Guomindang
Also called: Kuomintang, GMD, National People's Party · Topic: Paths to Modernisation: Japan, China, Korea · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 7 "Paths to Modernisation"
Meaning
The Guomindang (also written Kuomintang or GMD) is China's Nationalist Party. Sun Yat-sen founded it in 1912, after the Qing empire fell. Its ideas came from Sun's Three Principles: nationalism, democracy and socialism. Later it was led by Chiang Kai-shek, who fought the warlords and the Communists. It failed for clear reasons. Its support lay mostly in the cities. It ignored the peasants, never tried to share out land more equally, and offered military order instead of solving people's problems.
Example
During the civil war, prices in China rose by about 30% every month (1945–49), and the Guomindang lost public support. The Communists defeated it in 1949. The party then moved to Taiwan, where it later carried out land reform and lifted martial law in 1987.
Don't confuse with
- Communist Party of China (CCP): it built its base among the peasants and through land reform, and it won the civil war in 1949.
Related concepts
- Xinhai Revolution 1911
- Sun Yat-sen
- Three Principles of the People
- Twenty-One Demands 1915
- May Fourth Movement
- Chiang Kai-shek