Chiang Kai-shek
蒋介石
1887–1975
- President of the Republic of China (1948–1949, 1950–1975)
- Director-General of the Kuomintang (1938–1975)
- Chairman, National Military Affairs Commission (1932–1945)
- Chairman of the National Government (1928–1949)
- Commander-in-Chief, National Revolutionary Army (1925–1928)
- Commandant, Whampoa Military Academy (1924–1947)
Biography
Early Life and Military Formation
Chiang Kai-shek was born on 31 October 1887 in Xikou, Fenghua County, Zhejiang Province, into a salt merchant family. After early classical education, he pursued military training — first at the Baoding Military Academy in 1906, then in Japan at the Shinbu Gakkō from 1907 to 1911, where he was exposed to Japanese military organisation and joined the Tongmenghui under Sun Yat-sen's influence. He returned to China for the Xinhai Revolution and served in the Shanghai revolutionary forces under Chen Qimei, beginning a military career in the anti-Qing movement.
Rise within the KMT and Whampoa
Chiang's decisive rise came after Sun Yat-sen's reorganisation of the KMT along Leninist lines in 1923–24, backed by Comintern adviser Mikhail Borodin. Appointed commandant of the newly established Whampoa Military Academy in 1924, Chiang cultivated a generation of officer-loyalists drawn from both the KMT and the CCP. The academy's graduates formed the officer backbone of the National Revolutionary Army. Sun Yat-sen's death in March 1925 removed the KMT's unifying figure and opened an internal power struggle that Chiang gradually won by outmanoeuvring both left-wing KMT rivals and his Soviet backers.
Northern Expedition and the Shanghai Massacre
As Commander-in-Chief of the National Revolutionary Army, Chiang launched the Northern Expedition on 9 July 1926. Within a year, the NRA had swept from Guangdong through Hunan and captured the Yangtze valley. As the expedition succeeded, tensions within the united front became unsustainable. Chiang, alarmed by the growth of Communist-led labour and peasant organisations, broke with the left-KMT government in Wuhan and, on 12 April 1927, coordinated a massacre of Communist-led unions in Shanghai with local criminal networks and foreign business interests. The purge spread nationwide, killing thousands of Communists and destroying the first united front. Chiang established a rival Nationalist government in Nanjing.
The Nanjing Decade (1928–1937)
With nominal reunification achieved by late 1928, Chiang led China's National Government through the Nanjing Decade — a period of genuine modernisation efforts in law, education, and infrastructure, constrained by persistent warlordism, fiscal weakness, and the unresolved Communist insurgency in rural base areas. Chiang pursued a policy of "first pacify internally, then resist externally" (攘外必先安内), prioritising military campaigns against the CCP — including five Encirclement Campaigns against the Jiangxi Soviet — over confronting Japan's expanding aggression in Manchuria and northern China. The policy was deeply controversial and contributed to the Xi'an Incident of December 1936.
War with Japan and Civil War
The Xi'an Incident of December 1936 — in which Chiang was detained by his own generals Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng and compelled to agree to a second united front with the CCP — ended the encirclement campaigns. The full-scale war with Japan began in July 1937. Chiang led Chinese resistance through eight years of devastating warfare, overseeing the loss of eastern China and the wartime capital's move to Chongqing. In November 1943 he met President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill in Cairo, Egypt, at the Cairo Conference, which established the principle that Japan would return Manchuria, Taiwan, and the Penghu Islands to China after the war — marking China's debut as one of the wartime 'Big Four' powers. The alliance with the United States from 1941 provided material support but also intense friction, particularly with General Joseph Stilwell. Japan's defeat in 1945 did not end Chiang's challenges: civil war with the CCP resumed almost immediately, and by 1949 the Nationalist government had been driven from the mainland.
The 228 Incident
Following Taiwan's retrocession to Chinese rule in 1945, Chen Yi (Ch'en I) was appointed Chief Executive of Taiwan Province. On 27 February 1947, government agents enforcing a tobacco monopoly beat a cigarette vendor in Taipei and, in the ensuing unrest, shot a bystander, igniting long-simmering grievances that erupted into island-wide clashes between the public and the authorities, with demands for political reform. On 2 March, Chen cabled Chiang Kai-shek, then both KMT Director-General and Chairman of the National Government, reporting that he had asked Chief of the General Staff Chen Cheng to send "an infantry brigade of better quality", or at least one regiment first. Chiang then ordered troops sent from the mainland; reinforcements began landing at Keelung on 8 March, and a large-scale military crackdown and mopping-up campaign followed. The death toll remains disputed: a 1992 Executive Yuan research report, citing demographic estimates by scholars, put the number killed at between 18,000 and 28,000, a figure that is still debated. The incident remains the most severe civil-military clash in postwar Taiwanese history and cast a long shadow over Taiwanese politics; the Taiwan authorities did not formally apologise for it until 1995.
