Nationalist Party of China (the Kuomintang)

Kuomintang of China(KMT; often translated as the Nationalist Party of China) is a major political party in the Republic of China (ROC or Taiwan). It is currently the largest opposition party in the Legislative Yuan.

The predecessor of the KMT, the Revolutionary Alliance (Tongmenghui), was one of the major advocates of the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China. The KMT was founded by Song Jiaoren and Sun Yat-sen shortly after the Xinhai Revolution of 1911. Sun was the provisional president but later he ceded the presidency to Yuan Shikai. Later led by Chiang Kai-shek, the KMT formed the National Revolutionary Army and succeeded in its Northern Expedition to unify much of China in 1928, ended the chaos of Warlord Era. It was the ruling party in mainland China until 1949, when it lost the Chinese Civil War to the Communist Party of China (CPC). Despite retreating to Taiwan and losing most of its territory, the KMT remained an authoritarian government, which held onto China's UN seat (with considerable international support) until 1971. In Taiwan, the political reforms started in the 1990s, and loosened KMT grip on power. Since 1987, the Republic of China is no longer a single-party state; however, the KMT remains one of the main political parties. The KMT is currently the main opposition party in the Legislative Yuan.

The guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, advocated by Sun Yat-sen. Its party headquarters are located in Taipei. The KMT is a member of the International Democrat Union. The previous president, Ma Ying-jeou, elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012, was the seventh KMT member to hold the office of the presidency.

Together with the People First Party and New Party, the KMT forms what is known as the Taiwanese Pan-Blue Coalition, which supports eventual unification with the mainland. However, the KMT has been forced to moderate its stance by advocating the political and legal status quo of modern Taiwan, as political realities make a reunification of China unlikely. The KMT accepts a "One China Principle" – it officially considers that there is only one China, but that the Republic of China rather than the People's Republic of China is its legitimate government under the 1992 Consensus. However, since 2008, in order to ease tensions with the PRC, the KMT endorses the "three noes" policy as defined by Ma Ying-jeou – no unification, no independence and no use of force. Some pro-unification supporters of the KMT criticize the official position of KMT is de facto supported Taiwan independence and separations from China.

Founding and Sun Yat-Sen Era

The KMT traces its ideological and organizational roots to the work of Sun Yat-sen, a proponent of Chinese nationalism and democracy, who founded Revive China Society in Honolulu in the Republic of Hawaii on 24 November 1894. In 1905, Sun joined forces with other anti-monarchist societies in Tokyo, Empire of Japan, to form the Tongmenghui on 20 August 1905, a group committed to the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of a republican government.

The group planned and supported the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and the founding of the Republic of China on 1 January 1912. However, Sun did not have military power and ceded the provisional presidency of the republic to Yuan Shikai, who arranged for the abdication of Puyi, the last Emperor, on February 12.

On 25 August 1912, the Nationalist Party was established at the Huguang Guild Hall in Peking, where Tongmenghui and five smaller pro-revolution parties merged to contest the first national elections. Sun, the then-President of the ROC, was chosen as the party chairman with Huang Xing as his deputy.

The most influential member of the party was the third ranking Song Jiaoren, who mobilized mass support from gentry and merchants for the Nationalists to advocate a constitutional parliamentary democracy. The party opposed constitutional monarchists and sought to check the power of Yuan. The Nationalists won an overwhelming majority of the first National Assembly election in December 1912.

But Yuan soon began to ignore the parliament in making presidential decisions. Song Jiaoren was assassinated in Shanghai in 1913. Members of the Nationalists led by Sun Yat-sen suspected that Yuan was behind the plot and thus staged the Second Revolution in July 1913, a poorly planned and ill-supported armed rising to overthrow Yuan, and failed. Yuan, claiming subversiveness and betrayal, expelled adherents of the KMT from the parliament. Yuan dissolved the Nationalists in November (whose members had largely fled into exile in Japan) and dismissed the parliament early in 1914.

Yuan Shikai proclaimed himself emperor in December 1915. While exiled in Japan in 1914, Sun established the Chinese Revolutionary Party on 8 July 1914, but many of his old revolutionary comrades, including Huang Xing, Wang Jingwei, Hu Hanmin and Chen Jiongming, refused to join him or support his efforts in inciting armed uprising against Yuan. In order to join this party, members must take an oath of personal loyalty to Sun, which many old revolutionaries regarded as undemocratic and contrary to the spirit of the revolution.

