Chiang Wei-kuo

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Chiang Wei-kuo
蔣緯國
General Chiang Wei-kuo of the Republic of China Army
4th Secretary-General of the National Security Council of the Republic of China
In office 18 June 1986 – 28 February 1993
President	Chiang Ching-kuo Lee Tung-hui
Preceded by
Succeeded by	Shih Chi-yang
12th Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Services Force of the Republic of China
In office 7 April 1980 – 30 June 1984
President	Chiang Ching-kuo
Preceded by
Succeeded by
2nd President of the Tri-service University
In office 16 August 1975 – 6 June 1980
President	Yen Chia-kan Chiang Ching-kuo
Preceded by
Succeeded by
3rd President of the Republic of China Army Command and Staff University
In office 1 September 1963 – 31 August 1968
President	Chiang Kai-shek
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Personal details
Born	October 6, 1916 Tokyo, Empire of Japan
Died	22 September 1997(1997-09-22) (aged 80) Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
Resting place	Wuzhi Mountain Military Cemetery
Political party	Kuomintang
Spouse(s)	Shih Chin-i ​ ​ (m. 1944; died 1953)​ Ellen Chiu ​ (m. 1957⁠–⁠1997)​
Children	Chiang Hsiao-kang (son)
Mother	Shigematsu Kaneko
Father	Tai Chi-tao Chiang Kai-shek (adoptive)
Awards	Order of Blue Sky and White Sun
Military service
Allegiance	Nazi Germany (1936–1939)  Republic of China (1936, 1939–1997)
Years of service	1936–1997
Rank	Leutnant General
Unit	98. Mountain Infantry Regiment 8. Infantry Division
Commands	Commander-in-Chief of Armoured Forces
Battles/wars	Anschluss Annexation of Sudetenland Second Sino-Japanese War Chinese Civil War

Chiang Wei-kuo (traditional Chinese: 蔣緯國; simplified Chinese: 蒋纬国; pinyin: Jiǎng Wěiguó, or Wego Chiang; 6 October 1916 – 22 September 1997) was an adopted son of Republic of China President Chiang Kai-shek, adoptive brother of President Chiang Ching-kuo, retired Army general, and an important figure in the Kuomintang. His courtesy names were Jian'gao (建鎬) and Niantang (念堂).

Chiang served in the Wehrmacht before fighting in the Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War.

Early life[]

Chiang Wei-kuo (right), age 8, with father Chiang Kai-shek (left).

As one of two sons of Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang Wei-kuo's name has a particular meaning as intended by his father. Wei literally means "parallel (of latitude)" while kuo means "nation"; in his brother's name, Ching literally means "longitude". The names are inspired by the references in Chinese classics such as the Guoyu, in which "to draw the longitudes and latitudes of the world" is used as a metaphor for a person with great abilities, especially in managing a country.

Born in Tokyo when Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT were exiled to Japan by the Beiyang Government, Chiang Wei-kuo was the biological son of Tai Chi-tao and a Japanese woman, Shigematsu Kaneko (重松金子).^[1][2][3][4] Chiang Wei-kuo previously discredited any such claims and insisted he was a biological son of Chiang Kai-shek until his later years (1988), when he admitted that he was adopted.^[5]

According to reliable rumors, Tai believed knowledge of his Japanese tryst would destroy his marriage and his career, so he entrusted Wei-kuo to Chiang Kai-shek, after Yamada Juntarō (山田純太郎) brought the infant to Shanghai.^[1] Yao Yecheng (姚冶誠), a concubine of Chiang Kai-shek at the time, raised Wei-kuo as his foster mother.^[6] The boy called Tai his "Dear Uncle" (親伯).

Chiang moved to the Chiang ancestral home in Xikou Town of Fenghua in 1920.^[7] Wei-kuo later studied Physics at Soochow University.

In the Wehrmacht[]

With his sibling Chiang Ching-kuo being held as a virtual political hostage in the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin having previously been a student studying in Moscow, Chiang sent Wei-kuo to Nazi Germany for a military education at the Kriegsschule in Munich. Here, he would learn the most up to date German military tactical doctrines, organization, and use of weaponry on the modern battlefield such as the German-inspired theory of the Maschinengewehr (Medium machine gun, at this time, the MG-34) led squad, incorporation of Air and Armored branches into infantry attack, etc. After completing this training, Wei-kuo completed specialized Alpine warfare training, thus earning him the coveted Gebirgsjäger Edelweiss sleeve insignia. Wei-kuo was promoted to Fahnenjunker, or Officer Candidate, and received a Schützenschnur lanyard.^{[citation needed]}

