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During WWII, Chiang Kai-shek and Nehru visited each other while India and China began to think through what a post-imperialist Asia might look like. While the strengthening Indian independence movement was a concern for Britain, Chiang Kai-shek worried that the British refusal to accept India independence demands would weaken the Allied position in South and Southeast Asia. Yang Tianshi analyzes the Nationalist policy of expressing support for Indian aspirations for independence while maintain workable relations with the British. He also demonstrates how early enthusiasms on both sides gave way to tensions. WWII did not end with amity between China and India.

Mayling Soong was known to most Americans as Madame Chiang Kai-shek, who symbolized the changing relations between the United States and China during the late 1930s through the 1940s. Soong was a symbol not only of China's new womanhood but of new China as well. While nationalism is inherently gendered, Soong's position was unique, because for the Americans, she personified the traditionally masculine as well as the feminine role of China. Mayling Soong experienced American culture before she arrived in the United States. She grew up in the cosmopolitan environment of Wuhan, in which she and her siblings enjoyed the relative privilege of her father's wealth and American connections. Her American education, Christian faith, and the politics of her family further contributed to Soong's knowledge about the United States.

This chapter traces Dai Li's entry into the ranks of the Guomindang revolutionaries. There are three versions of Dai Li's entry into Whampoa Military Academy, including getting a letter of introduction from the former boss of the Shanghai rackets, Huang Jinrong, to Chiang Kai-shek. He did not graduate from Whampoa. He left the academy in April 1927, was assigned to First Platoon of the National Revolutionary Army's Cavalry Battalion and joined the National Revolutionary Army during its march up the eastern route through Fujian and Zhejiang. It was around this time that he got the job that is the most emphasized as the key to his rise from obscurity. He worked as a petty officer for Hu Zongnan, who later recommended him for a job in the Nanjing office of the Whampoa Alumni Association Investigation Department.

This chapter describes how international war compelled repeal of the Chinese exclusion laws, which were seen as unacceptable insults to a wartime ally. As the first liberalization of immigration law since 1924, the campaign for repeal showcased long-simmering contradictions between foreign policy agendas, nativist racism, ethnic and religious groups, organized labor, and economic priorities that would channel and distort the long struggle for immigration reform and eventual passage of the Hart–Celler Act of 1965. With her Christian upbringing, American education, and proximity to power in China, Madame Chiang Kai-shek served as a potent symbol of the humanity and assimilability of Chinese as well as the possibility that long-cherished missionary dreams for the transformation of China into a Christian, democratic nation might be realized.

Using official sources, rather than memoirs or diaries, Li Yuzhen reconstructs attempts by Chiang Kaishek to secure the direct participation of Soviet forces in China. Chiang appealed to Stalin to order his forces into China on three occasions at moments of great crisis. Although Stalin rejected Chiang’s requests, Li Yuzhen concludes that the limited cooperation that the two established, which was based on the national interest of the countries Stalin and Chiang led, nonetheless was important to the defeat of Japan and for WWII in general, making possible the grand alliance between China, the USSR, Britain, and the USA.

This chapter examines the fascist principle of the Blue Shirts Society (BSS) in China. It explains that despite the denial of the Goumindang about the existence of BSS, several police reports confirmed that there were individual members of the Fuxingshe and the Chinese Revolutionary Comrades Association (CRCA) who frequently identified themselves as belonging to the Blue Shirts. It discusses Chiang Kai-shek's creation of cliques within the Generalissimo's own power structure and the appointment of brothers Chen Guofu and Chen Lifu as leaders of the so-called CC clique.

Chapter 11 recounts how Chinese government officials managed the increasingly hostile relationship with the United States following the events of Black Friday. While Chiang Kai-shek blamed military officers and extended apologies, the United States remained unconvinced by his appeasement. Much of the American press called for a review of foreign policy with Taiwan or for the establishment of Taiwan as an independent nation or U.N. trusteeship. The international reputation of Chiang Kai-shek's government was severely damaged, leaving some officials feeling shamed or disillusioned. Though no cause was determined by the investigations that followed, private newspapers were accused of inciting the riots with inflammatory articles. Others impugned the Chinese police and military force, claiming that failure to act, coupled with poor leadership, suggested complicity in the events. In addition, the sentences given to the arrested rioters suggested the sympathy of Chinese officials with the public. For many Americans, it was easier to blame the ROC for conspiracy than to admit that the U.S. legal system had been challenged.

