The Chinese Civil War () was a conflict in China between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It began in 1927 after the Northern Expedition when the right-wing faction of the KMT, led by Chiang Kai-shek, purged the Communists from a KMT-CCP alliance. It went on intermittently until the looming Second Sino-Japanese War interrupted it. Full scale war resumed in 1946 and ended in 1950 with an unofficial cessation of major hostilities, with the Communists controlling mainland China (including Hainan Island) and the Nationalists restricted to their remaining territories of Taiwan, Penghu, and several outlying Fujianese islands.