Chiang Kai Shek
Chiang Kai Shek was a Chinese leader who succeeded Sun Yat-sen as leader of China's nationalist party, the Kuomintang, in 1925. During his time as leader, he managed to unify China. Despite saying their focus was reform, Chaing's government was fighting communism inside its borders, and dealing with Japanese aggression at the time. When news of the United States declaring war on Japan, China took the opportunity to join the allies against them. After much bloodshed from all sides, World War II was coming to an end, but China faced a new problem.
Mao Zedong
Now that China no longer had to worry about Japanese attacks, both the nationalist and communists tried to regain lost land. Trying to avoid a civil war, Chiang invited communist leader Mao Zedong to discuss peaceful solutions. Mao actually accepted, and while peaceful solutions were agreed on, fighting began before changes could be refined and applied. U.S. president Harry S. Truman managed to calm things down back to a negotiating level, but once again, fighting broke out. While some locations tried to be peaceful and still work out agreements for their own governments, a civil war had clearly begun between nationalist and communists. Fighting went on for quite sometime, but Mao Zedong came out the victor and created the People's Republic of China.
Below are links to several articles about the war, and about Chiang Kai Shek, the nationalist leader for China at the time