Jiang Jie Shi (or Chiang Kai-shek) (1887–1975)

Memorial to the Chinese leader of the nationalist Guomindang (Kuomintang), in Taipeh, Taiwan. Jiang Jie Shi (or Chiang Kai-shek) and his nationalist forces were driven by the communists to the island of Taiwan in 1949, from where he had hoped to retake the mainland.

Chinese nationalist Kuomintang (Guomindang) general and politician, president of China 1928–31 and 1943–49, and of Taiwan from 1949, where he set up a US-supported right-wing government on his expulsion from the mainland by the communist forces.

Jiang took part in the revolution of 1911 that overthrew the Qing dynasty of the Manchus, and on the death of the Kuomintang leader Sun Zhong Shan (Sun Yat-sen) was made commander-in-chief of the nationalist armies in southern China in 1925. Collaboration with the communists, broken in 1927, was resumed after the Xi'an Incident in 1936 when China needed to pool military strength in the struggle against the Japanese invaders of World War II. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, civil war between the nationalists and communists erupted, and in December 1949 Jiang and his followers took refuge on the island of Taiwan, maintaining a large army in the hope of reclaiming the mainland. His authoritarian regime enjoyed US support until his death. His son Jiang Qing-guo then became president.