What Concerned Chiang? A Survey and Analysis of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Wartime Diaries

Abstract

Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) has been one of the most controversial figures in Modern China since the early-1940s. One of the key issues in the controversy is whether Chiang paid more attention to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) than to the Japanese during China’s war of resistance. This article attempts to answer this question through statistical analyzes of Chiang’s wartime diaries. Together with the question are Chiang’s considerations behind his critical decisions that would finally collapse the Republican China in 1949. The article demonstrates that the CCP received far less attention from Chiang than the issue of finance, let alone other issues. The times that the CCP received Chiang’s extraordinary attention was when it was conducting provoking operations against the Nationalist government.

Keywords:

• Chiang Kai-shek
• China’s war with Japan
• statistical analysis
• Soviet Union
• Britain
• United States
• Chinese Communist Party
• Operation Ichigo

Acknowledgement

I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Tai-chun Kuo and the Hoover Institution for their financial support to complete the research of this article in 2013. My thanks are also extended to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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9 Jay Taylor, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009); Yang Tianshi’s Zhao xun zhenshi de Jiang Jieshi: Jiang Jieshi riji jiedu (An interpretation of Chiang Kai-shek’s diaries) (Beijing: Huawen chubanshe, 2010); He Husheng, Banian kangzhan zhong de Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek during the Eight-Year War of Resistance against the Japanese Invasion)(Taipei: Taihai chubanshe, 2011); Fang Yonggang, Jiang Jieshi zhuan (A Biography of Chiang Kai-shek) (Beijing: Huawen chubanshe, 2012); Huang Daoxuan and Chen Tiejian’s Jiang Jieshi: Yige lixingzhe de sixiang ziyuan (Chiang Kai-shek: A practitioner’s intellectual sources (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 2012); Emily Hill ed., Chiang Kai-shek: The Critical Years, 1935–1950 (under review by University of British Columbia Press).

10 “中国国民党中央执行委员会提: ‘中国国民党抗战时期纲领草稿’” (“The Agenda of the Chinese Nationalist Party during the War of Resistance’, submitted by the Central Committee of the Chinese Nationlist Party, April 1, 1938),” in Qin Xiaoyi (秦孝儀) eds., 中華民國重要史料初編 (Important Historical Documents of Republic of China), Vol. 4 (Taipei: Guomindang Zhongyang Zhixing Weiyuanhui Dangshi Weiyuanhui, 1988): 4.39–44; “蒋总裁在中国国民党临时全国代表大会闭幕典礼致词,”(The Speech by President Chiang Kai-shek in the opening of the Provisional National Congress of the Chinese Nationalist Party), April 1, 1938,” ibid., 51–53 and “中国国民党临时全国代表大会宣言,”(The Declaration of the Provisional National Party of the Chinese Nationalist Party), April 1, 1938,” ibid., 4.53–63.

11 Chiang diaries (Yearly Review, 1938) (Box 40, Folder 2).

12 Ibid. (October 25, 1942) (Box 42, Folder 5); Xi Ping (忻平), “论新县制” (On the new county system), The Journal of Studies of China’s Resistance War Against Japan, 1991 (02),182–211; Li Weizhong (李伟中), “南京国民政府的保甲制新探: 20世纪三四十年代中国乡村制度的变迁” (A new exploration into the bao-jia system during the Nanjing Period: The institutional transition of rural China during the 1930-40s), 社会科学研究 (Social Science Research), 2002 (04), 119–123；Cao Tianzong (曹天忠), “新县制“政教合一的演进和背景” (The context and evolution of the integrated systems of administration and education in the new country institution), 近代史研究 (Modern Chinese History Studies), 2008 (04), 74–91

13 Chiang diaries (Weekly Reflection, January 1944) (Box 43, Folder 13).

14 Ibid. (December 7, 1943) (Box 43, Folder 11).

15 Ibid. (December 17 and 18) (Box 43, Folder 11).

16 Ibid. (January 11, 1944) (Box 43, Folder 13).

17 Ibid. (May 26, 1938) (Box 39, Folder 4).

18 Ibid. (Weekly Reflection, May 1940) (Box 40, Folder 21).

19 Ibid. (July 19, 1940) (Box 40, Folder 23).

20 Ibid. (July 7, 1940) (Box 40, Folder 23); Ibid. (August 2, 14, 26, Weekly Reflection and Monthly Planning) (Box 40, Folder 24).

