|
Apart from its own mistakes, were there any other objective factors causing the KMT to lose political power on the mainland in a short period of time after reunifying the country? |
|
See answer below. |
The US President Harry S. Truman had been indifferent to the Chiang Kai-shek Administration, and stood aloof when the NA suffered a crushing defeat in the later stage of the Chinese Civil War. When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea, part of the Soviet-led socialist camp) quickly seized most of the Republic of Korea (South Korea, part of the American-led capitalist camp). If South Korea fell, Japan would be at risk. Truman was worried that the communist forces would take control of East Asia and therefore changed the policy to intervene by force. He sent the Seventh Fleet to protect Taiwan and reinforce the KMT, and formed the United Nations Command with the US military as the main force led by the famous general MacArthur. It launched a counterattack on the North Korean army and reached the Yalu River (鴨綠江). This threatened the newly established People’s Republic of China. In October 1950, Peng Dehuai (彭德懷) led the army (in the name of “Chinese People’s Volunteer Army”) into the Korean Peninsula to engage the United Nations Command. An armistice was declared in July 1953. The Korean War enabled the KMT’s situation to turn the corner and gradually consolidate its rule in Taiwan, which became an important turning point in the long-term separation of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. In the last paragraph of Kuo Ting-yee’s Outline of Modern Chinese History, the author noted: “In a private conversation with an important person in Taiwan, I was told that the Korean War was the Xi’an Incident (西安事變) of the KMT. The Xi’an Incident saved the Chinese Communist Party (中國共產黨) and the Korean War saved the KMT.”
|
|
Apart from its own mistakes, were there any other objective factors causing the KMT to lose political power on the mainland in a short period of time after reunifying the country? |
|
|
There were political, economic, military, and diplomatic factors contributing to the failure of the KMT, and it is thus an academic issue worthy of discussion. For subjective factors, one could argue that it was because the KMT represented the bureaucratic bourgeoisie and sought benefits for landlords and capitalists while neglecting the well-being of the poor in the rural areas. The lax internal organisations, numerous cliques, misguided military command, and low morale made it difficult to unite dissidents in the face of the internal and external challenges. All these issues were like fatal chronic diseases to the KMT. However, from a macro perspective of Chinese history, there are also objective factors for its short life. In view of the rise and fall of China’s previous dynasties, it is difficult to escape the rule of “separation after long-term unification, and unification after long-term separation” under the autocratic dynasty based on the small-scale peasant economy. In history, most of the dynasties that unified previous separated regimes were short-lived: the Qin dynasty (秦朝) lasted for only 15 years after the end of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States; the Western Jin dynasty (西晉), which ended the separation of the Three Kingdoms, lasted for only 51 years, or only 36 years after the destruction of the Wu State (吳國); the Sui dynasty (隋朝), which unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, only lasted for 38 years, or only 30 years after the annihilation of the Chen Kingdom (陳朝); the Yuan dynasty (元朝), which annexed the dynasties of Xia(夏), Jin (金), and Song (宋), remained 98 years, or 89 years after the destruction of the Southern Song dynasty (南宋); the Republic of China, which ended the war between warlords by the Northern Expedition, lasted only 22 years. As soon as the division ended and reunification was achieved, the historical burden of the prolonged wars was too heavy to overcome. On the contrary, those who inherited the short-lived reunification often remained longer, such as the Han dynasty (漢朝) after the Qin dynasty, the Tang dynasty (唐朝) after the Sui dynasty, and the Ming dynasty (明朝) after the Yuan dynasty. This theory may not be a “law” and the phenomenon involved has not been scientifically examined. Yet, historians must take this as reference in great details. |
