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Who Lost China? Chiang Kai-shek Testifies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Lloyd E. Eastman
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Extract

“To tell the truth, never, in China or abroad, has there been a revolutionary party as decrepit (tuitang) and degenerate (fubai) as we [the Guomindang] are today; nor one as lacking spirit, lacking discipline, and even more, lacking standards of right and wrong as we are today. This kind of party should long ago have been destroyed and swept away!”1

Type
Research Note
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 88 , December 1981 , pp. 658 - 668
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1981

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References

1. Jiang Zongtong sixiang yanlunji (Collection of the Thoughts and Speeches of President Chiang) (Taipei, 1966), Vol. 19, p. 291. The author gratefully acknowledges the comments and criticisms on an earlier draft of this article by Professors John K. Fairbank (Harvard University), Thomas Krueger (University of Illinois), and Steven I. Levine (The American University).

2. United States Relations with China (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949), p. 238.Google Scholar

3. Jiang Zong'tong.Vol. 19, p. 241. See also Ibid.. p. 261.

4. Ibid. pp. 304–305.

5. Ibid., p.305.

6. Ibid.. p.243. See also Ibid.. p. 254.

7. Ibid.. p. 305.

8. Ibid.. p. 253.

9. Ibid.. p. 243.

10. Ibid.. p. 305.

11. Ibid.. p. 243.

12. Ibid.. pp. 240, 242.

13. Ibid.. p. 264.

14. Ibid.. p. 240.

15. Ibid.. p. 252.

16. Ibid.. pp. 258, 306.

17. Ibid.. p. 262.

18. Ibid.. p. 258.

19. Ibid.. p. 253.

20. Ibid.. p. 281.

21. Ibid.. pp. 290–91.

22. Ibid.. pp. 292, 303.

23. Ibid.. pp. 283, 302–303.

24. Ibid.. p. 283.

25. Shengfen, Cao, “Cong Xikou dao Chengdu” (“From Xikou to Chengdu”), Zhongwai zazhi (Kaleidoscope), Vol. II, No. 5 (November 1967), pp. 9–10Google Scholar; Chingkuo, Chiang, Calm in theEye of a Storm (Taipei, 1978), pp. 154–208.Google Scholar

26. Cao Shengfen “ Cong Xikou dao Chengdu,” p. 10.

27. Ibid.. p. 10.

28. Shoukong, Li, Zhongguo xiandai shi (Chinese Contemporary History) (Taipei, 4th edit. 1967), pp. 282–83.Google Scholar

29. Jiang Zhongtong, Vol. 19, pp. 379, 397; Ibid.. Vol. 20, p. 102.

30. Ibid..Vol.19, p.378. On poor organization of the army, see also Ibid.. p. 397.

31. Ibid.. p.379.

32. Ibid.. Vol. 20, p. 7. See alsoIbid.. Vol. 19, pp. 282, 380–81; Ibid.. Vol. 26, p. 35.

33. Ibid.. Vol. 19, p. 398.

34. United States Relations with China, p. 131; Tsou, Tang, America's Failure in China, 1941–50 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), pp. 341–42.Google Scholar

35. Jiang Zhongtong, Vol. 19, p. 388.

36. Ibid.. p. 400.

37. Zhongguo guomindang xianjieduan zhuzhang: zhuanti yanjiu ji (The Current Political Programme of the Chinese Guomindang: Collection of Special Studies) (printed by the Fourth Section of the Central Reform Commission; n.p., 1950), section A–7, pp. 1–4. I am grateful to Dr Jerome Cavanaugh, who brought this work to my attention and loaned me the copy from his large personal collection.

38. Guojun zhengzhi gongzuo zhidao yaodian (Important Points in the Direction of Political Work in the Army) (printed by the General Political Bureau of the Ministry of National Defence, n.p., 1950), p. 6. This work is located in the Bureau of Investigation Archives, Taiwan, No. 596.72/741.

39. United States Relations with China, p. 358. On Wedemeyer, see summary of his remarks made to the National Government in August 1947, in Ibid.. pp. 758–62.

40. Kai-shek, Chiang, Soviet Russia in China: A Summing-Up at Seventy (Taipei, 1969), p. 256Google Scholar. In the “Reform Programme of the Guomindang,” prepared by Chiang and adopted by the Central Standing Committee of the Guomindang in July 1950, Chiang placed what was for him a unique stress on the economic causes of defeat: “ the failure of the anti-communist war in the past four years was due to the fact that we have not put into effect the Principle of the People's Livelihood.” See Shieh, Milton J. T. (Comp.), The Kuomintang: Selected Historical Documents, 1894–1969 (New York: St. John's University Press, 1970). p. 215.Google Scholar

41. Readers interested in further examining this question might well start with the following: Latham, Earl, The Communist Controversy in Washington from the New Deal to McCarthy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; May, Gary, China Scapegoat: The Diplomatic Ordeal of John Carter Vincent (Washington, D.C.: New Republic Books, 1979)Google Scholar; Thomas, John N., The Institute of Pacific Relations: Asian Scholars and American Politics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Kahn, E. J. Jr, The China Hands: America's Foreign Service Officers and What Befell Them (New York: Penguin Books, 1976).Google Scholar

42. Latham, The Communist Controversy, p. 361.

43. Zhiming, Zhou, Taipingyang xue hui zeyang chumai Zhongguo (How the IPR Soldout China) (Taipei, 1968), author's preface, p. 9.Google Scholar

44. Guangdi, Chen, Zhonghua minguo fendou liushinian (The Chinese Republic's Sixty Years ofStruggle) (Taipei, [1972?]), introduction pp. 1–4.Google Scholar

45. Xiaowei, Chen, Weishema shiqu da lu (Why we Lost the Mainland) (Taipei, 1964)Google Scholar; Rongzhao, Guo, Meiguo Yaerda miyue yu Zhongguo (A Critical Study of the Yalta Agreement and Sino-American Relations) (Taipei, 1967)Google Scholar; Yufa, Zhang, Zhongguo xiandai Shi (Chinese Contemporary History) (Taipei, 1977).Google Scholar