21 Ibid. (June 24, 1941) (Box 41, Folder 12).

22 Ibid. (July 2, 1941) (Box 41, Folder 13).

23 Ibid. (July 14, 1941) (Box 41, Folder 13).

24 Ibid. (July 17, 1941) (Box 41, Folder 13).

25 Ibid. (August 1, 1941) (Box 41, Folder 14).

26 Ibid.

27 .Ibid (November 24, 1941) (Box 41, Folder 17).

28 Ibid. (Monthly Reflection, June 1943) (Box 43, Folder 5).

29 Ibid. (May 24, 1943, Monthly Reflection) (Box 43, Folder 4).

30 Ibid. (Monthly Reflection and Monthly Plan, July 1943) (Box 43, Folder 6).

31 Ibid. (Weekly Plan, March 13, 16, 17, 1944) (Box 43, Folder 16).

32 Ibid. (October 5, 1944) (Box 43, Folder 22).

33 Ibid. (Monthly Reflection, October 1944) (Box 43, Folder 22).

34 Ibid. (Monthly Reflection, November 1944) (Box 43, Folder 23); Xue Xiantian (薛衔天), 民国时期中苏关系史, 1917–1949) (The Sino-Soviet Relation during the Republican Period, 1917–1949), Volume 2 (Beijing: Zhongyang dangshi chubanshe, 2009), p.133.

35 Chiang diaries (Monthly Reflection, March 1945) (Box 44, Folder 4).

36 Ibid. (July 23, 1943, Zalu) (Box 43, Folder 11).

37 Sherman Xiaogang Lai, “A War Within the War: The Road to the New Fourth Army Incident in January 1941,” Journal of Chinese Military History 2.1(2013), 1–27.

38 Wang Chaoguang, ed., 蒋介石的人际网络 (Chiang Kai-shek’s Interpersonal Relationships: Perspectives Across the Strait) (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2011); Huang Daoxuan and Chen Tiejian’s Jiang Jieshi: Yige lixingzhe de sixiang ziyuan (Chiang Kai-shek: A practitioner’s intellectual sources) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 2012).

39 Anthony Best, Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbor: Avoiding War in East Asia, 1936–41 (London: Routledge, 1995).

40 Lai, op. cit., 21; Chiang Kai-shek diaries (Weekly Reflection, Second Week of January 1941), (Box 41, Folder 7); Cuikefu (Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov), Zai Hua shi ming (My Mission in China) (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1980), 40.

41 Chiang diaries (Zalu, December 1941, Volume 1) (Box 42, Folder 4).

42 Ibid. (Parts Two and Three, Volume Two, 1940),(Box 41, Folders 3 and 4]).

43 Ibid. (Monthly Reflection, June 1945), (Box 44, Folder 8).

44 Ibid. (Monthly Reflection, February 1944) (Box 43, Folder 14).

45 Yung-fa Chen, “Chiang Kai-shek and the Japanese Ichigo Offensives,” presentation at “New Approaches and Methods in the Study of the War of Resistance against Japan (1931–1945)” 6 January 2012, China’s War with Japan Programme, University of Oxford (funded by the Leverhulme Trust).

46 Alexander Pantsov, Mao: The Real Story (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2012).

47 Sherman Xiaogang Lai, A Springboard to Victory: Shandong Province and the Chinese Communist Military and Financial Strength, 1937–1945 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p.230.

48 Chiang Kai-shek diaries (Monthly Reflection), July 1944) (Box 43, Folder 19).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sherman Xiaogang Lai

Sherman Xiaogang Lai is affiliated with Queen’s University at Kingston. His publications include “’The Devil is in the Details’: Mao Zedong Before and After the Luochuan Conference in August 1937” (2021) and A Springboard to Victory: Shandong Province and the Chinese Communist Military and Financial Strength, 1937–1945 (2011).