Thus, many old revolutionaries did not join Sun's new organisation, and he was largely sidelined within the Republican movement during this period. Sun returned to China in 1917 to establish a military junta at Canton, in order to against the Beiyang government, but was soon forced out of office and exiled to Shanghai. There, with renewed support, he resurrected the KMT on 10 October 1919, under the name Kuomintang of China and established its headquarters in Canton in 1920.

In 1923, the KMT and its Canton government accepted aid from the Soviet Union after being denied recognition by the western powers. Soviet advisers - the most prominent of whom was Mikhail Borodin, an agent of the Comintern – arrived in China in 1923 to aid in the reorganization and consolidation of the KMT along the lines of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, establishing a Leninist party structure that lasted into the 1990s. The Communist Party of China (CPC) was under Comintern instructions to cooperate with the KMT, and its members were encouraged to join while maintaining their separate party identities, forming the First United Front between the two parties. Mao Zedong and early members of the CPC also joined the KMT in 1923.

Soviet advisers also helped the KMT to set up a political institute to train propagandists in mass mobilization techniques, and in 1923 Chiang Kai-shek, one of Sun's lieutenants from the Tongmenghui days, was sent to Moscow for several months' military and political study. At the first party congress in 1924 in Kwangchow, Kwangtung, (Guanzhou, Guangdong) which included non-KMT delegates such as members of the CPC, they adopted Sun's political theory, which included the Three Principles of the People - nationalism, democracy and people's livelihood.

Under Chaing Kai-shek in Mainland China

When Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, the political leadership of the KMT fell to Wang Jingwei and Hu Hanmin, respectively the left wing and right wing leaders of the party. The real power, however, was in the hands of Chiang Kai-shek, who, as the superintendent of the Whampoa Military Academy, was in near complete control of the military. With their military superiority, KMT confirmed their rule on Canton, the provincial capital of Kwangtung. The Guangxi warlords pledged loyalty to the KMT. The KMT now became a rival government in opposition to the warlord Beiyang government based in Peking.

Chiang assumed leadership of the KMT on 6 July 1926. Unlike Sun Yat-sen, whom he admired greatly, and who forged all his political, economic and revolutionary ideas primarily from what he had learned in Hawaii and indirectly through British Hong Kong and Empire of Japan under Meiji Restoration, Chiang knew relatively little about the West. He also studied in Japan, but he was firmly rooted in his Chinese identity and was steeped in Chinese culture. As his life progressed, he became increasingly attached to Chinese culture and traditions. His few trips to the West confirmed his pro-Chinese outlook and he studied the Chinese classics and Chinese histories assiduously. In 1924, Sun Yat-sen sent Chiang to spend three months in Moscow studying the political and military system of the Soviet Union. Chiang met Leon Trotsky and other Soviet leaders, but quickly came to the conclusion that the Soviet model of government was not suitable for China. This laid the beginning of his lifelong antagonism against communism.

Chiang was also particularly committed to Sun's idea of "political tutelage". Sun believed that the only hope for a unified and better China lies in a military conquest, followed by a period of political tutelage that would culminate in the transition to democracy. Using this ideology, Chiang built himself into the dictator of the Republic of China, both in the Chinese mainland and when the national government was relocated to Taiwan.

Following the death of Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek emerged as the KMT leader and launched the Northern Expedition to defeat the northern warlords and unite China under the party. With its power confirmed in the southeast, the Nationalist Government appointed Chiang Kai-shek commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA), and the Northern Expedition to suppress the warlords began. Chiang had to defeat three separate warlords and two independent armies. Chiang, with Soviet supplies, conquered the southern half of China in nine months.

A split, however, erupted between the Chinese Communist Party and the KMT, which threatened the Northern Expedition. Wang Jing Wei, who led the KMT leftist allies took the city of Wuhan in January 1927. With the support of the Soviet agent Mikhail Borodin, Wang declared the National Government as having moved to Wuhan. Having taken Nanking in March, Chiang halted his campaign and prepared a violent break with Wang and his communist allies. Chiang's expulsion of the CPC and their Soviet advisers, marked by the Shanghai massacre on April 12, led to the beginning of the Chinese Civil War. Wang finally surrendered his power to Chiang. Joseph Stalin ordered CPC to obey the KMT leadership. Once this split had been healed, Chiang resumed his Northern Expedition and managed to take Shanghai.

