedside.
The body of the longest-lived major statesman of World War II was taken from the Veterans General Hospital, near his home, to the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall on April 9. There it lay in state for a week as more than 2½ million mourning people passed by. A National Memorial Service was conducted April 16. Temporary enshrinement was at Tzu Hu near the village of Tahsi in Taoyuan County some 30 miles southwest of Taipei. Entombment will be at Nanking, the nation's permanent capital, after recovery of the Chinese mainland.
Tributes to the Republic of China's five-starred Generalissimo and first constitutional President came from the great and near-great of the free world. The chief executives of many countries sent special representatives to attend the Memorial Service. President Gerald Ford of the United States said President Chiang "will be remembered by people from all walks of life and from every part of the world for his dignity and dedication to principles in which he believed." He was, the American chief executive declared, a man of "firm integrity" and "high courage."
President Park Chung Hee of the Republic of Korea recalled the fallen free world leader's support of Korean independence and pointed to his services in "laying foundations for peace and order." President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines called the Generalissimo a "great man who stood by his beliefs." Henry Kissinger said President Chiang's "courage and indomitable will during the difficult years of World War II are firmly fixed in the memories of my generation of Americans." Such old friends and comrades-in-arms as Anthony Eden and Lord Louis Mountbatten came forward to express their affection and respect. Tributes came from many Japanese leaders in and out of office. Former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi summed up Japanese feeling. "In spite of the storm created in China by the Japanese militarists," he said, the Generalissimo "sent them back to Japan without making anybody a war criminal. He opposed the efforts of the Soviet Union to divide Japan and exerted his power to preserve our emperor system. He helped to guard against disorder in postwar Japan and helped lay the foundation for its recovery."
Yen Chia-kan, the Vice President of the Re public of China since 1966 and the Premier for a decade, was sworn in as the nation's second President less than 12 hours after death of President Chiang. In a statement, the new chief executive said: "In his last words, our late President urged all of the people to devote themselves to the realization of the Three Principles of the People, the recovery of the mainland, the rebirth of our cultural heritage and to adherence to democracy in their united determination to carry out the National Revolution. I pledge that I shall brace and strengthen myself and, together with all of us, shall carry out this great instruction and apply all my wisdom and my loyalty to bringing his unfinished tasks to a successful conclusion."
In his Last Will and Testament, President Chiang had declared on March 29 - Youth Day of this year: "Ever since I entered school I have followed the revolutionary ideals of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. There has not been a single moment that I have strayed away from Christian faith and Dr. Sun's ideals. There wasn't a day that I had not devoted myself to the cause of the struggle to eliminate obstacles in the path of realization of the Three Principles of the People for the sake of building a democratic and constitutional nation.
"In the past two decades, this bastion of freedom has grown stronger all the time and has continuously launched political warfare against the vicious Communist forces on the mainland. As the sacred task of exterminating Communism and recovering the mainland is gaining momentum day by day at this moment, the morale and faith of my people and my comrades under no circum stances should be shaken should my life come to an end. I hope you will unite as one, support the leadership of the party and the government, and follow the Three Principles of the People as we have been following Dr. Sun, and make the recovery of the mainland our common goal. Then my spirit will always rest with you. My lifelong career has been devoted to realization of the Three Principles of the People, the recovery of the mainland, rebirth of our cultural heritage and adherence to democracy. This also should be in essence the duty and determination shared by all the Chinese people and the Chinese armed forces at home and abroad in their march toward revolutionary goals. I hope you will persevere in the face of adversity, and redouble your efforts to fulfill the responsibility of the National Revolution without fail. Be diligent! Be courageous! Do not relax your vigilance and preparedness! "
Signing as witnesses were Mayling Soong Chiang (Madame Chiang), Vice President C.K. Yen and the five presidents of the Central Government's Yuan: Chiang Ching-kuo of the Executive, Nieh Wen-ya of the Legislative, Tien Chung-chin of the Judicial, Yang Liang-kung of Examination and Yu Chun-hsien of Control. The recorder was Chin Hsiao-yi, deputy secretary-general of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang.
As filial son and now head of the family, Premier Chiang Ching-kuo submitted his resignation to the Kuomintang shortly after his father's death. The Party Central Standing Committee refused to accept and resolved that he be asked to stay on and guide the nation's administrative affairs. The Premier said he could only submit himself to the Central Committee's decision.
