Chiang Kai-shek

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We must unite to exterminate these Japanese bandits, before we can be safe.

Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975) was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China from 1928 until 1949 in mainland China and then in Taiwan until his death in 1975.

Quotes

1930s

• It is my greatest wish, that German-Chinese cooperation always be supported by accomplishment, and that the personal affinity between both countries always be as strong as it is today. You, Herr Reichskanzler, have already given expression to this thought in that you had the honorary sword of the German Reich given to me. I take it as a symbol of soldierly loyalty and as a true sign of the friendly relationship of our countries.
  • Letter from Chiang Kai-shek to Adolf Hitler, 1936
• When I was young, I did not try my best to learn how to conduct myself. As a result I have not done anything good for my parents and I do not know how to be kind to my children. I regret that....I miss Ching-kuo very much. I am bad because I am not taking good care of him. I am sorry about that....Madame Sun wanted me to release Naulen [a detained Polish Communist charged with running the CCP's regional bureaus from Shanghai] in return for the repatriation of Ching-kuo, [but] I would rather let Ching-kuo be exiled or killed in Soviet Russia than exchange a criminal for him. God decides whether you will have an heir and whether your nation will be subjugated. How dare I do anything about it. What I want is not to violate the law, betray my country, harm the reputation of my parents, or waste my life. It is not worth it to sacrifice the interests of the country for the sake of my son.
  • Jay Taylor (2000). The Generalissimo's son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the revolutions in China and Taiwan. Harvard University Press. p. 59. ISBN 0674002873. Retrieved on 2010-06-28. 
  • Jonathan Fenby (2005). Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 205. ISBN 0786714840. Retrieved on 2010-06-28. 
• I deeply wish that my son could come back. However...I would rather have no offspring than sacrifice our nation's interests.
  • Jay Taylor (2000). The Generalissimo's son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the revolutions in China and Taiwan. Harvard University Press. p. 103. ISBN 0674002873. Retrieved on 2010-06-28. 
• How would I differ from the Communists...if I were to imitate the so-called fascists . . . of Italy?
  • Chiang voicing doubts in a letter to a Chinese newspaper about the ideologies of the Axis Powers, signaling his growing disillusionment with them
  • Jay Taylor (2009). The Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China. Harvard University Press. p. 74. ISBN 9780674054714. 
• If we do not weed the present body of corruption, bribery, perfunctoriness, and ignorance, and establish instead a clean and efficient administration, the day will soon come when the revolution will be started against us.
  • Chiang on the state of corruption within the Kuomintang which he occasionally tried though never really succeeded in purging from the party's ranks
  • Daniel Kurtz-Phelan (2018). The China Mission: George Marshall's Unfinished War, 1945-1947. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780674054714. 
• Which are you, my subordinate or my enemy? If my subordinate, you should obey my orders. If you are my enemy you should kill me without delay. You should choose either of these two steps, but say nothing more for I will not listen to you...My head may be cut off, my body may be mutilated, but I must preserve the honour of the Chinese people, and must uphold law and order....If I allow the honour of the 400,000,000 people whom I represent to be degraded by accepting any demands to save my own life, we should lose our national existence....Why don't you kill me now?
  • Chiang initially refusing to submit to Zhang Xueliang's demands that he cooperate with the Communists in order to fight the Japanese
  • Hannah Pakula (2009). The Last Empress - Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern China. Simon & Schuster. p. 255. ISBN 9781439154236. 
• Let our people realize to the full the meaning of 'the limit of endurance,' and the extent of sacrifice implied. For once that stage is reached, we can only sacrifice and fight to the bitter end.
  • Chiang Kai-shek's famous July 1937 speech at Lushan at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War
• Thinking about the people I admire in this life, you, my lady, are the only one...recalling the hundred battles fought on the front and my own type of heroism, I cannot but feel that so-called achievement is just an illusion or a dream. And yet, my lady, your talent, beauty and virtue are not things I can ever forget. The only question is: what does my lady think of this retired soldier who has been abandoned by the whole world?
  • Chiang's letter to his wife Soong Meiling
  • Jonathan Fenby (2005). Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 14. ISBN 9780786739844. 

