National Military Tribunal for China

The National Military Tribunal for China was established in Nanjing on October 18th 1948, pursuant to the terms of the June 23rd Armistice to try war criminals of the Chinese Civil War, most prominently Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. The Revolutionary Committee for Constitutional Protection organized the trial and appointed its judges on behalf of the Republic of China, and the Nuremberg principles to give legitimacy to what contemporary critics dismissed as a “kangaroo court”. The tribunal was dissolved on December 31st 1948.

Background

National Commission for Investigating War Crimes

The RCCP established the National Commission for Investigating War Crimes (NCIWC) on June 4th 1947, charged with the task of building evidence for a case against those who had been arrested during the 1947 Chinese Revolution for their role in massacring civilians. Taiwan and Shanghai would be the initial locations for its fact-finding mission due to the 228 Massacre and the violent suppression of peaceful assemblies in Shanghai on Anti-Civil War respectively. The Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party appointed their own observers to the NCIWC after the conclusion of June 23rd Armistice.

The NCIWC was extremely thorough in its research and documentation, interviewing tens of thousands of people to build its case. The CCP repeatedly complained that its operation was deliberately lethargic, while the KMT obstructed its efforts as much as possible by repeatedly questioning evidence and insisting on collecting its own documents. Critics within the KMT and even the China Democratic League complained that its conclusions were prejudiced in respect to Chiang Kai-shek due to the June 23rd Armistice, wherein the RCCP, the KMT and the CCP mutually agreed that he would be tried for war crimes and the implicit threats from Mao Zedong that his death was necessary for their continued cooperation.

Context in the Chinese Civil War

Most historians now believe that the CCP was correct in its assessment of the Commission's deliberate slowness. The RCCP privately and repeatedly requested the NCIWC to expand the scope of its investigation, as they feared that the trials could cause a resumption of the Chinese Civil War by one of the two major parties. The Kuomintang was much more transparent about attempting to buy time, as it needed to implement its land reform program and other policies negotiated in the 1947 Political Consultative Conference to rebuild popular support for the party against the Communists. Eventually the CCP secretly threatened to unilaterally resume the Civil War, with the rationale that the Armistice would be violated in absence of not only a trial but an execution for Chiang Kai-shek before the elections were to be held. The NCIWC thus officially concluded its work on October 11th 1948, and entered its evidence for use by the National Military Tribunal.

Trial

Defendants

• General Yasuji Okamura of the Imperial Japanese Army, Commander-in-Chief of the China Expeditionary Army (1944-1945), military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek (1946-1947)
• Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, former Chairman of the National Government for the Republic of China (1928-1931; 1943-1948), Chairman of the National Military Council (1931-1946), Director-General of the Kuomintang (1938-1947) and Premier (1930-1931; 1935-1938; 1939-1945; 1947)
• Chen Yi, former Governor-General of Taiwan (1945-1947)

• Yu Hung-Chun, former Mayor of Shanghai (1947)
• Commanding officers of the Taiwanese garrison during the 228 Massacre
• Commanding officers of the Shanghai garrison during the 1947 Chinese Revolution

Charges

The National Military Tribunal began the trial on October 18th by reiterating the various war crimes that Yasuji Okamura was convicted of during the earlier Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal. These included mass rape and forced prostitution during the occupation of China, and implementing the Three Alls Policy which caused the deaths of over 2.5 million civilians as Commander-in-Chief of the China Expeditionary Army. He also carried out orders to use chemical weapons in the Battles of Changsha, Nanchang and Wuhan. However, Yasuji Okamura was not sentenced for these crimes due to the personal intervention of Chiang Kai-shek, who appointed him as a military adviser.

Preventing a convicted war criminal from coming to justice was only the first of the case against Chiang, with a long list for his entire administration over the last two decades. The Tribunal found him to be culpable of starting the Chinese Civil War by massacring unarmed civilians who belonged to the CCP in Shanghai on April 12, 1927, for which he was condemned by the Central Committee of the Kuomintang, one of the most outspoken of which was KMT delegate to the RCCP Soong Ching-ling, who testified against Chiang.

He was also found to be criminally negligent in his conduct of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The 1938 Yellow River flood deliberately caused by Chiang in his efforts to stymie Japanese advances lead to the deaths of over 800,000 Chinese civilians. He was also found guilty of starting the 1938 Changsha fire, one of the largest and most destructive acts of arson in history. 30,000 civilians died, over 90% of the city's buildings were destroyed and the economic losses neared a billion due to the blaze consuming its industrial machinery and crops.

Finally, he was held responsible for the deliberate massacre and rape of unarmed civilians in 1947. The 228 Massacre of the Taiwanese and related atrocities carried out by former Governor-General Chen Yi were widely reported on by the international press, including The New York Times and The Daily News in Perth. The total deaths caused therein were put between 10,000 to 30,000 according to the NCIWC. The massacres in Shanghai carried out by the military garrison under the command of Mayor Yu Hung-Chun during the 1947 Chinese Revolution also had a similar death toll, and Chiang was personally blamed due to his commanding role in both incidents by the prosecution.

Defense

The defense counsel attempted to seek a dismissal of all charges for Chiang, and reduced sentences for everyone else except for General Yasuji Okamura. They began by admitting that Chiang's judgments were sometimes questionable, but never criminal. As Chairman of the National Government and its chief executive, he had legal authority over the sentencing of General Okamura, and thus intervening on his behalf could not be a crime. The Generalissimo, they alleged, had nothing to do with the arson, the flood, the 228 Massacre, or the violent suppression of the Shanghai protests in 1947. They did admit that he suppressed the Communists in 1927, but that they were allegedly armed and seeking to overthrow the government.

Verdict

After a protracted trial with hundreds of defendants, most of whom were members of Shanghai and Taiwan military garrisons, verdicts were handed down on December 2nd 1948. General Yasuji Okamura was to be immediately sentenced to death by firing squad. However, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Governor-General Chen Yi and Yu Hung-Chun were all given “death sentences with reprieve”. This is a suspended sentence for execution, wherein the accused will have two years to earn life imprisonment by not committing further crimes. All other defendants were sentenced to immediate life in prison.

Aftermath

Domestic reaction

The Kuomintang dismissed the lawful nature of the court, but praised the execution of General Yasuji Okamura as “necessary and proper”. Mao Zedong of the Chinese Communist Party was reportedly furious with the verdict, and ultimately cited it as a violation of the Armistice before resuming hostilities in the Chinese Civil War. The Chinese public's views on the trial were and are diverse, but supporters of Chiang Kai-shek demonstrated outside of his holding facility in Nanjing with portraits of him and large banners calling for his release.

United States reaction

The United States generally distrustful of the RCCP, whom they viewed as Communist puppets. They further viewed the entire trial process as distressing, and repeatedly made attempts to covertly rescue Chiang Kai-shek from his captivity in Nanjing. When the final verdict was reached, American policymakers were flummoxed by the results. Nonetheless, subsequent relations between the U.S. and the ROC remained full of mistrust and somewhat frosty.

Final fates of the defendants

Chiang Kai-shek, Chen Yi and Yu Hung-Chun were not ultimately executed, but they remained in prison along with the soldiers that carried out their orders. Nonetheless, Chiang at least remained an active voice for the far-right in the politics of the ROC, as his prison writings were usually bestsellers and his supporters remained as loyal as ever. His continued imprisonment would remain a contentious political issue until his death on October 8th 1971. The other prisoners faded into obscurity, with the last soldier convicted in the tribunal dying in March 13th 2009 at the age of 83.