Neither Taiwan nor China accepts diplomatic relations with a country that recognizes the other, after the two split decades earlier in civil war. In 1949, after being defeated by Mao Zedong’s Communist troops in China’s mainland, Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, known as the Kuomintang, fled to Taiwan and took up residence. The island has since grown into a resilient democracy and a crucial cog in the global tech industry, despite not being recognized as a country by most of the world.
