Chiang Kai Shek

Chiang Kai-shek was a Chinese political leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China for almost five decades. Also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Chiang Chieh-shih, he was an influential member of the Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party. Born in China during the rule of the Qing dynasty, he joined military training college in Japan as a teenager. He served for a while in the Japanese army during the course of which he started developing revolutionary ideas. Upon his return to China, he became actively involved in the uprising that overthrew the Qing Dynasty and established a Chinese republic. He eventually joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (known as the Kuomintang or KMT), founded by Sun Yat-sen and became a close ally of Sun. He rose through the ranks and served as the Commandant of the Kuomintang's Whampoa Military Academy. Upon Sun’s death in 1925 Chiang succeeded as the party’s leader and led the suppression of the Chinese Communist Party. Over the years he became a very powerful political leader and gained much international prominence in the late 1930s. Following the civil war in 1946 in which KMT was defeated by the Communists, Chiang moved to Taiwan where he established a government in exile.