Following the fall of the previously mentioned Qing Dinasty in the Republican Revolution of 1911, a wobbly republic is established in December 1911, with Sun Yat-Sen elected president. Months later Sun resigns in favour of Yuan Shikai, giving him full power. A provisional Constitution is written in March that year and in April the government moves from Nanjing to Beijing.
Chaos and disorder in conjunction with the refusal to give Shandong to China in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, subsequent to the end of WW1, lead to the rise of two political parties willing to reunify China. These groups are the Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CPC).
In 1923, the KMT & the CPC agree to form an alliance to combat warlordism called the First United Front. However, Sun Yat-Sen dies, bringing Chiang Kai-Shek to power, breaking with the Communists and supporting the Nationalists. A period of hostility begins with the attack in 1927 of KMT led by Chiang over Communist forces in Shanghai and follows with a period of purge of Communists in regions under KMT control.
Chiang becomes chairmen of the Nationalistic government of the Republic of China in 1927 and due to previous episodes such as the Shanghai Massacre and the breach of the First United Front, a Civil War breaks out in 1927, although its biggest phase concerns the period of 1945-49. China's demand for US aid is analysed in the following newspaper article from 1945 extracted from the Australian National Library: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/42459821. [3]
The Civil War ends in 1949 with the Communist capture of Beijing, where its leader Mao Zedong declared the People's Republic of China; inheriting, however, an unstable nation. [4]
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