page_title: Chiang Kai-shek
section_title: Regime
hierarchical_section_title: Chiang Kai-shek / Rule / On Taiwan / Regime
caption_attribution_description: English: Double Ten Day Parade October 10, 1966. Les Duffin (SLK: 1962-63, 1964-66) 中文: 1966年雙十國慶典禮上的蔣中正總統 Bân-lâm-gú: 1966 nî Siang-si̍p kok-khìng tián-lé siōng ê Tsiúnn Tiong-tsìng tsóng-thóng.
context_page_description: Chiang Kai-shek, also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and romanized via Mandarin as Chiang Chieh-shih and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese nationalist politician, revolutionary and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1975, first in mainland China until 1949 and then in Taiwan until his death.
  Born in Chekiang Province, Chiang was a member of the Kuomintang and a lieutenant of Sun Yat-sen in the revolution to overthrow the Beiyang government and reunify China. With Soviet and communist help, Chiang organized the military for Sun's Canton Nationalist Government and headed the Whampoa Military Academy. Commander in chief of the National Revolutionary Army, he led the Northern Expedition from 1926 to 1928, before defeating a coalition of warlords and nominally reunifying China under a new Nationalist government. Midway through the campaign, the KMT–CPC alliance broke down and Chiang purged the communists inside the party, triggering a civil war with the CPC, which he eventually lost in 1949.
context_section_description: Despite the democratic constitution, the government under Chiang was a one-party state, consisting almost completely of mainlanders; the "Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion" greatly enhanced executive powers, and the goal of retaking mainland China allowed the KMT to maintain a monopoly on power and the prohibition of opposition parties. The government's official line for these martial law provisions stemmed from the claim that emergency provisions were necessary, since the Communists and KMT were still in a state of war. Seeking to promote Chinese nationalism, Chiang's government actively ignored and suppressed local cultural expression, even forbidding the use of local languages in mass media broadcasts or during class sessions. As a result of Taiwan's anti-government uprising in 1947, known as the February 28 incident, the KMT-led political repression resulted in the death or disappearance of over 30,000 Taiwanese intellectuals, activists, and people suspected of opposition to the KMT.
  The first decades after the Nationalists moved the seat of government to the province of Taiwan are associated with the organized effort to resist Communism known as the "White Terror", during which about 140,000 Taiwanese were imprisoned for their real or perceived opposition to the Kuomintang. Most of those prosecuted were labeled by the Kuomintang as "bandit spies" (匪諜), meaning spies for Chinese Communists, and punished as such.
  Under Chiang, the government recognized limited civil liberties, economic freedoms, property rights (personal and intellectual) and other liberties. Despite these restrictions, free debate within the confines of the legislature was permitted. Under the pretext that new elections could not be held in Communist-occupied constituencies, the National Assembly, Legislative Yuan, and Control Yuan members held their posts indefinitely. The Temporary Provisions also allowed Chiang to remain as president beyond the two-term limit in the Constitution. He was reelected by the National Assembly as president four times—doing so in 1954, 1960, 1966, and 1972.
  Believing that corruption and a lack of morals were key reasons that the KMT lost mainland China to the Communists, Chiang attempted to purge corruption by dismissing members of the KMT accused of graft. Some major figures in the previous mainland Chinese government, such as H. H. Kung and T. V. Soong, exiled themselves to the United States. Although politically authoritarian and, to some extent, dominated by government-owned industries, Chiang's new Taiwanese state also encouraged economic development, especially in the export sector. A popular sweeping Land Reform Act, as well as American foreign aid during the 1950s, laid the foundation for Taiwan's economic success, becoming one of the Four Asian Tigers.
  Chiang personally had the power to review the rulings of all military tribunals which during the martial law period tried civilians as well. In 1950 Lin Pang-chun and two other men were arrested on charges of financial crimes and sentenced to 3-10 years in prison. Chiang reviewed the sentences of all three and ordered them executed instead. In 1954 Changhua monk Kao Chih-te and two others were sentenced to 12 years in prison for providing aid to accused communists, Chiang sentenced them to death after reviewing the case. This control over the decision of military tribunals violated the ROC constitution.
  After Chiang's death, the next president, Chiang's son, Chiang Ching-kuo, and Chiang Ching-kuo's successor, Lee Teng-hui a native Taiwanese, would, in the 1980s and 1990s, increase native Taiwanese representation in the government and loosen the many authoritarian controls of the early era of ROC control in Taiwan.
caption: Chiang presiding over the 1966 Double Ten celebrations
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0", "Image DateTime": "2010:03:15 17:39:48", "Image ExifOffset": "163", "Thumbnail Tag 0x8FFF": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x0FFF": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x71FF": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0xE3FF": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x9BFF": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x61FF": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x53FF": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0xF3FF": "[]", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "787", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "527"}