A report on Chiang Kai-shek, Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II and Chinese Civil War

(clockwise from top left)Imperial Japanese Navy landing force in military gas masks in the Battle of Shanghai

Japanese Type 92 heavy machine gunners during Operation Ichi-Go

Victims of the Nanjing Massacre on the shore of the Qinhuai River

Chinese machine gun nest in the Battle of Wuhan

Japanese aircraft during the bombing of Chongqing

Chinese Expeditionary Force marching in India

The League of Nations assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 1930

Clockwise from top: communist troops at the Battle of Siping; Muslim soldiers of the NRA; Mao Zedong in the 1930s; Chiang Kai-shek inspecting soldiers; CCP general Su Yu inspecting the troops shortly before the Menglianggu campaign

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Allied Commander-in-Chief in the China theatre from 1942 to 1945

Adolf Hitler at a German Nazi political rally in Nuremberg, August 1933

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Commander-in-Chief of the National Revolutionary Army, emerged from the Northern Expedition as the leader of the Republic of China.

Sun Yat-sen and Chiang at the 1924 opening ceremonies for the Soviet-funded Whampoa Military Academy

Japanese troops entering Shenyang during the Mukden Incident

Benito Mussolini inspecting troops during the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935

The bombing of Guernica in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, sparked fears abroad in Europe that the next war would be based on bombing of cities with very high civilian casualties.

NRA troops firing artillery at Communist forces

Chiang (right) together with Wang Jingwei (left), 1926

A baby sits in the remains of a Shanghai train station on 'Bloody Saturday', 1937

Japanese Imperial Army soldiers during the Battle of Shanghai, 1937

Japanese occupation (red) of eastern China near the end of the war, and Communist bases (striped)

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek announced the Kuomintang policy of resistance against Japan at Lushan on 10 July 1937, three days after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident.

Red Army artillery unit during the Battle of Lake Khasan, 1938

Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong met in Chongqing in 1945.

Chiang during a visit to an air force base in 1945

Japanese landing near Shanghai, November 1937

Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano pictured just before signing the Munich Agreement, 29 September 1938

Shangdang Campaign, September–October 1945

Chiang and Soong on the cover of Time magazine, 26 October 1931

Japanese troops in the ruins of Shanghai

German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (right) and the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, 23 August 1939

Map showing Three Campaigns during the Chinese Civil War

Nationalist government of Nanking – nominally ruling over entire China in 1930s

Soviet embassy in Nanjing is being burned down by arson on 1 January 1938.

Soldiers of the German Wehrmacht tearing down the border crossing into Poland, 1 September 1939

Nationalist warplanes being prepared for an air raid on Communist bases

After the breakout of the Second Sino-Japanese War, The Young Companion featured Chiang on its cover.

A Chinese POW about to be beheaded by a Japanese officer with a shin gunto

Soldiers of the Polish Army during the defence of Poland, September 1939

The PLA enters Beijing in the Pingjin Campaign.

Chiang with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in Cairo, Egypt, November 1943

National Revolutionary Army soldiers during the 1938 Yellow River flood

Finnish machine gun nest aimed at Soviet Red Army positions during the Winter War, February 1940

Chiang and his wife Soong Mei-ling sharing a laugh with U.S. Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell, Burma, April 1942

Map showing the extent of Japanese occupation in 1941 (in red)

German advance into Belgium and Northern France, 10 May-4 June 1940, swept past the Maginot Line (shown in dark red)

The Nationalists' retreat to Taipei: after the Nationalists lost Nanjing (Nanking) they next moved to Guangzhou (Canton), then to Chongqing (Chungking), Chengdu (Chengtu) and finally, Xichang (Sichang) before arriving in Taipei.

