Taiwan and larger than Belgium. The island of Taiwan has an area of , and lies some from the southeastern coast of mainland China across the Taiwan Strait. The East China Sea lies to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait directly to the south, and the South China Sea to the southwest. Its shape is similar to a sweet potato, giving rise to the slang term "hanji" ("sweet potato" in Hokkien) used by Taiwanese Hokkien speakers to refer to people of native Taiwanese descent. The island is characterized by the contrast between
Mainland China Taiwan, with the PRC referring to itself as "the mainland side" (as opposed to "the Taiwan side"). But in its relations with Hong Kong and Macau, the PRC government refers to itself as "the Central People's Government", and Mainland China excluding Hong Kong and Macau is referred as "Nèidì". "Mainland area" is the opposing term to "free area of the Republic of China" used in the ROC Constitution. In the 1930s the region faced Japanese invasion. By 1949, the Communist Party of China's (CPC) People's Liberation Army had largely defeated the Kuomintang (KMT)'s National Revolutionary Army in the Chinese Civil