Taiwan and Legacy
Chiang retreated to Taiwan in December 1949, re-establishing the Republic of China government on the island. Between 1954–55 and again in 1958, two major artillery crises erupted in the Taiwan Strait: from 23 August to early October 1958, PLA forces subjected Kinmen (Quemoy) to a sustained 44-day bombardment of more than 470,000 shells — known as the '823 Artillery Battle' — with the U.S. Seventh Fleet assisting Taiwan's resupply efforts; the crisis did not escalate into full-scale war. In October 1971, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758, restoring the People's Republic of China's seat at the United Nations and expelling representatives of Chiang's government from the UN and all its affiliated bodies, ending Taiwan's representation of 'China' there. He maintained authoritarian rule under martial law — which would not be lifted until 1987, eleven years after his death — while pursuing economic development that produced the 'Taiwan Miracle.' He died on 5 April 1975 in Taipei at the age of 87, having never returned to the mainland. His legacy remains profoundly contested: in PRC historiography he is the class traitor who massacred Communists and lost the civil war; in Taiwan his memory has been partially rehabilitated as a Cold War anti-communist and nation-builder, though his authoritarianism is increasingly criticised; Western assessments emphasise both his indispensable role in Chinese resistance to Japan and his political brutality.
Related Events (32)
The First Kuomintang Congress, the First United Front and the Whampoa Military Academy
In January 1923 Sun Yat-sen and the Soviet envoy Adolph Joffe issued a joint manifesto, and Moscow sent Mikhail Borodin as Sun’s adviser; in June the Third CPC Congress decided that Communists would join the Kuomintang as individuals. The Kuomintang’s First National Congress, held in Guangzhou from 20 to 30 January 1924, reinterpreted the Three Principles of the People and elected Li Dazhao and other Communists to its Central Executive Committee, inaugurating the first united front. On 16 June the Whampoa Military Academy opened, with Sun as director-general, Chiang Kai-shek as commandant and Communists such as Zhou Enlai in political work. The CPC says the congress adopted “Three Great Policies”; the Kuomintang rejects that formulation, and both sides of the Taiwan Strait claim the Whampoa tradition.
politicalNorthern Expedition
Launched from Guangzhou on 9 July 1926 under Chiang Kai-shek, the National Revolutionary Army's Northern Expedition aimed to reunify China by defeating the regional warlords. Within two years, the NRA swept north through Hunan, captured Wuhan and Shanghai, and — after violently purging its Communist allies in April 1927 — completed its advance to Beijing by 1928. China was nominally reunified under the Nationalist government, though the process entrenched the split between the KMT and CCP that would define the next two decades.
militaryShanghai Massacre
On 12 April 1927, Chiang Kai-shek ordered KMT forces and Green Gang paramilitaries to disarm and massacre Communist-led workers in Shanghai, ending the First United Front between the KMT and CPC. The "White Terror" that followed killed thousands of Communists across China, drove the CPC underground, and set the stage for two decades of civil conflict that would only resolve with the Communist victory of 1949.
politicalThe Nanchang Uprising
The Nanchang Uprising was an armed revolt launched by the Chinese Communist Party in Nanchang, Jiangxi, after the collapse of the first KMT–CCP united front. Early on 1 August 1927 a Front Committee headed by Zhou Enlai led some 20,000 troops under He Long, Ye Ting, Zhu De and Liu Bocheng in an uprising that took the city in about five hours. The insurgents then marched south towards Guangdong, suffering heavy losses from heat, hunger and desertion, and were defeated around Chaozhou and Shantou at the end of September; a remnant under Zhu De fought on and joined Mao Zedong at Jinggangshan in 1928. Before the uprising Zhang Guotao had relayed the Comintern's reservations; afterwards the CCP leadership both hailed it as "the most glorious page" and disciplined the Front Committee. From 1933, 1 August was marked as Red Army Day, later the Army Day of the People's Liberation Army.
