Dear John Dorey,

Excuse my late reply. I still need to revise my knowledge of the KMT from the 1920s, before commenting, and, have been elsewhere occupied, preventing from that goal.

That said, I think with the KMT in the '20s; they became entangled with Western banks and Japanese Banks [Japan was later to invade them as you know]. The profiteers cared little for the peasants in the provinces, who eventually became Mao's foundation.

The situation was made more complex provincial warloads. In Shanghai, the KMT joined-up with triads with deep roots into the corrupt Chinese police and use that to advantage to quash the warloads.

However, Japan was a threat, the KMT faced Japan with a conventional military force and Mao with guerilla forces. Yet, the former remained a priviledged class; whilst the latter peasants-of-the-revolution. Moreover, China, at first, ceded land fairly quickly, owing to memories of Japan's wins over Russia in 1905.

Ethically, the Han are very cohesive, and, Chinese away from the China PRC mainland are still regarded as Ethnic-Chinese away from the Middle Kingdom, temorarily, even after lifetimes.

When the KMT went to Taiwan, investment was aimed at building industry to retake the homeland. Only, these guys found capitalism pretty good and continued to build a country.

As opposed to the West, I think that China PRC demands deference and acknowledgement, rather than dominance in the Western sense, that goes back to at 1601, when Elizabeth I started issuing miltary backed monopolies to target colonies-to-be.

I would think it an insult for JH to have sent a lowly colonel to meet Hu Jintao in Canberra.

I think there is plenty of scope for re-unification, yet the Chinese PRC Shang are a different kind of entrepreneur to the Taiwanese Capitalist.

Moreover, China's two-fronts are between the West and its own Western peasantry.