During the Nanking Incident in March 1927, the NRA stormed the consulates of the United States, United Kingdom (UK) and Empire of Japan, looted foreign properties and almost assassinated the Japanese consul. An American, two British, one French, an Italian and a Japanese were killed. These looters also stormed and seized millions of dollars worth of British concessions in Hankou, refusing to hand them back to the UK. Both Nationalists and Communist soldiers within the army participated in the rioting and looting of foreign residents in Nanking.

NRA took Peking in 1928. The city was the internationally recognized capital, though previously controlled by warlords. This event allowed the KMT to receive widespread diplomatic recognition in the same year. The capital was moved from Peking to Nanking, the original capital of the Ming Dynasty, and thus a symbolic purge of the final Qing elements. This period of KMT rule in China between 1927 and 1937 was relatively stable and prosperous and is still known as the Nanjing decade.

After the Northern Expedition in 1928, the Nationalist government under the KMT declared that China had been exploited for decades under unequal treaties signed between the foreign powers and the Qing Dynasty. The KMT government demanded that the foreign powers renegotiate the treaties on equal terms.

Before the Northern Expedition, the KMT began as a heterogeneous group advocating American-inspired federalism and provincial autonomy. However, the KMT under Chiang's leadership aimed at establishing a centralized one-party state with one ideology. This was even more evident following Sun's elevation into a cult figure after his death. The control by one single party began the period of "political tutelage," whereby the party was to lead the government while instructing the people on how to participate in a democratic system. The topic of reorganizing the army, brought up at a military conference in 1929, sparked the Central Plains War. The cliques, some of them former warlords, demanded to retain their army and political power within their own territories. Although Chiang finally won the war, the conflicts among the cliques would have a devastating effect on the survival of the KMT. Muslim Generals in Kansu waged war against the Guominjun in favor of the KMT during the conflict in Gansu in 1927-1930.

Although the Second Sino-Japanese War officially broke out in 1937, Japanese aggression started in 1931 when they staged the Mukden Incident and occupied Manchuria. At the same time, the CPC had been secretly recruiting new members within the KMT government and military. Chiang was alarmed by the expansion of the communist influence. He believed that in order to fight against foreign aggression, the KMT must solve its internal conflicts first, so he started his second attempt to exterminate CPC members in 1934. With the advice from German military advisors, the KMT forced the Communists to withdraw from their bases in southern and central China into the mountains in a massive military retreat known as the Long March. Less than 10% of the communist army survived the long retreat to Shaanxi province, but they re-established their military base quickly with aid from the Soviet Union.

The KMT was also known to have used terror tactics against suspected communists, through the utilization of a secret police force, who were employed to maintain surveillance on suspected communists and political opponents. In The Birth of Communist China, C.P. Fitzgerald describes China under the rule of the KMT thus: "the Chinese people groaned under a regime Fascist in every quality except efficiency."

Zhang Xueliang, who believed that the Japanese invasion was a greater threat, was persuaded by the CPC to take Chiang hostage during the Xi'an Incident in 1937 and forced Chiang to agree to an alliance with them in the total war against the Japanese. However, in many situations the alliance was in name only; after a brief period of cooperation, the armies began to fight the Japanese separately, rather than as coordinated allies. Conflicts between KMT and CPC were still common during the war, and documented claims abound of CPC attacks upon the KMT forces and vice versa.

While the KMT army received heavy casualties fighting the Japanese, the CPC expanded its territory by guerrilla tactics within Japanese occupied regions, leading some claims that the CPC often refused to support the KMT troops, choosing to withdraw and let the KMT troops take the brunt of Japanese attacks.

After Japan surrendered in 1945, Taiwan was returned to the Republic of China on 25 October 1945. The brief period of celebration was soon shadowed by the possibility of a civil war between the KMT and CPC. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan just before they surrendered and occupied Manchuria, the north eastern part of China. The Soviet Union denied the KMT army to enter the region and assisted CPC to take over the Japanese factories and supplies.

