CCK diaries released by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University

Arts & Sciences Culture & History
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Near 33 years after Chiang Ching-kuo’s death, the Hoover Institution released CCK’s diaries. This provides CCK 's perspectives on major events in recent history.

CCK wrote in the diary that the Americans have always been very suspicious of him due to his soviet background. They constantly assumed he plotted to sow anti-American sentiments and encourage anti-American protests in Taiwan. They also were afraid he would lent Penghu to the Soviets.

CCK was aware that the Americans might ditch the KMT and establish relations with the CCP instead. He was especially shocked when the Americans brought up “Taiwan’s sovereignty is undetermined” again in 1971, something the US avoided mentioning since the break of the Korean war. CCK apparently instructed party officials to be more inclusive and cultivate Taiwanese elites within the party to appear less authoritarian and more democratic, in order to appeal to the Americans. This led to him appointing 6 Taiwanese cabinet members in 1972, including future president Lee Teng-hui.

Appointing Lee wasn’t CCK’s original plan. He only scribbled Lee’s name down in the diary to assign him to a cabinet position the night before he announced the appointment of all 7 new cabinet members the next day.

In 1977, CCK wrote how he truly felt about democratic elections.

People glorify all sorts of elections as democracy, and serving the people, when in reality it’s nothing more than fighting over fame and money, and trying to win by any means necessary​​. You can see all the most despicable and cheap manipulations in all kinds of elecction events. It’s depressing and sad.

各種選舉美其名曰民主，或謂為民服務，而事實上則為名利而爭也，並且為了達到目的不擇手段。政治上最卑鄙和惡劣的方法，可以在各項選舉活動中看得最清楚。可悲！可嘆！

After the US cut ties with the ROC, CCK stopped writing diaries.

CCK claimed in his diary that Winston (Hsiao‑tzu) and John (Hsiao‑yen) are actually not his children. The diary states that they are the children of his deceased subordinate Wang Ji-chun, and he took them in because Wang is a dear friend.

Winston and John’s mother was murdered in 1942, and the two brothers used her maiden name Chang (章) in their youth. After being told CCK might be their real father, they (at least one of them) went through a lot of legal process to change their last name to Chiang. Historically, people have wondered if they are the children of CCK, Wang or Kuo Li-buo (郭禮伯).

Chiang Hsiao-yen is still a leadership figure within the KMT and his son Jiang Wanan is currently a KMT legislator. Both of them used their supposed Chiang family heritage as their main appeal to KMT followers. So CCK denying blood relations to them in his diaries could be a blow to their influence within the party.

Of course, they could do a DNA test to put all the debate to rest, but the technology has been around for a long time and they could have done so in the past.

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Do Taiwanese people still care about the blood relations?

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Yes. And in the KMT, most definitely.

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Can’t believe that was 5 years ago. The people in the KMT don’t seem to care at all.

Children of Kuo Libuo (郭禮伯) have said repeatedly that they are willing to do a DNA test to see if the twins, Winston and John, and their kids, such as Chiang Wanan, are related to them by blood. Chiang Wanan is unwilling to do it.

After the twins were born to Chang Yarou, CCK’s mistress, CCK was initially ecstatic in his diary in March of 1942, when he went to see them in the hospital. However, after that, a consecutive 103 pages went missing, during which time the mother of the twins, Chang Yarou, was poisoned and died when the twins were only 6 months old.

It is debated whether CCK was involved in the murder of Chang Yarou. Some have claimed that CCK initially thought CKS was the one who ordered Chang to be poisoned. However, since those pages in CCK’s diary went missing, we would never know. It is clear that for a while CKS knew about the twins because they were given the Chiang family generation name, that was why both had the character 孝 Hsiao as a part of their names, which was exactly the same as CCK’s actual children.

CCK eventually wrote that the twins weren’t his children in his diary in 1954, and said they were the kids of Wang Jichun (王繼春), however that was timing-wise pretty much impossible, and the twins are highly likely to be Kuo Libuo’s (郭禮伯) kids, since Kuo last met up with Chang in May of 1941 when Chang was already Chiang’s mistress.

I’m not sure when did CCK learn that the twins weren’t his kids, or if he knew they were Kuo’s kids, but after the poisoning and death of Chang, CCK never visited them again. The twins were taken to Taiwan by their grandma and uncle, used their mother’s surname, and they grew up in poverty in Hsinchu.

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Chiang Wanan and his son on the left and middle. Kuo Libuo on the right.

Chiang Wanan also grew up as Chang Wanan, until both his father and him decided to change their surname to Chiang in 2005, when his was already 27 years old, and his father was already 63 years old. Since the younger twin didn’t change his name, his sides of the family kept the Chang surname.