1. The condition of China in 1936

Main challenges facing Chiang Kai-shek's GMD government in 1936

• Legal reforms (such as electing headmen to run local administrations)  were slow to change deeply embedded local and national traditions
• Authoritarian and corrupt GMD gov.
• GMD's authority did not extend over the whole of China - warlords and private armies
• Japan in control of Manchuria in North
• Yan'an
• Political violence and military campaigns

Countryside

• Education was beyond the reach for most parents in the countryside
• Minimal healthcare relying on traditional Chinese medicine
• High infant mortality and low life expectancy
• Despite outlaw of foot binding in 1902, widespread until 1930s
• Concubines still owned by rich men and arranged marriages still common
• 1930s worldwide depression hit farmers particularly hard

Chiang Kai-shek's Strengths as Leader of the GMD

Strengthening his power base

• Professional corps of officers from Whampoa Military Academy - allies for struggles ahead
• The Soong Family - married Soong Mei-ling;  important connections Shanghai & USA
• Business interests in the cities - anti-communist & foreign trade supporters; landowners and wealthier peasants in the countryside; close links with gangsters in Shangai

Concentrating key positions in the political & military key positions power structures in his own hands - skilled at political manipulation so no serious challenge

• National Revolutionary Army (NRA) - Commander-in-Chief and Chairman of the National Military Council; leader of GMD political party; Chairman of the State Council (= President)
• Created GMD's Central Political Institute, Military Bureau of Statistics, Bandit Suppression Headquarters, Opium Suppression Bureau (Big Ears Du)

Using the police and the army to remove opposition to his rule

• 1934-35 - police arrested 100s of radical students; many protestors shot dead by police

Chiang Kai-shek's Weaknesses as Leader of the GMD

Power…