U.S. immigration policy toward the People's Republic of China bloc. In February 1950, after months of hard bargaining, China and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance, valid until 1980. Many Americans were at a loss of what to do in regards to foreign policy concerning mainland China. The debate which took place in the United States as a result of the removal of the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek to the island of Taiwan centered on Republican charges that the Democrats "lost" China. "Without question, the critics had by early 1949 convinced many Americans that Truman was, shockingly, abandoning China, China being equivalent with
Free area of the Republic of China such constitutional changes, the Republic of China's official borders were to be regarded as all of mainland China in addition to the territories it controlled. (Until the mid-2000s, maps published in Taiwan depicted mainland provincial and national boundaries as they were in 1949, disregarding changes by the Communist administration post-1949.) While the 1991 revisions of the Constitution granted the sovereignty rights to the Taiwanese people, it did not explicitly name Taiwan and instead used the term "free area" to maintain the notion that the Republic of China encompassed more than Taiwan. In ordinary legislation, the term "Taiwan Area" is usually