Chiang Ching-kuo

Chiang Ching-kuo
蔣經國
Official portrait, 1985
3rd President of the Republic of China
In office 20 May 1978 – 13 January 1988
Premier	See list Hsu Ching-chung (acting) Sun Yun-suan Yu Kuo-hwa
Vice President	Hsieh Tung-min Lee Teng-hui
Preceded by	Yen Chia-kan
Succeeded by	Lee Teng-hui
1st Chairman of the Kuomintang
In office 5 April 1975 – 13 January 1988
Preceded by	Chiang Kai-shek (Director-General of the Kuomintang)
Succeeded by	Lee Teng-hui
9th Premier of the Republic of China
In office 29 May 1972 – 20 May 1978
President	Chiang Kai-shek Yen Chia-kan
Vice Premier	Hsu Ching-chung
Preceded by	Yen Chia-kan
Succeeded by	Hsu Ching-chung (acting)
11th Vice Premier of the Republic of China[a]
In office 1 July 1969 – 1 June 1972
Premier	Yen Chia-kan
Preceded by	Huang Shao-ku
Succeeded by	Hsu Ching-chung
9th Minister of National Defense
In office 14 January 1965 – 30 June 1969
Premier	Yen Chia-kan
Preceded by	Yu Da-wei
Succeeded by	Huang Chieh
Minister without Portfolio
In office 15 July 1958 – 13 January 1965
Premier	Chen Cheng Yen Chia-kan
2nd Minister of Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Servicemen
In office 25 April 1956 – 1 July 1964
Premier	Yu Hung-chun Chen Cheng Yen Chia-kan
Preceded by	Yen Chia-kan
Succeeded by	Chau Chu-yue
Personal details
Born	(1910-04-27)27 April 1910[note 1] Fenghua, Zhejiang, Qing China
Died	13 January 1988(1988-01-13) (aged 77) Taipei, Taiwan
Resting place	Touliao Mausoleum, Daxi District, Taoyuan, Taiwan
Political party	Kuomintang
Spouse	Faina Vakhreva ​ (m. 1935)​
Children	Chiang Hsiao-wen Chiang Hsiao-chang Chiang Hsiao-yen (illegitimate, disputed[1]) Winston Chang (illegitimate, disputed[1]) Chiang Hsiao-wu Chiang Hsiao-yung
Education	Moscow Sun Yat-sen University
Signature
Military service
Branch/service	Republic of China Army
Years of service	1937–1968
Rank	General

Chiang Ching-kuo
"Chiang Ching-kuo" in Traditional (top) and Simplified (bottom) Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese	蔣經國
Simplified Chinese	蒋经国
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Jiǎng Jīngguó Wade–Giles Chiang3 Ching1-kuo2 IPA [tɕjàŋ tɕíŋ.kwǒ] Wu Romanization Wu Chinese pronunciation: [tɕiã tɕiŋ.koʔ] Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Jéung Gīng-gwok Jyutping Zoeng2 Ging1-gwok3 IPA [tsœŋ˧˥ kɪŋ˥.kʷɔk̚˧] Southern Min Hokkien POJ Chiúⁿ Keng-kok Tâi-lô Tsiúnn King-kok

Chiang Ching-kuo (/ˈtʃæŋtʃɪŋˈkwəʊ/,^[2] 27 April^{[note 1]} 1910 – 13 January 1988) was a politician of the Republic of China. The eldest and only biological son of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, he held numerous posts in the government of the Republic of China and ended martial law in 1987. He served as the 3rd premier of the Republic of China between 1972 and 1978 and was president of the Republic of China from 1978 until his death in 1988.

Born in Zhejiang, Ching-kuo was sent as a teenager to study in the Soviet Union during the First United Front in 1925, when his father's Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communist Party were in alliance. Before his education in the USSR, he attended school in Shanghai and Beijing, where he became interested in socialism and communism.^[3] He attended university in the USSR and spoke Russian fluently,^[4] but when the Chinese Nationalists violently broke with the Communists, Joseph Stalin sent him to work in a steel factory in the Ural Mountains. There, Chiang met and married Faina Vakhreva. With war between China and Japan imminent in 1937, Stalin sent the couple to China. During the war, Ching-kuo's father gradually came to trust him, and gave him more and more responsibilities, including administration.

After the Japanese surrender, Ching-kuo was given the job of ridding Shanghai of corruption, which he attacked with ruthless efficiency. The victory of the Communists in 1949 drove the Chiang family and their ROC government to retreat to Taiwan. Ching-kuo was first given control of the secret police, a position he retained until 1965 and in which he used arbitrary arrests and torture to ensure tight control as part of the White Terror. He then became Minister of Defense (1965–1969), Vice-Premier (1969–1972) and Premier (1972–1978). After his father's death in 1975, he took leadership of the Kuomintang (KMT) as chairman, and was elected president in 1978 and again in 1984.

Under his tenure as president, the government of the Republic of China in Taiwan, while remaining authoritarian, became more open and tolerant of political dissent. Chiang courted Taiwanese voters, and reduced the preference for those who had come from the mainland after the war. Toward the end of his life, Chiang decided to relax government controls on the media and speech, and allowed Han born in Taiwan into positions of power, including his eventual successor Lee Teng-hui. He was the last president of the Republic of China to be born during the rule of the Qing dynasty. Ching-kuo was credited for his Soviet-inspired city planning policies,^[5] economic development with Ten Major Construction Projects in Taiwan, efforts to clamp down on corruption, as well as the democratic transition of Taiwan and gradually shifting away from the authoritarian dictatorial rule of his own father Chiang Kai-shek.^[6]

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