Chang Hsueh-liang

▪ 2002

      Chinese warlord (b. June 3, 1901, Haicheng, China—d. Oct. 14, 2001, Honolulu, Hawaii), kidnapped Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek in 1936 in an attempt to force him to fight the Japanese rather than the Communists. His action had a decisive effect on subsequent Chinese history. Chang was the son of the warlord Chang Tso-lin, who dominated Manchuria. The son took military training, joined his father's army at age 19, and soon became a general commanding his own troops. When the Japanese murdered his father in 1928, Chang assumed power, proving to be an able ruler and forming an alliance with Chiang. In 1931, however, the Japanese invaded Manchuria, forcing Chang and his troops to the south. He was cured of an opium addiction and then traveled throughout Europe. Chang returned to China in 1934, and in 1935–36 Chiang used his troops against Communist forces. Chang was intent on persuading Chiang to form an alliance with the Communists to fight the Japanese invaders, and in 1936 the Nationalist leader went to Sian to meet with him. Chang took Chiang hostage and held him for two weeks, until he agreed to Chang's demand. This so-called Sian Incident temporarily took pressure off the Communists, who had been pushed to northwestern China at the end of their Long March, and allowed them to rebuild. The Nationalists later court-martialed Chang, and he was put under house arrest. When the Nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949, they took Chang with them, and he remained under arrest until 1990, gaining the distinction of becoming the world's longest-serving political prisoner. In 1991 he was allowed to visit his children in the U.S., and three years later he settled there. At his death he was honoured by the presidents of both China and Taiwan.

* * *

▪ Chinese warlord

byname  Young Marshal  

born June 3, 1901, Hai-ch'eng, Liaoning Province, China

died October 14, 2001, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.

      Chinese warlord who, in the Sian Incident (1936), compelled the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek to form a wartime alliance with the Chinese Communists against Japan.

      Chang Hsüeh-liang was the oldest son of the warlord Chang Tso-lin, who dominated Manchuria and parts of North China. The younger Chang was prepared for a military career and joined his father's army at age 19. Rising swiftly through the ranks, he was promoted to the command of one of his father's armies in 1922. Upon Chang Tso-lin's murder by Japanese officers in 1928, Chang Hsüeh-liang assumed control of Manchuria and, ignoring both the warnings and the growing power of the Japanese in Manchuria, aligned himself with the newly formed Nationalist government at Nanking. The Japanese then drove his forces from Manchuria and occupied the region; Chang withdrew his troops into Shensi in northwestern China.

      It was in Shensi in 1935–36 that Chiang Kai-shek used Chang's troops in his military campaigns against the Chinese Communists based in nearby Yen-an. However, the increasingly patriotic Chang became convinced that his military units and those of the Nationalists should be fighting the Japanese invaders, not their fellow Chinese. When Chiang Kai-shek came to Chang's headquarters at Sian in Shensi in 1936 to take personal charge of the Nationalist war against the Chinese Communists, Chang Hsüeh-liang arrested the Nationalist leader. He released him only when Chiang Kai-shek agreed to form a united front with the Chinese Communists against the Japanese. Unwisely returning to Nanking with Chiang Kai-shek, Chang was soon placed under house arrest. When Chiang's government fled to Taiwan in 1948, Chang was taken there and continued to be kept under house arrest. Although the government reportedly lifted house arrest in the early 1960s, Chang remained at his home near Taipei until 1991. That year he traveled to the United States, and in 1994 he settled in Hawaii.

* * *