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History of political parties in China

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ5100900 ↗
Source-derived summary

In the history of political parties in China, the first major party in China was the Kuomintang (KMT), which moved to Taiwan in 1949. It was founded in the Republic of Hawaii on November 24, 1894, before being reorganized at Guangdong Province on August 25, 1912, from a union of several revolutionary groups. The Republic of China was founded by Kuomintang's leader Sun Yat-sen later that year. In 1921, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao in Shanghai as a study society, and an informal political network.

During the Chinese Civil War, the CCP's military wing, the People's Liberation Army, defeated the Kuomintang's National Revolutionary Army (later the Republic of China Army) in 1949. The Kuomintang leadership fled mainland China, and re-established itself in Taiwan.

History

After the founding of the Republic of China in 1912, a plethora of parties appeared to compete for the upcoming National Assembly elections. The four largest winners were the Nationalist Party representing revolutionaries, the Republican Party representing militarists, the Unity Party representing the gentry, and the Democratic Party representing former constitutional monarchists. The latter three merged to form the Progressive Party in 1913. After the failed Second Revolution against Yuan Shikai, the Nationalist leadership fled China and regrouped as the Chinese Revolutionary Party.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “History of political parties in China” as open-knowledge reference entry. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around History, political and parties.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1949, 1894, 1912, 1921—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with History, political and parties providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “History of political parties in China”, the useful work is to connect “open-knowledge reference entry” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5100900. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1949, 1894, 1912 and 1921.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “History of political parties in China”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow History of political parties in China primary sources, History of political parties in China archive and History research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “History of political parties in China” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.