Sun Li-jen (1900-), graduate of the Virginia Military Institute who won renown in the Burma campaigns and who rose to become commander in chief of the Chinese Army. He was dismissed from his posts in 1955 on charges of negligence in connection with an alleged plot against the National Government in Taiwan.

Shuch'eng, Anhwei, was the birthplace of Sun Li-jen. After receiving thorough training in both traditional and modern subjects, he enrolled at Tsinghua College. In 1922 he took time out from his studies to serve on the basketball team that represented China in international competition. After being graduated from Tsinghua in 1923, Sun went to the United States, where he studied civil engineering at Purdue University and received a B.S. degree in 1924. He then enrolled at the Virginia Military Institute, from which he was graduated in 1927. After touring England, France, Germany, and Japan to observe military practices, he returned to China and entered the National Revolutionary Army as a corporal.

Sun Li-jen's first military assignment was as commander of a training column at the Central Political Institute. By 1930 he had risen to become a regimental commander with the rank of colonel. In the early 1930's T. V. Soong (q.v.) established under his own command the Salt Gabelle Brigade. Sun was made a regimental commander in this new force. In 1937, while leading his men against the Japanese at Shanghai, he was wounded in 13 places. A student donated blood to save his life, and he was taken to Hong Kong to recuperate. In 1938 Sun Li-jen was assigned to organize a new unit of Salt Gabelle troops at Changsha. This unit became the New 38th Division in 1942, with Sun as divisional commander. That spring, the division took part in the first Burma campaign, on the Irrawaddy front. The (British) Burma Division had been trapped near Yenangyuang, and Sun was sent to its relief. After initial delays, the Chinese made steady progress toward the beleaguered division, and the Japanese were compelled to shift troops to meet the advancing Chinese. The New 38th Division's attack pushed the Japanese back and enabled the British division to escape. When the Japanese drove combined British and Chinese forces under Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell out of Burma, Sun enhanced his reputation by effecting a skillful evacuation into India. The official U.S. Army history of the China-Burma-India theater, written by Charles F. Romanus and Riley Sunderland, stated that "from the First Burma Campaign the 38th Division and its brilliant commander emerged with their reputations established. To the tactical feat of Yenangyuang, the gallant and capable Sun Li-jen added the unique achievement of bringing his division through the Chin Hills as an intact fighting unit with discipline and morale unimpaired." Stilwell's immediate plan was to fight his way back and recover Burma from the Japanese. He soon evolved a plan, approved by both Washington and Chungking, for the training of a basic Chinese force of 30 divisions, the majority of which would be in a Y-force in Yunnan province, with an X-force to be trained at Ramgarh in northeastern India. Stilwell was appointed commander in chief of the Chinese army in India, with Lo Cho-ying as his deputy and Sun Li-jen and Liao Yaohsiang as Lo's commanders. The training base at Ramgarh was established and the work of creating new Chinese formations began. This task was completed in 1943: the New First Army, composed of the 38th and 30th divisions and commanded by Sun Li-jen, and the New Sixth Army, composed of the 14th, 22nd, and 50th divisions and commanded by Liao Yaohsiang were ready for action. In December 1943 Chiang Kai-shek gave General Stilwell full authority to use these forces as he saw fit. After a hesitant beginning on the second Burma campaign, Sun Li-jen experienced his first jungle victory at Taipha Ga at the end of January 1944. With the collaboration of the 3rd Indian Division and Merrill's Marauders, the Chinese forces drove the Japanese 18th Division from the Hukawng and Mogaung valleys in May-June 1944. After hard and tedious campaigning, they finally took the Japanese stronghold of Myitkyina in August, thus ending the first stage of the second Burma campaign. Stilwell termed the action "the first sustained offensive in Chinese history against a first-class enemy." In the summer of 1944 the (American) Northern Combat Area Command unostentatiously took over from the Sino-American headquarters that had exercised authority over the Chinese troops in Burma. A new offensive, an attack southward from Myitkyina along three routes, was planned for mid-October 1944. With Stilwell's dismissal in October, and the separation of the China theater from the China-Burma-India theater, Lieutenant General Daniel L. Sultan took command of the India- Burma theater. The New First Army of Sun Li-jen achieved its first objective in the threepronged drive, the occupation of Bhamo, in mid-December. On 6-7 March 1945 the 38th Division captured Lashio, and on 24 March the 38th and 50th Chinese Divisions met east of Hsipaw. Thus, the whole of the Burma Road from Hsipaw to Kunming came under Chinese control. The mission of the Chinese forces, as defined by Chiang Kai-shek, ended there. The second Burma campaign also served to vindicate Stilwell's belief in the capacities of the Chinese soldier when properly trained, equipped, and led.