Theaters (military operational regions) of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army from late 1938 to early 1940

London seen from St. Paul's Cathedral after the German Blitz, 29 December 1940

Mao Zedong's proclamation of the founding of the People's Republic in 1949

Chiang with South Korean President Syngman Rhee in 1949

Wang Jingwei and officers of the Collaborationist Chinese Army

Soldiers of the British Commonwealth forces from the Australian Army's 9th Division during the Siege of Tobruk; North African Campaign, September 1941

Communist conquest of Hainan Island in 1950

Map of the Chinese Civil War (1946–1950)

Chinese soldiers in house-to-house fighting in the Battle of Taierzhuang, March–April 1938

German Panzer III of the Afrika Korps advancing across the North African desert, April-May 1941

"Forget not that you are in Jǔ"--a rock in Quemoy Island with Chiang Kai-shek's calligraphy signifying the retaking of one's homeland

Chiang with Japanese politician Nobusuke Kishi, in 1957

National Revolutionary Army soldiers march to the front in 1939.

European theatre of World War II animation map, 1939–1945 – Red: Western Allies and the Soviet Union after 1941; Green: Soviet Union before 1941; Blue: Axis powers

Monument in memory of the crossing of the Yangtze in Nanjing

Chiang presiding over the 1966 Double Ten celebrations

Eighth Route Army Commander Zhu De with a KMT "Blue Sky, White Sun" emblem cap

German soldiers during the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Axis powers, 1941

Lockheed U-2C 56-6691 wreckage (pilot Chang Liyi) on display at the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution, Beijing

Chiang with U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in June 1960

115th Division of the Eighth Route Army Lieutenant General (NRA rank) Lin Biao in NRA uniform

Soviet civilians leaving destroyed houses after a German bombardment during the Battle of Leningrad, 10 December 1942

The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument, landmark, and tourist attraction in Taipei, Taiwan.

War declaration against Japan by the Chongqing Nationalist Government on 9 December 1941

Japanese soldiers entering Hong Kong, 8 December 1941

The situation in China in 1929: After the Northern Expedition, the KMT had direct control over east and central China, while the rest of China proper as well as Manchuria was under the control of warlords loyal to the Nationalist government.

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Madame Chiang with Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell in 1942, Burma

The USS Arizona (BB-39) was a total loss in the Japanese surprise air attack on the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Sunday 7 December 1941.

Map showing the communist-controlled Soviet Zones of China during and after the encirclement campaigns

Chinese propaganda poster proclaiming "Long Live the President"

A United States poster from the United China Relief organization advocating aid to China.

US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British PM Winston Churchill seated at the Casablanca Conference, January 1943

Route(s) taken by Communist forces during the Long March

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill met at the Cairo Conference in 1943 during World War II.

Map of Japanese military advances through mid-1942

A Communist leader addressing survivors of the Long March

Chiang Kai-shek and Winston Churchill heads, with Nationalist China flag and Union Jack

US Marines during the Guadalcanal Campaign, in the Pacific theatre, 1942

Statue of Chiang Kai-shek in Yangmingshan National Park, Taiwan

I-16 with Chinese insignia. The I-16 was the main fighter plane used by the Chinese Air Force and Soviet volunteers.

Red Army soldiers on the counterattack during the Battle of Stalingrad, February 1943

Flying Tigers Commander Claire Lee Chennault

American 8th Air Force Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombing raid on the Focke-Wulf factory in Germany, 9 October 1943

Situation in the winter of 1948 and 1949

Chiang Kai-shek with the Muslim General Ma Fushou

A "blood chit" issued to American Volunteer Group pilots requesting all Chinese to offer rescue and protection

U.S. Navy SBD-5 scout plane flying patrol over USS Washington (BB-56) and USS Lexington (CV-16) during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, 1943

Chiang Kai-shek as Knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim

Free Thai, American and Chinese military officers in China during the war

Red Army troops in a counter-offensive on German positions at the Battle of Kursk, July 1943

Taiwanese side "Reunification under the Three Principles of the People“.

