Republic of China

The Republic of China (ROC), commonly known as Taiwan, is a sovereign state in East Asia based on the island of Taiwan off the coast of China.

It was founded on 1 January 1912 by the revolutionary Sun Yat-sen upon the overthrow of the Qing, the last imperial dynasty of China. In the political fragmentation that followed from 1915 to 1928, it was confined to southern China and governed by Sun's Nationalist Party of China (KMT) with which it was synonymous. Under Sun's successor, Chiang Kai-shek, the KMT made a strong push north to reunify the country, reaching Shanghai in 1927 where Chiang spontaneously turned against his communist allies and massacred its civilian supporters in the streets.^[1]

This pivotal decision led to the split with the Communist Party of China (CCP) that ignited the Chinese Civil War. Confronted by certain defeat in 1949, the KMT retreated to Taiwan, where they reestablished the ROC government while the CCP proclaimed the People's Republic of China (PRC). Despite the PRC's subsequent failure to conquer Taiwan and extinguish the ROC, it claims to this day to have sovereignty over Taiwan. Likewise, the ROC continues to constitutionally claim sovereignty over all China as its rightful government, a position that was historically imposed by the KMT in the face of a popular evolution towards the emergence of a Taiwanese nation.