militaryThe Jinan Incident (May Third Tragedy)
In May 1928 the Nationalist army of the Northern Expedition entered Jinan, Shandong, where Japanese troops had been sent to protect Japanese residents. Fighting broke out on 3 May, and that night the Nationalist negotiation commissioner Cai Gongshi and his staff were killed by Japanese soldiers in their office. Chiang Kai-shek withdrew his main force and bypassed the city; after an ultimatum the Japanese launched a general assault on 8 May and took the walled city on 11 May. Chinese casualties ran into the thousands, with estimates varying. The incident fuelled a wave of anti-Japanese protest; after nearly a year of negotiation the two governments signed a settlement in March 1929, and Japanese troops left Shandong that May.
militaryThe Central Plains War
The Central Plains War was a large-scale civil war in 1930 between Chiang Kai-shek’s Nanjing National Government and an anti-Chiang alliance led by Yan Xishan, Feng Yuxiang and Li Zongren. Yan assumed command against Chiang on 1 April, and from May fighting spread across Henan, Shandong and beyond, involving more than a million troops. The anti-Chiang factions also convened a Kuomintang “Enlarged Conference” in Beiping and in September proclaimed a rival National Government headed by Yan. On 18 September Zhang Xueliang, hitherto neutral, called for a ceasefire and sent the Northeastern Army south of the Great Wall, and the Beiping government dissolved. Government troops took Xi’an at the end of October, and on 4 November Yan and Feng announced their retirement. Zhang emerged dominant in North China, and Chiang soon turned his armies against the Communist base areas.
politicalMukden Incident
On the night of 18 September 1931, officers of Japan's Kwantung Army staged a controlled explosion on a Japanese-owned railway near Shenyang and blamed it on Chinese saboteurs — the pretext for a rapid military occupation of all of Manchuria. Within five months, Japan had established the puppet state of Manchukuo under the last Qing emperor Puyi. The League of Nations condemned the invasion but took no action. The incident began Japan's fourteen-year war in China and is commemorated annually in the PRC as a day of national humiliation.
militaryJanuary 28 Incident (Shanghai, 1932)
On the night of 28 January 1932 Japanese marines attacked Chinese troops in the Zhabei district of Shanghai. The 19th Route Army, led by Jiang Guangnai and Cai Tingkai, resisted, and in mid-February Zhang Zhizhong’s Fifth Army joined the fighting. Japan repeatedly sent reinforcements and changed commanders; on 1 March Japanese troops landed at Qiyakou on the south bank of the Yangtze to outflank the defenders, the Chinese withdrew from their front lines, and on 3 March the Japanese ordered a halt. Much of Zhabei and the Commercial Press were destroyed, and casualty figures vary widely. On 5 May China and Japan, assisted by British, American, French and Italian representatives, signed the Shanghai Ceasefire Agreement, under which Japanese troops withdrew to the International Settlement and extra-Settlement roads. Chinese, Japanese and other accounts differ over the causes and responsibility.
militaryThe Long March
Between October 1934 and October 1935, the Chinese Red Army undertook a 12,500-kilometre strategic retreat from its base areas in Jiangxi Province to Yan'an in Shaanxi, pursued by Nationalist forces. Of the approximately 86,000 soldiers who set out, fewer than 10,000 completed the journey. The march produced the Zunyi Conference — where Mao Zedong secured leadership of the party — and became the foundational myth of the People's Republic of China.
militaryXi'an Incident
On 12 December 1936, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng arrested Chiang Kai-shek at his Xi'an headquarters — the climax of months of tension over Chiang's insistence on continuing anti-Communist campaigns while Japan seized Chinese territory. Over thirteen days the kidnapping became a negotiation: Zhou Enlai flew in as CCP mediator; Soong Mei-ling, Chiang's wife, arrived on 22 December and is credited by most historians as pivotal in breaking the deadlock. Chiang was released on 25 December without a written agreement — the terms he gave, if any, he later disputed. What followed was a winding-down of the civil war and the progressive formalisation of a second KMT-CCP united front, announced publicly after Japan's full-scale invasion in July 1937.
politicalMarco Polo Bridge Incident
On the night of 7 July 1937, Japanese and Chinese troops exchanged fire near the Marco Polo Bridge outside Beiping. Japanese forces cited a missing soldier as grounds to demand entry into Wanping Fortress; when refused, they opened artillery fire at dawn on 8 July. Within three weeks, Beiping and Tianjin had fallen. The incident triggered the Second Sino-Japanese War, which claimed an estimated 14–20 million Chinese lives before Japan's defeat in 1945.
