"Certainly no friendship can be more beautiful than that between the two outstanding leaders of modern China, Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek." So wrote Dr. John C.H. Wu in his book Sun Yat-sen: the Man and His Ideas. The late President Chiang was not only capable of great friendship in the Chinese tradition. He also established with his elder son, Chiang Ching-kuo, one of the closest and most loving father-son relationships in Chinese history.
President Chiang was a Confucian and a Christian. He believed in the best of both systems, and considered that filial piety was the foundation of the family and the family of the nation. He said: "We should have filial piety toward our parents, respect for elder brothers and sisters and love for younger member's of the family. We should have similar feelings toward our friends and neighbors. In this way, mutual love and respect will prevail not only among our own families and between them and their friends and neighbors, but also among entire family clans and communities. All should feel obliged to help and encourage others in need, share one another's fate and take care of one another in time of illness or other misfortune. As guardians of the family, parents are duty-bound to teach their children how to comport themselves and to develop in them the habit of hard work. They should not allow their children to become indolent and lead a parasitic life harmful to the nation."
Chiang Ching-kuo, who becomes President of the Republic in his own right May 20, recalls that his father once told him: "No matter what one does, he must be true - true in the sense of 'true' in 'trueheartedness.' This is essential whether the matters we face are big or small." The son said: "Every word or deed of Father had a lasting imprint on my mind. There were no exceptions. Father was righteous, truthful and kindly. His expressions of sentiment and hopefulness came from the innermost reaches of his heart."
The father was a hard taskmaster. Yet as the son has often attested, he was always fair. Discipline was always tempered with love. "When I was a youth," Chiang Ching-kuo said, "and Father discovered a wrong or incorrectly written character in letters to him, he was certain to indicate the mistake and send the corrected letters back to me with an admonishment not to repeat my errors. Whatever I said or did, Father was always the same. No sooner had I made a single mistake than he would correct me, paying the closest attention to the most minute detail." The son recalled that even when he had passed the age of 60 and his father was ailing, the latter's attention to detail remained undiminished. The President had told him to go to the Military Academy and preside over graduation ceremonies. "As I was about to leave his room," the son said, "Father looked at me for a long while and concluded that my hair was not quite in order. He told me to get a haircut before going. This may seem a small matter, but it was highly significant. He was strict but he was also very kind."
The 1920s were revolutionary times in China. There was a ferment in the land as Chiang Kai-shek planned the March Northward that was to defeat the warlords and unify the country under the Republic. He himself had visited the Soviet Union at the behest of Sun Yat-sen, and returned to warn the Founding Father that the Communists were not to be trusted. When Chiang Ching-kuo, then only 15 years old, said he wanted to go to the Soviet to study, the elder Chiang did not say no. Father had sat at Dr. Sun's feet to study the revolutionary Three Principles of the People.
The son departed in 1925. That was the year of Dr. Sun's death, and the year before the start of the unification campaign. The Communists were still pretending to honor their alliance with the Kuomintang. Then, in 1927, came the Communist stab in the back. The younger Chiang became, to all intents and purposes, a hostage. He was not allowed to return home, and the Communists tried to use him against his father. He has described this as the worst time of his life. Part of it was spent working in Siberia. Except that he found a wife and learned the brutal truth about Communism, the 12 years spent in Russia would have been totally without reward.
During this time, Chiang Kai-shek wrote in his Diary: "I fervently hope to see Ching-kuo back home. But to obtain his return, I shall never do anything, no matter how trivial, that would be detrimental to the national interest. I would rather go without descendants." To the son, this was an expression of love. "I could understand the kindly love of Father for his son," he said, "and also recognize the firmness and determination of his patriotic will and dedication. This sums up Father's unswerving loyalty and his fortitude in serving the nation. It is something I shall never forget. And I also hope that this will be understood by my children and my children's children."
From the moment of Ching-kuo's return, father and son were as inseparable as possible under conditions of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Chiang the younger had his work as a provincial administrator in Kiangsi but was always on call to accompany his father on his travels. This continued to be the case in the difficult days of the rising Communist insurrection after V-J Day in 1945. That was a trying time for the Generalissimo, who was compelled to fight a war at the head of tired and poorly equipped forces who no longer had the powerful backing of their great ally across the sea. He had, at the same time, to prepare the Taiwan bastion for the day of withdrawal in order to survive and then grow strong enough to fight another day.
