Kuomintang (6.0)

The **Kuomintang** or **Chinese Nationalist Party** (Chinese (traditional): 中國國民黨; Chinese (simplified): 中国国民党; Bopomofo: ㄓㄨㄥ ㄍㄨㄛˊ ㄍㄨㄛˊ ㄇㄧㄣˊ ㄉㄤˇ; Romanization: Chungkuo Kuomintang) is a political party of China. It was the ruling and dominant party in mainland China from 1928 after the Northern Expedition until the Flood and the subsequent collapse of most of the Republic of China rule between 1946 and 1958. Despite the collapse of large swathes of China, the KMT was able to survive and even flourish in some capacity. However, the remaining KMT is split into various branches, with many rival interpretations of Sun Yat Sen's ideology of Tridemism.

## Post-Deluge History

As the Deluge began, the KMT partnered with the Chinese army to stabilize the situation in the Chinese countryside, deploying its party resources to the army to help refugees and distribute supplies as the war with Japan gradually assumed less and less importance. However, tensions with the military grew as party officials began to compete with military leaders for supplies - the united effort only tenuously surviving under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, who was in charge of both organizations.

His death spelled an end to the effective partnership between the Army and the Kuomintang, crystalized clearly in the failure of the Xi'an Convention to unify China under a Constitutionalist regime. The split between the military and the Kuomintang was severe, and the party was forced to withdraw its presence in outlying regions to regions protected by the elements of the army loyal to the party. A Constitutionalist government was established in Chongqing, Sichuan, and the Kuomintang moved its headquarters there as well.

The Kuomintang survived as a united and centralized party in charge of the National Government of the Republic of China until 1964, though tensions with the military did not cease. The murder of the unpopular and incompetent Military Affairs Commission head Tong Songyao was followed by a coup d'etat in Chongqing by elements of the Sichuan clique. While President Kung Hsiang-hsi, managed to escape the city, the Sichuan clique seized control of the Kuomintang offices and treasury during the incident - helping to permanently fracture the KMT into smaller regional branches, as it exists today.

## Branches of the KMT

### Tongmenghui (Republic of China)

The Tongmenghui were an offshoot of the mainline KMT party organization in Hebei and Heinan. The chaos after the 20th anniversary of the victory at Taiyuan granted the Tongmenghui an opportunity in their already advantageous position to take control of the central government. After a brief military government and total control of the Republic established by the Tongmenghui organization, the Xi'an Constitution was re-instated and civilian control re-established.

The Tongmenghui maintain, both publicly and privately, Sun Yat Sen's Three Principles of the People. The history and tradition associated with the KMT is held in high regard, and deviations from the norm internally are treated harshly. Ideological purity is heavily emphasized and the traditionalism espoused by Chiang Kai-Shek through the New Life Movement is central to the party. This exists parallel to the revolutionary zeal and aesthetic that originates at the beginning of the KMT's creation. The Tongmenghui espouses that China, under the guidance of the KMT, exists in a 'perpetual revolution' that is based off traditional Confucian morality and fierce nationalism towards the Han identity of the cultural and political state of China. This perpetual revolution is used to legitimize the excessive use of force and totalitarian policies that is commonplace throughout the Tongmenghui. Foreigners, communists, Buddhism, feudalists, capitalists, fifth columnists, and separatists are common enemies referenced by the Tongmenghui as undermining the Chinese state and people that must be cleansed from the lands for China to return to her rightful position.

The Tongmenghui still exist under the Xi'an Constitution, and generally respect the democratic and republican institutions established by earlier KMT leaders. Elections for legislatures and provincial leaders occur, and semi-independent judiciaries exist at the federal level. However, internally party unity and loyalty to superiors have undermined many of the formal separation of powers established by the Xi'an Constitution and the President of the Republic of China wields significant power. One of the formal branches of the military, the YLTPP, exists in practicality as an ideological recruiting and purifying body while allowing the Tongmenghui to maintain dominance over the Republic of China's politics. The fractured nature of China has also made re-unification a hardline Tongmenghui stance, although many within the party agree with diplomatic channels being the primary instrument with which to achieve this goal.

### Qinghai-Gansu Province KMT

The Qinghai-Gansu provincial branch of the KMT is officially a part of the Republic of China's Tongmenghui, however the party has kept the name of the Chinese Nationalist Party.

The KMT in Qinghai-Gansu is dominated by the Hui, the Han Muslims. Due to this, the Qinghai-Gansu KMT has embraced a form of Tridemism and Chinese Nationalism syncretized with Islamist ideology. This was particularly developed from Ma Bufang's and Ma Chi-yuan's devout faith. Between 1946 and 1958, the party followed the policy of Chiang Kai-Shek and his interpretation of Tridemism. After the Xi'an Constitution was ratified by the Chungking government in 1959, Ma Bufang oversaw the transition to a more moderate and democratic ideology until the collapse of the Chungking National Government and the arrival of the YLTPP in Tsinghai-Kansu in 1964. The YLTPP clique purged the provincial party of Hui and forced their hardliner nationalist ideology. When Ma Bufang took back power in 1968, he began the Nationalist Corrective Campaign and the Islamic New Life Movement which saw the reintroduction of Hui and Islamist ideology into the party. With the victory of the YLTPP and its takeover of the Peking government in 1970, a compromise between the National Government and the Tsinghai-Kansu Provincial Government saw the provincial KMT accept the rule of the YLTPP/Tongmenghui and adopt elements of its ideology while at the same time continuing its staunchly pro-Islamic and fairly pro-Democratic policies.

The KMT in Tsingkan is split between three main factions. The **Constitutionalists** who uphold the legacy of the Xi'an Constitution and the 1959-1964 era of the National Government in Chungking, the **Hardliners** who are staunchly Islamist and wish to continue the Islamic New Life Movement, and the **Blueshirts** who are supportive of the YLTPP and the Tongmenghui of Peking.

### Jiangxi Province KMT

The Jiangxi provincial branch of the KMT is nominally aligned to the Republic of China's Tongmenghui, however the party is highly dependent on the whims of the Jiangxi guilds and thus are not as loyal to the Repubic.

### Sichuan Commandery KMT

The Sichuan clique that organized the coup against the KMT banned the organization entirely in Sichuan in 1965, in a full repudiation of Western influences and party politics. Consequently, there is no officially recognized KMT branch within Sichuan, though some officers in the Commandery remain open to Kuomintang rhetoric, and underground party activities continue in some capacity.