Kuomintang

The Kuomintang (KMT) was the Nationalist Party led by former revolutionary Sun Yat-sen, who hoped to reunify China in 1925 and bring an end to the chaos of the warlords period. Its capital was at Guangzhou.

The KMT was formed on 25 August 1912 by Sun Yat-sen and Song Jiaoren out of Sun’s Tongmenghui revolutionary paramilitary corps. Minor political factions that had sprung up in the wake of the Qing Empire’s fall were also incorporated. Sun expediently turned over the presidency of the newly-formed Republic of China to Yuan Shikai, leader of the state military.

The KMT won the majority in the elections of December 1912, but Premier Yuan overrode them. Song was assassinated, by a hitman almost certainly hired  by the premier’s cabinet. Sun led a Second Revolution against the corrupt state, but was defeated. Now illegal, the KMT was forced to escape to Japan, where Sun tried to regroup under the name of the Chinese Revolutionary Party.

The KMT achieved a new foothold in Chinese politics at the time of the May Fourth Movement in 1919, when Duan Qirui’s backroom dealings with the Allies and Japan caused outrage and ultimately led to the Anhui clique losing its position of preeminence. Sun returned and began to curry favour for the KMT again. It was now called Zhongguo Kuomintang, the Chinese Nationalist Party, but the first word was generally left out.

By 1921, the KMT was centered at Guangzhou, where Sun presided over a republican administration. The winning of the city was difficult, as it involved squabbling with Lu Rongting of the Old Guangxi clique. Even after the Guangxi were driven out, the KMT’s local dominance was shaky and contested.

Over the next few years, the KMT formed invaluable alliances to strengthen its authority. In 1923, the signing of the Sun-Joffe Agreement allied the Republic of China, represented by Sun Yat-sen, and the Soviet Union, represented by Bolshevik diplomat Adolph Joffe.

An alliance with the Communists resulted in a much higher degree of organization among the troops, as well as a higher degree of foreign aid and boosted troop numbers. An inevitable collusion with the Chinese Communist Party contributed further to these factors. The First National Congress was held at Guangzhou in January 1924, where it was officially announced that the KMT and CCP were allied in a United Front. The Nationalist Revolutionary Army was founded soon after.

The warlords, generals, politicians, bankers, and diplomats allied with the KMT were scheduled to attend a conference at Beijing in early 1925, to discuss the possibility of reunifying China and putting an end to the warlordism that had plagued the nation for over a decade.