The Kuomintang (Chinese: 中國國民黨; Pinyin: Zhōngguó Guómíndǎng) is the largest party of the pan-Blue Coalition.
It was founded by Sun Yat-sen at the height of the collapse of the Qing Empire and was one of the most prominent parties in the Republican Period. After joining forces with the Allies in World War II to defeat the Japanese, the truce they had agreed upon with the Communists for the time of the war ended and the civil war resumed. The KMT was defeated and forced to move its and the ROC's administration to Taipei.
After relocating, the KMT established a party-state dictatorship, instituting martial law and banning opposition parties until the late 1980s. It allowed for local elections, where they co-opted young and charismatic independents.
After the collapse of the dictatorship, the KMT continued its adherence to the "one-China" policy, seeking eventual reunification with the Mainland. The muzzling of its conservative wing by Chiang Ching-kuo and later Lee Teng-hui led to it undergoing a schism, and the radical forces splitting off to establish the New Party in 1993.
The party was regarded as being among the wealthiest and most powerful political entities due to the KMT directly controlling armed forces and the blurring of the line between ROC-owned and KMT-owned assets in the second half of the 20th century. In 2016, the DPP passed a law that seized most of the KMT's illegally obtained assets, marking the official end of the KMT party-state era.
