General Information Abuot China

China refers to a number of states and cultures that have existed in continental East Asia for the last 4000 years. Depending on one's point of view, modern China can be described as a single civilization or multiple civilizations, as a single state or multiple states, and as a single nation or multiple nations. Chinese people tend to stress unity of a singular Chinese nation and unbroken continuity of a single Chinese civilization throughout history, while other observers tend to point out profound changes to Chinese civilization throughout history and internal diversity within modern China.

With one of the world's lengthiest periods of uninterrupted civilization, China's history has been largely characterized by repeated divisions and reunifications amid alternating periods of peace and war, as well as violent imperial dynastic change and successive incursions from outside. From the 2nd millennium BC onwards, the Chinese civilization(s) and states expanded outwards from a core area in the North China Plain, conquering, influencing, and assimilating foreign peoples, or being conquered, influenced and assimilated in turn. The extent of successive Chinese empires varied according to their moving fortunes.

For centuries, China was also one of the world's most technologically advanced civilizations, and East Asia's dominant cultural influence. However, by the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, China stagnated and fell behind, and was too weak militarily to repel European interference or invasion by the Empire of Japan. Imperial monarchy in China ended with the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC) in 1912; however, the next 4 decades of ROC rule were marred by warlordism, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Chinese Civil War.

After its victory in the Chinese Civil War, the Communist Party of China established the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, forcing the Republic of China (ROC) to retreat to Taiwan, which it had governed since the end of World War II. Since then, the ROC has maintained control over Taiwan, the Pescadores, several islands off the coast of Fujian, and some islands in the South China Sea. In the meantime, the United Kingdom and Portugal handed their colonies of Hong Kong and Macau on the Chinese coast to the PRC in 1997 and 1999, respectively. "China" used in a modern context often refers to just the territory of the PRC, or to "Mainland China", which refers to the territory of the PRC excluding Hong Kong and Macau.

The PRC does not recognize the ROC, as it claims to have succeeded the ROC in its legitimacy to govern all of China including Taiwan. On the other hand, the ROC, while never formally surrendering its claims to all of China, has moved away from its former identity as the ruler of China, and increasingly characterizes itself as Taiwan. The debate surrounding the nature and extent of China continue to fuel ongoing political disputes on Chinese reunification/Taiwan independence issues, described in greater detail in Political status of Taiwan.