Kuomintang

The Kuomintang emerged after the 1911 revolution that overthrew the empire. In the 1920s, cooperating with the communists, it built an army that brought much of the country under its control in the Northern Expedition; in 1927 Chiang Kai-shek broke with the communists, and from 1928 the party governed the Republic of China from Nanjing. After war with Japan broke out in 1937 it formed a new united front with the communists, though one full of mutual mistrust, and its government moved to Chongqing.

The war exhausted the Nationalists, while corruption and repression eroded their support. After Japan's surrender the Kuomintang and the communists competed for control of the country; the civil war ended in 1949 with Mao Zedong's victory and Chiang Kai-shek's evacuation to Taiwan, where the party is still active.