1975

Kuomintang

Chiang Kai-Shek

It is now 1975 and I am 87 years old and I’m dying. My heart is weak. My only hope is that people will appreciate the establishment of Kuomintang. It marked the end of imperialism and the beginning of a new and better China. I attended school at Ningbo where I studied law and politics; I am tired of China being at constant war amongst warlords. I want to be part of a revolutionary movement to overthrow the declining Qing Dynasty, if not, China will continue to be taken advantage of by the imperialistic European Powers. Our loss in the Opium Wars has weakened China. Something had to be done. We knew we had to set up our own Chinese Republic. I had first decided to go to the Baoding Military Academy in Japan to start a military career. I have also joined the Tongmenghui which is a secret movement organized by Sun Yat-Sen. We wanted to establish a republic and distribute land equally among the people (socialism). Our political party joined with others, we had all combined to become the Kuomintang (KMT) also known as the Nationalist Party. Sung Chioo-Jen and Sun Yat are the leaders of the KMT. We once successfully overthrew the Qing Dynasty and had gained a majority for the First National Assembly, establishing a modern Chinese republic. The Revolutionary Alliance was a gathering of several Chinese groups whose members went to Japan to study at their universities. An unfortunate turn of events, Yuan Shikai who is president after helping us get rid of the emperor has had one of our party leaders assassinated, Sung Jiaren. We wanted to obtain the majority of seats in parliament so that the legislative branch could control Yuan Shikai. Song Jiaren won 269 of the 596 seats. He was expected to become premier of the republics new single-part cabinet and establish the Chinese constitution so it was closer and alike to the British. Yuan was not going to let this happen, he assassinated Song in Shanghai in March of 1913. All that rebelled against him were going to have a rough time. In 1919 I returned to China with Dr. Sun because Yuan Sikai has died. We needed to grow KMT again. And in 1923 KMT had now accepted aid form the Soviet Union since no other international nation would recognize the United States. The same year I went to Moscow to study political studies and techniques so I was able to become a stronger lieutenant under Dr. Sun. As the KMT and The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were cooperating with each other with the help of our soviet advisors we had all adopted Sun’s political platform: Three principles of the people, which are Nationalism, democracy and livelihood of the people. He developed these principles while in Japan. The principle for nationalism calls for the Han Chinese to overthrow Manchus, who ruled them under the Qing Dynasty. Democracy referred to a more republican ruled government. The principle of livelihood refers to the ownership of land and the means of production to help the common people. Sadly, in 1925 Dr. Sun had passed away but this made me the KMT leader, I wanted to continue the Sun’s work but I no longer wanted the communist influence that was getting too strong. I wanted them expelled. I wanted to start the Northern Expedition with our revolutionary forces and unify our country. This was difficult because the communists have staged an uprising in Nanjing. In 1927 there was a civil war between the KMT and the CCP. Thank goodness both of our left and right wing KMT’s were able to unite and defeat the communists. We were strong enough to set up the National Government of China in Najing and Beijing. We had succeeded in reuniting China! The communist bases were now of out southern and central China. I had the goal in 1935 to rid our country of communists. Of course, right as I think things were going smoothly, I was kidnapped. I had been kidnapped by people within my own KMT party and CCP leaders. I had given in to their requests and I made an agreement to a united front against Japan. And two years later after being kidnapped we were in the middle of World War II, but China now had the new allied United States and Great Britain. Our party now controls most of the urban areas but I still fear the warlords and communists in the country if we are losing support among the peasants. During 1945 to 1949 we were now in a full-scale civil war against the communists again. I was unable to control the corruption within the KMT and the communists within China. I also sensed that the United States and Great Britain were no longer backing our Nationalist party because they knew we were going to lose. They have suspended aid. The war had weakened KMT support. Going into the 50’s Mao Zedong and his people’s liberation Army had gained control over Mainland China. I was forced to flee to the island of Taiwan where I chose to set-up my Nationalist government. I put in place temporary provisions where I had total authoritarian leadership until we knew we were able to return to the mainland and oust the communists. Luckily in 1950 I was elected by the National assembly to be the President of the Republic of China and I claimed sovereignty over all of China. In 1950 I choose to develop China into a powerful economic power and encourage economic development. I had yet to defeat the communists on our mainland at this point. In 1971, terrible news arose. The United Nations only recognized the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong as the only representative of China. We (Taiwan) had lost our seat and representation.
"We live in the present, we dream of the future and we learn eternal truths from the past"

KMT continues to be very active in The Republic of China on Taiwan. It is known as the pan-blue coalition favoring Chinese reunification; it does not want Taiwan independence.