Chiang Wei-kuo as a Wehrmacht officer candidate (Fahnenjunker)

Wei-kuo commanded a Panzer unit during the 1938 Austrian Anschluss as a Fähnrich, or sergeant officer-candidate,^[8] leading a tank into that country; subsequently, he was promoted to Lieutenant of a Panzer unit awaiting to be sent into Poland. Before he was given the mobilization order, he was recalled to China to assist the war effort against the invading Japanese forces.^[9]

Service during the Second Sino-Japanese War[]

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Upon being recalled from Germany, Chiang Wei-kuo visited the United States as a distinguished guest of the US Army on behalf of his father and the Kuomintang. While in the United States, he gave lectures detailing on German army organizations and tactics. During the war, Chiang Wei-kuo became acquainted with generals in Northwestern China and organized an armour mechanized battalion to formally take part in the National Revolutionary Army. Chiang Wei-kuo was stationed at a garrison in Xi'an in 1941. In addition, he spent some time in India studying tanks at the U.S. Armored School in 1943.^{[citation needed]} Wei-kuo would become a Major at 28, a Lieutenant Colonel at 29, a Colonel at 32 whilst in charge of a tank battalion, and later in Taiwan, a Major General.

Service during the Chinese Civil War[]

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During the Chinese Civil War, Chiang Wei-kuo employed tactics he had learned whilst studying in the German Wehrmacht. He was in charge of a M4 Sherman tank battalion during the Huaihai Campaign against Mao Zedong's troops, scoring some early victories.^[10] While it was not enough to win the campaign, he was able to pull back without significant problems. Like many troops and refugees of the Kuomintang, he retreated from Shanghai to Taiwan and moved his tank regiment to Taiwan, becoming a divisional strength regiment commander of the armoured corps stationed outside of Taipei.

Chiang Weikuo in Kriegsschule(Wehrmacht)

Taiwan[]

Chiang Wei-kuo in Taiwan, 1950.

Chiang Wei-kuo continued to hold senior positions in the Republic of China Armed Forces following the ROC retreat to Taiwan. In 1964, following the Hukou Incident and his subordinate Chao Chih-hwa's attempted coup d'état, Chiang Wei-kuo was in the penalty box and never held any authority in the military.^[11][12][13]

From 1964 onwards, Chiang Wei-kuo made preparations in establishing a school dedicated to teaching warfare strategy; such a school was established in 1969. In 1975, Chiang Wei-kuo was further promoted to the position of general, and served as president of the Armed Forces University. In 1980, Chiang served as joint logistics commander in chief; then in 1986, he retired from the army and became National Security Council Secretary-General.

After Chiang Ching-kuo's death, Chiang Wei-kuo was a political rival of native Taiwanese Lee Teng-hui, and he strongly opposed Lee's Taiwan localization movement. Chiang ran as vice-president with Taiwan Governor Lin Yang-kang in the 1990 ROC indirect presidential election. Lee ran as the KMT presidential candidate and defeated the Lin-Chiang ticket.^{[14][15][16][17]}

Personal life[]

In 1944, he married Shih Chin-i (石靜宜), the daughter of Shih Feng-hsiang (石鳳翔), a textile tycoon from North West China. Shih died in 1953 during childbirth. Wei-kuo later established the Chingshin Elementary School (靜心小學) in Taipei to commemorate his late wife.

In 1957, Chiang remarried, to Ellen Chiu Ru-hsüeh (丘如雪), also known as Chiu Ai-lun (邱愛倫), a daughter of Chinese and German parents. Chiu gave birth to Chiang's only son, Chiang Hsiao-kang, (蔣孝剛) in 1962. Chiang Hsiao-kang is the youngest of the Hsiao generation of the Chiang family.

Chiang Wei-kuo was also quite active in civil society, where he was the founder of the Chinese Institute of Strategy and Sino-German Cultural and Economic Association, as well as the Chairman of the Republic of China Football Association. He was the first chairman of Chingshin Primary School (靜心小學) and served as the president of the United States Students Association of China.

Chiang was a Freemason, and was the Grand Master of the from 1968 to 1969.^[18]

Final years[]

In the early 1990s, Chiang Wei-kuo established an unofficial Spirit Relocation Committee (奉安移靈小組) to petition the Communist government to allow his adopted father Chiang Kai-shek and brother Chiang Ching-kuo to be interred in mainland China.^[19] His request was largely ignored by both the Nationalist and Communist governments, and he was persuaded to abandon the petition by his father's widow Soong Mei-ling in November 1996.

