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  1. en.wikipedia.org › wiki › KuomintangKuomintang - Wikipedia

    Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Kuomintang, also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party, led by Chiang Kai-shek, was ruling China and strongly opposed the Chinese Communist Party as it was funded and militarily backed by the COMINTERN (Soviet Union) and pursuing a communist revolution to overthrow the Republic of China.

  2. The KMT tried to destroy the Communist party of Mao Zedong, but was unable to stop the invasion by Japan, which controlled most of the coastline and major cities, 1937–1945. Chiang Kai-shek secured massive military and economic aid from the United States, and in 1945 became one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, with a ...

    • Overview
    • The end of World War II and the collapse of the United Front
    • The Marshall Mission and early Nationalist successes (1945–46)

    Chinese Civil War, (1945–49) was a military struggle for control of China waged between the Nationalists (Kuomintang) under Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists under Mao Zedong.

    During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), China was effectively divided into three regions—Nationalist China under control of the government, Communist China, and the areas occupied by Japan. Each was essentially pitted against the other two, although Chinese military forces were ostensibly allied under the banner of the United Front. By the time Japan accepted the surrender terms of the Potsdam Declaration on August 14, 1945, China had endured decades of Japanese occupation and eight years of brutal warfare. Millions had perished in combat, and many millions more had died as a result of starvation or disease. The end of World War II did not mark the end of conflict in China, however.

    Japan’s defeat set off a race between the Nationalists and Communists to control vital resources and population centers in northern China and Manchuria. Nationalist troops, using transportation facilities of the U.S. military, were able to take over key cities and most railway lines in East and North China. Communist troops occupied much of the hinterland in the north and in Manchuria. The United Front had always been precarious, and it had been tacitly understood by both the Nationalists and Communists that they would cooperate only until Japan had been defeated; until then, neither side could afford to seem to pursue internal aims at the cost of the national struggle. The growing wartime ineffectiveness and corruption of the Nationalists—who seemed, especially to the North Chinese, practically a government-in-exile in far-off Chongqing—left the Communists on a rising tide in 1945.

    The stage was set for renewal of the civil war, but it initially appeared that a negotiated settlement between the Nationalists and the Communists might be possible. Even before the Japanese surrender had been finalized, Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek had issued a series of invitations to Communist leader Mao Zedong to meet with him in Chongqing to discuss reuniting and rebuilding the country. On August 28, 1945, Mao, accompanied by American ambassador Patrick Hurley, arrived in Chongqing. On October 10, 1945, the two parties announced that they had reached an agreement in principle to work for a united and democratic China. A pair of committees were to be convened to address the military and political issues that had not been resolved by the initial framework agreement, but serious fighting between government and Communist troops erupted before those bodies could meet.

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    U.S. Pres. Harry S. Truman responded to the outbreak of violence by dispatching George C. Marshall to China in December 1945. The Marshall Mission succeeded in bringing both sides back to the negotiating table, and on January 10, 1946, an armistice was concluded between the government and the Communists. On January 31 the Political Consultative Conference, a body composed of representatives from across the Chinese political spectrum, reached agreements on the following points: reorganization of the government and broadening its representation; convocation of a national assembly on May 5, 1946, to adopt a constitution; principles for political, economic, and social reform; and unification of military command. In late February Marshall brokered an agreement on military force integration and reduction—the Chinese army would consist of 108 divisions (90 government and 18 Communist) under the overall command of a national ministry of defense. Before any of these agreements could be put into practice, renewed fighting broke out in Manchuria. The withdrawal of Soviet occupation troops in March–April 1946 triggered a scramble; Nationalist troops occupied Mukden (Shenyang) on March 12, while the Communists consolidated their hold throughout northern Manchuria. After government troops took Changchun on May 23, a 15-day truce was declared in Manchuria from June 6 to June 22. Fighting intensified elsewhere, however, as government and Communist troops clashed in Jehol (Chengde), northern Kiangsu (Jiangsu), northeastern Hopeh (Hebei), and southeastern Shantung (Shandong).

    Marshall and John Leighton Stuart, the newly appointed U.S. ambassador, tried to bring the two sides together in late August to discuss a coalition government, but the effort was fruitless, as neither side wished to give up its military gains. In late September 1946 Nationalist troops laid siege to Kalgan, a major Communist base, and lead Communist negotiator Zhou Enlai responded by withdrawing from peace talks. Kalgan fell to the Nationalists on October 11, and on October 21, Zhou was persuaded to return to the restored Nationalist capital at Nanking (Nanjing) for further negotiations. To induce the Communists and other parties to join the new National Assembly, Chiang issued a qualified cease-fire order on November 11 and postponed the opening of the assembly from November 12 to November 15. On November 20, Zhou flew from Nanking to the Communist stronghold at Yan’an. On December 4 Zhou wired Marshall that “if the Kuomintang would immediately dissolve the illegal National Assembly now in session, and restore the troop positions of January 13 [1946] the negotiations between the two parties may still make a fresh start.”

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  3. The Kuomintang formulated a plan in which three Khampa divisions would be assisted by the Panchen Lama to oppose the Communists. Kuomintang intelligence reported that some Tibetan tusi chiefs and the Khampa Su Yonghe controlled 80,000 troops in Sichuan, Qinghai and Tibet.

    • Mainland China
    • Communist victory
  4. Why did the fighting between the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party happen? Tasks. Background. Teachers' notes. External links. Connections to curriculum. In 1940s China, two parties...

  5. United Front, in modern Chinese history, either of two coalitions between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang [KMT]). The first United Front was begun in 1924.

  6. He opposed Chiang and others concerning a plan to expel the Communist but insisted on calling the CEC Fourth Plenum to settle the issue. After issuing a joint manifesto with Ch'en Tu-hsiu on April 4, reassuring the KMT-CCP alliance, and dismissing the rumor that the Communists would overrun the foreign concessions at Shanghai, Wang left for ...

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