Key Point: Sometimes events don’t go the way you want. In the summer of 1949, Chiang Kai-shek and his Republic of China (ROC) government appeared doomed. Shanghai and Nanjing, then China’s..

From 1949 to the 1990s, the Kuomintang ruled the island of Taiwan, first under Chiang Kai-shek and then under his son, Chiang Ching-kuo. The Chiangs and the KMT ruled with an iron fist, which makes ...