Chiang Ching-kuo became his father's third arm in the Taiwan phase of his father's presidency. He helped reform the Kuomintang. He represented his father in the establishment of the China Youth Corps. He went to the Ministry of National Defense in various capacities and finally as the defense minister to streamline and modernize the armed forces. The rebuilding of Army, Navy and Air Force came under his direct scrutiny in a task that was close to his father's heart and was watched over in every detail - even to the length of his hair for a Military Academy graduation.
The feeling of these two for each other emerges poignantly in the first sentences of Chiang Ching- kuo's book "Thoughts About My Father at Tzuhu." On April 5, the day of President Chiang Kai-shek's death, the son wrote: "I entered Father's bedroom early in the morning to ask how he was feeling. He was already up, sitting in his chair. Smiling, he asked me if I had slept well. I said that I had, and Father said he also had slept well. He remembered that this was Tomb-sweeping Day and spoke of the centenary observance for Dr. Chang Poling. Just before I left, Father said: 'You must get as much rest as you can.' His words gave me a strange feeling and I felt uneasy through the rest of the day."
All through the last illness of President Chiang Kai-shek, his elder son was at his side at least twice a day. Of this, Chiang Ching-kuo has written: "During Father's illness and subsequent convalescence of more than two years, I waited on him day and night at the Veterans' General Hospital or at the Shihlin residence, except at such times as I had to be at work or was away. I recalled how eagerly Father had waited for me to return so that we could have our meals together. At other times, when I went to bid him goodbye before leaving the city on official business, he would say: 'Go quickly and come back quickly.' " This was a great love which Chiang Ching-kuo now treasures more than anything else in his life.
The son can also recall "the period when we were leaving the mainland 25 years ago. I was with Father day and night. Together we faced all dangers and came through all ordeals. Together we were targets of insults and slanderous attacks.
Father was completely dedicated to saving the nation from the Communists. Single-mindedly, he went about the tasks of averting the national crisis and ignored all vilifications."
On another occasion, Chiang Ching-kuo wrote of his Father's courage in the face of adversity. "Regardless of his health," Chiang Ching-kuo said, "Father was always serene and never showed concern or irritation. He had such control over himself that he was able to overcome the suffering of illness. As he began to recover, he told me to hang around his neck the pendant portrait of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother, which he usually wore. He then read aloud from poems of the T'ang dynasty. Sometimes after supper he would recite in a strong voice some paragraphs from the Great Learning or Golden Mean (two of the Four Books of the Chinese Classics). Throughout his life, Father was always devoted to the nation. He never had a selfish motive. To him, everything was for the country. His is the example from which I must learn and which I must practice."
Chiang Ching-kuo remembered that his father had called his attention to "the living dead and the dead living. Those who are concerned only with their own pleasure and would not hesitate to sacrifice the interests of others are supposedly alive, but they do not differ from the dead. Those who disregard their own personal gain or loss and advantage and disadvantage, and would strive to help others at any time, are among the living, even after they are dead. These people are 'the living dead.' The explanation sounds simple but is deeply meaningful. In recent days, I have often felt that Father was merely sleeping peacefully and not dead. Indeed, his spirit will live forever in the hearts of hundreds of millions of people."
He recalled "past times when I had often accompanied Father on walks at Tzuhu. I remembered that Father often would pick some azaleas. Father and son would carry on a conversation as they walked. Once Father told me that as a boy he often went into the mountains to gather firewood for fuel and carried the load home on his back. Grandmother used to take him to the bamboo groves on the mountain to dig shoots for food. Father said that though he was over eighty, the life of his boy hood and youth could not be forgotten. This was why he still preferred home cooking."
And again: "Father planted many plum trees at Tzuhu, and these have grown into a grove. Father often told me that he liked plum trees in preference to cherry trees because plum blossoms were fragrant and able to withstand severe cold. In 1961, on a scroll of plum blossoms I had painted, Father wrote: 'Chiang-kuo likes to paint plum blossoms, because compared with pines and bamboos they are more fragrant and lovely in the thick of winter.' Father brought me along to Chiao Pan Shan and Tzuhu each winter to enjoy the plum blossoms. One day Father saw plum flower petals blown off by the wind and dancing everywhere. He called the scene 'plum snow.' I remember well the joyfulness of father and son walking together in the grove."
