Chiang Ching-kuo

Chiang Ching-kuo (left) with his father Chiang Kai-shek , 1948.

Chiang Ching-kuo ( Chinese  蔣經國 , Pinyin Jiǎng Jīngguó , W.-G. Chiang Ching-kuo ; born April 27, 1910 in Xikou , Zhejiang Province , Chinese Empire ; † January 13, 1988 in Taipei , Taiwan ) was a national Chinese politician the Kuomintang . He was the son of Chiang Kai-shek .

Chiang Ching-kuo became Prime Minister in 1972 under his father's presidency and President of the Republic of China three years after his death in 1978 . He remained in this position until his death in 1988.

Life on the mainland

Chiang Ching-kuo was born in Qikou, Zhejiang Province , the son of Chiang Kai-shek's first marriage and raised by his grandmother. His sister is Chien-hua. He was evicted from middle school for participating in student demonstrations and was detained for 14 days in Beijing for the same reason.

In 1925, at the age of 16, Chiang Ching-kuo went to Moscow to study with his father's permission. There he entered the Sun Yat-sen University , which was specially set up for Chinese students, and became a member of the Communist Youth League .

When his father Chiang Kai-shek terminated the Kuomintang's alliance with the Chinese Communist Party in 1927, Chiang Ching-kuo, who had just graduated, was prevented from returning to China. He only escaped deportation to Siberia by pointing out that he was in poor health. However, the Chinese communists urged the Comintern to take action against Chiang's son. In 1933 Chiang Ching-kuo had to work in the gold mine in the Siberian town of Alta, but was soon transferred as a technician to the Ural steel factory in Sverdlovsk . In 1934 he became the deputy director of this factory. Here he met the Russian Faina Ipatjewna Wachrewa , whom he married in 1935.

In 1936, Chiang Ching-kuo was forced by the Comintern to write to his mother that he had become a communist and did not want to return to China. This letter was then promptly published in China.

In April 1937, Chiang Ching-kuo was allowed to return to China after a twelve-year absence because Stalin wanted to support Chiang Kai-shek in the Sino-Japanese war. He joined the Jiangxi Province government in 1938 and made a name for himself as a tough but fair administrative officer.

In 1943, Chiang Kai-shek brought his son to Chongqing to the seat of the national government. This began his career in the Kuomintang.

Taiwan

In 1949, when the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan , Chiang Ching-kuo was commissioned to bring the central bank's gold treasure to safety.

In the 1950s, Chiang Ching-kuo became the head of the Ministry of Defense's political department and chief of the secret police. He also became a member of the Kuomintang's reform committee, making him one of the most powerful figures in Taiwan. In 1952 he became a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang.

In 1953, shortly after the end of the Korean War , Chiang Ching-kuo traveled to the United States at the invitation of the US Department of Defense, where he also met President Eisenhower . In 1954 he became Deputy Secretary General of the National Defense Council, and in 1958 Minister without Portfolio .

In 1963, at the invitation of the US State Department, Chiang made his second trip to the United States, where he met President Kennedy . In 1965 he became Secretary of Defense and received another invitation to the United States from his American colleague McNamara .

In 1969, Chiang Ching-kuo became Deputy Prime Minister. During his fourth visit to the USA on April 24, 1970, he was assassinated in New York, but he survived it unharmed. In 1971, Chiang became Prime Minister.

Presidency

Three weeks after the death of his father Chiang Kai-shek on April 5, 1975, the Kuomintang elected Chiang Ching-kuo as its chairman, while the previous vice-president, Yen Chia-kan, constitutionally took over the presidency until the end of the current term of office in 1978. On March 21, 1978, Chiang was elected President of the Republic of China. In December 1978, US President Jimmy Carter announced that the US would withdraw diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China and transfer it to the People's Republic of China . In the period that followed, the Taiwanese democracy movement , to which Chiang and the Kuomintang gradually gave in in the 1980s, grew stronger.

Chiang created the Economic Planning and Development Council to coordinate economic development in Taiwan. On May 20, 1984, he was re-elected by the National Assembly . Martial law was repealed in 1987 and freedom of the press was granted. In July 1987 there was also an easing of the currency restrictions. Starting in November 1987, Taiwanese citizens were allowed to visit their relatives in mainland China.

Chiang, who had suffered from diabetes for many years, died on January 13, 1988 of heart and lung failure.

literature

• Jay Taylor: The Generalissimo's Son. Chiang Ching-kuo and the Revolutions in China and Taiwan . Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) / London 2000, ISBN 0-674-00287-3 .

• Oskar Weggel : History of Taiwan. From the 17th century until today. Edition global, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-922667-08-7 .

• Thomas Weyrauch: China's neglected republic. Volume 2, Longtai, Heuchelheim / Giessen 2011, ISBN 978-3-938946-15-2 .

• Thomas Weyrauch: China's Democratic Traditions from the 19th Century to the Present in Taiwan. Longtai, Heuchelheim / Giessen 2014, ISBN 978-3-938946-24-4 .

• David E. Kaplan: Fires of the Dragon: Politics, Murder and the Kuomintang. Atheneum, New York 1992, ISBN 0-689-12066-4 . (About the 1984 murder of Henry Liu (Liu Yiliang alias Jiang Nan) in California allegedly commissioned by Chiang Ching-kuo . Translated into Chinese in 1993 under the Chinese title "龍 之 火", also used by Kaplan)

Web links

Commons : Chiang Ching-kuo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Chiang is the family name here, Ching-kuo is the first name.