Coming Down Alert – Chongqing – the former residence of Chiang Kai-shek

After considering the latest outcry about demolition of relics and history in China from a senior official yesterday I admit that it’s taken me a while to catch up on this sad and sorry story concerns the building from which Chiang Kai-shek led China during World War Two in Chungking (Chongqing) as shown below – it is now rubble thanks to a property developer as this article and series of photos in Caixin shows. The house survived repeated Japanese bombing attempts but couldn’t survive the property developers!

I was reminded of this house when discussing the Carl Crow War Diaries I edited a few years back with some people in New York recently – this was Crow’s impression of the Chiang compound when he visited:

Chiang Kai-Shek’s Residence, Chungking, Tuesday, June 13^th 1939

My engagement with Madame Chiang Kai-shek was for 6 o’clock and was purely informal as I was going to have tea with her with no one else present except Holly Tong (effectively her secretary at the time). The Generalissimo might drop in but that was not certain as he has a big military conference on. I was waiting in the Central Publicity office after the regular military briefing when the news came that 27 planes had left Hankow and were on their way to Chungking. They were due to arrive about 5:45. I couldn’t help thinking what a swell story it would make if the danger signal came while I was calling on the Chiangs, and possibly spent an hour or so in the dugout with them. That appeared very probable for we started for their residence at about 5:30. It is not in any sense a hide out, but is prominently located and without the least attempt at camouflage. Unless their espionage system has fallen down, the Japanese must know exactly where it is. But they are so used to deception that I suppose it would never occur to them to believe that the Generalissimo would live where he is supposed to live.

There were plenty of sentries around the place, but unobtrusive. There was no show of pomp or military force. We didn’t pass more than a dozen sentries from the time we left the car and there were none inside the house.

The house was about the same as the house of a well-to-do Chinese in Shanghai. There was nothing ornate about it like the houses of the Shanghai millionaires. From an unimpressive hall we entered directly into the large reception room, which is also the drawing room. The high ceilings were marked by a modernistic glass enclosed lighting system. There were a number of fine old Chinese scrolls on the walls – monotones of floral designs, a landscape or two and one figure. There were plenty of chairs in the room – enough to seat 20 or 30 people.