Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines how political leaders of weak states confront imperial aggressors. In particular, it investigates Chiang Kaishek’s response in 1931 to Japanese aggression and eventual occupation of Manchuria, an action that some have called the true beginning to World War II. Japanese military superiority considerably constrained Chiang’s choices as a leader. The indisputable military inequality between Japan and China may lead one to conclude that Chiang could not exercise leadership in a way that mattered. This paper argues that by examining agency as a process, however, we open up new avenues for examining Chiang’s agency. By process, I mean given Chiang’s unfavorable structural situation, how did he selectively apply history (i.e. draw from strategies of past political leaders or from their past political decisions) and envision the future direction of history to solve day-to-day political problems? Through this approach, we are able to depict more faithfully Chiang’s agency, and in addition, better evaluate the strengths and shortcomings of his agency.
This paper demonstrates that even as the stakes were much higher in Chiang’s second confrontation with the Japanese (the first being in 1928), and his structural context had simultaneously worsened, Chiang diversified his uses of shame to confront these greater challenges. These included noncooperation and nondirect negotiations to guard against further humiliation from the Japanese and nonmilitary resistance to establish China’s innocence in the international arena. In addition, by defining shame as China’s disunity on the macro-level and by highlighting the undeserved humiliation he was receiving from fellow party members, Chiang further emphasized the difficult contextual situation he was in. And by portraying himself as valiantly struggling within this context, he aimed to guarantee his place in history regardless of the results.
I rely on the ‘diaries’ of Chiang that the Taiwanese government recently opened to the public in 1997. In painstaking brushwork calligraphy, Chiang’s secretaries had copied quotations from Chiang’s diaries and portions of his speeches and telegrams, among other writings by Chiang. The presentation and content of this source, properly called the working [shilue] manuscripts, give us a unique window to understand Chiang’s agency in the face of Japanese aggression.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines how Chiang Kaishek used shame to motivate and justify his leadership during his first confrontation with the Japanese in 1928.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In the 1920s and 30s, China faced both imperial aggression by Japan and severe domestic disunity. Given such an unfavorable structural context, how did Chiang Kai-shek sustain his leadership? This paper examines how Chiang constructed an ideological warrant based on the Confucian notion of shame to sustain his leadership and to pursue his political agenda of domestic unity first before confronting external threats.

Chiang mobilized shame in three important ways. First, he modeled his leadership after those leaders he perceived capable of enduring great humiliation, such as Jesus and the historical king, Gou Jian. Emulating Gou Jian’s daily reminder of humiliation, Chiang wrote a daily “avenging humiliation” entry in his diary. He not only wrote about concrete methods to strengthen the country but also about cultivating in himself the kind of leader who could avenge humiliation. Second, Chiang created narratives of shame that connected soldiers and citizens to the goal of avenging humiliation. Third, he often defined the content of humiliation and then disseminated his ideas to the public.

For Chiang, the shame discourse resonated both politically and personally. He drew strength from and shaped this ascetic ideology to carry himself and his followers through a difficult period in Chinese history. In addition, through shame, he connected his leadership to the survival of China as a nation-state. And finally, given his own sensitivity to shame, especially at losing his father at a young age, he put his imprint on a psychology of citizenship sensitive to national humiliation—a sensitivity that still reverberates today within the evolving and contested narrative of Chinese nationalism and identity.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Abstract
This paper challenges the seemingly uncompromised dichotomy of rule of law and rule of human in the discussion of liberal democracy. By first unraveling the role of rule of law long isolated and accentuated as the quintessential criteria to maintain the practice and the survival of a democratic institution, we pinpoint the observation that both rule of law or rule of human based institutions might suffer varying degree of deterioration and unfeasibility especially under extraordinary circumstances. A new approach to understand establishment and sustainability of democracy is proposed, in which order and stability shall not singularly depend on rule of law but also in accordance with a virtuous rule of human in which the selected personal leadership shall exhibit two crucial qualities: firstly the ability to generate rule of law based democratic institution in time of transitional period, and secondly the willingness to be submissive to the rule of law institution he or she founded to guarantee the sustainability of the system. Two cases of personal leadership, De Gaulle in France and Chiang Ching-kuo in Republic of China, are under careful scrutiny to portrait how unity of rule of law and rule of human can be ready of benefit for states in transition in terms of further consolidating democracy or transforming from an authoritarian to a democratic regime.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: According to his numerous critics, media mogul Henry Luce was an unapologetic promoter of Chinese General Chiang Kai-shek and his ruling Chinese Nationalist party during the pre-war, World War II, and Chinese civil war eras. Critics harshly accused Luce of using his Time, Inc. media empire, particularly Time Magazine, to promote Chiang and his Nationalist government to the American people despite increasing evidence of rampant corruption, extortion, and incompetence within the regime. It is said that Luce used Chiang and his wife, Madame Chiang, in his print publications to help Americans and the American government identify and connect with China thus in turn support the regime in spirit and with financial resources. This paper analyzes the ten Time magazine issues that feature General Chiang on the front covers and looks for evidence of a Luce and Time magazine agenda in the construction and substance of the covers. The results of this visual analysis indicate that there is some evidence of just such a supportive agenda.