ABSTRACT
Few would doubt Chiang Kai-shek’s faith, resolution, and earnestness in recovering the mainland which he had lost to the Chinese Communists. With open access to Chiang’s presidential files in Taipei, scholars might be amazed at the huge trove of military recovery plans Chiang had ordered throughout his time in Taiwan. But the existence of military schemes, memoranda, and proposals do not by themselves provide an accurate perception of Chiang’s views regarding mainland recovery. Nor is “mainland counteroffensive” an innocent term to be taken at face value when one revisits Taiwan’s recent past. Whether Chiang viewed military operations against the PRC as a purpose in itself or as a means to an end has never been fully clarified. Just how his “noble ambition” related to the U.S.–Taiwan relations and the internal power struggle within the Nationalist hierarchy remains largely unstudied. This chapter reinterprets post-1949 plans for a Nationalist military recovery of the mainland from the perspectives of the U.S.–Taiwan alliance, Taiwan’s domestic politics, and the power struggle within the KMT. By deconstructing the myths surrounding Chiang Kai-shek’s mainland policies, this chapter renders a new look at the way recent Nationalist Chinese history has been presented until now.
