unleash Chiang

Meanings

1. To release powerful forces and viciously attack.

Etymology

“Unleash Chiang” was originally a slogan from the late 1940s and early 1950s used by anti-communist American hawks for more vigorous aid to Chiang Kai-shek on Taiwan, so as to enable him to counter Mao Zedong, Mao's government and even invade the mainland. Given the relative weakness and of the Republic of China compared to that of the People’s Republic of China, this was originally an absurd and ironic phrase used by their opponents. This phrase was then used jokingly by George H. W. Bush to either refer to his own weak tennis serve or to rally his tennis partners ("mocking the right-wing nuts of his generation", Brad DeLong 2005). In 2005, Jeb Bush (possibly after having heard his father's tennis cries but not knowing the origin of the phrase) presented Marco Rubio with a golden sword, after telling a story about the mystical warrior "Chang" who "believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society." Today, the phrase is sometimes used in earnest by some right-wing Americans who like Jeb Bush may be unaware of the phrase's origins and sometimes corrupt it as "unleash Chang". William Safire (2008) claims, "John Foster Dulles, first Dewey’s and then Eisenhower’s chief foreign policy adviser, was the American most associated with a promise to 'unleash Chiang.'" But there does not seem to be any record of Dulles actually using this phrase. Similarly with attributions to Douglas MacArthur.