Chen Lifu
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Chen Lifu, or Chen Li-fu, 陈立夫, (1899-2001) was an anti-Communist Chinese politician in the Republic of China. Chen and his older brother, Chen Guofu, were nephews of Chen Qimei, who until his assassination by Chinese warlord Yuan Shih-kai in 1916 was the mentor of Chiang Kai-shek. Chen Lifu studied mining in the United States but never worked in the field, instead became Chiang's personal secretary and confidante at age 27 and two years later Kuomintang (KMT) secretary general. Because of these personal ties, the Chen brothers stood close to the Generalissimo, controlling appointments and promotions, and held the largest block of votes in the Central Executive Committee. Chen Li-fu was considered the Party boss of the KMT. The Chen brothers came to direct the organizational operations of the Chiang-dominated KMT in the Republic of China, and founding their own political faction known as the CC Clique or Central Clique. The brothers also controlled the KMT's Central Bureau of Investigation and Statistics, one of Chiang's two secret police bodies.
Chen Lifu also served as education minister during most of the Chinese Civil War, using the secret police to impose rigid controls and KMT ideology on intellectuals and students. Chen pressured Chiang for a final extermination campaign against the communists, which he saw as the only solution to the civil war, and opposed U.S. efforts at mediation.
Chen Lifu was close to Chiang Ching-kuo, who was 10 years his junior, from childhood on, the young Chiang lived at the home of Chen's older brother while attending school in Shanghai. Chen is said to have arranged the return of Chiang Ching-kuo, to China in 1937 after he went to study in the Soviet Union, and persuaded him join the KMT.
Chen's influence on Chiang Kai-shek and his son started to wane with the Nationalists' retreat to Taiwan after the communist victory in China in 1949. He remained a member of the KMT's evaluation commission, until his death but did not hold any high-ranking posts in the Taiwan government. Chen, and other party conservatives tried to prevent reformist Lee Teng-hui from succeeding Chiang Ching-kuo as president and KMT leader, but nonetheless, continued to serve as a presidential advisor until 1996. He published his memoirs in that year and died of heart failure in February 2001.
