The Civil War:1945-49

HI 168: Lecture 10Dr. Howard Chiang

OVERVIEW

- Wartime GMD China- Coalition Negotiations: 1945-46- Civil War: 1946-49- Taiwan before 1950- The February Twenty-Eighth Incident

WARTIME GMD CHINA

- Many of the accomplishments of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nanjing decade were destroyed in war: highways, railroads, industry, bridges, and roads

- Inflation: from 1937-45, rose 2,647 times the price

- Government simply printed more money

- Chiang’s commitment to the Second United Front was weak: peasants and workers attracted to the CCP

COALITION NEGOTIATIONS

- The question of the surrender of Japanese military units: the “rush” to Northeast China between CCP and GMD (backed by the U.S.)

- August 28, 1945: Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai flew to Chongqing from Yan’an with the US ambassador, Patrick Hurley

- August 29 to October 10, 1945: Chongqing negotiations – Mao and Chiang signed a memo of agreement

COALITION NEGOTIATIONS

- Ambassador Hurley resigned and replaced by George C. Marshall

- 1941: Federation of Democratic Parties opposed the GMD monopoly of government power

- Oct 1944: Democratic League (3rd Force)

- Many of the League leaders were assassinated (most likely by GMD) members flee to Hong Kong

- Oct 1947: Nanjing outlawed the League

CIVIL WAR

- May 1, 1946: Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA)

- GMD outnumbered CCP in the beginning

- Late 1946: PLA under the leadership of Lin Biao turned the tide

- Communists in control of the countryside: Nationalist-controlled cities islands in a Communist sea

- Mid-1948: CCP and GMD equal numbers

- Communist victory in Manchuria, 1948

Lin Biao and his officers in Harbin (1946)

TAIWAN BEFORE 1950

- Indigenous population: Malay or Polynesian origins (2% population today)

- 16th & 17th century: Han Chinese migration from Fujian province (speakers of Minnan or southern Fujian)

- 15th to 17th century: commercal base for Portuguese and Dutch merchants

- 1661-1683: Zheng Chenggong- 1683: prefecture of Fujian province- 1887: independent province

TAIWAN BEFORE 1950

- Treaty of Shimonoseki (17 Apr 1895): Taiwan remained Japanese control until 1945

- Agreements signed in Cairo (Nov 22 1943) and Potsdam (July and Aug 1943): Taiwan was to be returned to China

- Chen Yi: first governor of Taiwan in 1945 and established a new mainlander elite- clashed with the Taiwanese elites (e.g., disposition of Japanese property)

Chen Yi

FEB TWENTY-8TH (2-28) INCIDENT

- Feb. 27, 1927: officials of Chen Yi’s admin. shot a cigarette-selling woman and a bystander

- Demonstration and strike the following day

- Taizhong (mid-West Taiwan): a citizens’ assembly proclaimed the formation of a People’s Government

- Uprising suppressed with great brutality

- 1949: Chiang’s (2nd) White Terror