militaryThe Battle of Shanghai
On 13 August 1937 fighting broke out between Chinese and Japanese forces in Shanghai, and the next day the Chinese launched a general offensive, beginning the Battle of Shanghai, one of the largest battles of the early War of Resistance. After Japanese landings at Wusong and Chuanshakou in late August, the two sides fought over Shanghai's northern outskirts for more than two months; China committed more than 700,000 troops and Japan about 250,000. A Japanese landing at Jinshanwei on 5 November forced a Chinese withdrawal, Shanghai fell in mid-November, and Japanese forces advanced on Nanjing. By the two sides' own counts, Japanese casualties exceeded 40,000 and Chinese casualties approached 190,000, with higher estimates also cited.
militaryNanjing Massacre
Following the fall of Nanjing on 13 December 1937, Japanese Imperial Army forces conducted six to eight weeks of systematic killing, mass rape, and looting in and around the Chinese Nationalist capital. The event is one of the most documented atrocities of the Second World War and one of the most contested historical episodes in Sino-Japanese relations, with casualty estimates ranging from 40,000 to over 300,000.
militaryBombing of Chongqing
From February 1938 to December 1944 Japanese aircraft repeatedly bombed the wartime capital Chongqing and its surroundings, turning to indiscriminate bombing in 1939. The raids of 3 and 4 May 1939 killed thousands, and during a night raid on 5 June 1941 large numbers of people sheltering in the Jiaochangkou tunnel suffocated or were trampled to death. Casualty figures vary by source; victims sued in Japan from 2006, and the courts acknowledged the harm but rejected their claims.
militaryBattle of Wuhan
From June to October 1938 Japanese forces advanced along both banks of the Yangtze and the northern foothills of the Dabie Mountains on Wuhan, then the seat of China's wartime military command. Chinese forces resisted across Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan and Hubei, encircling much of the Japanese 106th Division at Wanjialing. On 25 October the Military Affairs Commission announced the withdrawal from Wuhan, and Japanese forces entered Hankou the next day. Figures for forces and casualties differ widely; the war then settled into stalemate.
militaryHuayuankou Yellow River Dike Breach
In June 1938, to stop the Japanese advancing west along the Longhai railway to Zhengzhou and south to Wuhan, Nationalist troops — after two failed attempts at Zhaokou — cut the Yellow River dike at Huayuankou north of Zhengzhou on 9 June. The flood held up the Japanese, but for nine years the river spread through the Huai system across Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu; estimates of the dead range from tens of thousands to nearly 900,000. During the war the government blamed Japanese bombing; the breach was closed in March 1947 and the river returned to its old course.
militaryEstablishment of the Wang Jingwei Regime in Nanjing
After leaving Chongqing for Hanoi at the end of 1938, Wang Jingwei negotiated with Japan to form a new government; the two sides signed the "Outline for Adjusting New Japan–China Relations" on 30 December 1939, which Gao Zongwu and Tao Xisheng made public in Hong Kong the following January. On 30 March 1940 Wang declared the "return of the capital to Nanjing" and set up a "National Government" under the Republic's name and flag. Japan backed it, the Chongqing government declared it null and void, and the United States continued to recognise Chongqing. Japan and the Wang regime signed a basic relations treaty in November 1940.
politicalThe Hundred Regiments Offensive
The Hundred Regiments Offensive was a large-scale Eighth Route Army offensive against Japanese forces in North China in 1940. On 20 August Eighth Route Army headquarters sent the Shanxi–Chahar–Hebei Military Region, the 129th and 120th Divisions and other units into simultaneous attacks, chiefly against the Zhengtai Railway, followed by assaults on strongpoints and counter-mopping-up operations. Official figures give 105 regiments and more than 200,000 men, 1,824 engagements between 20 August and 5 December, more than 25,000 Japanese and puppet troops killed or wounded, and more than 17,000 Eighth Route Army casualties; the number of regiments, the results and the end date are all disputed. Japanese mopping-up operations then intensified and the base areas shrank sharply. Mao Zedong first called the offensive "exhilarating" but later held that it had exposed Communist strength; from 1945 it repeatedly figured in criticism of Peng Dehuai.
