President Chiang proposed the Alliance at the Ninth National Congress of the Kuomintang in suburban Taipei November 12-22. It was another revolutionary step in the history of what President Chiang, who is Kuomintang Director-General calls "a revolutionary political party." For 1964, the Alliance will be the Kuomintang's contribution to a Chinese unity designed to speed the day of mainland liberation. In this sense, it marks a continuation of the Party's 70-year struggle for the freedom and independence of the Chinese nation and people.
Now as always, the guiding principle of the Kuomintang is the political and social philosophy of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, expressed in what have come to be known as the Three Principles of the People: Nationalism, Democracy, and Social Well-Being. The Alliance, too, will find its dedication in Dr. Sun's concept of a single, united Chinese nation that assures both liberty and the good life to all its citizens. This is a goal beyond politics and parties, an objective on which every Chinese who aspires to freedom can agree.
Dr. Sun sowed the first seed of the Chinese revolution when he founded the Hsing Chung Hui (Society for the Rebuilding of China) in Hawaii in November of 1894. The early revolutionaries were reorganized into the Tung Meng Hui (Society of the Common Cause) at Tokyo in 1905. Secret branches were established throughout China.
End of Warlords
This was the revolutionary group that must be credited with changing the age-old Chinese monarchy into a republic in 1911. The Revolution did not cease them. The country still was plagued by warlords. Under Dr. Sun's leadership, the revolutionaries reorganized several times, and there were several changes in name until the 1919 designation of the Party as the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party of China.
The Kuomintang did not actually come to national power until 1929, when it eliminated the last warlords and united the country. A hard-won military campaign was required to accomplish the job. In Party history, this is known as the military phase.
In accordance with Dr. Sun's Plan for National Reconstruction, the Party embarked upon a program of political tutelage in preparation for democracy. In practice this meant a Party government in the interim before introduction of a constitutional government.
Because of Japanese aggression and war of 1937-45, political tutelage had to be prolonged until 1947. In that year, constitutional rule was finally attained. Since then the Kuomintang, like any other political party, has had to go before the people to win the right to participate in government.
The free China of today has two opposition parties—Democratic Socialists and the Young China Party. The Kuomintang holds the reins of the government, however, with 1,333 of the 1,564 National Assembly seats, 443 of the 580 seats in the Legislative Yuan, 70 of the 84 seats in the Control Yuan, and 61 of the 74 seats in the Taiwan Provincial Assembly.
The dominant political role still played by the Kuomintang reflects the Party's grassroots strength among Chinese at home and abroad. The KMT membership comprises farmers, workers, merchants, industrialists, scholars, and professional people.
The Kuomintang is more than a political party in the parliamentary sense. It is also the vehicle of the Chinese democratic revolution and its aspirations are expressed in the Republic's Constitution. With Communist usurpation of the mainland, the Kuomintang has renewed its dedication to the use of revolutionary means in returning constitutional rule to continental China.
Model Province
During the last 14 years, a principal objective of the Party has boon the building of Taiwan into a model province based on Dr. Sun's Three Principles. The island thus has become a beacon of freedom for the people behind Peiping's Iron Curtain and a rallying place of all free Chinese for the counterattack. Stimulated by Party leadership, government and people have scored remarkable successes.
The Party also has regrouped and developed its underground strength on the mainland to provide leadership in the growing popular resistance to Peiping. Much of the sabotage and many of the revolts and uprisings on the mainland are the work of the KMT underground. Peiping has admitted it.
In 1963 alone, 32 groups of anti-Communist guerrillas landed in coastal provinces from Shantung in the north to Kwangtung in the south and penetrated far inland. Commando units made hit-and-run raids and took supplies to the mainland guerrillas.
From Mainland
In this atmosphere of hope and challenge, the Kuomintang convoked its Ninth National Congress, the first since 1957, last November. Attending were 450 delegates and 300 observers representing Party branches at home and in overseas Chinese communities. Some came from the mainland underground.
The Congress re-elected President Chiang Kai-shek as Director-General and Vice President Chen Cheng as Deputy Director-General. The newly elected Central Committee of 74 members and 35 alternates includes many young, energetic, emerging leaders. From the Central Committee, 15 were chosen for a standing Committee. In addition, there is a 144-member Central Advisory Committee comprised mostly of senior leaders.