Chiang Kai-shek liked to tell his son stories about Socrates. When Socrates was sentenced to death, his sobbing wife said: "You have been wronged. Not having committed a crime, you should not die." Socrates replied, "Since I shall die without having committed a crime, I have nothing of which to be ashamed. Do you wish me to die for a crime?" Chiang Ching-kuo recognized the profound meaning involved, and wrote: "If a man can sacrifice himself without fear or worry, he shows the nobleness of his character and the depths of his morality. A man possessed of a consistent view of life and death will not be concerned whether he lives or dies, so long as he considers that his sacrifice has served a proper cause. Whenever Father told us this story, his expression was smiling and natural. Of all his lectures, Father's dissertation on the attitude to be taken toward life and death was the most penetrating. From this we can see the origins of Father's great courage and of his broad shoulders. He dedicated the whole of his life to the cause of revolution in complete disregard of his own life or death."
During his illness, Chiang Kai-shek had written 16 characters which since have become widely known: "I regard the nation's rise or fall as my personal responsibility. I have no concern for my own life or death." Chiang Ching-kuo said: "This was the last of Father's manuscripts in his own handwriting and was given to me for safekeeping. Not only do these words show Father's revolutionary spirit of selfless devotion to duty, but they also have deep significance for me as an instruction in loyalty and filial piety. Throughout his life, Father was a man of absolute integrity and unwavering determination. He could be described by the old saying: 'Upright as a rock and as solid as iron.' Wholeheartedly devoted to people and nation, Father was truly the paragon of men."
The son has not forgotten the calumnies that were heaped upon his father by evil men: "Father suffered much from enmity and ill will throughout his life. He was often misunderstood and endured many dangers. So he once said to me: 'Looking back on my life, I find I was always in difficulty. Humiliations were heaped upon me and I faced many perils. I was often falsely accused and had to confront infiltration and subversion while risking life and braving death.' But Father never came forward to defend himself."
Chiang Kai-shek said: "The truth of all things will ultimately come out, just as the rock emerges when the water has receded." Chiang Ching-kuo said: "Now all the truth has been revealed to the world, exactly as Father predicted: 'Since I was born for revolution, I naturally shall die for revolution; thus I am sure to return a clean body to heaven, earth and parents.' His wish has been fulfilled. Today the world knows that fairness, selflessness and devotion to all people and all things comprised the fundamental spirit of Father in his own conduct and in his dealings with others."
When Chiang Kai-shek heard that his ancestral tombs had been destroyed by the Communist Red Guards, he was deeply hurt. Chiang Ching-kuo accompanied him to Chiao Pan Shan. For half a day, the father said nothing and the son could see the deepness of the wound. The next day, the father told the son: "Personal enmity may be overlooked but not injustice inflicted on the people; personal enmity is a private matter, whereas an injustice inflicted on the people concerns the whole nation. A man of fortitude and courage can forget personal enmities, but he must not leave unavenged any injustices inflicted on the whole nation." Another time, gazing out at the pine trees of Chiao Pan Shan, Chiang Kai-shek said: "Old trees can stand straight and reach into the sky because they are deeply rooted. If a man of fortitude is to stand straight in the world, he must have courage as well as conviction. The stronger his conviction, the firmer will be his foundation, the greater his achievements and the larger his contributions to the nation. If the foundation is unshakable, the results will be with out limit."
Chiang Ching-kuo the son found his inspiration and his strength in Chiang Kai-shek the father. The younger wrote: "I realize that the road ahead is long and inevitably full of twists and turns and beset with difficulties. In carrying out my great task, I have no alternative except to follow Father's instructions and struggle ahead without let or negligence. I am therefore resolved to be loyal to the nation, to sacrifice for the party and to serve the people in the spirit of seeking survival in the face of death. In so doing, I shall repay Father for his benevolence and console his soul in heaven. Only by working hard and doing my work well may I perhaps alleviate some of the sorrow in my heart. The only way in which I can even partially live up to the ardent expectations of compatriots and fellow party members is to dedicate myself and do my utmost. Father was the perfect man for all ages and an outstanding world leader. His life and accomplishments will live forever in the hearts of billions of people."
As Dr. Sun Yat-sen taught Chiang Kai-shek the meaning of greatness and dedication, so the father imparted these same virtues to the son. Chiang the younger has the same attitude toward and affection for his own descendants as his father had for him. The kind of a man that Chiang Ching-kuo has become may be most accurately expressed in the words of his daughter's son, Tsu-sheng, who wrote his junior high school graduation essay on "My Maternal Grandfather:"
"The man who has left so many imprints on my mind is my maternal grandfather. My maternal grandfather adheres always to one philosophical principle: namely, the past is gone; one must seize hold of the present and make the best use of the future. He believes that civilization is continuing to advance. Even more important, he respects the history that was created by our ancestors. My maternal grandfather has one unchanging habit: he keeps a daily record of his activities and thoughts. He is slightly stout, of medium stature and weighs fully 140 pounds. His black hair is streaked with gray and always brushed back from his forehead. My maternal grandfather's personality stands out all the more prominently because of his healthy complexion and fully developed nose. His gestures and demeanor and the movements of his hands and feet change rapidly in accordance with his feelings. He is not only my maternal grandfather but also my good friend. To tell the truth, he is really a very intimate companion."
