ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes factionalism in the first ten years of the Kuomintang government prior to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, a period commonly known as the Nanking decade. It examines what factions existed, how they were organized, to what extent they operated to affect the political process of the time, and in what way they influenced the course of modern Chinese political development. The Kuomintang's failure to institute a bureaucratic organizational framework for policy formation and implementation was symptomatic of its leadership crisis. The institutional weakness of the Kuomintang regime encouraged the continuous existence of factionalism. Since political conflicts could not be structured within the formal and legitimate institutions, factions retained their informal functions in politics. Despite the ability of Wang Ching-wei and Hu Han-min to maintain their rival factions, the Kuomintang regime was dominated by Chiang Kai-shek, whose loyal followers had firm control over Nanking's financial resources, the party machine, and the military forces.
