Word: chiangs
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Meanwhile the U.S., deeply moved by China's suffering under the Japanese onslaught, came to idolize Chiang and especially his wife. An enrapt Wendell Willkie spoke of her combination of "brains, persuasiveness and moral force ... with wit and charm, a generous and understanding heart, a gracious and beautiful manner, and a burning conviction." Others resented her imperious will and her attempts to influence U.S. wartime strategy on Chiang's behalf. At that time the generalissimo wanted the U.S. to place less emphasis on the war against Germany and more on the fight against Japan; he sought more arms...
...million, recruited largely from the peasantry. The Nationalists, with 3 million combat troops and ready access to U.S. ships and aircraft, easily won the postwar race to reoccupy the one-third of China that had been under Japanese control. Yet, three years after the start of the civil war, Chiang was a refugee on Taiwan -vowing to recover the mainland with the help of 2 million Nationalist followers who had joined him on the island...
What had happened? After launching a classic, successful guerrilla war, the Communists had consolidated their base areas in the countryside while Chiang's troops remained isolated in the cities. Meanwhile, as inflation soared and long-delayed reforms did not materialize, popular support of the Nationalists vanished. Basically, Chiang and his Kuomintang had failed to address themselves to the essential problems of China: rural poverty, illiteracy, unjust taxation, usury and excessive land rents. His idea of revolution was a conservative one: the New Life Movement, which sought to revive filial piety and other Confucian virtues, appealed only to the established...
...Chiang's supporters in the U.S. blamed his defeat on the Truman Administration, which had rejected the Gimo's appeals for a massive increase in U.S. aid after the war and cut off support entirely after the Nationalists' flight to Taiwan. The flow resumed six months later at the outbreak of the Korean War, reaching a total of $4 billion before it was finally ended in 1965; Washington regarded Chiang as an important ally in the U.S. efforts to contain Communism in Asia...
...became older, Chiang turned many of the details of government over to his son Chiang Ching-kuo, now 64. Since being named Premier in 1972, the son has taken effective control of the government. Tough and practical-minded, he has cracked down on corruption within his father's old guard and has opened higher positions within the Kuomintang's hierarchy to Taiwanese. He has quietly shelved his father's quixotic crusade for retaking the mainland, insisting instead that the people of China will some day rise up and overthrow the Communists. Former President Nixon...