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Eleanor Roosevelt’s High Expectations Regarding Madame Chiang Kai-shek
by Tim Sheehan

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The Chiang Kai-sheks as Refugees
Page 24 of 24

Once the Nationalists settled in Taiwan and made the island “The Republic of China,” Chiang Kai-shek depended more on his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, than his wife to run the government. Madame Chiang redirected her energies to painting. She, however, would make several trips to the United States in the fifties and sixties to drum up support for the Republic of China. Over time, the United States and the rest of the world, sought to begin relations with Communist China. President Richard Nixon gave Chiang Kai-shek a slap in the face when he met with Mao Zedong in 1972. Seeing his chances of returning to mainland China as its leader waning, Chiang Kai-shek’s health began to deteriorate in the early 1970’s. The Generalissimo died of a heart attack in 1975 at the age of 88. By the end of the 1970’s, the Communist government had been recognized by many nations as the legitimate government of China.(110)

In 1976, after her husband’s death, Madame Chiang Kai-shek returned to the United States, where she would spend a majority of her remaining years. Chiang Chin-kuo assumed the presidency of Taiwan. Unlike his father, Chin-kuo decided to implement democratic reforms in his government before his 1988 death, a deed his step-mother deplored. When talk of an independent Taiwan began to gather strength in the 1980’s and 1990’s, she spoke out against such notions by stating there is only one China. Mayling Chiang Kai-shek held to that belief for the rest of her life. She died 23 October 2003 in New York at the age of 103, quite a remarkable age for someone who endured many health aliments including ovarian and breast cancer. Madame Chiang outlived Eleanor Roosevelt, who passed away 7 November 1962, by over forty years.(111)

©2009-2012 Tim Sheehan tim@historynut.info

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