Chiang Kai-shek
His presidency of the Republic of China, which ran from 1948 until his death in 1975, stands as the defining chapter of Chiang Kai-shek's long political and military career.
Born on October 31, 1887, in Xikou, Chiang grew up as a subject of the Qing dynasty and went on to train at the Baoding Military Academy. That military education fed into a career that saw him rise to head the Nationalist government from 1925, a position he held for more than two decades. He led China through World War II, and when the Nationalist cause suffered defeat in the Chinese Civil War, he oversaw the relocation of the government to Taiwan. It was there that he assumed the presidency of the Republic of China in 1948, a role he held until he died in Taipei on April 5, 1975. Throughout his career he worked in Chinese and Wu Chinese.
The scope of his international recognition was considerable. He received Time's Person of the Year, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Order of the Aztec Eagle, the Order of the Blue Sky and White Sun, the Order of the Cloud and Banner, the Order of the Liberator General San Martín, and the Order of the Condor of the Andes. He died in Taipei on April 5, 1975.
Quotes by Chiang Kai-shek
China not only fights for her own independence, but also for the liberation of every oppressed nation. For us, the Atlantic Charter and President Roosevelt's proclamation of the Four Freedoms for all peoples are corner-stones of our fighting faith.
Prayer is more than meditation. In meditation the source of strength is one's self. When one prays he goes to a source of strength greater than his own.
The idea of universal brotherhood is innate in the catholic nature of Chinese thought; it was the dominant concept of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, whom events have proved time and again to be not a visionary but one of the world's greatest realists.
For a period of 17 years - from the age of 9 until I was 25 years old - my mother never spent a day free from domestic difficulties.
The modern world is one wherein every nation has to develop the strength of which its citizens are capable. The independent status of the individual, his thoughts and actions become a thing of the past.
I should like very much to go to America. I have heard so much of the great industrial and economic development of that great land, and I wish to see things for myself.
Contempt for China on the part of the enemy is his weak point. Knowledge of this weak point is our strong point.
We Chinese are instinctively democratic, and Dr. Sun's objective of universal suffrage evokes from all Chinese a ready and unhesitating response.
Externally China desires independence, internally she seeks to maintain her existence as a nation; China therefore strives to loose the bonds that bind her people, and to complete the establishment of a new State.