Mao Fumei (毛福梅, 1882–1939), who died in the Second Sino-Japanese War during a bombardment, is the mother of his son and successor Chiang Ching-kuo

The India–China airlift delivered approximately 650,000 tons of materiel to China at a cost of 1,659 men and 594 aircraft.

Ruins of the Benedictine monastery, during the Battle of Monte Cassino, Italian Campaign, May 1944

thumb|The Soviet Red Army invaded Manchuria in August 1945.

Yao Yecheng (姚冶誠, 1889–1972), who came to Taiwan and died in Taipei

French colonial troops retreating to the Chinese border after the Japanese coup d'état in March 1945

American troops approaching Omaha Beach during the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944

Chinese Communist soldiers march north to occupy rural Manchuria, 1945.

Chen Jieru (陳潔如, "Jennie", 1906–1971), who lived in Shanghai, but moved to Hong Kong later and died there

German SS soldiers from the Dirlewanger Brigade, tasked with suppressing the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi occupation, August 1944

Soong Mei-ling (宋美齡, 1898–2003), who moved to the United States after Chiang Kai-shek's death, is arguably his most famous wife even though they had no children together

General Douglas MacArthur returns to the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte, 20 October 1944

WWII victory parade at Chongqing on 3 September 1945

Yalta Conference held in February 1945, with Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin

Japanese troops surrendering to the Chinese

Ruins of the Reichstag in Berlin, 3 June 1945.

The Chinese return to Liuzhou in July 1945.

Atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.

Ruins of Warsaw in 1945, after the deliberate destruction of the city by the occupying German forces

China War of Resistance Against Japan Memorial Museum on the site where the Marco Polo Bridge Incident took place

Defendants at the Nuremberg trials, where the Allied forces prosecuted prominent members of the political, military, judicial and economic leadership of Nazi Germany for crimes against humanity

The Taiwan Strait and the island of Taiwan

Post-war border changes in Central Europe and creation of the Communist Eastern Bloc

Casualties of a mass panic during a June 1941 Japanese bombing of Chongqing. More than 5,000 civilians died during the first two days of air raids in 1939.

David Ben-Gurion proclaiming the Israeli Declaration of Independence at the Independence Hall, 14 May 1948

Japanese war crime against a Chinese POW

Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces with gas masks and rubber gloves during a chemical attack near Chapei in the Battle of Shanghai

Bodies of Chinese civilians killed by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Nanking Massacre in December 1937

Chinese suicide bomber putting on an explosive vest made out of Model 24 hand grenades to use in an attack on Japanese tanks at the Battle of Taierzhuang

Schutzstaffel (SS) female camp guards removing prisoners' bodies from lorries and carrying them to a mass grave, inside the German Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, 1945

Prisoner identity photograph taken by the German SS of a Polish Catholic girl who died in Auschwitz. Approximately 230,000 children were held prisoner and used in forced labour and Nazi medical experiments.

Polish civilians wearing blindfolds photographed just before their execution by German soldiers in Palmiry forest, 1940

Soviet partisans hanged by the German army. The Russian Academy of Sciences reported in 1995 civilian victims in the Soviet Union at German hands totalled 13.7 million dead, twenty percent of the 68 million persons in the occupied Soviet Union.

B-29 Superfortress strategic bombers on the Boeing assembly line in Wichita, Kansas, 1944

A V-2 rocket launched from a fixed site in Peenemünde, 21 June 1943

Nuclear Gadget being raised to the top of the detonation "shot tower", at Alamogordo Bombing Range; Trinity nuclear test, New Mexico, July 1945

The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Theater of the Second World War.

- Second Sino-Japanese War

From 1937 to 1945, hostilities were mostly put on hold as the Second United Front fought the Japanese invasion of China with eventual help from the Allies of World War II, but even then co-operation between the KMT and CCP was minimal and armed clashes between them were common.

- Chinese Civil War

Midway through the Northern Expedition, the KMT–CCP alliance broke down and Chiang massacred communists inside the party, triggering a civil war with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), which he eventually lost in 1949.

