The People's Republic of China is a communist superpower located in East Asia. With a population of over 1,381,000,000 people, it is the most populous state on Earth, covering 9.6 million square kilometers and ranging from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the Tibetan Plateau and Central Asia to the west. One of the cradles of civilization, China was ruled by a number of dynasties for thousands of years, and it would not be until 1911 that a republic would be founded.
Location of China
The Kuomintang party of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek led the 1911 revolution, and they established the democratic Republic of China. However, they had to fight against both communists led by Mao Zedong and several warlords such as Yuan Shikai, and the Chinese Civil War and the concurrent Japanese invasion during World War II left millions of people dead. After World War II's end in 1945, fighting reached its worst stage, and it took four years of horrific battles and massacres for Mao Zedong's communists to liberate the country from Chiang's dictatorship.
Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang fled to the island of Taiwan, proclaiming the "Republic of China" there. Communist China languished during its sped-up process of modernization, but the reforms of Deng Xiaoping helped in establishing a more moderate form of socialism called "state capitalism", in which the government moderated the economy.
This led to an economic boom, and China became one of the world's superpowers. China turned against the Soviet Union in 1969 due to ideological differences, and China allied with the United States during the Cold War. After the war, China emerged as one of Asia's "Tiger Economies", and it engaged in trade deals with other Pacific nations, including the USA. By 2016, China was economically stronger than America, which was trillions of dollars in debt.
China is a multicultural society, with 56 recognized ethnic groups and five recognized religions: Buddhism, Taoism (including Confucianism and folk religion), Islam, Protestantism, and the Chinese Catholic Church. 87.4% of the population is atheist, Taoist, or animist, while 6.2% is Buddhist, 2.3% Christian, 2.2% folk religious sects, 1.7% Muslim, and .2% other beliefs.