Editing Chinese Civil War (section)

=== Poor governance by Nationalists ===
{{See also|Chinese hyperinflation}}
Almost all studies of the failure of the Nationalist government identify [[Chinese hyperinflation|hyperinflation]] as a major factor in the government's collapse.<ref name="Coble2023">{{Cite book |last=Coble |first=Parks M. |title=The Collapse of Nationalist China: How Chiang Kai-shek Lost China's Civil War |year=2023 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-009-29761-5 |author-link=Parks M. Coble}}</ref>{{Rp|5}} The Nationalist military and the government's civilian employees were most impacted by hyperinflation which in turn prompted widespread corruption and pilfering.<ref name="Coble2023" />{{Rp|5}} Little funding reached enlisted soldiers, who were typically malnourished and poorly equipped.<ref name="Coble2023" />{{Rp|9}} Desertion was common.<ref name="Coble2023" />{{Rp|9}}

The historian [[Rana Mitter]] writes that a lack of trust in the Nationalist government developed, as it was increasingly seen as "corrupt, vindictive, and with no overall vision of what China under its rule should look like".<ref name="Mitter2020">{{Cite book |last=Mitter |first=Rana |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1141442704 |title=China's good war: how World War II is shaping a new nationalism |year=2020 |publisher=Belknap |isbn=978-0-674-98426-4 |location=Cambridge, MA |page=54}}</ref> Chiang wrote in his diary in June 1948: "After the fall of Kaifeng our conditions worsened and became more serious. I now realized that the main reason our nation has collapsed, time after time throughout our history, was not because of superior power used by our external enemies, but because of disintegration and rot from within."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Trei |first=Lisa |date=9 March 2005 |title=Hoover's new archival acquisitions shed light on Chinese history |url=http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/march9/chinese-030905.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190711184425/https://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/march9/chinese-030905.html |archive-date=11 July 2019 |access-date=11 July 2019 |work=Stanford University}}</ref>

Historian [[Odd Arne Westad]] says the Communists won the Civil War because they made fewer military mistakes than Chiang Kai-shek and also because in his search for a powerful centralized government, Chiang antagonized too many interest groups in China. Furthermore, his party was weakened in the war against the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Communists targeted different groups, such as peasants, and brought them to their side.<ref>Odd Arne Westad, ''Restless Empire: China and the World Since 1750'' (2012) p.&nbsp;291.</ref> After 1945, the economy in the ROC areas collapsed because of hyperinflation and the failure of [[price controls]] by the ROC government and financial reforms; the Gold Yuan depreciated sharply in late 1948<ref>{{Cite web |script-title=zh:金圓券相關史料 – 財政部財政史料陳列室 |url=http://www.mof.gov.tw/museum/ct.asp?xItem=3682&ctNode=34 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150102062530/http://www.mof.gov.tw/museum/ct.asp?xItem=3682&ctNode=34 |archive-date=2 January 2015 |access-date=8 March 2014 |language=zh}}</ref> and resulted in the ROC government losing the support of the cities' [[middle class]]es.

United States Secretary of State [[Dean Acheson]] described the Nationalists as "corrupt, reactionary, and inefficient". He believed that the Nationalists had displayed both political inadequacy as well as "the grossest incompetence ever experienced by any military command," and that the Communists "did not create this condition", but skillfully exploited the opportunity it provided.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kissinger |first1=Henry |title=On China |year=2011 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=9781594202711 |pages=117–118}}</ref>