In 1936, Chang Hsueh-liang, also known as the "young marshal" and the "dancing despot", who died on October 14th aged 101, changed the history of China and the world. His reward was to become the longest-serving political prisoner in history.
Chang was the instigator of the Sian Incident. He kidnapped the Chinese nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, and forced him to end the civil war against the Chinese communists to form an alliance against the Japanese invaders.
It made Chang a hero of China. But to preserve Chiang Kai-shek's authority, he surrendered himself to him for punishment. He was to spend the next 53 years under house arrest, first in mainland China and then Taiwan.
Chang Hsueh-liang was born in Mukden, capital of Manchuria, the first son of a hunter-bandit-warlord, Chang Tso-lin. At 16 he was married, at 17 a father, at 20 a general in his father's Manchurian army. At 24 he captured two great cities, Beijing and Tianjin, and helped to make his father the arbiter of China. But in 1928 his father was assassinated by the Japanese, leaving his son Manchuria, a state the size of western Europe. At 28, Chang Hsueh-liang, now the "young marshal", was the youngest ruler in the world.
The Japanese expected Chang to become their puppet. Already an opium user, he was given morphine as a "cure" by a Japanese doctor - and secret agent. But he was determined to resist Japan. When he found two of his generals plotting with the Japanese, he invited them to play mah-jongg, and gunned them down over the tiles. This won him massive popularity. For the next three years, he struggled to modernise Manchuria and rid it of foreign influence. He donated most of his father's fortune to found training schools. He used his army to support Chiang Kai-shek, whom he revered as a second father.
Affable, handsome and energetic despite his drug problems, he attracted admiring profiles in the Western media. In his spare time he drove fast cars, piloted his luxury silver monoplane, danced, played all-night poker for huge stakes, took up golf and loved many beautiful women.
In September 1931, the Japanese carried out their long-prepared plot to conquer Manchuria, installing Pu Yi, the "Last Emperor", as its puppet ruler. Most of Chang's army was out of the province, fighting for Chiang Kai-shek against the communists. He was in hospital in Peking, seeking a cure for morphine addiction. He appealed to Chiang Kai-shek for help, but was ordered not to resist the Japanese. The non-resistance policy was deeply unpopular. Chang accepted the blame, as he did later when the Japanese pushed south into China and took Jehol and Beijing. Aged 33, he announced his "retirement". He went to Europe, met and admired Mussolini, and set up with his family in London's Dorchester Hotel.
Finally cured of drug addiction and following a new, spartan regime, he returned to China in 1934 and resumed command of his exiled Manchurian army, fighting the communists on behalf of Chiang Kai-shek. Under the influence of radical army officers, Chang signed a secret non-aggression pact with the communist negotiator, Chou Enlai.
In October 1936, he appealed to Chiang Kai-shek to reverse his anti-communist policy and lead all Chinese forces against the Japanese invader. Chiang refused and so on December 7th, 1936, Chang kidnapped him and forced him into a temporary alliance with Chou Enlai.
But then, under pressure from the communists, and himself eager to save Chiang Kai-shek's face and maintain China's new-found unity, the young marshal released his captive, left his army and travelled as Chiang's prisoner to his capital in Nanjing. After issuing a public apology he expected only a nominal punishment. Instead he began 53 years of house arrest.
Chiang Kai-shek refused US requests to release him as the only man who could save Manchuria from the communists: instead, in 1949, he took him to Taiwan, where his comfortable captivity continued for the next 41 years.
He and his wife Edith converted to Christianity and he took the name of Peter. Finally, in 1990, they were allowed to join his family in Hawaii. Last year, shortly after celebrating his 100th birthday, he was heartbroken to lose Edith, his companion of 72 years.
Chang Hsueh-liang is survived by his son by her and several children of his first marriage.
Chang Hsueh-liang: born 1900; died, October 2001