Pointing up the KMT faith in the anti-Communist struggle are these words of the Manifesto issued by the Congress:
"On the base of Taiwan, we have carried out the Three Principles of the People and engaged in political, economic, and social reconstruction. The achievements in these fields are in sharp contrast with Communist calamities resulting from the atrocities of the 'Three Red Flags' [meaning Peiping's campaigns for the 'General Political Line', 'Great Leap Forward' and 'People's Commune'] which Mao termed a transition from socialism to Communism. We thus have proved to the world by deed the fact that the Three Principles of the People can defeat Communism."
On the crucial question of how this is to be done, the manifesto had this to say:
"Our sacred war of counteroffensive and national recovery calls for a total war concentrating all our ideological, political, and military might. In this total war, stress should be laid on spiritual rather than material power, and ideology and politics should precede the military in priority."
Redoubled Effort
With its long experience, the Kuomintang knows that the outcome will be determined in the battle of minds. Victory will belong to those who command popular support, and, bloodshed will be minimal. The KMT is aware it cannot remain idle and let things take their own course.
In his political report to the Congress, Vice President Chen Cheng declared: "We must redouble our efforts to create a situation favorable to our revolutionary cause and should not wait for the Communist regime to collapse by itself, nor depend on a change in the international situation."
General Peng Meng-chi, chief of the general staff and a KMT Central Standing Committee member, reported the armed forces "are in combat readiness and making more sea and air assaults" to pave the way for return to the mainland.
This was the situation in which the KMT convention resolved to set up the National Reconstruction Alliance to rally and consolidate support for the counterattack. An enthusiastic response has already come from Chinese at home and abroad.
Past Congresses
As guidance in the KMT effort, the Congress specified four basic policies: (1) promoting the collective security system in the Pacific, (2) uniting all patriotic Chinese to regain the mainland and rebuild the country; (3) utilizing international investment and technical cooperation for future mainland industrialization, and (4) welcoming mainland youths to join in the task of national reconstruction.
The revolutionary past of the Kuomintang includes many similar milestones in progress toward a free and democratic China. Interwoven with the story is the Kuomintang's relentless struggle against the Communists.
Intent on saving China from the chaos and divisions of the time, Dr. Sun regrouped his followers and established a revolutionary base at Canton in 1921. Thousands of young men and women flocked there and pledged their lives to the KMT banner of National Revolution.
A Comintern representative, Adolf Joffe, approached Dr. Sun in 1923 on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, which had been founded by the Comintern in 1921, to seek Communist participation in the Revolution. As a result, Dr. Sun allowed individual Communists to become KMT members on condition they pledge allegiance to the Kuomintang and abide by its principles.
This in no way signified any approval of Communism by Dr. Sun. A joint statement of Dr. Sun and Joffe began with these words:
"Dr. Sun Yat-sen holds that the Communist order or even the Soviet system cannot actually be introduced into China, because there do not exist the conditions for successful establishment of either Communism or Sovietism."
In the same statement, Joffe pledged full agreement with Dr. Sun's view. But later events were to show that the Communists were only seeking the protective cover of the Kuomintang to expand their influence and pervert the purposes of the Revolution.
Unification of China
This was the background when the Party's First National Congress was convoked in Canton on January 20, 1924. It proclaimed the Three Principles of the People as the sole doctrine of the Revolution. The Whampoa Military Academy, now the Chinese Military Academy, was founded as a nucleus for the revolutionary forces, and Chiang Kai-shek was appointed commandant.
On March 12 of the following year, Dr. Sun died in Peiping. From his sick bed, the great revolutionist urged comrades to follow the principles of nationalism, democracy, and the social well-being of the people. The heavy responsibility of the Revolution fell on the shoulders of Chiang Kai-shek, the closest associate of Dr. Sun.
The Second National Congress was convened in Canton January 4, 1926, and decided to launch the Northward Expedition. Under the command of Generalissimo Chiang, the revolutionary army crushed the warlords, big and small, in only two and a half years. The country was unified under the National Government founded by the Party.
Even as the revolutionary war was under way, the Communists were busy building their secret cells in violation of loyalty pledges to the Kuomintang. The situation was such that while the Kuomintang fought and captured territory, the Communists moved in to seize political power. In April of 1927, following the capture of Nanking, the Party ordered expulsion of Communists from its ranks, and the Reds went underground.
The Kuomintang held its Third National Congress in Nanking, the new capital, on March 15, 1929. In its Manifesto, the Party condemned the Communists as tools of Red imperialism.
