Social reforms also took place, but made no real significance. This was because the base of the KMT’s power was in the more urban area’s, Chang spend most of his attention on these area’s. The social problems in the countryside were not dealt with. Laws were past that restricted farm rents to exceed 37.5% of the crop yield at most. Yet, these laws didn’t work because many of the government officials were rich landowners. The land rent continued to be as high as 50-70% of the crop yield. The government provided no real welfare, health or social service. 5000 doctors had to attend 450 million people with the assistance of 1700 nurses and the availability of only 30,000 hospital beds.
Communication was improved in China. The first airline was established during the Nanjing decade. Over 25000 kilometers of railway was constructed. With the help of German firms, the government produced trucks and aircrafts. A ferry system was established in Nanking. A modern road system was developed, while the postal and telegraph systems were improved and were brought to a larger scale. However, these improvements made it easier for the Japanese to advance through china (Second Sino-Japanese War).
The government was fighting 3 different wars during the same time period. He was fighting the existing warlords, which most of all, he whipped during the Northern expedition (1926 – 1928). His campaign against the warlords was not fully successful because there were a few warlords such as Zhang Xue Liang, Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan still remained regional warlords and retained considerable local authority. This was a problem because they did not like Chang methods to ruling a country. This was a military failure because of the inefficacy of the army during the northern expedition caused the Xian Incident. Where a Warlord, Zhang Xue Liang, arrested him. Other warlord caused problems such as criticizing his resistance with the Japanese.
The government set up four encirclement campaigns to exterminate the communist between 1930-1934. The communist due to their Guerrilla Warfare defeated all four campaigns. The end of the last campaign lead to the communist matching over 11 provinces, known as the “Long March”. This was a success for the KMT as their made the communist retreat, although, they were occupied with these campaigns they neglected to deal with China social and Economical reforms. Also, the people of china did not like the idea of fighting each other when their country was being invaded. This caused loss of support in the party.
In 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War took place, the resistance was given by Chang Kai-shek’s nationalist army, over half a million men. The Japanese under General Matsui committed 200,000 men. The Japanese were better trained, better equipped and supported by a powerful air force. Communists say that the nationalists mostly avoided fighting the Japanese to preserve its strength for a final showdown with the communists. Yet, the Japanese thought that the KMT were their only opposition and fought a bloody, frontal war. The end result was the unconditional surrender of all Japanese forces because of assistance from the allies. This showed that the military was weak and backward, even though they won the war, they did not win it by themselves, the needed help. The Japanese were much more military developed.
Chinese relations with the foreign world throughout 1928 – 1937 was successful but not very important. Firstly, the Nationalist government was known to the world as China’s sole and official government and was recognized as a country. This meant that china could speak as a unified country in international meetings. By 1933, it would export and import goods from other countries with a tariff of 7.5%. It was allies with the U.S.A to defeat the communist. This was all good for the government but it was not fully unified until the late 1936, 9 years into Chiang’s reign.
To conclude, Chiang lost 10 years of china’s time to modernize the country. The achievements of the KMT during those years were very insignificant and didn’t help much in modernizing the country. Many government officials in the Nationalist government were corrupt. The reforms were only intact in some parts of the urban areas. The countryside was often forgotten. The military was backward due to the 3 continues war’s they were fighting. He’s intention was to maintain the KMT’s ruling positions by means of military power, not social revolution. Chaiang was just another one of the warlords in the eyes of the peasants.
Word Count – 979
