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For those of you who
are just starting

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to learn about the
history of China

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in the first half
of the 20th century,

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it can be a little
bit confusing.

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So the goal of this video is
really to give you an overview,

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to give you a scaffold, of
the history of the first half

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of the 20th century in China.

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So as we go into
the early 1900s,

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you have the end of imperial
dynastic rule in China.

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This is a big deal.

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China has been ruled
by various dynasties

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for multiple thousands of years.

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But as you get into the
1900s, the dynastic rule,

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in particular the Qing Dynasty,
was getting weaker and weaker.

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It had suffered at the
hands of the Japanese

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during the first Sino-Japanese
War at the end of the 1800s.

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There was growing discontent
amongst the opposition

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that the dynasty,
that the emperors,

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were not modernizing
China enough.

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Remember, this is
the early 1900s.

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The rest of the world was
becoming a very, very modern

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place.

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China in the 1800s had suffered
at the hands of Western powers

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who were essentially exerting
their own imperial influence

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in China.

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Many people felt that this
was because China was not

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as modernized
economically, politically,

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technologically as
it needed to be.

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And so you fast-forward to 1911.

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You have what is known as
the Wuchang Uprising, which

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led to the overthrow
of the Qing dynasty.

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By 1912, a Republic of China
was established in Nanjing.

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So Nanjing right over here
was where it was established.

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Beijing was, of course, the
seat of dynastic rule in China.

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And the first
provisional president

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of the Republic of China was Dr.
Sun Yat-sen, right over here.

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And he actually did not
directly participate

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in this final
uprising that finally

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led to the overthrow
of the Qing dynasty.

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He was actually in Denver at
the time, Denver, Colorado.

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But he was a leading or one of
the leading figures in the run

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up to this uprising, one
of the leading figures

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who was providing
opposition and had tried

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multiple times to
overthrow the dynasty.

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Now along with Sun Yat-sen,
he was essentially in cahoots

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with Yuan Shikai, who was a
general in the old dynasty.

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And he has his own
fascinating history.

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And Sun Yat-sen struck
a deal with Yuan Shikai,

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who was very
politically ambitious.

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Yuan Shikai said, hey, if I
can get the emperor Puyi, who

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was the last emperor of China,
if I can get him to officially

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abdicate, I want to
become the president.

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So Sun Yat-sen agrees to this.

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So Yuan Shikai
becomes the president

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of the Republic of China.

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But that wasn't enough for him.

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He declares himself
emperor in 1915,

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which you could imagine did
not make many people happy

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because they were tired
of having emperors.

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And by 1916, he abdicates
and he passes away, actually.

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And this actually
begins a period

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of extremely fragmented
rule for China.

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Even under imperial rule,
the Chinese military

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was not one consolidated body.

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The military was controlled
by various warlords

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in various regions that all
had allegiance to the emperor.

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Once you have Yuan Shikai
abdicating and then dying

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in 1916, and even
prior to that, when

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he declared himself
emperor, people

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did not want to pledge
allegiance to Yuan Shikai.

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And so you had what is known
as the beginning of the Warlord

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Era in China.

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And this is a fragmented
period where you did not

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have any centralized leadership.

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This map over here shows
kind of the rough picture

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of what the Warlord
Era looked like.

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Each of these regions
were controlled

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by a different warlord
who was in charge

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of a different military.

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When this was going on
during the Warlord Era,

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especially as we go back
to the early '20s, in 1921

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in particular, Sun
Yat-sen hasn't given up.

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He goes to the
south in Guangzhou

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and sets up, essentially,
a revolutionary government,

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essentially a desire
from there to try

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to consolidate power in
China again and reestablish

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the Republic of China.

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So he goes there.

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But unfortunately he passes
away in 1925 from cancer.

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And the hands or the power of
the movement that he started,

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which is now being referred
to as the Kuomintang-- Let me

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write that down.

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Essentially, the
power there passes on

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to Generalissimo
Chiang Kai-shek.

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And Chiang Kai-shek,
the reason why

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we say the power
essentially goes to him

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is because he was in
control of the major part

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of the military forces
of the Kuomintang.

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And this is essentially the
very nascent early stages

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of what would essentially
be the Chinese Civil

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War because in the period from
1921 until Sun Yat-sen's death,

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you actually had a
lot of collaboration

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between the Chinese
nationalists, the Kuomintang,

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and the Soviet Union, and
the Chinese Communist Party.

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They were trying to
collaborate in order

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to think about how
China would unify.