Chiang Ching-kuo and students at the Legislative Yuan.(File photo)
Chiang Ching-kuo remarked: "If Father's soul in heaven could know that the son of his granddaughter has grown into such a big boy and is so bright, he would surely be greatly comforted."
The filial spirit of the Chiang family has also extended to the wife of Chiang Ching-kuo. He has written: "I remember that when my wife first came to China and met Father and Mother, she said to me: 'I lost my parents when I was young. I was brought up by my elder sister. Now that I have married into the Chiang family, I shall regard your parents as my very own.' She said this 38 years ago. Throughout all this time, she has done exactly as she said she would. Indeed, she has been most filial. On my wife's 50th birthday, Father personally wrote the four characters, Hsien, Liang, Tzu and Hsiao - meaning virtuous, good, kind and pious - and gave the calligraphy to her. My wife regarded this as a great treasure. Not only did she keep the original writing, but she also had the four words engraved on a stone tablet and placed it in her room."
Chiang family filial feelings also emerge in the deep concern of Chiang Ching-kuo for his mother's health. Madame Chiang Kai-shek was herself unwell during her husband's illness and convalescence. She refused to spare herself and remained at his side just as she had so steadfastly for nearly half a century. This took a harsh toll, and Madame Chiang is still staying in New York for medical treatment. There she has been much in the minds of the family at home. She in turn has been concerned about the health and well-being of children, grandchildren and great grand children.
In times past, Madame and President Chiang gave Testimonials on the occasion of each Easter, the greatest of the Christian religious festivals, marking, as it does, the agony, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Twenty years ago, she spoke on the subject of faith, a subject in which she may have been unconsciously referring to her husband as well as her religion. She said: "Religious faith, which antedates advanced morality in the annals of human beings, not only believes what has been conceived, it substantiates in the highest sense the unseen. It defies our inductive and deductive powers of understanding and sensory perception... Faith can best be said to be an inner compulsion in reality which will always emerge towards the highest level of movement and existence when fear of the known together with the unknown, as well as physical well-being, become of little consequence as compared to peace of mind and composure of spirit... It is that inward summons which propels one forward into a region we cannot infer nor place in the ordinary mundane sense of confidence... This is the triumph of spirit over flesh. For is it not said: 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen?' "
Faith is the key to the Chiang family, to the greatness of the Founding Father and to the supreme confidence of Chiang Ching-kuo that all China's schisms will be mended and the country made whole again under conditions of freedom, democracy and prosperity. President Chiang Kai-shek said: "Faith is moral strength which can create life, establish a determined purpose and raise one's courage to overcome a crisis. It is not only an index to belief, trust and self-confidence, but also a yardstick for the success of any undertaking." He also said: "To have faith is to wait and hope for a future which is invisible to the human eye. However, with faith, one may come to see what lies ahead more clearly than with one's eyes." And: "Love implies infinite patience. Life is endless growth As long as we have strong faith and our hearts are full of love, we shall be able to cope with all trials and temptations and ward off all evil. Such a Christian is capable of bearing the unbearable and accomplishing the impossible."
Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek bore the unbearable and accomplished the impossible in their lifetimes. There is expectation in China that Chiang Ching-kuo is another leader who can do likewise. Streams in the Desert, the favorite book of Chiang Kai-shek after the Bible, has this to say: "There are a great many people in this world - hundreds of millions! Yet in a sense each one of us is the only one. Each individual life has relations of its own in which it must stand alone, and into which no other life can come... This aloneness of life sometimes becomes very real in consciousness. All great souls experience it as they rise out of and above the common mass of men in their thoughts and hopes and aspirations, as the mountains rise above the vale and little hills. All great leaders of men oftentimes must stand alone, as they move in advance of the ranks of their followers. The battles of truth and of progress have usually been fought by such lonely souls."
The great love between Chiang Kai-shek the father and Chiang Chine-kuo the son is an expression of the everlasting Chinese way, the way of the Chinese sages old and new. Filial piety and family love are as strong as ever. The family of Confucius was the Chinese nation. That has not changed either. China is the culmination and fulfillment of the love of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo.