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[[File:Chiang Kai-shek.jpg|thumb|Chiang Kai-shek, official portrait (1943)]]

'''Chiang Kai-shek''' (1887–1975) was a soldier and statesman who ruled China from 1928–49 and headed the Chinese Nationalist government on [[Taiwan]].  

Chiang Kai-shek was trained for a military career and took part in revolutionary activities against the Manchus and President Yuan Shih-k’ai. In 1918 he joined Sun Yat-sen (leader of the Kuomintang, or revolutionary Nationalist Party) in his attempt to unify China and overthrow the warlords. He served as chief of staff of a Cantonese army and was later named as commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy.

After Sun’s death in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek, who had previously followed Sun’s policy of cooperating with the Communists, became the central figure of the growing anti-Communist movement. In 1927, he broke with the Communists in a bloody coup that marked the beginning of the long civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. 

As commander in chief of the Nationalist army, he waged a campaign against the warlords from 1926–28 and in 1928 became head of the central government in Nanking and generalissimo of Chinese Nationalist forces. Chiang Kai-shek’s reign was fraught with intermittent fighting with the Communists and full-scale war with the Japanese. After a Kuomintang-Communist alliance to fight Japanese aggression, hostilities between the two groups continued. 

A major Communist campaign against Chiang Kai-shek finally drove him off the mainland to [[Taiwan]] in 1949. There he established and headed the Nationalist government in exile, promising to retake the mainland.

[[Archangel Gabriel]] said of Chiang Kai-shek:

<blockquote>Children of the light of Taiwan, you have held that line with the legions of Jophiel and Christine for many an aeon and many an arena of the time/space continuums! And your own Chiang Kai-shek, [[Madame Chiang]], and [[Chiang Ching-kuo]] have figured again and again as heroes and heroine of your legions of light.<ref>{{MHG}}, chapter 9.</ref></blockquote>

== See also ==

[[Taiwan]]

== Sources ==

{{MHG}}, chapter 9, endnotes.

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