Concept
The Nationalist government, officially the National Government of the Republic of China (), also known as the Second Republic of China or simply as the Republic of China, refers to the government of the Republic of China from 1 July 1925 to 20 May 1948, led by the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party). After the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution on 10 October 1911, revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen was elected Provisional President and founded the Provisional Government of the Republic of China. To preserve national unity, Sun ceded the presidency to military strongman Yuan Shikai, who established the Beiyang government. After a failed attempt to install himself as Emperor of China, Yuan died in 1916, leaving a power vacuum which resulted in China being divided into several warlord fiefdoms and rival governments. They were nominally reunified in 1928 by the Nanjing-based government led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, which after the Northern Expedition governed the country as a one-party state under the Kuomintang, and was subsequently given international recognition as the legitimate representative of China. The Nationalist government would then experience many challenges such as the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Civil War and World War II. The government was in place until it was replaced by the current Government of the Republic of China in the newly promulgated Constitution of the Republic of China of 1948. History of the Republic of China The oldest surviving republic in East Asia, the Republic of China was formally established on 1 January 1912 in mainland China following the Xinhai Revolution, which itself began with the Wuchang Uprising on 10 October 1911, replacing the Qing dynasty and ending nearly three thousand years of imperial rule in China. Central authority waxed and waned in response to warlordism (1915–28), Japanese invasion (1937–45), and the Chinese Civil War (1927–49), with central authority strongest during the Nanjing Decade (1927–37), when most of China came under the control of the Kuomintang (KMT) under an authoritarian one-party state.
