China has never really been a democratic government, not even under the Kuomintang. In the early days of Republican China, a rudimentary system of elections existed under which a small group of elite local businessmen and officials in each province would elect one of their own as congressman, who would then journey to Nanjing to elect the President. This led to a farcical system of bribery and corruption, resulting in the early Republic controlled by warlords who were the very opposite of democratic. It's worth noting that the Kuomintang and Sun Yat-Sen were never elected into power, losing every election, though they came to lead the country by 1925.

The Kuomintang was not organised like a Western democracy, but drew inspiration from the Soviet Union, leading to the proclamation of the Party-State or 黨國 in 1920. The Nationalist Revolutionary Army became known as the Party-Army or 黨軍, and the Kuomintang flag became the flag of China. This was very much a one-party dictatorship, designed to mobilise national resources to first unify China by defeating the various warlords, and then defeat the Japanese in WWII, and finally defeat the Communists.

There is strong evidence that the KMT fully intended for this phase to be temporary while their various wars of national defence were taking place. In 1927, after reunifying China, serious debates took place as to the timeline and nature of democratisation, interrupted by the outbreak of WWII. At the end of WWII, in 1947, the Constitution was passed guaranteeing the rights to form parties and reverting the Army to civilian control. Oddly enough, many of the most democratic proposals like universal suffrage and the popular election of the lower house were made by the Communists. In any case, this was all moot since martial law was declared on the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War.

Apart from modern Taiwan, the only genuine Chinese democracy was the Lanfang Republic in Borneo. From 1777-1884, they were a prosperous democratically elected worker's Republic, before being invaded and destroyed by the Dutch.