President and Generalissimo Chiang was a man for all seasons and all ages. Born to a moderately prosperous farm family in the district of Fenghua, Chekiang province, on October 31, 1887, he was reared by his mother after his father's death in 1895. His attachment to her was of exceptional depth. Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the Republic of China's Founding father and the principal adult influence in the life of Chiang Kai-shek, was to remark at her funeral:
"In our history there have been model mothers. I had only read about them but had not seen them. But after I came to know Kai-shek, I often marveled at the remarkable solidity and depth of his inborn nature and at the endless resourcefulness of his well-nourished mind. From this I know that the ancient ladies might not have realized the ideal of motherhood as fully as in the present instance, and I count myself blessed in seeing it with my own eyes."
Chiang's mother, a devout Buddhist, hoped her favorite child would become a scholar. He prized learning highly and was acquainted with both the Chinese and Japanese classics. But his heart was in military science. Wise in the ways of men, the mother did not object when the son opted for military academy and then for training in Japan. Although he was later to lead the nation in the War of Resistance Against Japan, he never came to hate the Japanese people. He knew that aggression was the act of the militarists and was not a reflection of the mainstream of Japanese thinking or intention. Later, after V-J Day, he pardoned the Japanese unconditionally and repatriated some 2 million of their troops. He made no demands for reparations and asked no part in the occupation. His was the voice that prevented Soviet participation in the occupation. Only American troops entered Japan in 1945. He helped persuade Franklin Roosevelt not to destroy the Japanese emperor system. Even after Japanese leaders repaid him with the recognition of the Chinese Communists in 1972, he was not dissuaded from belief in the inevitability of Sino-Japanese cooperation for Asian peace, freedom and prosperity. Japanese leaders in and out of office credited this affection for their country after his passing.
Chiang Kai-shek met Sun Yat-sen in Japan in 1909, the same year he was graduated from military school, and became a member of the Founding Father's Tung Meng Hui (Society of the Common Cause), forerunner of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) which Chiang would head after the death of Dr. Sun. When the National Revolution started to topple the Ch'ing dynasty at Wuchang in October of 1911, Chiang could contain himself with military education no longer. He made his way to Shanghai. Chen Chi-mei, one of Sun Yat-sen's lieutenants, gave him command of forces attacking Hangchow, the capital of his home province. He was praised for his leadership in this first of many victorious military exploits.
For the next 10 years he served in the military, trying to help Dr. Sun bring the warlords into national harness, and at the Founding Father's side. He went to Moscow upon Dr. Sun's instructions. After a four-month look at the U.S.S.R., he returned with an adverse report. The Russian Revolution was no model for the Chinese Revolution, he believed, expressing his conviction "that Soviet political institutions were instruments of tyranny and terror and basically incompatible with the Kuomintang's political ideals."
When Dr. Sun decided to establish the Whampoa Military Academy to train leaders for the continuing National Revolution, he had only one nomination for its first commandant: Chiang Kai-shek. Although under 40, Chiang had already made himself China's "first soldier." After Sun Yat-sen's death in 1925 Chiang was the logical choice to lead the Northward Expedition against the warlords. Starting in 1926, this march reached its climax at the old capital, its name changed from Peking to Peiping, in 1928. The country was unified. The commander-in-chief had married Mayling Soong, daughter of one of China's most distinguished families and a graduate of Wellesley College in Massachusetts, after the liberation of Shanghai in 1927. He was converted to Christianity after his marriage.
China made great advances in the years just after the unification. Roads and railroads were built. Industries were developed. The standard of living advanced. Two storm clouds were gathering on the horizon: Communism's internal bid for power and Japan's external aggression. The Generalissimo decided to deal with the Communists first. They were defeated in campaign after campaign and finally sent reeling into remote and desolate Shensi. The relatively small number holed up in caves could have been easily confined there had it not been for the Japanese decision to follow up the 1931 invasion of Manchuria with an attempt to turn all China into a puppet. The attack began in July of 1937 and quickly pushed southward through the coastal provinces. Chiang Kai-shek had the only possible answer: retreat into the Chinese hinterland and a scorched earth policy that would make it difficult for the Japanese to follow. Chungking in landlocked, mountainous Szechwan province became the temporary capital. Japanese bombs wrought terrible destruction there and elsewhere but could not break the back of Chinese resistance.
