The case of dimension two was proved by Andreotti-Frankel [-7] and the case of dimension three by Mabuchi [18] using the result of Kobayashi-Ochiai [12]. Our method of proof uses harmonic maps and the characterization of the complex projective space obtained by Kobayashi-Ochiai [15]. According to the result of Kobayashi-Ochiai the complex projective space of dimension n is characterized by the fact that its first Chern class equals 2c1 (F) for some 2> n+ 1 and some positive holomorphic line bundle F over it. Since by the result of Bishop-Goldberg [-2] the second Betti number of a compact Kiihler manifold M of positive bisectional curvature is 1, for the Main Theorem it suffices to show that ca (M) is 2 times a generator of H2 (M, 7Z.) for some 2> 1+ dim M. This can be done by proving that a generator of the free part of H2 (M, Z) can be represented by a rational curve, because the tangent bundle of M restricted to the rational curve splits into a direct sum of holomorphic line bundles over the rational curve according to the result of Grothendieck [-11]. The existence of the rational curve is obtained in the following way. According to the result of Sacks-Uhlenbeck [22] and its improved formulation by Meeks-Yau [-19], the infimum of the energies of maps from S 2 to M representing the generator of rcz (M) can be achieved by a sum of stable harmonic maps f~ from S 2 to M (1< i< m). The key step in our proof is to show that each f~ is either holomorphic or conjugate holomorphic. The known methods of proving the complex-analyticity of a harmonic map use the formula for the Laplacian of the energy function [23, 25, 26] or a variation of it [24]. Here we use