DominiquePL

To what extent did Chiang Kai Shek implement the Principle of people’s livelihood?

Chiang Kai Shek, in his attempt to model his reform of China on the principles of Sun Yet Sens was initially a positive result with his implementation of transport and communication, finance, vast industrialisation and education. Chiang initially followed in the footsteps of Sun Yet Sen. However with his military ideologies and his disinterest in the rural communities of China were overshadowed by his main focus on establishing the urban cities of the country. This evidently leading to, the failure of the principle of people’s livelihood, and therefore Sun Yet Sens original 3 principles, proving unsuccessful.  Chiang Kai Shek dedicated energy and time into developing infrastructure catering to the advancing state. And between 1928 and 1937, the industrial production advanced quite rapidly annually at the recorded rate of 6%. Future expansion was looking promising as a result of major importation of industrial equipment. However the advancing stable China was merely a veneer to other states. Any historian can pinpoint Chiang’s mistakes of achieving Sun Yet Sens principles of Peoples livelihood as Chiang was disinterested in the ‘people.’ Modern industrialisation was simply an urban project and rural society, dominantly populated by the peasant population was considered a waste of time. With only 30% of Chinas population living in Urbanised, developed lifestyles Chiang soon realised the lack of demand. Chiang failed to recognise the necessity of achieving an overall sense of unison within a country was to employ all member of the state and simply writing off a majority of people will only lead to a decline and prove to be unfavourable especially to the minority of higher class citizens.  Education within China under the leadership of Chiang Kai Shek was viewed as a means of achieving national unity and developing skills which in the visions of the Nationalist government a necessity for modernization. However with the opportunities of attaining an education unevenly dispersed, Chiang failed to see this predicament ensuring every citizen received equal opportunities in the field of education, as a result of the success and increase of enrolments in urban communities between 1935-37 rising to 23 million. Chiang tended to focus on his successes instead of addressing his mistakes and therefore creating greater problems in the field of education. An historian can sight the increased number of students continuing on receiving tertiary education yet once again the Chinese people followed a common trend of clustering to the urban centres of the eastern seaboard which reflected the styles of studies the students were taking on. A US study conducted over the years between 1905-54 observed that only 3.5% of students studied agricultural science. Chiang was leading a state that was disinterested in applying themselves or giving the opportunities to the more capable within the rural communities. Chiang later was faced with the quandary; the 30% of urban living citizens could not support and sustain a state whilst disregarding the rural communities, whose illiteracy levels were formidable. Chiang’s outlook on the matter of education was quite obviously a failure from the start.  Another example of Chiang’s narrow views on establishing a set of principles in which he believed would be successful steps enabling Unification is his policies of Finance. In 1935 paper currency (Fa-Pi) was introduced to replace the silver tael causing great financial burden within the Government, contributing to yet another downfall. Without any income tax coming in Chiang Kai Shek’s government relied on customs, salt and consumption taxes with additional to their inability to successfully balancing the budget; the government resorted to selling bonds which in turn absorbed major deals of capital that once may have contributed to productive investment. Chiang being the military driven leader saw the Military as a high priority to maintain and once its expenses increased rapidly as did the greater allocation of funding be subsidised from the budget. This poor decision once again proving to be detrimental to the peasant’s lives and their pockets as a result of increased taxes on daily necessities such as salt and flour. Chiang Ka Shek’s priorities were obviously not correctly ordered and his arrogance and favourable attitude towards sustaining a first-class military created a larger and larger loop hole for the peasants to fall back into.  Transport and communication proving not to damaging to the peasant communities with Chiang’s government dedicating large amounts of emphasis to the improvement of infrastructures able to modernize the means of transport and communication. Roads and railways were designed for one, not surprising use, The Military. Chiang once again placing the Military to the top of his priority list which can be viewed as his downfall into failure. Any leader must take into account a myriad view of society and its needs rather than one aspect.  Any Historian can see that as a result of his emphasis on maintaining his military, Chiang turned a blind eye on the issues that truly needed to be addressed and basically made a nuisance of himself to the peasant population, who because of his lack of overall expertise, single handedly was the catalyst for the failure to apply Sun Yet Sens principle of Peoples livelihood.  Dominique Hermo 