ChronoFive
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Setting the scene
After Japan's defeat, civil war resumed between Mao Zedong's Communists and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists; the PLA's victories at Huaihai and crossing the Yangtze shattered KMT control of the mainland as the U.S.-backed regime retreated toward Taiwan.
What happened
The PRC was founded on October 1, 1949, when Mao proclaimed the People's Republic from Tiananmen Gate in Beijing, declaring 'the Chinese people have stood up' to a crowd of hundreds of thousands.
Why it still matters
The Nationalists retreated to Taiwan, where the Republic of China continued; the PRC's Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, and reform era under Deng Xiaoping reshaped global manufacturing and twenty-first-century superpower rivalry with the United States.
Background
The Nationalists retreated to Taiwan.