Provinces of China the province, rather than the nominal governor of the provincial government. The government of each standard province () is nominally led by a provincial committee, headed by a secretary. The committee secretary is first-in-charge of the province; second-in-command is the governor of the provincial government. The People's Republic of China (PRC) claims the island of Taiwan and its surrounding islets, including Penghu, as "Taiwan Province", though Taiwan has not been under control of a government that ruled from mainland China since 1949, when the Republic of China lost the mainland to the Communist Party of China, which established the PRC.
Flag of the Republic of China PRC's position that the ROC is a defunct entity and that the ROC on Taiwan is illegitimate. The ban also effectively applies to spectators—during a Table Tennis final match at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, police arrested a Taiwanese student for waving the ROC flag. However, the symbolism of the flag began to shift in the early 21st century as there was a warming of relations between the pan-Blue coalition in Taiwan and the Communist Party of China on mainland China. The flag of the Republic of China has begun to symbolize the existence of a past and possibly future unified