For the Communists, successive victories in the Sino-Japanese War and the ensuing civil war (1945–1949) created a fundamentally new historical situation in which the major humiliation of foreign imperialism had become a thing of the past. But for Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists, after their retreat to the island province of Taiwan (which had been restored to China in 1945 after Japan's defeat), the most salient change, arguably, was that the area under direct government control had drastically shrunk. The Guomindang still faced the task of eliminating foreign imperialism (now in the guise of the Soviet Union) and its Chinese accomplices. There remained, in other words, a major humiliation to be eradicated, requiring the same qualities of forbearance, hard work, belt-tightening, and tireless effort — of woxin changdan — that had been staples of the Goujian story as it had been articulated in earlier decades. Predictably, in these circumstances, the story was from the outset widely disseminated among all sectors of Taiwan's population.

This chapter traces the history of the founding of the Lixingshe. It explains that it was during February and March 1932 that Lixingshe was transformed from a plan on paper into a top-secret organization of three hundred devoted Chiang Kai-shek loyalists. The formation of Lixingshe began Chiang's Lingyuan Villa meetings with three principal leaders of the preparations department for protecting the party and saving the nation, Kang Ze, Teng Jie, and He Zhonghan. This chapter also discusses the conflict between the works of Lixingshe and Dai Li's secret service.

This chapter focuses on the perceived link between Lixingshe and the Blue Shirts. It explains that the Chinese people saw the members of Lixingshe as Blue Shirts or terrorists. It discusses the Lixingshe's organization of a directorate, formation of front groups, and appointment of He Zhonghan as chairman. It also highlights Lixingshe's creation of an additional group called Renaissance Society or Fuxingshe and explains the connection between Lixingshe, the Fuxingshe and the Lanyishe. It also mentions that growing independence of Dai Li after he was instructed by Chiang Kai-shek to set up a separate Tewuchu or Special Services Department.

Chapter 10 describes the American response to the events of Black Friday, which was a violation of international law and could have been considered grounds for breaking diplomatic relations. In the days following the riots there were minor accidents that could have sparked new protests, creating a feeling of panic among many Americans. Back in the United States, Black Friday was regarded as an embarrassment to the White House, thus allowing Democrats to openly criticize Eisenhower's China Policy. Many speculated that the protests may have been pre-orchestrated due to the unannounced military exercise that diverted troops that day, the ROC's manipulation of the press, and the identity of the rioters, who could be traced back to three particular schools. The instigators remain unknown, though many blamed the ROC, IRP, PRC, communist agitators, or even Chiang Kai-shek and his heir. After Black Friday, many questions remained unanswered, and this time the Americans were demanding justice.

This chapter focuses on the history of the Society for Vigorous Practice or Lixingshe in China. This organization was so secret that hardly any outsider knew of its existence between 1932 and 1937. It was perpetually confused with its front groups, whose members were thought by the public to be Blue Shirts, and its activities were often inextricably connected with covert propaganda and intelligence work conducted by Chiang Kai-shek's special services. Around this time, a peculiarly strong bond was being formed between Chiang Kai-shek and Dai Li. All dropped-out Whampoa students were offered the chance to go back to complete their studies but Dai Lai decided to stay and serve Chiang. This chapter also discusses the role of He Zhonghan in Lixingshe and right-wing mobilization.

