Portal:Republic of China/Intro
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The Republic of China (ROC) is the oldest surviving republic in East Asia having been established in Nanjing in 1912 after the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) which ended 400 years of monarchy. The challenges of stabilizing and modernizing the Chinese nation were hampered by domestic warlordism and foreign imperialism from the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan. The Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II and the Chinese Civil War further weakened the nation; ultimately, the Kuomintang (KMT) party retreated to the island of Taiwan (Formosa) in 1949 with the communists seizing the entire mainland and proclaiming the People's Republic of China (PRC). The ROC established Taipei as its provisional capital with the eventual goal of recovering the mainland. However, its claim to being the sole legitimate government of China has gradually lost clout when it lost its seat at the United Nations in 1971 to the PRC. Since the 1970s, many nations began switching diplomatic recognition of China from Taipei to Beijing following in the lead of the ROC's one-time major ally, the United States. Since the 1990s, there has a been a gradual shift towards referring to the ROC as "Taiwan" due to the PRC's One-China policy of diplomatically isolating the ROC from the international community. Also, the Taiwan independence movement on the island has raised a political status issue. The PRC claims Taiwan as its 23rd province that must be reunited with the mainland and threatens military invasion if, amongst other conditions, the island declares independence.[1]
