Political party that governed all or part of mainland China from 1928 to 1949 and subsequently ruled Taiwan. Founded by Song Jiaoren (1882–1913) and led by Sun Yat-sen, it evolved from a revolutionary league working to overthrow the Qing dynasty into a political party. In the early 1920s the party received guidance from the Soviet Bolshevik party; until 1927 it collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party.
Sun's program, which stressed nationalism, democracy, and people's livelihood, was ineffectively implemented by his successor, Chiang Kai-shek, who became increasingly conservative and dictatorial. During World War II, Chiang focused on suppressing the Chinese communists at the expense of defending the country from the Japanese; in 1949 the Nationalists were driven from the mainland to Taiwan. There they maintained a monopoly on political power until 1989, when the first legal opposition party won seats in the legislature. The first non-Nationalist president was elected in 2000. &Seealso; Wang Jingwei.
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