Full-scale civil war between CPC and the KMT erupted in 1946. The Communist armies, People's Liberation Army (PLA), previously a minor faction, grew rapidly in influence and power due to several errors on the KMT's part. First, the KMT reduced troop levels precipitously after the Japanese surrender, leaving large numbers of able-bodied, trained fighting men who became unemployed and disgruntled with the KMT as prime recruits for PLA. Second, the KMT government proved thoroughly unable to manage the economy, allowing hyperinflation to result. Among the most despised and ineffective efforts it undertook to contain inflation was the conversion to the gold standard for the national treasury and the Gold Standard Scrip in August 1948, outlawing private ownership of gold, silver and foreign exchange, collecting all such precious metals and foreign exchange from the people and issuing the Gold Standard Scrip in exchange. As most farmland in the north were under CPC's control, the cities governed by the KMT lacked food supply and this added to the hyperinflation. The new scrip became worthless in only ten months and greatly reinforced the nationwide perception of the KMT as a corrupt or at best inept entity. Third, Chiang Kai-shek ordered his forces to defend the urbanized cities. This decision gave CPC a chance to move freely through the countryside. At first, the KMT had the edge with the aid of weapons and ammunition from the United States (US). However, with the country suffering from hyperinflation, widespread corruption and other economic ills, the KMT continued to lose popular support. Some leading officials and military leaders of the KMT hoarded material, armament and military-aid funding provided by the US. This became an issue which proved to be a hindrance of its relationship with US government. US President Harry S. Truman wrote that "the Chiangs, the Kungs and the Soongs (were) all thieves", having taken $750 million in US aid.

At the same time, the suspension of American aid and tens of thousands of deserted or decommissioned soldiers being recruited to PLA cause tipped the balance of power quickly to CPC side, and the overwhelming popular support for the CPC in most of the country made it all but impossible for the KMT forces to carry out successful assaults against the Communists.

By the end of 1949, the CPC controlled almost all of mainland China, as the KMT retreated to Taiwan with a significant amount of China's national treasures and 2 million people, including military forces and refugees. Some party members stayed in the mainland and broke away from the main KMT to found the Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang, which still currently exists as one of the eight minor registered parties of the People's Republic of China.

In Taiwan Since 1945

In 1895, Formosa (now called Taiwan), including the Penghu islands, became a Japanese colony via the Treaty of Shimonoseki following the First Sino-Japanese War.

After Japan's defeat at the end of World War II in 1945, General Order No. 1 instructed Japan to surrender its troops in Taiwan to Chiang Kai-shek. On October 25, 1945, KMT general Chen Yi acted on behalf of the Allied Powers to accept Japan's surrender and proclaimed that day as Taiwan Retrocession Day.

Tensions between the local Taiwanese and mainlanders from Mainland China increased in the intervening years, culminating in a flashpoint on February 27, 1947 in Taipei when a dispute between a female cigarette vendor and an anti-smuggling officer in front of Tianma Tea House 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. As a result of the February 28 Incident in 1947, Taiwanese people endured what is called the "White Terror", a KMT-led political repression that resulted in the death or disappearance of over 30,000 Taiwanese intellectuals, activists, and anyone suspected of opposition to the KMT.

Following the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) on 1 October 1949, the commanders of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) believed that Kinmen and Matsu had to be taken before a final assault on Taiwan. The KMT fought the Battle of Guningtou on 25–27 October 1949 and stopped the PLA invasion. The KMT headquarter was set up on 10 December 1949 at No. 11 Zhongshan South Road. 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 CPC. The 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." Chiang also initiated the Project National Glory to retake back the mainland in 1965, but was eventually dropped in July 1972 after many unsuccessful attempts.

However, various factors, including international pressure, are believed to have prevented the KMT from militarily engaging the CPC full-scale. The KMT backed Muslim insurgents formerly belonging to the NRA during the KMT Islamic insurgency in 1950–1958 in Mainland China. A cold war with a couple of minor military conflicts was resulted in the early years. The various government bodies previously in Nanjing, that 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, the KMT successfully pushed ahead with land reforms, developed the economy, implemented a democratic system in a lower level of the government, improved relations between Taiwan and the mainland and created the Taiwan economic miracle. However, the KMT controlled the government under a one-party authoritarian state until reforms in the late 1970s through the 1990s. 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 the National Assembly.

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 single-party system to a multi-party democratic one and embracing "Taiwanization". With the founding of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on 28 September 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 this idea with Taiwan independence.

