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
History of foreign relations of the People's Republic of China however, remain unresolved: the issue of Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek and his forces fled to Taiwan after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The government they established there, the "Republic of China", continued to claim authority as the government of the Chinese nation almost four decades after the founding of the People's Republic. Although China's goal of reunifying Taiwan with the mainland remained unchanged, the previous, more militant Chinese policy of "liberating Taiwan" was replaced in the 1980s by the concept of reunification under the "one country, two systems" policy. The agreements on Hong Kong and Macau