Sun Li-jen and his men returned to China in 1945. About this time, General Dwight D. Eisenhower invited Sun to inspect European battlefields. Sun accepted the honor and traveled some 50,000 miles in three weeks. After returning to China, he led his New First Army into Canton and accepted the surrender of the Japanese Twenty-third Army.

When Soviet forces began moving out of Manchuria in March 1946, Sun Li-jen was sent to the Mukden area. The New First Army, now composed of three divisions, moved north from Mukden along the railway and occupied Changtu on 2 April. Ahead lay a roadblock established by the Chinese Communist forces after Soviet troops had moved beyond Ssu-p'ing-kai, an important railway junction that lay halfway between Mukden and Changchun. The Chinese Communists had occupied Ssu-p'ing-kai on 18 March. On 5 April, Sun Li-jen's advance units reached the enemy stronghold, but Sun was obliged to take no action until a Communist threat to the Nationalist rearguard in the Liaosi corridor was eliminated. He finally issued the attack order on 16 April. Strong resistance caused the Nationalists to reinforce the New First Army with the New Fifth and New Sixth armies. Ssu-p'ing-kai finally fell to the Nationalists on 20 May.

In August 1946 Sun Li-jen was appointed deputy pacification commander for the Northeast, with the concurrent assignment, at the head of his New First Army, of Changchun defense commander. At that time, he characterized the Communist People's Liberation Army in Manchuria as "flies attacking a tiger," but his confidence in the Nationalist "tiger" seemed to diminish in the following few months as the Communists chipped away at Nationalist positions. In April 1947 he was replaced as commander of the New First Army by P'an Yü-k'un, a Whampoa graduate, and was made deputy commander in chief, under Tu Yüming (q.v.), of the Northeast Peace Preservation Corps. The New First Army, under new command and renewed Communist attack, abandoned the north bank of the Sungari River. In July, a shakeup of the Nationalist command in Manchuria began. Although Sun Li-jen was the logical replacement for Tu Yü-ming, he was not given that post. Instead, he was removed from field command and was appointed deputy commander in chief of the Chinese Army and commander in chief of army training at Nanking. He held these posts until September 1949, when he became Taiwan defense commander.

In March 1950, after Chiang Kai-shek established the National Government inTaiwan, Sun Li-jen was made commander in chief of the Chinese Army. He was promoted to the rank of full general in May 1951. In Taiwan, however, Sun had to compete for authority and influence with Chiang Kai-shek's son Chiang Ching-kuo (q.v.), whose system of army political commissars was a potential challenge to Sun's authority. That Sun was losing this competition became clear in 1954, when he was removed from his command posts and was appointed personal chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek. On 20 August 1955 the National Government announced that he had been relieved (on 3 August) of that post as well, having resigned as an "admission of negligence" in connection with an alleged plot by a subordinate, Kuo T'ing-liang. Kuo had been arrested in May, and he was said to have confessed to being a Communist agent. The National Government appointed a nine-man board to investigate, but did not make public the details of the case against Kuo. Available information suggests that the alleged plot consisted in part of a plan for the presentation of a troop petition to Chiang-Kai-shek calling for the abolition of the army political commissar system. Sun Li-jen was not accused of being a Communist agent, but it was assumed that he "may have known what his followers were doing without realizing that the alleged plot was Communist-inspired." He reportedly was placed under house arrest. He later lived in retirement at Taichung. To many Chinese, Sun was known as "the ever victorious general," but in Taiwan, political generals, rather than capable commanders, carried the day.