Final answer:
China's Nationalists sought to establish an independent republic free from foreign and dynastic rule, which eventually resulted in their retreat to Taiwan after a civil war loss to the Communists.
Step-by-step explanation:
China's Nationalists, led by figures such as Sun Yat-sen and later Chiang Kai-shek, aimed to establish an independent Chinese Republic, free from external influence such as dynastic, Japanese, or European colonial rule. While the desired end was a unified, self-governing China, the Nationalists favored a central national government rather than a communist approach or giving autonomy to individual provinces. After World War II and a bitter conflict with the Communist Party under Mao Zedong, the defeated Nationalists retreated to Taiwan where they continued the Republic of China.
Thus, the correct answer to 'What did China's Nationalists want?' is a) Independence from colonial rule. Regarding the outcome of the Chinese civil war, when the Nationalists were defeated, they fled to a) Taiwan.