Statesman

It is foreign admirers who often claim that he is a statesman. During his twenty year reign, scarcely one Chinese writer of any standing had anything good to say about him. 'Chiang was not a statesman, he was a despot benevolent or otherwise, and he felt all the effects of one. In the field of political tactics, he was a master, in strategy — an opportunist; in government — a fumbler; in war — a fool. With intrigue, treachery, blackmail, terror and Confuician maxims, he rode to power. A coup d'etat against the Kuomintang of Dr. Sun Yat Sen brought the party to his feet in 1926. The slaughter worders delivered the whole nation into his hands in 1927. Once in power, Chiang kept there by playing one opponent off against another; right against left, reactionary against liberal, warlord against Communist, secret service against students, gestapo against merchant party against Government ...'

Finally Chiang betrayed his country to the Japanese when he stubbornly insisted on fighting the Communists instead of uniting with them to fight the invaders. He instituted senseless purges resulting in the massacre of thousands of innocent lives, taking its toll of students, teachers, professors, and thousands who were not in the slightest way concerned with the Communists. In the end millions turned against him in revolution and joined the Communists. Belden in writing about Chiang Kai-Shek compressed his story into one chapter, but the rest of the book is complimentary to it. The man is more famed for his negative qualities that anything else, as the book reveals. It is fitting to remember Chiang by a book printed in 1949 — the year the man finally ceased to be of political significance.