The diaries of dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) have recently been made public. At a time when the Chinese government is intensifying its efforts to unify Taiwan with China, Chinese academics have used the diaries to paint a new, prettier, image of Chiang.
In doing so, they have changed the image of him as a bandit during the rule of Mao Zedong (毛澤東) into that of a saint, using random comments from the diaries to show, for example, that Chiang opposed the idea of the US using atom bombs against China.
These developments are in stark contrast to an incident just three years ago when the head of the history department at China’s Tsinghua University did not recognize the name “Chiang Kai-shek” referred to and translated it into Chang Kaishen (常凱申) in Mandarin.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
Some Chinese academics who have read Chiang’s diaries have used fragments of entries from before 1954 in an attempt to prove that Chiang opposed the US using nuclear weapons to help him reclaim China. However, these entries are just random thoughts, a form of self-dialogue, and not an official record of him opposing or refusing the use of nuclear weapons.
During former US president Dwight Eisenhower’s administration, the US did have a contingency plan to use atomic bombs to respond to a Chinese attack, as the brinkmanship strategy emphasized the use of all military power available to stop attacks by other nations. While this hints at the possible use of atomic bombs, it was only part of a deterrence strategy.
In reality, the US went to great lengths to avoid using atomic bombs. At the end of 1953, a policy approved by Eisenhower stated that unless the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) made further attacks, it would be unacceptable to use US military force to overthrow the CCP government or help the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government do so, because such a policy would involve atomic bombs.
nuclear option
In 1958, Chiang talked with then-US secretary of state John Foster Dulles. Their conversation included a piece of counter-evidence: Dulles said nobody in the US Army believed traditional weaponry was enough to keep the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army from attacking Kinmen and that nuclear weapons were the only feasible option. Dulles also asked Chiang if he was willing for the US to use nuclear weapons.
Chiang said that he “did not think it was necessary” to use nuclear weapons, but he also said “strategic nuclear weapons could be used.”
Dulles said the US did not have nuclear weapons less destructive than the ones used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and then explained how destructive the radioactive rays of nuclear weapons were. All Chiang could do was admit that he was not an artillery man or an expert on nuclear weapons and that further discussion was necessary.
In principle, if the use of nuclear weapons would bring on a world war or involve the US in large-scale hostilities, Chiang did not want them used.
This was Chiang’s position in 1958. His earlier diary entries are even more difficult to believe. From the Korean War onward, the US wanted the Taiwan Strait to remain neutral and did not allow Chiang to attack China.
How could there have been any talk about “lending” him atomic bombs to do so?
It is truly absurd to try and make a former dictator look almost godlike after all these years.
James Wang is a commentator based in Taipei.
Translated by Drew Cameron
US$18.278 billion is a simple dollar figure; one that’s illustrative of the first Trump administration’s defense commitment to Taiwan. But what does Donald Trump care for money? During President Trump’s first term, the US defense department approved gross sales of “defense articles and services” to Taiwan of over US$18 billion. In September, the US-Taiwan Business Council compared Trump’s figure to the other four presidential administrations since 1993: President Clinton approved a total of US$8.702 billion from 1993 through 2000. President George W. Bush approved US$15.614 billion in eight years. This total would have been significantly greater had Taiwan’s Kuomintang-controlled Legislative Yuan been cooperative. During
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in recent days was the focus of the media due to his role in arranging a Chinese “student” group to visit Taiwan. While his team defends the visit as friendly, civilized and apolitical, the general impression is that it was a political stunt orchestrated as part of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda, as its members were mainly young communists or university graduates who speak of a future of a unified country. While Ma lived in Taiwan almost his entire life — except during his early childhood in Hong Kong and student years in the US —
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers on Monday unilaterally passed a preliminary review of proposed amendments to the Public Officers Election and Recall Act (公職人員選罷法) in just one minute, while Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, government officials and the media were locked out. The hasty and discourteous move — the doors of the Internal Administration Committee chamber were locked and sealed with plastic wrap before the preliminary review meeting began — was a great setback for Taiwan’s democracy. Without any legislative discussion or public witnesses, KMT Legislator Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩), the committee’s convener, began the meeting at 9am and announced passage of the
In response to a failure to understand the “good intentions” behind the use of the term “motherland,” a professor from China’s Fudan University recklessly claimed that Taiwan used to be a colony, so all it needs is a “good beating.” Such logic is risible. The Central Plains people in China were once colonized by the Mongolians, the Manchus and other foreign peoples — does that mean they also deserve a “good beating?” According to the professor, having been ruled by the Cheng Dynasty — named after its founder, Ming-loyalist Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功, also known as Koxinga) — as the Kingdom of Tungning,
RSS