- Chiang Kai-shek

The exact causes of World War II are debated, but contributing factors included the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Soviet–Japanese border conflicts, the rise of fascism in Europe and rising European tensions since World War I.

- World War II

Following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, he mobilized China for the Second Sino-Japanese War.

- Chiang Kai-shek

When the Second World War ended, the Civil War with the communists (by then led by Mao Zedong) resumed.

- Chiang Kai-shek

In 1923, Sun sent Chiang Kai-shek, one of his lieutenants, for several months of military and political study in Moscow.

- Chinese Civil War

The Kuomintang (KMT) party in China launched a unification campaign against regional warlords and nominally unified China in the mid-1920s, but was soon embroiled in a civil war against its former Chinese Communist Party allies and new regional warlords.

- World War II

Later in the same year, Zhang decided to declare his allegiance to the Nationalist government in Nanjing under Chiang Kai-shek, and consequently, China was nominally reunified under one government.

- Second Sino-Japanese War

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to defend Shanghai, but after three months of fighting, Shanghai fell.

- World War II

The level of actual cooperation and coordination between the CCP and KMT during World War II was minimal.

- Chinese Civil War

To secure the release of Chiang, the KMT agreed to a temporary ceasefire of the Chinese Civil War and, on 24 December, the formation of a United Front with the communists against Japan.

- Second Sino-Japanese War

4 related topics with Alpha

Republic of China (1912–1949)

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Land controlled by the Republic of China (1946) shown in dark green; land claimed but uncontrolled shown in light green.

Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the Republic of China.

Yuan Shikai (left) and Sun Yat-sen (right) with flags representing the early republic

Major Chinese warlord coalitions during the "Nanjing Decade".

China had been at war with Japan since 1931.

Chinese Nationalist Army soldiers during the 1938 Yellow River flood

Nationalist government of Nanking – nominally ruling over entire China during 1930s

Boat traffic and development along Suzhou Creek, Shanghai, 1920

The Republic of China (ROC) was commonly recognised as the official designation of China from 1912 to 1949, when it was a country in East Asia based in Mainland China, prior to the relocation of its central government to Taiwan as a result of the Chinese Civil War.

General Chiang Kai-shek, who became the Chairman of the Kuomintang after Sun's death and subsequent power struggle in 1925, began the Northern Expedition in 1926 to overthrow the Beiyang government.

Nation-building efforts yielded to fight the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 when a skirmish between the National Revolutionary Army and Imperial Japanese Army culminated in a full-scale invasion by Japan.

The war lasted until the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II in 1945; China then regained control of the island of Taiwan and the Pescadores.

Kuomintang

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Major political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan).

The Revolutionary Army attacking Nanjing in 1911

The KMT reveres its founder, Sun Yat-sen, as the "Father of the Nation"

Venue of the 1st National Congress of Kuomintang in 1924

Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Kuomintang after Sun's death in 1925

KMT flag displayed in Lhasa, Tibet in 1938

The National Revolutionary Army soldiers marched into the British concessions in Hankou during the Northern Expedition

Nationalist soldiers during the Second Sino-Japanese War

The retrocession of Taiwan in Taipei on 25 October 1945

The former KMT headquarters in Taipei City (1949–2006), whose imposing structure, directly facing the Presidential Office Building, was seen as a symbol of the party's wealth and dominance

Pan-blue supporters at a rally during the 2004 presidential election

Kuomintang public service center in Shilin, Taipei

Lien Chan (middle) and Wu Po-hsiung (second left) and the KMT touring the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing, People's Republic of China when the Pan-Blue coalition visited the mainland in 2005

KMT headquarters in Taipei City before the KMT Central Committee moved in June 2006 to a much more modest Bade building, having sold the original headquarters to private investors of the EVA Airways Corporation

KMT Kinmen headquarters office in Jincheng Township, Kinmen County

KMT Building in Vancouver's Chinatown, British Columbia, Canada

KMT branch office in Pingzhen District, Taoyuan City

The KMT maintains offices in some of the Chinatowns of the world and its United States party headquarters are located in San Francisco Chinatown, on Stockton Street directly across the Chinese Six Companies

