Nationalist China
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Nationalist China refers to a period between 1925 and 1949 during which China was ruled by the Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek. After Chiang's defeat at the hands of Communist guerrillas led by Mao Zedong, he and the ruling Kuomintang party fled to the nearby island of Taiwan and set up a similar government there.
Taiwan under Nationalist rule came to be known as the Republic of China, and was given recognition in the United Nations as an act of defiance against the newly Communist People's Republic of China on the mainland. After the Nixon administration of the United States initiated a policy of détente with mainland China, diplomatic recognition in the U.S. and Western bloc in general shifted to the People's Republic of China over the Republic of China, though the U.S. has vowed to defend Taiwan if it is attacked.