Read Part 1 here Commentary Over the majority of the 20th century, China was not one of the more notable players on the world stage. In the years leading up to World War II, the country did begin to deal with an early, insurgent communist movement against the ruling Kuomintang (KMT). Yet this development did not register as much in the world’s psyche at the time as communist movements in Western nations that preceded this, in great part due to China being a relatively closed society. For a while, these KMT and communist opponents were forced to join together to resist Japanese invaders in the late 1930s. But once Japan had been vanquished, the Chinese communist forces under Mao Zedong resumed their revolution. The main Chinese military hero of the war who had led the fight against Japan’s invasion—Chiang Kai-shek—fled with the remnants of the Kuomintang government and military to …