Chiang Kai-shek is no longer the one pulling the strings in China. He remains as a figurehead until his successor can take power.
-Walter P. McConaughy, 1973, shortly before being succeeded by Walter Judd as US ambassador to China
Chiang Kai-shek had won a fifth and final term. But the Chiang Kai-shek of 1972 and beyond was different from the Chiang Kai-shek who led China against Japan and the Communists. He was getting old, and he would celebrate his 85th birthday later that year. The death of his friend and former Vice President Sun Fo in 1973 must have been an unpleasant reminder of his own mortality. He would spend much less time doing his governmental duties than in the past (though this had been the case since 1970). His few public appearances after the Shanghai Olympics were mostly confined the occasional military parade. This led many to suspect, with good reason, that Ching Kai-shek wasn’t really the one running the government anymore.
There were many people with influence in the government, but the two most powerful men in China were Vice President Chen Lifu and Premier Chiang Ching-kuo. In general, Chen Lifu worked on domestic policy while Chiang Ching-kuo worked on foreign policy. Knowledge of this state of affairs didn’t stay within the Presidential Palace in Nanking for long. A newspaper in Tianjin was shut down after running a story calling Chen Lifu the true leader of China. In the Soviet Union, Chen considered to be the man calling the shots in China. The Soviets absolutely hated Chen Lifu, and he hated them too. A double agent in Moscow informed Chen Lifu that there was a potential assassination plot against him by the KGB.
Chen Lifu was politically similar to Chiang Kai-shek, or if anything, more extreme. He was more hardline in his stance against Communism. He also wanted to go further in tackling corruption. Chen Lifu’s support of Chiang helped blunt right-wing opposition to the government’s policies, especially land reform. In addition to his political views, he was also a strong proponent of Confucianism and traditional Chinese medicine. He had enemies within the Kuomintang, at all levels of government, and particularly in Jiangsu province. There were many in the party who believed that Chiang had made a terrible lapse in judgment. Nevertheless, Chen was popular with Chiang’s entire family. The Kuomintang, along with China, was stuck with him at least until 1978.
(In the red provinces, a majority of National Assembly delegates voted against Chen Lifu)
Chiang Ching-kuo was more popular all around, with few in the party actually hating him. That didn’t mean that there weren’t those in the KMT who opposed a potential 1978 Chiang Ching-kuo presidential bid. There were a lot of people, including people with power, who didn’t want to see China become the “Chiang Dynasty.” Nevertheless, Chiang worked to promote his allies and demote his rivals from 1972-1978. Chen Lifu was happy to help him, as most of Chiang’s enemies were also his enemies. Chen had a good relationship with the secret police, so it was easy to find dirt on his political opponents. The two men were on good terms, though Chiang had some lingering suspicions that if his father died before his term ended, Chen would not step aside in favor of him in 1978.
Chiang Ching-kuo made many international trips in the years following 1972. Even before 1972, Chiang Kai-shek had stopped travelling internationally. In 1971, Ching-kuo attended the 2,500-year celebration of the Persian Empire, hosted by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Iran was a Chinese ally, and was increasingly beset by the Soviet Union or its allies on multiple fronts. In 1973, Chiang visited America, where he was pleased to see the return of the Republican Party to power, hoping that Gerald Ford would be another William Knowland. He would make several visits to Africa, visiting the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, and Kenya in 1973. Later, he would meet Portuguese leaders in Macao for a discussion of the return of the city to China.