The KMT faced a split in 1993 that led to the formation of the New Party in August 1993, alleged to be a result of Lee's "corruptive ruling style". The New Party has, since the purging of Lee, largely reintegrated into the KMT. A much more serious split in the party occurred as a result of the 2000 Presidential election. Upset at the choice of Lien Chan as the party's presidential nominee, former party Secretary-General James Soong launched an independent bid, which resulted in the expulsion of Soong and his supporters and the formation of the People First Party (PFP) on 31 March 2000. The KMT candidate placed third behind Soong in the elections. After the election, Lee's strong relationship with the opponent became apparent. In order to prevent defections to the PFP, Lien moved the party away from Lee's pro-independence policies and became more favorable toward Chinese reunification. This shift led to Lee's expulsion from the party and the formation of the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) by Lee supporters on 24 July 2001.

Prior to this, the party's voters had defected to both the PFP and TSU, and the KMT did poorly in the December 2001 legislative elections and lost its position as the largest party in the Legislative Yuan. However, the party did well in the 2002 local government mayoral and council election with Ma Ying-jeou, its candidate for Taipei mayor, winning reelection by a landslide and its candidate for Kaohsiung mayor narrowly losing but doing surprisingly well. Since 2002, the KMT and PFP have coordinated electoral strategies. In 2004, the KMT and PFP ran a joint presidential ticket, with Lien running for president and Soong running for vice-president.

The loss of the presidential election of 2004 to DPP President Chen Shui-bian by merely over 30,000 votes was a bitter disappointment to party members, leading to large scale rallies for several weeks protesting alleged electoral fraud and the "odd circumstances" of the shooting of President Chen. However, the fortunes of the party were greatly improved when the KMT did well in the legislative elections held in December 2004 by maintaining its support in southern Taiwan achieving a majority for the Pan-Blue Coalition.

Soon after the election, there appeared to be a falling out with the KMT's junior partner, the People First Party and talk of a merger seemed to have ended. This split appeared to widen in early 2005, as the leader of the PFP, James Soong appeared to be reconciling with President Chen Shui-Bian and the Democratic Progressive Party. Many PFP members including legislators and municipal leaders have defected to the KMT, and the PFP is seen as a fading party.

In 2005, Ma Ying-jeou became KMT chairman defeating speaker Wang Jin-pyng in the first public election for KMT chairmanship. The KMT won a decisive victory in the 3-in-1 local elections of December 2005, replacing the DPP as the largest party at the local level. This was seen as a major victory for the party ahead of legislative elections in 2007. There were elections for the two municipalities of the ROC, Taipei and Kaohsiung on December 2006. The KMT won a clear victory in Taipei, but lost to the DPP in the southern city of Kaohsiung by the slim margin of 1,100 votes.

On 13 February 2007, Ma was indicted by the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office on charges of allegedly embezzling approximately NT$11 million (US$339,000), regarding the issue of "special expenses" while he was mayor of Taipei. Shortly after the indictment, he submitted his resignation as KMT chairman at the same press conference at which he formally announced his candidacy for ROC President. Ma argued that it was customary for officials to use the special expense fund for personal expenses undertaken in the course of their official duties. In December 2007, Ma was acquitted of all charges and immediately filed suit against the prosecutors. In 2008, the KMT won a landslide victory in the Republic of China Presidential Election on March 22, 2008. The KMT fielded former Taipei mayor and former KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou to run against the DPP's Frank Hsieh. Ma won by a butt of 17% against Hsieh. Ma took office on May 20, 2008, with Vice-Presidential candidate Vincent Siew, and ended 8 years of the DPP presidency. The KMT also won a landslide victory in the 2008 legislative elections, winning 81 of 113 seats, or 71.7% of seats in the Legislative Yuan. These two elections gave the KMT firm control of both the executive and legislative yuans.

On 25 June 2009, President Ma launched his bid to regain KMT's leadership and registered as the sole candidate for the election of the KMT chairmanship. On July 26, Ma won 93.87% of the vote, becoming the new chairman of the KMT, taking office on 17 October 2009. This officially allows Ma to be able to meet with Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and other PRC delegates, as he is able to represent the KMT as leader of a Chinese political party, rather than as head-of-state of a political entity unrecognized by the PRC.

On 29 November 2014, the KMT suffered a heavy loss in the local election to the DPP, winning only 6 municipalities and counties, down from 14 in the previous election in 2009 and 2010. Ma Ying-jeou subsequently resigned from the party chairmanship on 3 December and replaced by acting Chairman Wu Den-yih. Chairmanship election was held on 17 January 2015 and Eric Chu was elected to become the new chairman. He was inaugurated on 19 February.

                                   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang