Chiang Kai-shek - Photo and Brief Bio

Chiang Kai-shek was head of China's Nationalist Party and the country's leader when Japan invaded China's heartland during 1937.

Chiang's capital was Nanking, but when the Japanese army crushed that city, and its people, Chiang was forced to move the capital to Chungking. Japan also captured most of China's major cities and its coastal regions during that general time frame.

In order to prevail against Japan, Chiang (an anti-Communist) was forced to collaborate with Mao Zedong (and his Communist party). Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States provided financial support to Chiang and his government - much to the dismay of America's General Joseph Stilwell (who was in charge of U.S. forces in China, India and Burma).

As soon as Japan surrendered, in the late summer of 1945, Chinese Communists and Chinese Nationalists fought a civil war. By the 1st of October, 1949, the Communists had prevailed, and Mao Zedong announced the People's Republic of China had been formed.

Chiang (and whoever was left from his military forces) fled to Taiwan (then called Formosa). He wrote an autobiography - A Summing up at Seventy - which was published in 1957.

Chiang Kai-shek died on the 5th of April, 1975. His wife, Soong May-ling, outlived him by nearly three decades. Because the year of her birth is not clear, Madame Chiang was either 105 or 106 when she died (in New York City) on the 23rd of October, 2003.