The Marxist and the Methodist

Even in his glory days Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, durable president of the Republic of China, had his critics. American liberals derided him as ‘Cash-my-cheque’ in acknowledgment of the monstrous corruption of his in-laws, although not of the abstemious Gimo, as his grandiose rank was usually abbreviated, himself. General Joseph ‘Vinegar Joe’ Stilwell, the American chief of staff forced on him by President Roosevelt, referred to him as ‘The Peanut’ because of his short stature and shiny bald head, and described him to a journalist as ‘an ignorant, illiterate, superstitious, peasant son-of-a-bitch’. No respecter of persons, Vinegar Joe in the privacy of his diary called Chiang’s great rival Mouse Tongue (Patrick Hurley, boozy US ambassador to China, made it Moose Dung) and here lies the reason for the Gimo’s relative eclipse. History worships winners, and the Gimo had the bad luck to come up against Mao Tse-tung (in the old spelling), military/political commander of genius and the cruellest ruler China has ever had, at least since Emperor Chin Shi-Huang-Ti built the Great Wall (‘a human life for every stone’), ordered the burning of the books and gave the country its western name.

Why, then, a new book about a loser? Partly because the Chinese Revolution, by launching a new superpower, may well prove to have been the most consequential event of the last century. The Gimo was certainly a pivotal player, and as passions cool those tumultuous times are coming into clearer focus; partly because Fenby has new material, none of it making the Gimo more likeable but clearing up some old mysteries, but, above all, because Fenby, a former editor of the South China Morning Post, has a gripping story, and tells it with great verve and insight.