For the first time in modern history, China began to make progress. The government undertook abolition of unequal treaties with foreign powers. The only threat to national unity was posed by a handful of Communist rebels entrenched in Kiangsi and Hupeh provinces and terrorizing the countryside. Government troops had the Reds tightly encircled, however, and their annihilation seemed only a matter of time.
A new factor was introduced. The Japanese militarists, who had tried without success to block the Northward Expedition army in Shantung and who were afraid of an emerging China, attacked Mukden on September 18, 1931, and occupied the area.
Resisting Japan
Two months later (November 12), the Fourth National Congress was convoked in Nanking. It resolved to build up military strength to resist the Japanese aggression, and an appeal was sounded for international justice.
Encouraged by inaction of the old League of Nations, the Japanese attacked Shanghai January 28 of 1932 but were repulsed. But they did not desist from aggression, and all-out war was a few years away.
The Communists persisted in their rebellion throughout this period. Government troops finally put them to flight from the Yangtze valley to Yenan in northern Shensi in December, 1935. Numbering only a few thousand, the Reds were pocketed and apparently doomed. Only the growing Japanese aggression stayed the government's final blow.
The Fifth National Congress opened at Nanking on December 12 of 1935. It decided to enforce nationwide military conscription and training and to build up industrial production. The stage was set for war to resist the Japanese encroachment.
Generalissimo Chiang sounded a last warning to Japan, telling the Congress "peace will not be foresaken if there is still a ray of hope." His words went unheeded; the war broke out at the Marco Polo Bridge on July 7, 1937.
The Communists meanwhile sought a way to save their skins. In September they made a four-point declaration: (1) accepting the Three Principles of the People, (2) giving up their policy of overthrowing the government by armed rebellion and propaganda, (3) abolishing the Soviet system, and (4) reorganizing the Red army as units of government troops.
Reds Break Word
The Kuomintang granted the Reds opportunity to prove themselves in the national fight against Japanese aggression. To cope with the new situation, the Party held an Extraordinary National Congress at Hankow March 29, 1938. It created the wartime National Political Council in which the Communists and all other political parties and groups were represented in the absence of an elected parliament.
The Communists again failed to live up to their promises. Instead of obeying government orders and fighting the Japanese, they concentrated on building up their private army and expanding their political influence. The government forces bore the brunt of battle. The Reds conserved their strength by pretending to engage in guerrilla war.
The Sixth National Congress was held in Chungking May 5, 1945. By that time, China had been joined by the Western allies and victory was in sight. The 1943 Cairo conference assured the restoration to China of her lost territories of Manchuria and Taiwan. All unequal treaties were abolished.
At Chungking, the Party pledged the early implementation of war-delayed constitutional government and the undertaking of national reconstruction on the basis of the Three Principles of the People.
Three months later came the unconditional Japanese surrender. The Communists showed they were out to grab territory as well as political power. The weeklong participation of the Soviet in the Pacific War enabled the Chinese Reds to acquire the stock of Japanese arms in Manchuria. With massive Soviet help, the Communists began a nationwide rebellion.
Reform in Taiwan
Despite enormous difficulties, the government managed to institute constitutional government in 1947, but it was boycotted by the Reds as they made their all-out bid for total power. To carry on the struggle for freedom, the government moved to Taiwan in 1949 and the anti-Communist struggle entered a new stage.
In Taiwan, the Kuomintang underwent reform in the 1950-52 period to regenerate its revolutionary strength. Its Seventh National Congress was held in Taipei October 10, 1952. Taking cognizance of the seizure of the mainland as a part of international Communist aggression, the Party defined its chief mission as those of fighting Communism and resisting Russia.
In line with the platform adopted at the 1952 convention, the government undertook programs of land reform, industrialization, social security, and military modernization. The Party thus provided visible, undeniable proof of what constitutional democracy can do for the Chinese people.
The Eighth National Congress convened in Taipei October 10, 1957. On the strength of its Taiwan success, the Kuomintang reiterated faith in the restoration of constitutional rule to the mainland. It decided to strengthen the unity of free Chinese and step up operations in Communist-occupied areas.
Summing up the events of these decisive years and its confidence for the times just ahead, the Kuomintang's 1963 manifesto declared:
"In the 32 years since the Mukden Incident, our Chinese revolutionary forces, inspired by the doctrine of Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People and led by Director-General Chiang Kai-shek, have defeated the invasion of the old colonialists and have fought against the despotic power of Communist totalitarianism. In the course of this war of two fronts, we have won a position of freedom and equality for the Republic of China, and at the same time have opened the way for Asian nations to gain freedom and independence. "