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Chiang Kai-Shek[a] (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) and the Generalissimo of the National Revolutionary Army. He held these positions in mainland China from 1928 until 1949, when his nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party was defeated in the Chinese Civil War by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—thereafter, he led the remnant of the ROC government on the island of Taiwan until his death.
Born in Zhejiang, 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 help from the Soviets and the Chinese Communist Party, Chiang organized the military for Sun's Canton Nationalist Government and headed the Whampoa Military Academy. As 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 Northern Expedition, the KMT–CCP alliance broke down and Chiang massacred communists and KMT leftists inside the party, triggering a civil war with the CCP, which he eventually lost in 1949.
As the leader of the Republic of China during the Nanjing decade, Chiang sought to strike a difficult balance between modernizing China, while also devoting resources to defending the nation against the CCP, warlords, and the impending Japanese threat. Trying to avoid a war with Japan while hostilities with the CCP continued, he was kidnapped in the Xi'an Incident, and obliged to form an Anti-Japanese United Front with the CCP. Following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, he mobilized China for the Second Sino-Japanese War. For eight years, he led the war of resistance against a vastly superior enemy, mostly from the wartime capital Chongqing. As the leader of a major Allied power, Chiang met with British prime minister Winston Churchill and American president Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Cairo Conference to discuss terms for the Japanese surrender. When the Second World War ended, the Civil War with the communists (by then led by Mao Zedong) resumed. Chiang's nationalists were mostly defeated in a few decisive battles in 1948. In 1949, Chiang's government and army retreated to the island of Taiwan, where Chiang imposed martial law and persecuted critics during the White Terror. Presiding over a period of social reforms and economic prosperity, Chiang won five elections to six-year terms as President of the Republic of China in which he faced minimal opposition or was elected unopposed. Three years into his fifth term as president, and one year before the death of Mao, he died in 1975. He also held the position of director-general within the Kuomintang until his death. Chiang was one of the longest-serving non-royal heads of state in the 20th century and the longest-serving non-royal ruler of China, having held the post for 46 years.