militaryThe South Anhui Incident (New Fourth Army Incident)
The South Anhui Incident (called the "New Fourth Army Incident" by the Nationalist government) was an armed clash between the Nationalists and Communists during the war against Japan. In January 1941 more than 9,000 men of the New Fourth Army headquarters and its units, moving north under orders, were surrounded and attacked around Maolin in Jing County, Anhui, by seven Nationalist divisions of about 80,000 men. By 14 January most had been killed, captured or scattered, apart from more than 2,000 who broke out; commander Ye Ting was detained and deputy commander Xiang Ying was later murdered by a member of his entourage. On 17 January the Nationalist Military Affairs Commission declared the army "mutinous" and abolished its designation, and Chiang Kai-shek called the affair purely a matter of "military discipline"; the CCP called it an anti-Communist incident engineered by "pro-Japanese elements", named Chen Yi acting commander on 20 January and rebuilt the headquarters in Yancheng. Ye Ting was released in 1946 and died in a plane crash soon after.
militaryHenan Famine of 1942–43
Drought in the spring and summer of 1942 cut Henan's food production by about half; together with locusts and wartime grain requisitioning, it brought famine to the province until the spring harvest of 1943, across Nationalist, Japanese-occupied and Communist areas. The Ta Kung Pao was suspended for three days after reporting the famine in February 1943, and Theodore White's reporting drew international attention. Estimates of the dead range from under one million to more than five million.
Cairo Conference and Cairo Declaration
From 22 to 26 November 1943 Roosevelt, Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo to discuss the war against Japan and postwar arrangements. Their communiqué, released on 1 December and known as the Cairo Declaration, stated that territories Japan had stolen from China, such as Manchuria, Formosa and the Pescadores, would be restored to the Republic of China and that Korea would in due course become free and independent. The declaration's legal force and its bearing on Taiwan's status remain disputed among Beijing, Taipei, Washington and Tokyo.
diplomaticOperation Ichi-go (Henan–Hunan–Guangxi Campaign)
From April to December 1944 Japan's Operation Ichi-go sent over 500,000 troops south from Henan through Hunan into Guangxi to open an overland corridor and destroy Allied air bases. Nationalist forces collapsed in Henan, and Changsha, Hengyang, Guilin and Liuzhou fell in turn, though Hengyang held for 47 days. The military crisis triggered the Stilwell crisis in Sino-American relations. Nationalist forces lost nearly 600,000 men and vast territory.
militaryJapan's Surrender and Victory in the War of Resistance
On 15 August 1945 the Japanese emperor broadcast the rescript ending the war and accepting the Potsdam Declaration, bringing China's War of Resistance against Japan to a victorious end. On 2 September Japan signed the instrument of surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, with Xu Yongchang signing for China; on 9 September Okamura Yasuji, commander-in-chief of the China Expeditionary Army, surrendered to Chinese Army Commander-in-Chief He Yingqin in Nanjing; on 25 October the surrender ceremony for Taiwan was held in Taipei. A dispute between the Nationalists and Communists over who would accept the surrender became one of the starting points of postwar conflict. The official PRC figure for Chinese military and civilian casualties is more than 35 million, and in 2014 the PRC designated 3 September by law as Victory Day.
militaryChongqing Negotiations
Thirteen days after Japan's surrender, Mao Zedong flew to Chongqing for forty-three days of talks with Chiang Kai-shek. Conducted against a backdrop of competing military manoeuvres across China, the talks produced the "Double Tenth Agreement" on 10 October 1945: a framework affirming peace, democratic government, and a Political Consultative Conference. Both sides signed knowing the agreement was fragile; full-scale civil war resumed within eight months.
politicalThe Marshall Mission and the Political Consultative Conference
In December 1945 the American envoy George C. Marshall arrived to mediate between the Nationalists and Communists. On 10 January 1946 the Conference of Three signed a cease-fire order and set up an Executive Headquarters in Beiping, and the Political Consultative Conference opened, reaching agreements on a coalition government, constitutional revision and army reorganisation within three weeks. The agreements were not implemented, fighting escalated in Manchuria, and relations broke down after the Nationalists convened the National Assembly in November. Marshall left China in January 1947; the parties still assign blame differently.
diplomaticChinese Civil War
The full-scale civil war that resumed in June 1946 ended in barely three years with one of the most dramatic reversals in modern military history. The Nationalist government — with superior numbers, American equipment, and control of China's major cities — was driven from the mainland by the People's Liberation Army. Three decisive campaigns in 1948–1949 destroyed the Nationalist field armies. On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China in Beijing. Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan, where the Republic of China continues to govern.
