The
Government of the Republic of China was formally established in 1912 in
Nanking, with
Sun Yat-sen as President of the
Provisional Government of the Republic of China under the
Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China. This government moved to
Beijing in the same year with
Yuan Shikai as President, and continued under his successors as the internationally recognized government of
China until 1928. In the
Republican period, there were a series of governments, sometimes in rivalry with each other. The
Nationalist government, led by the
Kuomintang (KMT), was originally formed as a rival military government under Sun Yat-sen in
Guangzhou in 1917. After Sun's death in 1925,
Chiang Kai-shek led the
Northern Expedition (1926–1928) to unify the country and established the capital in Nanjing. This government gained diplomatic recognition but did not control all the territory of the
Qing dynasty. The essentially one-party rule functioned under Sun's
Three Principles of the People, which provided for a transitional period of "tutelage", but drew more political parties, including the
Communist Party of China into a
United Front during the
Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). The Tutelage Constitution of 1931 was replaced by the
Constitution of the Republic of China in 1947.