China's most famous WWII general was a basketbal star

[sinobball]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Li_Jen

"His achievements earned him the laudatory nickname "Rommel of the East". His New 1st Army was reputed as the "1st [Best] Army under the heaven" and credited with defeating the most Japanese troops..."

but what most people didn't know was...

Sun led China to an upset victory over the Philippines, 30-27, in the championship game of the 1921 Far Eastern Championship Games, China's first gold medal in international basketball. This game had enormous political implications, boosting Chinese self-confidence at a time when the country was fragmented by feuding warlords and often referred to as Asia's "sick giant."

Although at that time there were only 3 Asian basketball teams (China, Philippines and Japan... China beat Japan 32-28) Sun was 185cm BTW.

In 1950 Sun had all the military power in Taiwan, and America wanted him to become ROC's new leader... until dictator Chiang placed him under house arrest for 30+ years. Poor guy.

[Restyup]

I agree. Poor guy ((((

[durden_tyler]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Li_Jen
"His achievements earned him the laudatory nickname "Rommel of the East". His New 1st Army was reputed as the "1st [Best] Army under the heaven" and credited with defeating the most Japanese troops..."

but what most people didn't know was...Although at that time there were only 3 Asian basketball teams (China, Philippines and Japan... China beat Japan 32-28) Sun was 185cm BTW.

In 1950 Sun had all the military power in Taiwan, and America wanted him to become ROC's new leader... until dictator Chiang placed him under house arrest for 30+ years. Poor guy.

Great trivia!

This game had enormous political implications, boosting Chinese self-confidence at a time when the country was fragmented by feuding warlords and often referred to as Asia's "sick giant."

At our expense too! i blame the Japanese for not defeating him on the field! Maybe China would not be so dominating if the upset did not happen

[Phantim3dx]

Oh Gen. Sun, this dude was bad ass. the KMT also had another effective general and almost wiped out Mao and his homies during the Long march, I can't remember his name but I do know he went to Whampao Academy. Living and working in China I find it so funny that these mainland shows depict(or make it show at least) that most of the fighting against the Japanese was done by the CCP. I laugh each time I've seen it, which pisses of my relatives on my wife's side because through their education it's always been the CCP and never the KMT. My wife knows otherwise. oh and her family name is also Sun(孙) and is an alumni of Tsinghua University. So was I kind of..but i quit from my post grad program to venture into something else.

[sinobball]

Oh Gen. Sun, this dude was bad ass. the KMT also had another effective general and almost wiped out Mao and his homies during the Long march, I can't remember his name but I do know he went to Whampao Academy.

I have no idea who that is, I read a lot of history about the Long March, even Harrison Salisbury's book in English. I think you might have been thinking of Du Yuming but I don't think he was or ever participated in stopping the Long March. Maybe Hu Zongnan? Actually Mao's army was not in huge danger throughout the Long March, just really bad terrain, the biggest problems were in Guizhou and Yunnan provinces but the good thing is the warlords in those places (Long Yun and others) distrusted Chiang as much as Mao so it was a brilliant display by Mao to use the distrust to his advantage by zigzagging through different warlord-controlled regions. Actually the Red Army suffered the biggest defeat at the end of Long March at the hands of Chinese Muslims in the Shaanxi province.

As for your mention, what else are they going to show on TV, but truth to be told, I do remember back when I was young, there was one movie about KMT's heroic anti-Japanese battle at Tai'erzhuang/Xuzhou. (That was probably allowed because the KMT general Li Zongren later defected to Communist because he got too influential and was a threat to Chiang.) Before 1995(?), TV series about the Communist Eighth Army did not even have the KMT emblem (blue sky white sun) on their caps like they were supposed to have in history, which was of course ridiculous. In the past decade though, while CCP still produces tons of propaganda about itself, they clearly also want to please the KMT in Taiwan and a lot of shows about KMT's anti-Japanese campaigns are actually produced, maybe you only paid attention to the Communist ones.