militaryThe February 28 Incident
On 27 February 1947, monopoly bureau agents searching for contraband cigarettes in Taipei beat a vendor and fatally shot a bystander; the next day guards at the Chief Executive's Office opened fire on petitioners, and unrest spread across the island, with many mainlanders beaten or killed. A citizens' settlement committee put forward demands for political reform while the Nationalist government negotiated and sent troops from the mainland; Nationalist forces landed at Keelung on 8 March, followed by a crackdown and "pacification" in which many members of Taiwan's elite were arrested or disappeared. The death toll remains disputed; a 1992 Executive Yuan report estimated 18,000 to 28,000. Long a taboo subject in Taiwan, the incident was the subject of an apology by Lee Teng-hui as head of state in 1995 and of a compensation act. Beijing describes it as a just action by Taiwan compatriots against autocratic rule.
politicalRetreat of the Republic of China Government to Taiwan
In the final stage of the Chinese Civil War the Nationalists began moving air force units, artefacts and gold to Taiwan from 1948, while in 1949 the government moved from Nanjing to Guangzhou, Chongqing and Chengdu. On 7 December the Executive Yuan resolved in Chengdu to "move the government to Taipei"; it began work in Taipei on the 9th, and Chiang Kai-shek flew to Taiwan on the 10th. Around one million soldiers and civilians came with the government, by some estimates more. Chiang "resumed his duties" as president in Taipei on 1 March 1950; after the Korean War broke out in June, the US sent the Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait, and the divide between the two sides has persisted ever since.
politicalFirst Taiwan Strait Crisis
Beginning on 3 September 1954, the People's Republic of China launched an artillery bombardment of Quemoy (Jinmen) and Matsu — offshore islands held by the Republic of China — triggering the first major military confrontation between the PRC and the United States since the Korean War. The crisis drew the US into a formal defence commitment to Taiwan, introduced nuclear brinkmanship into cross-strait relations, and established the doctrine of strategic ambiguity that has defined the Taiwan Strait ever since.
diplomaticSecond Taiwan Strait Crisis
On 23 August 1958, PRC artillery launched a massive bombardment of Quemoy (Jinmen), firing nearly 50,000 shells on the opening day, triggering the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. The United States again deployed naval forces and signalled nuclear deterrence; the crisis de-escalated without either side substantially altering the status quo. An odd-even day shelling formula persisted for over two decades, locking cross-strait relations into a long-term standoff of symbolic confrontation in place of full-scale military conflict.
diplomaticEstablishment of Sino-French Diplomatic Relations
On 27 January 1964 the People's Republic of China and the French Republic announced the establishment of diplomatic relations in a joint communiqué, making France the first major Western country to recognise the PRC. In October 1963 former French Prime Minister Edgar Faure, visiting privately with a handwritten letter from de Gaulle, agreed with Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi on a plan for direct recognition and a three-point "tacit understanding" on Taiwan. The Republic of China government broke relations with France on 10 February. The United States opposed the move and had urged Taipei not to break first.
diplomaticNormalisation of China–Japan Relations
From 25 to 30 September 1972 Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei visited Beijing, and on the 29th he and Zhou Enlai signed the joint communiqué establishing diplomatic relations that day. Japan expressed "deep remorse" for the serious damage its war had caused the Chinese people, recognised the PRC government as the sole legal government of China, and said it "fully understands and respects" China's position on Taiwan; China renounced its claim to war reparations. Japan declared the same day that its peace treaty with Taiwan had ended, Taipei immediately announced the severance of relations, and the two sides thereafter maintained practical ties through private bodies. In 1978 the two countries signed the Treaty of Peace and Friendship.
diplomaticLast verified:
Cite this page
Chronicles of Modern China. (2026, October 21). Chiang Kai-shek. Retrieved October 21, 2026, from https://www.cmcarchive.org/figures/chiang-kai-shek
“Chiang Kai-shek.” Chronicles of Modern China. Last modified October 21, 2026. Accessed October 21, 2026. https://www.cmcarchive.org/figures/chiang-kai-shek.
Chronicles of Modern China. Chiang Kai-shek[EB/OL]. (2026-10-21)[2026-10-21]. https://www.cmcarchive.org/figures/chiang-kai-shek.