page_title: History of the Kuomintang
section_title: KMT in Taiwan
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Kuomintang / KMT in Taiwan
context_page_description: The History of the Kuomintang is an article on the inception of the Kuomintang, a Chinese political party that ruled China 1927–48 and then moved to Taiwan. The name translates as "China's National People's Party" and was historically referred to as the Chinese Nationalists. The Party was initially founded on 23 August 1912, by Sun Yat-sen but dissolved in November 1913. It reformed on October 10th 1919, again led by Sun Yat-sen, and became the ruling party in China. After Sun's death, the party was dominated from 1927 to 1975 by Chiang Kai-shek. Though the KMT lost the civil war with the Communist Party of China in 1949, the party took control of Taiwan and remains a major political party of the Republic of China based in Taiwan.
  Founded in 1912 by Sun Yat-sen, the KMT helped topple the Qing Emperor and promoted modernization along Western lines. The party played a significant part in the first Chinese first National Assembly where it was the majority party. However the KMT failed to achieve complete control. The post of president was given to Yuan Shikai as reward for his part in the revolution.
context_section_description: In 1895, Taiwan, including the Pescadores, became a Japanese colony, a concession by the Qing Empire after it lost the First Sino-Japanese War. After Japan's defeat at the end of World War II in 1945, General Order No. 1 instructed Japan, who surrendered to the US, to surrender its troops in Taiwan to the forces of the Republic of China Kuomintang.
  Taiwan was placed under the administrative control of the Republic of China by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), and the ROC put Taiwan under military occupation.  Tensions between the local Taiwanese and mainlanders from mainland China increased in the intervening years culminating in a flashpoint on 27 February 1947 in Taipei when a dispute between a female cigarette vendor and an anti-smuggling officer triggered civil disorder and protests that would last for days.  The uprising turned bloody and was shortly put down by the ROC Army in the February 28 Incident.
  Following the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) on 1 October 1949, the commanders of the PRC People's Liberation Army believed that Kinmen and Matsu had to be taken before a final assault on Taiwan. KMT fought the Battle of Kuningtou and stopped the invasion. In 1950  Chiang took office in Taipei under the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion. The provision declared martial law in Taiwan and halted some democratic processes, including presidential and parliamentary elections, until the mainland could be recovered from the Communists. KMT estimated it would take 3 years to defeat the Communists.  The slogan was "prepare in the first year, start fighting in the second, and conquer in the third year." However, various factors, including international pressure, are believed to have prevented the KMT from militarily engaging the Communists full-scale. A cold war with a couple of minor military conflicts was resulted in the early years. The various government bodies previously in Nanjing were re-established in Taipei as the KMT-controlled government actively claimed sovereignty over all China. The Republic of China in Taiwan retained China's seat in the United Nations until 1971 .
  Until the 1970s, KMT successfully pushed ahead with land reforms, developed the economy, implemented a democratic system in a lower level of the government, improved cross-Taiwan Strait relations, and created the Taiwan economic miracle. However KMT controlled the government under a one-party authoritarian state until reforms in the late 1970s through the 1990s. As a result of the February 28 Incident in 1947, Taiwanese people had to endure what is called the "White Terror", a KMT-led political repression. The ROC in Taiwan was once referred to synonymously with the KMT and known simply as "Nationalist China" after its ruling party. In the 1970s, the KMT began to allow for "supplemental elections" in Taiwan to fill the seats of the aging representatives in parliament. Although opposition parties were not permitted, Tangwai (or, "outside the party") representatives were tolerated. In the 1980s, the KMT focused on transforming the government from a one-party system to a multi-party democracy one and embracing "Taiwanizing". With the founding of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 1986, the KMT started competing against the DPP in Parliamentary elections. In 1991, martial law ceased when President Lee Teng-Hui terminated the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion. All parties started to be allowed to compete at all levels of elections, including the presidential election. Lee Teng-hui, the ROC's first democratically elected President and the leader of the KMT during the 1990s, announced his advocacy of "special state-to-state relations" with the PRC. The PRC associated it with Taiwan independence.
  The KMT faced a split in 1994  that led to the formation of the Chinese New Party, alleged to be a result of Lee's "corruptive ruling style". The New Party has, since the purging of Lee, largely reintegrated into KMT. A much more
caption: Lien Chan [middle] and Wu Po-hsiung [second left] and the Kuomintang touring the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing, the People's Republic of China. The Pan-Blue coalition visited the mainland in 2005.
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