"In his youth Ching-kuo was a Communist and a Trotskyite, and he lived twelve years in Russia. He died in 1988 as the leader of Taiwan, a Chinese society with a flourishing consumer economy and a budding but already wild, woolly, and open democracy. He was an actor in many of the events of the last century that shaped the history of China's struggles and achievements in the modern era: the surge of nationalism among Chinese youth, the grand appeal of Marxism-Leninism, the terrible battle against fascist Japan, and the long, destructive civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists. In 1949, he fled to Taiwan with his father and two million Nationalists. He led the brutal suppression of dissent on the island and was a major player in the cold war between Communist China and America." "Jay Taylor underscores the interaction of political developments on the mainland and in Taiwan and concludes that if China ever makes a similar transition, it will owe much to the Taiwan example and the Generalissimo's son."--Jacket.

pt. 1. Revolution. Upright stone ; A teachable son ; Dreams of the Red Chamber ; Socialist man ; Reunion and war ; The Kannan model ; Death and general ; Manchurian candidate ; Defeat ; End game -- pt. 2. The island. An unintended consequence ; Secret wars ; Family, friends, enemies ; Managing the great patron ; China leaps backward ; The minister ; The golden cudgel ; The premier ; Old orders passing ; The divorce ; Riots and trials ; Island and mainland ; Successors, brokers, killers ; Building consensus ; Breakthrough ; A Chinese democracy -- Epilogue -- Appendix: Romanization table.