Although China fought the first four years of the war alone except for limited American and Russian assistance, nearly 2 million casualties were inflicted on the Japanese and more than 24,000 prisoners captured. Japan lost more than 2,000 planes, some 12,300 tanks and armored cars, more than 1,800 field guns and almost 8,000 machine guns. In the fourth year alone, 6,762 battles were fought.
As Pearl Harbor approached, the Japanese made bid after bid for peace. They established a puppet government under Wang Ching-wei, a one time disciple of Sun Yat-sen. Chiang Kai-shek could not be tempted, deceived or abducted. The European war was already under way. He foresaw the involvement of the United States both in Europe and the Pacific. December 8 (in Asia), 1941, began transformation of the war along the lines the Generalissimo had expected. The first Joint Military Conference for East Asia was convened in Chungking and the way paved for Chiang's appointment as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in the China Theater.
The Generalissimo emerged as a world leader. He traveled to India to meet with Mahatma Gandhi. While there he expressed sympathy for the freedom aspirations of the Indians. In November of 1943 he went to Cairo for a conference with President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill. He had become President of China in October after the death of Lin Sen. Cairo was the meeting at which the Allies agreed that defeated Japan would have to give up Taiwan, the Pescadores and Manchuria. The independence of Korea was pledged. In announcing the Cairo Agreement, President Roosevelt said: "I met in the Generalissimo a man of great vision, great courage and remarkably keen understanding of the problems of today and tomorrow. Today we and the Republic of China are closer together than ever before, in deep friendship and in unity of purpose." Madame Chiang was at her husband's side as interpreter.
V-J Day was celebrated throughout China, as well as elsewhere in the free world, but it brought no peace. Yalta - of which China knew nothing - had advanced the Asian position of the Soviet Union and set the stage for Russian support of the Chinese Communists. Mao Tse-tung and his followers had utilized the latter days of the eight-year war against Japan to enlarge their holdings at government expense. In violation of agreements with China, the U.S.S.R. protected Chinese Communists as they moved into Manchuria to take over weapons of the defeated Japanese.
Chiang Kai-shek did not look with favor on the mediation efforts of the United States. He knew that there could be neither peace nor compromise with Communism. But he did not stand in the way of those who thought coexistence was possible. In January of 1949, he temporarily retired from the presidency to allow negotiations between the Central Government and Communists. Nothing came of these talks. He returned to rally resistance and fight on for many months. It was too late for the mainland. The Communists had the all-out support of the Soviet Union. American assistance was reduced and then temporarily terminated. The Republic of China was saved only because the Generalissimo had prepared the island province of Taiwan as a bastion of continued resistance, counterattack and mainland recovery.
The Government's last mainland stand was made in Szechwan in December of 1949. Taipei then became the temporary capital. Sizable elements of the Army, Navy and Air Force reached Taiwan. The Constitution, which had been adopted on the mainland despite the life or death struggle with Communism, was given full force and effect. Chiang Kai-shek resumed the presidency on March 1, 1950, at the request of the Legislative Yuan. Local self-government was instituted and provincial elections held. Subsequently, as return to the mainland was delayed, national-level elections were held in areas under the Government's control.
U.S. assistance was resumed. The military forces were rebuilt and came to rank among Asia's strongest. Taiwan's agriculture was used as the foundation for industrialization and a prospering society based on trade. By the 1970s, Taiwan with 14,000 square miles and 16 million people was out-trading the Chinese mainland with 3.7 million square miles and 800 million people. The Taiwan standard of living was five times higher than that of mainland China under the Communists.
President Chiang had able men to help him: Vice Presidents Chen Cheng and Yen Chia-kan, Premier Chiang Ching-kuo and countless others. But he was the mentor and the architect. His was the name, the achievements and the influence. His was the determination and the positive acts which preserved Taiwan as a place from which to fight on. In the 19th and 20th century, the figures of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek stand head and shoulders above other Chinese leaders. In the whole of Chinese history, they stand with Confucius and a handful of sages and patriots. Chiang Kai-shek was the soldier-statesman that the Republic of China and the democratic world mourned in the spring of 1975.
President Chiang once said: "Only those who love their fellows, uphold justice, understand propriety and think clearly can rightly be called men." His epitaph might well be written in just such terms. To all history, China can say: "This was a man."