Chiang Kai-shek’s disputed reputation in anglophone historiography

Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) (1887-1975), leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party, or the Kuomintang (KMT), remains the most controversial Chinese politician of the 20th century. It is also remarkable that until recently the extraordinarily copious English-language historiography of China could not show a well-researched, critical biography of the Chinese leader. Chiang’s reputation was fi rst established in the 1930s by sympathizers of the Chinese communists (eg. Edgar Snow and Harold Isaacs). The Second World War tended to enhance this favourable view. However, the communist victory in 1949 produced a wave of disillusionment with Chiang, which culminated in the highly critical judgment of the offi cial publication United States Relations with China (Washington 1949). This negative opinion was hardly modifi ed by subsequent revaluations of the achievements of the People’s Republic (eg. Chang Kia-ngau, John K. Chang, and Arthur N. Young). Their authors believed that Chiang Kai-shek’s ineptness resulted from his ignorance of economic issues. In the 1970s negative judgments became still harsher. A new school of historians led by Lloyd E. Eastman found Chiang corrupt, anti-democratic, and even not averse to fascism. Hung-mao Tien, Suzanne Pepper and Frank Dorn stressed his incompetence both as a politician and man of war. Practically everybody agreed that the achievements of the KMT regime were illusory. In Sterling Seagreave study, in many ways the most representative work of the new school, Chiang is denounced as a political criminal with links to the Chinese mafi a. A more balanced image of Chiang began to emerge in the early 1980s in the work of Robert Bedeski (Canada), Donald Gillin (USA) and Hans van de Ven (UK). They portray him as a statesman who tried to rebuild and modernize China. His efforts failed on the mainland, not least because of disloyalty of his American allies, yet proved to be highly successful on the island of Taiwan. However, the most impressive statement of such a well-balanced appraisal of Chiang Kai-shek’s political career has arrived with The Generalissimo (Cambridge, Mass. 2009), the fi rst full-length critical biography of the Chinese leader written by Jay Taylor.