KMT Eastern U.S. headquarters is in New York Chinatown

KMT office of Australasia in Sydney, Australia

From left to right, KMT members pay tribute to the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Beijing in 1928 after the success of the Northern Expedition: Generals Cheng Jin, Zhang Zuobao, Chen Diaoyuan, Chiang Kai-shek, Woo Tsin-hang, Yan Xishan, General Ma Fuxiang, Ma Sida and General Bai Chongxi

The party retreated from the mainland to Taiwan on 7 December 1949, following its defeat in the Chinese Civil War.

From 1926 to 1928, the KMT under Chiang Kai-shek successfully led the Northern Expedition against regional warlords and unified the fragmented nation.

From 1937 to 1945, the KMT-ruled Nationalist government led China through the Second Sino-Japanese War against Japan.

After Japan's defeat at the end of World War II in 1945, General Order No. 1 instructed Japan to surrender its troops in Taiwan to Chiang Kai-shek.

Taiwan

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Taiwan has been settled for at least 25,000 years.

Fort Zeelandia, the Governor's residence in Dutch Formosa

Japanese colonial soldiers march Taiwanese captured after the Tapani Incident in 1915 from the Tainan jail to court.

General Chen Yi (right) accepting the receipt of General Order No. 1 from Rikichi Andō (left), the last Japanese Governor-General of Taiwan, in Taipei City Hall

Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Kuomintang from 1925 until his death in 1975

With Chiang Kai-shek, US president Dwight D. Eisenhower waved to crowds during his visit to Taipei in June 1960.

In 1988, Lee Teng-hui became the first president of the Republic of China born in Taiwan and was the first to be directly elected in 1996.

Student protest in Taipei against a controversial trade agreement with China in March 2014

A satellite image of Taiwan, showing it is mostly mountainous in the east, with gently sloping plains in the west. The Penghu Islands are west of the main island.

The flag used by Taiwan at the Olympic Games, where it competes as "Chinese Taipei" (中華台北)

Taiwan's popularly elected president resides in the Presidential Office Building, Taipei, originally built in the Japanese era for colonial governors

Tsai Ing-wen, President of the Republic of China

Su Tseng-chang, Premier of the Republic of China

Taiwanese-born Tangwai ("independent") politician Wu San-lien (second left) celebrates with supporters his landslide victory of 65.5 per cent in Taipei's first mayoral election in January 1951.

Results from an identity survey conducted each year from 1992 to 2020 by the Election Study Center, National Chengchi University. Responses are Taiwanese (green), Chinese (red) or Both Taiwanese and Chinese (hatched). No response is shown as grey.

Republic of China Army’s Thunderbolt-2000, a multiple rocket launcher

Taipei 101 held the world record for the highest skyscraper from 2004 to 2010.

China Airlines aircraft line-up at Taoyuan International Airport

Population density map of Taiwan (residents per square kilometre)

Original geographic distributions of Taiwanese indigenous peoples

Most commonly used home language in each area, darker in proportion to the lead over the next most common

Apo Hsu and the NTNU Symphony Orchestra onstage in the National Concert Hall

Taiwanese writer, literary critic and politician Wang Tuoh

Yani Tseng with the 2011 Women's British Open trophy

Tai Tzu-ying, the current world No.1 in BWF at the 2018 Chinese Taipei Open

St. John's Catholic Church in Banqiao District, New Taipei

Countries maintaining relations with the ROCdiplomatic relations and embassy in Taipei
unofficial relations (see text)

The Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) is the top-tier professional baseball league in Taiwan

The resumption of the Chinese Civil War resulted in the ROC's loss of mainland China to forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and consequent retreat to Taiwan in 1949.

During the course of World War II, tens of thousands of Taiwanese served in the Japanese military.

