The eldest and only biological son of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, he held numerous posts in the government of the Republic of China and ended martial law in 1987.

[3] He attended university in the USSR and spoke Russian fluently,[4] but when the Chinese Nationalists violently broke with the Communists, Joseph Stalin sent him to work in a steel factory in the Ural Mountains.

Toward the end of his life, Chiang decided to relax government controls on the media and speech, and allowed Han born in Taiwan into positions of power, including his eventual successor Lee Teng-hui.

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.

[7] On 20 March 1924, Chiang Ching-kuo was able to present to his now-nationally famous father a proposal concerning the grass-roots organization of the rural population in Xikou.

While there, Ching-kuo started to identify himself as a progressive revolutionary and participated in the flourishing social scene inside the young Communist community.

[9] Within the help program provided by the Soviet Union to the countries of East Asia there was a training school that later became the Moscow Sun Yat-sen University.

In the summer of 1925, Chiang Ching-kuo traveled south to Whampoa Military Academy to discuss his plans for study in Moscow with his father.

In a 1996 interview, Ch'en's brother, Chen Li-fu, recalled that Chiang Kai-shek accepted the plan because of the need to have Soviet support at a time when his hold over the KMT was tenuous.

While there, Chiang was given the Russian name Nikolai Vladimirovich Elizarov (Николай Владимирович Елизаров) and put under the tutelage of Karl Radek at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East.

Chiang Ching-kuo responded from Moscow with an editorial that harshly criticized his father's actions but was nonetheless detained as a "guest" of the Soviet Union, a practical hostage.

The historiographic debate still continues as to whether he was forced to write the editorial, but he had seen Trotskyist friends arrested and killed by the Soviet secret police.

[17] Stalin allowed Chiang Ching-kuo to return to China with his Belarusian wife and son in April 1937 after living in the USSR for 12 years.

[18][19] By then, the NRA under Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists under Mao Zedong had signed a ceasefire to create the Second United Front and fight the Japanese invasion of China, which began in July 1937.

[20] Chiang Ching-kuo was appointed as a specialist in remote districts of Jiangxi where he was credited with training of cadres and fighting corruption, opium consumption, and illiteracy.

Chiang Ching-kuo was appointed as commissioner of Gannan Prefecture (贛南) between 1939 and 1945; there he banned smoking, gambling and prostitution, studied governmental management, allowed for economic expansion and a change in social outlook.

[19] Chiang met Chang Ya-juo when she was working at a training camp for enlistees and he was serving as the head of Gannan Prefecture during the war.

[17] Chang and Halliday likewise claim that Chiang Ching-kuo was "kidnapped" in spite of the evidence that he went to study in the Soviet Union with his father's own approval.

[28]: 179 As riots broke out and savings were ruined, bankrupting shopowners, Chiang Ching-kuo began to attack the wealthy, seizing assets and placing them under arrest.

[31] Chiang orchestrated the controversial court-martial and arrest of General Sun Li-jen in August 1955, allegedly for plotting a coup d'état with the American CIA against his father.

[30][32] General Sun was a popular Chinese war hero from the Burma Campaign against the Japanese and remained under house arrest until Chiang Ching-kuo's death in 1988.

[35]: 27 As Premier Chiang organized a people's diplomacy campaign in the United States in an effort to mobilize American political sentiment in opposition to the PRC through mass demonstrations and petitions.

At that time, the National Assembly consisted mostly of "ten thousand year" legislators [zh], men who had been elected in 1947–48 before the fall of mainland China and who would hold their seats indefinitely.

Among his accomplishments was accelerating the process of economic modernization to give Taiwan a 13% growth rate, $4,600 per capita income, and the world's second largest foreign exchange reserves.

On 16 December 1978, U.S. president Jimmy Carter announced that the United States would no longer recognize the ROC as the legitimate government of China.

When the Democratic Progressive Party was established on 28 September 1986, President Chiang decided against dissolving the group or persecuting its leaders, but its candidates officially ran in elections as independents in the Tangwai movement.

Chiang Ching-kuo also increased the political representation of Taiwanese people to certain degree under his rule, allowing them to have various positions, which paved the way for Lee Teng-hui to come to power and further democratize Taiwan.

[citation needed] Murray A. Rubinstein called Chiang Ching-kuo more of a civilian leader than his father, whom Rubenstein refers to as a "quasi-warlord.

"[46] Jay Taylor has described Chiang Ching-kuo as a figure who was ideologically inspired by a mix of Soviet communism, Chinese nationalism, Taiwanese localism, and American democracy, who became the helmsman of the democratization of Taiwan.

[6] Unlike his highly controversial father, Chiang Ching-kuo's reputation is overwhelmingly positive among the Taiwanese population as the people of Taiwan recognize his economic and social achievements, as well as his efforts of democratization.