This chapter examines how the end of the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis which affected China and the United States. For Dwight D. Eisenhower and Mao Zedong, the 1958 Strait confrontation—which arose when China shelled the islands of Kinmen and the nearby Matsu Islands along the mainland's east coast (in the Taiwan Strait)—reflected different definitions of security, trouble with domestic constituencies, and clashing cultural assumptions, even as both sought to avoid a military collision. The crisis evolved slowly from the inconclusive outcome of the earlier Taiwan Strait confrontation in 1954. Eisenhower viewed the crisis as a clarion call to defend the free world and to wage peace. He believed he must prevent the expansion of Communism but also avert military exchanges with China and the Soviet Union. For Mao, the decision to instigate the conflict most importantly served the goal of domestic reform. The end of the 1958 Strait crisis did not satisfy China's yearning for unification, Chiang Kai-shek's plans to return to the mainland, or Washington's desire to end the risk of war in the area.

This chapter examines the situation of the Juntong in Chongqing, China during the war. It suggests that during this time, Chiang Kai-shek's regime was reduced to almost total reliance on his secret service. It describes the assassination operations of the Juntong and their impact on China's war efforts. It also discusses how Dai Li and his men discovered and prevented an attempt to overthrow Chiang Kai-shek and other senior officials known for their corruption and ineptitude.

This chapter examines Dai Li's rise in the intelligence services of the National Revolutionary Army of China. After serving under the command of Hu Zongnan, Dai Li was later appointed to become head of a special communications and intelligence unit that was set up in January 1928 at the instruction of Chiang Kai-shek. This chapter discusses Dai Li's relationship with Deng Wenyi and his role in strengthening Chiang Kai-shek's in-formal secret service organization by establishing a Special Services Department. It also highlights the appointment of Dai Li as head of the intelligence or espionage divisions where he was given special authority to train backbone cadres for special services work.

This chapter examines ideological rivalries between the Blue Shirts Society and Chiang Kai-shek's CC clique. It explains that by competing with the CC clique for control over the new instruments of print capitalism, the Blue Shirts departed from the brief that they had been given by Chiang Kai-shek to concern themselves mainly with public security and police affairs. It also discusses the expansion of Deng Wenyi's publishing company Give Us a Lift Bookshop into a chain of stores that distributed Chiang loyalists' publications in Nanjing, Hankou, Nanchang, Changsha, Guiyang, and other cities.

This chapter details the history and nature of the alliance between the United States and the ROC in order to provide background information about what the political situation was like between the two groups when Sergeant Robert G. Reynolds, a member of the U.S. Army, shot a Chinese man, presumably a soldier in the military of the ROC. Both countries were supposed to be staunch allies, united in their opposition to the communist government that controlled what it called the People's Republic of China (PRC). It was this alliance that brought Reynolds and the unidentified Chinese man into close proximity of one another. The alliance and U.S. support for the ROC in and of itself represented a historical paradox, though. Just a few years before, top U.S. leaders despised Chiang Kai-shek, head of the ROC, whose stature in America declined to leader of a regime marked by disunity, military defeat, inflation, and charges of corruption. However, after the outbreak of the Korean War, the United States would again ally with the ROC in order to prevent the spread of communism into Southeast Asia.

The fifth chapter studies an often-forgotten depiction of soldiers during the Second Sino-Japanese War: the student soldiers. This chapter first discusses the Campaign to Mobilize Educated Youths to Join the Army to provide a historical background for the GMD’s efforts to militarize educated youths. Xu relays the effects of Chiang Kai-shek’s interest in student soldiers, bringing up Chiang’s wartime diary entries in which he advocated for the military training of students. Xu stresses that the nation-wide conscription of student soldiers during the later years of the Second Sino-Japanese War was a response to both internal and external challenges as the war entered the last phase. Using student soldiers’ own writing, Xu discusses how these educated youths constructed the soldier ideal to advocate the self-government ideal in their army life after they were conscripted into the Youth Army.

The genesis of the Taiwan Straits Crises could be traced to 1950 when President Harry S. Truman positioned the Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait to prevent hostilities between the PRC and the ROC. In order to understand the origins and making of the contest over control of the Taiwan Strait, it is important to deal with the major developments in the foreign relations of the US, PRC and ROC from 1950 to April 1954. As the ROC was the most directly affected party right from the start, how the Taiwan Strait issue played out in Taiwan will also be examined.