Revolution in China

By 1990, large parts of China were dominated by foreign powers. The Chinese Nationalist party, the Kuomintang, was founded by Sun Yat-sen. He tried to unify China under a democratic government. In 1911, China became a republic and, in 1912, the last emperor abdicated.

However, Sun died in 1925 and Chiang Kai-shek succeeded him as president and leader of the Kuomintang. The Chinese Communist party first met in Shanghai in 1921. Mao Zedong was an early member.

During the 1920s, warlords in northern China tried to gain control. To fight them, the Kuomintang and the Communists united in 1926.

But in 1927 civil war broke out between the Kuomintang and the Communists. The Communists took refuge in the province of Jiangxi. There, in 1931, they set up a rival government. In 1933, Chiang Kai-shek sent his army to Jiangxi to wipe them out. To escape, Mao led 100,000 Communists on the ‘Long March’ from Jiangxi in the south to Shaanxi in the north. Mao was then confirmed as leader of the Communists.

In 1937, Japan invaded China and the Communists and Nationalists united to fight the Japanese. When World War II ended in 1945, civil war broke out again in China. This time the Communists waged a successful war against the Kuomintang, who then fled to Taiwan to establish a separate state. On 1 October, 1949, mainland China became the People’s Republic of China with Mao as its first president.