The People's Republic of China, is a state in East Asia. The PRC has a coastline of 14,500 kilometres (9,010
mi), and borders (clockwise from south to northeast) Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, India, Bhutan, Nepal,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, and North Korea. Its capital is Beijing.
The Communist Party of China (CPC) has led the PRC under a one-party system since the country's establishment in 1949. Despite this, nearly half of the PRC's economy has been privatized in the past three decades under "Socialism with Chinese characteristics." During the 1980s, these economic reforms helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, bringing the poverty rate down to less than 9% from 33% of the
population. However, due to this mixing of market and planned economies, the PRC is faced with a number of problems associated with each, including unemployment and an increasing rural/urban income gap. Despite these shortcomings, greater prosperity has led to growing Chinese influence in global economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.
At over 3.7 million square miles (over 9.1 million km˛), the PRC is the third or fourth largest country by area. It is also the world's most populous nation, with over 1.3 billion people.
The PRC is the world's fourth largest economy (which is predicted to become the largest by 2020) and represents China as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and APEC. China is the third largest exporter and importer in the world. China consumes a third of the world's steel and over half of the world's concrete. There are currently more construction projects in China than any other country on Earth. Due to its large and stable population, its growing economy and military spending and capabilities, the PRC is often considered an emerging superpower.
The PRC was estalished in 1949, during the closing stages of the Chinese Civil War; in that same year, the previous government of China, the Republic of China (R.O.C), retreated to the island of Taiwan, where it currently remains. Since then, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and some nearby islands, which are administered by the Republic of China (R.O.C), and asserts that the PRC has supplanted the ROC in its legitimacy to govern all of China. The R.O.C on Taiwan rejects these claims, and administers itself as a sovereign state with a democratically elected government and president. The term "mainland China" is sometimes used to denote the area under PRC rule, but usually excludes the two Special Administrative Regions, Hong Kong and
Macau.
