ROC (jan 1, 1912 – jan 1, 1949)

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The Republic of China (ROC) was a sovereign state based in mainland China between 1912 and 1949, prior to the relocation of its government to the island of Taiwan. It was established on 1 January 1912 after the Xinhai Revolution, which overthrew the Qing dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China.

The Republic's first president, Sun Yat-sen, served only briefly before handing over the position to Yuan Shikai, the leader of the Beiyang Army. Sun's party, the Kuomintang (KMT), then led by Song Jiaoren, won the parliamentary election held in December 1912. However, Song was assassinated on Yuan's orders shortly after; and the Beiyang Army, led by Yuan, maintained full control of the Beiyang government.

Between late 1915 and early 1916, Yuan proclaimed himself Emperor of China before abdicating not long after due to popular unrest. After Yuan's death in 1916, the authority of the Beiyang government was further weakened by a brief restoration of the Qing dynasty. Cliques in the Beiyang Army claimed individual autonomy and clashed with each other during the ensuing Warlord Era.

In 1921, the KMT established the government of the Republic of China in Guangzhou, supported by the fledgling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The economy of northern China, overtaxed to support warlord adventurism, collapsed between 1927 and 1928. General Chiang Kai-shek, who became the Chairman of the Kuomintang after Sun's death, started the Northern Expedition in 1926 to overthrow the Beiyang government, which was accomplished in 1928. In April 1927, Chiang established a nationalist government in Nanjing, and massacred Communists in Shanghai. The latter event forced the CCP into armed rebellion, marking the beginning of the Chinese Civil War.

China experienced some industrialization during the 1930s but suffered setbacks from conflicts between the Nationalist government in Nanjing, the CCP, remaining warlords, and the Empire of Japan. Nation-building efforts yielded to fight the Second Sino-Japanese War, when the Imperial Japanese Army launched an offensive against China in 1937 which turned into a full-scale invasion.

In 1946, after the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II in 1945, the Chinese Civil War between the KMT and CCP resumed, leading to the 1946 Constitution of the Republic of China replacing the 1928 Organic Law[2] as the Republic's fundamental law.

In 1949, nearing the end of the civil war, the CCP established the People's Republic of China, overthrowing the nationalist government on the mainland, with the nationalists moving their capital from Nanjing to Taipei and controlling only Taiwan and other smaller islands from 1949 to the present day, and Hainan until 1950.

The ROC was a founding member of the League of Nations and later the United Nations (including its Security Council seat) where it maintained until 1971. It was also a member of the Universal Postal Union and the International Olympic Committee.

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