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But then once Sun Yat-sen dies
and the power of the Kuomintang

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essentially goes into the
hands of Generalissimo Chiang

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Kai-shek, he starts
to consolidate power.

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And right from the
get-go, he doesn't

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antagonize the communists.

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But by 1927, he's
starting to consolidate,

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he's starting to merge
these various factions

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in the rest of China.

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So he's able to
consolidate power.

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But he also starts to
go after the communists.

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So Chiang Kai-shek,
by '27, also starts

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to go after the communists.

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And the communists
are saying, hey, we

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are the ones that really
represent the spirit of what

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Sun Yat-sen represented,
while the Kuomintang

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under the leadership of Chiang
Kai-shek said, no, no, no.

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We represent what Sun Yat-sen
represented when he first

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established the
Republic of China.

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And so in 1927, you have the
beginning of the Chinese Civil

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War.

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This is when the Kuomintang,
as part of its efforts

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to consolidate
power, not only tries

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to consolidate power
of the warlords,

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but also goes after
the Communist Party.

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Now while all of
this is happening,

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as we get into the early
1930s, Japan once again

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is trying to exert its
imperial, its military,

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might on the Chinese mainland.

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They had already
captured Formosa,

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which is now known
as Taiwan, and Korea

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during the first Sino-Japanese
War at the end of the 1800s.

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And then in 1931, the Japanese
start to encroach on Manchuria.

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And this would essentially
become a multi-year occupation

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and infiltration of
Japan into China.

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And this continues all
the way until 1937,

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when it becomes an
official all-out war

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between the Japanese
and the Chinese.

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And I have a map
here that shows kind

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of the maximum Japanese
control over this period.

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And so in east Asia between
the Chinese and the Japanese,

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World War II was really just
part of the Sino-Japanese War.

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The Japanese had
already encroached

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on the mainland of China
well before World War

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II had officially begun.

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Now while all this
is happening, Japan

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is encroaching into Manchuria,
in 1934, you have to remember,

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the Kuomintang, the Nationalist
Party under Chiang Kai-shek

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is going after the communists.

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And in 1934, he almost
has them, or he does.

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The communists are
nearly defeated.

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They're surrounded by
the Nationalist Party.

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And this becomes what
is a fairly famous event

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in Chinese history, the
famous Long March, where

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the Chinese Communist
Party, their military,

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is marched through
extremely tough terrain

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all the way to the
northwest of China.

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So this right over here is
a map of the Long March.

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The Chinese Communist Party
seemed to be on the ropes

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here in 1934.

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And it was during
this Long March

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that Mao Zedong really started
to exert and show leadership.

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The leadership during
this Long March,

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during this retreat to
the northwest of China,

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is really what allowed Mao
Zedong to eventually take

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control of the Chinese
Communist Party.

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Now as we fast forward, we know
that the Sino-Japanese War--

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you could view this as one
theater, eventually, of World

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War II-- eventually the
US goes in on the side

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of the Allies against
Japan after Pearl Harbor.

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And then in 1945,
you have the attacks

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on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
with atomic weapons,

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which essentially ends
the Pacific theater.

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It's defeat for Japan, and
Japan has lost World War II.

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And at this point,
full-scale civil war

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between the two parties
break out again.

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The Civil War started in 1927,
and then it kept continuing.

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But then once there was a common
enemy in Japan that was clearly

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aggressively trying to take
over more and more of China's

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people, resources, exert
its imperial influence,

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then you had the two parties
kind of go into a low-grade war

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and say, hey, we need
to fight these Japanese.

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But once World War
II ended in 1945,

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once the Japanese were
defeated, then you

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had full-scale
civil war break out

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again between the
Chinese Communist

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Party and the Kuomintang.

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And this is probably one of the
biggest comebacks in history.

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This was the Chinese Communist
Party that in 1934 and 1935

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looked like they
were on the ropes.

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They were forced into,
essentially, retreat.

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They were able to come back.

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And in 1949-- and
there's a lot of theories

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as to why they were
able to pull this off.

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That they were able to get
much more of the support

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from the rural population.

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They were more savvy about
getting support generally

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than the Kuomintang.

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But we could talk about
that in a future video.

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But by 1949, they
were able to defeat

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Chiang Kai-shek
and the Kuomintang,

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force the Kuomintang
to retreat to Taiwan,

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establish government in Taiwan.

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And ever since then, you
had the establishment

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by the Chinese
Communist Party in 1949

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of the People's
Republic of China.