In 1991, Chiang's housemaid, Li Hung-mei (李洪美, or 李嫂) was found dead in Chiang's estate in the Taipei City. The following police investigation discovered a stockpile of sixty guns on Chiang's estate. Chiang himself admitted the possibility of a link between the guns and his maid's death, which was later ruled a suicide by the police.^[19] The incident permanently tarnished Chiang Wei-kuo's name, at a time when the Chiang family was increasingly unpopular on Taiwan and even within the Nationalist Party.

In 1993, Chiang Wei-kuo was employed as a senior advisor to President Lee Teng-hui despite their previous political rivalry.

In 1994, a hospital was supposed to be named after him (蔣緯國醫療中心) in Sanchih, Taipei County (now New Taipei City), after an unnamed politician donated to Ruentex Financial Group (潤泰企業集團), whose founder was from Sanchih. Politicians questioned the motivation.^[19]

In 1996, the Chiang home on military land was finally demolished by the order of the Taipei municipal government under Chen Shui-bian. The estate had been constructed in 1971. After Chiang moved elsewhere in 1981, he deeded it to his son. The justification was that his son was not in military service and thus was not entitled to live there.^[20]

Chiang Wei-kuo died at the age of 80, on 22 September 1997, from kidney failure. He had been experiencing falling blood pressure complicated by diabetes after a 10-month stay at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei. He had wished to be buried in Suzhou on the mainland but was instead buried at Wuchih Mountain Military Cemetery.

Political and military career[]

His positions in the Republic of China government included:

• Commander of the Army Armored Forces (陸軍裝甲兵司令)
• Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Services Force (聯勤總司令)
• President of the Army Command and Staff College (陸軍指揮参謀大學校長)
• President of the Tri-service University (三軍大學校長)
• Senior advisor of the Office of the President (中華民國總統府資政)
• Secretary-General of the National Security Council (國安會議秘書長)

Full list of military, and civil government positions held:

Education history[]

• Department of Physics, Soochow University
• Tenth Central Military Academy
• (1938)
• U.S. Army Air Force Air Combat Tactical School (1940)
• U.S. Armored School in India (1943)
• Round Mountain Academy advanced officer corps training (1951),
• U.S. Army Command and Staff College formal training classes (1953)
• School of Social Practice Class III combat training (1955)
• Practical Advanced Military Studies Research Society training classes (1963)

Written works[]

• Grand Strategy Summary 《大戰略概說》
• A Summary of National Strategy 《國家戰略概說》
• The strategic value of Taiwan in the world 《臺灣在世局中的戰略價值》 (1977)
• The Middle Way and Life 《中道與人生》 (1979)
• Soft military offensive 《柔性攻勢》
• The basic principles of the military system 《軍制基本原理》 (1974)
• The Z that creates this age 《創造這個時代的Z》

Gallery[]

• 

  Former residence of Chiang Wei-kuo in Nanjing.

• 

  Chiang Wei-Kuo as an officer candidate in the German Army, 1938.

• 

  Chiang Wei-kuo as a Fanhnenjunker (cadet) in the Wehrmacht prior to 1939.

• 

  Chiang Wei-kuo in Germany with Wehrmacht officials, prior to 1939.

• 

  Chiang Wei-kuo in German Army mountain troop ('Gebirgsjager') field attire with the characteristic 'Bergmutze' field cap.

• 

  Chiang Wei-kuo in the National Revolutionary Army in 1941, as a second lieutenant stationed in Xi'an.

• 

  Chiang Wei-kuo (right), with father Chiang Kai-shek (left), 1941

• 

  Chiang Kai-shek (front) with sons (rear). Chiang Wei-kuo is on the right.

Footnotes[]

Bibliography[]

• Wang Shichun (汪士淳), (1996). Travelling alone for a thousand mountains: The Life of Chiang Wei-kuo (千山獨行 蔣緯國的人生之旅), Tianxia Publishing, Taiwan. ISBN 957-621-338-X
• Zhou Shao (周劭). The trifles of Chiang Wei-kuo's youth (青年蔣緯國瑣事), within the volume "Huanghun Xiaopin" (黃昏小品), Shanghai Guji Publishing House (上海古籍出版社), Shanghai, 1995. ISBN 7-5325-1235-5
• Kwan Kwok Huen (關國煊). Biography of Chiang Wei-kuo (蔣緯國小傳). Biography Literature (傳記文學), 78, 4.

See also[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chiang Wei-kuo.

• Sino-German cooperation
• History of the Republic of China
• Military of the Republic of China