Chiang Ching-kuo, Chinese politician, President of the Republic of China (b. 1910)
Chiang Ching-kuo (27 April 1910 – 13 January 1988) was a politician of the Republic of China after its retreat to Taiwan. The eldest and only biological son of former president Chiang Kai-shek, he held numerous posts in the government of the Republic of China. He served as 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.
Chiang 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. He attended university there and spoke Russian fluently, but when the Chinese Nationalists violently broke with the Communists, Stalin sent him to work in a steel factory in the Ural Mountains. There, Chiang met and married Faina Vakhreva. When war between China and Japan was 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 Chiangs and their government to Taiwan. Chiang 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. 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 Nationalist Party as chairman, and was elected President in 1978 and again in 1984.
Under his tenure the government of the Republic of China, while 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 relaxed government controls on the media and speech, and allowed Taiwanese Han into positions of power, including his successor Lee Teng-hui. He is the last president of the Republic of China to be born during the Qing dynasty rule.