[quote=Coronita]It could be argued that China probably would not have fallen to the Communists had western nations not raided and weakened China’s empire during the Opium Wars.[/quote]
Clause: 1937 he mobilized China for the Second Sino-Japanese War.
The US and Britain were working with him to try to protect China from Japan. Note also the use of the term ‘Republic of China'(democracy). Much of it was done on the sly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers). Once the the war with Japan was ended, the Communists under Mao resumed their Civil War (temporarily suspended to fight Japan), fighting a now exhausted army after the fight with Japan and using that to drive him onto island of Formosa now called Taiwan. The communists had not exhausted their forces to protect China from Japan. The communists under Mao did what Japan was hoping to do to the United States (in part) near the close of hostilities with Germany.
BTW; Opium wars were 1839 – 1860. Chaing Kai-sheks nationalists were defeated by the communists in 1948.
