The People’s Republic of China Is Born
By 1937, the civil war between Chiang’s KMT and Mao’s CCP was still raging but had to be put on hold due to the Japanese invasion of China. Their cooperation in the Sino-Japanese war would almost immediately cease once the Japanese were defeated in 1945 and the bloody civil war resumed.
At this point, the Nationalist government was beset with corruption and had made some critical military blunders, both of which Mao would use to his advantage. After promising China’s considerable peasant class that they would be provided with land and steadily overcoming the KMT forces, Mao would emerge triumphant, forcing Chiang and his remaining forces to flee to Taiwan, birthing the conflict between to two nations that still exists today.
On October 1, 1949, the victorious Mao would address the nation standing on top of Tiananmen. the ‘Gate of Heavenly Peace’ in Beijing to announce the creation of a new China, the People’s Republic of China.