Central authority waxed and waned in response to warlordism (1915–28), Japanese invasion (1937–45), and the Chinese Civil War (1927–50), with central authority strongest during the Nanjing decade (1927–37), when most of China came under the control of the Kuomintang (KMT) under an authoritarian one-party state.

After the end of World War II, the Chinese Civil War resumed between the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang), led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by CCP Chairman Mao Zedong.

China

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Country in East Asia.

China (today's Guangdong), Mangi (inland of Xanton), and Cataio (inland of China and Chequan, and including the capital Cambalu, Xandu, and a marble bridge) are all shown as separate regions on this 1570 map by Abraham Ortelius

10,000 years old pottery, Xianren Cave culture (18000–7000 BCE)

Yinxu, the ruins of the capital of the late Shang dynasty (14th century BCE)

China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, is famed for having united the Warring States' walls to form the Great Wall of China. Most of the present structure, however, dates to the Ming dynasty.

Map showing the expansion of Han dynasty in the 2nd century BC

The Qing conquest of the Ming and expansion of the empire

The Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China to defeat the anti-foreign Boxers and their Qing backers. The image shows a celebration ceremony inside the Chinese imperial palace, the Forbidden City after the signing of the Boxer Protocol in 1901.

Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of Republic of China, one of the first republics in Asia.

Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong toasting together in 1945 following the end of World War II

Mao Zedong proclaiming the establishment of the PRC in 1949.

The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests was ended by a military-led massacre which brought condemnations and sanctions against the Chinese government from various foreign countries.

Satellite image of China from NASA WorldWind

Köppen-Geiger climate classification map for mainland China.

A giant panda, China's most famous endangered and endemic species, at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Sichuan

The Three Gorges Dam is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world.

Earliest known written formula for gunpowder, from the Wujing Zongyao of 1044 CE

Huawei headquarters in Shenzhen. Huawei is the world's largest telecoms-equipment-maker and the second-largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world.

Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, one of the first Chinese spaceports

Internet penetration rates in China in the context of East Asia and Southeast Asia, 1995–2012

The Duge Bridge is the highest bridge in the world.

The Beijing Daxing International Airport features the world's largest single-building airport terminal.

The Port of Shanghai's deep water harbor on Yangshan Island in the Hangzhou Bay is the world's busiest container port since 2010.

A 2009 population density map of the People's Republic of China and Taiwan. The eastern coastal provinces are much more densely populated than the western interior.

A trilingual sign in Sibsongbanna, with Tai Lü language on the top

Map of the ten largest cities in China (2010)

Beijing's Peking University, one of the top-ranked universities in China

Chart showing the rise of China's Human Development Index from 1970 to 2010

Geographic distribution of religions in China.
Chinese folk religion (including Confucianism, Taoism, and groups of Chinese Buddhism)
Buddhism tout court
Islam
Ethnic minorities' indigenous religions
Mongolian folk religion
Northeast China folk religion influenced by Tungus and Manchu shamanism; widespread Shanrendao

Fenghuang County, an ancient town that harbors many architectural remains of Ming and Qing styles.

The stories in Journey to the West are common themes in Peking opera.

Map showing major regional cuisines of China

Go is an abstract strategy board game for two players, in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent and was invented in China more than 2,500 years ago.

Long March 2F launching Shenzhou spacecraft. China is one of the only three countries with independent human spaceflight capability.

The Tang dynasty at its greatest extent and Tang's protectorates

Lihaozhai High School in Jianshui, Yunnan. The sign is in Hani (Latin alphabet), Nisu (Yi script), and Chinese.

China topographic map with East Asia countries

Japan invaded China in 1937, starting the Second Sino-Japanese War and temporarily halting the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT).

In the late 1920s, the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek, the then Principal of the Republic of China Military Academy, was able to reunify the country under its own control with a series of deft military and political maneuverings, known collectively as the Northern Expedition.

The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), a theater of World War II, forced an uneasy alliance between the Kuomintang and the Communists.