The Chinese Republican Era

The Chinese Republican Era, 1912 to 1949, began when the Qing dynasty's last emperor abdicated following the Xinhai Revolution and Sun Yat-sen helped found the Republic of China, and it encompassed some of the most turbulent decades in modern Chinese history, including the fragmentation of central authority during the Warlord Era, the Nationalist Party's partial reunification of the country under Chiang Kai-shek, and a long, bitter civil war with the Chinese Communist Party interrupted by the full-scale Japanese invasion of 1937. The period also saw significant modernization in education, industry and urban life, alongside the intellectual ferment of the May Fourth Movement, even as the country was repeatedly convulsed by foreign aggression and internal conflict. The era ended in 1949 when the Communist victory in the civil war drove the Nationalist government to Taiwan and Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China on the mainland.