Chiang Kai-shek (1888-1975)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1975 Apr 10 p. 3

Birth date: 1888

text of obituary:

. . .

Nationalist China Leader Dead at 87

The end of an era came for the Republic of China on Saturday night, April 5, when its long-time president, Chiang Kai-shek, died in a Taipei hospital after suffering a heart attack. He was 87. Except for a period of semi-retirement, Chiang had been ruler of Nationalist China for nearly half a century.

Chiang was first elected to a six-year term as president in 1948 and had been re-elected at six-year intervals ever since. After the Communist victory on the mainland in 1949, he was forced to withdraw his forces to Taiwan. Since his illness in 1972, he had turned over most government affairs to his son, Premier Chiang Ching-kuo, 65. The vice-president, 70-year-old Yen Chia-kan, was sworn in as president succeeding Chiang, but real power rests with the premier.

Nationalist China and the Communist regime on the mainland remain bitter enemies. Chiang's will called on his followers to try to realize his unfulfilled dream of recapturing all of China. He was a Christian, and a Christian ceremony is to precede his burial on April 16 in the mountain village of Tsiuh.