1940s

• We must unite to exterminate these Japanese bandits, before we can be safe.
  • The Battle of China, 1944
• Mao is a strange man whose personality is like the Tao, sometimes yin and sometimes yang; he has a soft-as-cotton outer layer, but at the same time has sharp needles hiding inside... I do not think he will achieve anything, in the end, he will be crushed inside my palm.
  • Diary entry, 1945
• The Japanese are a disease of the skin, the Communists are a disease of the heart.
  • Personal interview with Theodore H. White in June 1941, in In Search of History (1978)
• If and when the war starts, no matter where or whoever you are or if you are young or old, Northerner or Southerner, you all have the responsibility of protecting our home and repelling the enemy, you all must have the will to achieve ultimate sacrifice.
• We must use every inch of our blood to take back every inch of our land, you ten thousand youths and soldiers.
• The sky cannot have two suns.
  • To his aides on Mao Zedong, August 1945.
  • Micheal P. Riccards (2000). The Presidency and the Middle Kingdom: China, the United States, and Executive Leadership. Lexington Books. p. 117. ISBN 0739101293. Retrieved on 2022-08-13. 
  • Ross Terill (2000). Mao: A Biography. Stanford University Press. p. 211. ISBN 0804729212. Retrieved on 2022-08-13. 
• These Japanese troops slaughtered every man, woman and child in those areas — let me repeat — these Japanese troops slaughtered every man, woman and child in those areas.
  • Cable to FDR on the w:Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign

• Right will triumph over might-this great truth which we never once doubted has been finally vindicated. Our faith in justice through black and hopeless days and eight long years of struggle has today been rewarded. The historical mission of our National Revolution has at last been fulfilled....We have won the victory. But it is not yet the final victory. The universal power of righteousness has not simply achieved one more triumph. We and the people of all the world fervently hope that this war may be the last war in which civilized nations engage. Permanent world peace can be established only upon the basis of democratic freedom and equality and the brotherly co-operation of all nations and races. We must march forward on the great road of democracy and unity and give our collective support to the ideals of lasting peace. I urge all of our friends of the Allied nations and all my own countrymen to face the fact that the peace we have gained by arms is not necessarily the beginning of permanent peace. Only if our enemies are conquered on the battleground of reason, only if they repent thoroughly of their folly and become lovers of world peace like ourselves, can we hope to satisfy the yearning for peace and achieve the final goal of the great war that has just ended
  • Chiang Kai-shek's Victory Speech over Japan on August 15, 1945

• We have...repeatedly declared that we were only opposed to the Japanese militarists and harbored no enmity for the Japanese people.... While we must insist on the strict compliance with the term of the surrender, we must not look forward to retaliation, and much less shall we impose insults on the innocent civilians. We can only sympathize with their plight—coerced and misled as they have been by their Fascist and Nazi leaders, and hope that they will repent of their mistake and sins. If, on the other hand, we attempt to retaliate with atrocity for the past atrocities of the enemy, and repay with insult their mistaken superiority complex in the past, then the spirit of revenge shall be interminably perpetuated—a development far from the intentions of our righteousness-loving Army.
  • Chiang's speech in August 1945 in which he appealed to China's people not to seek retaliation against the ordinary Japanese people
  • Chiang Kai-shek, Statements and Speeches by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (August-October, 1945), p. 3.

• Seeing the Republic of China on the verge of death, I am moving ahead with tears in my eyes. There is only one road ahead, but it is torturous. Don’t fear. The road has been blazed with blood by our revolutionary forefathers. We must move forward today – forward, never retreat. Around us is darkness; ahead of us are dangers. With a ray of hope and my allegiance to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, I will continue my struggle without fail.
  • Chiang during his last visit to the Shanghai before he and his remaining forces fled to Taiwan
  • Jonathan Fenby (2005). Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 63. ISBN 9780786739844. 

1950s

• If when I die, I am still a dictator, I will certainly go down into the oblivion of all dictators. If, on the other hand, I succeed in establishing a truly stable foundation for a democratic government, I will live forever in every home in China.
  • Wei-Bin Zhang (2003). Taiwan's Modernization: Americanization and Modernizing Confucian Manifestations. World Scientific, 2003. p. 177. ISBN 9814486132. Retrieved on 23 May 2021. 
• As long as we have Taiwan, the Communists can never win.
  • As quoted in Gallery: The Battle That Saved Taiwan, historynet

About Chiang Kai-shek

• Your Excellency, the American people share your abiding faith in the ultimate triumph of justice over evil. We look confidently toward the day when the great people of China will again take their place in the struggle for those principles of freedom and progress espoused by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen.
  • John F. Kennedy; Message to President Chiang Kai-shek on the 50th Anniversary of the Chinese Revolution Online, The American Presidency Project; 9 October 1961

• The only world leader who sympathised with Indian aspirations at that time was Chiang Kai-shek of China whom Pandit Nehru had denounced as a reactionary tool of Western imperialism only a few years earlier.
  • quoted in S.R.Goel, GENESIS AND GROWTH OF NEHRUISM , Vol I

• You and I are men of history / No little men chattering about minor affairs! / Go, let go, my honoured friend / Do not look back.
  • Mao Zedong's solemn eulogy paying his last respects to Chiang after receiving news of his death, having recognized him as a lifetime rival worthy of his grudging respect
  • Hannah Pakula (2009). The Last Empress - Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern China. Simon & Schuster. p. 656. ISBN 9781439154236.