In the 1920s, China becomes increasingly split between the Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists. Mao Zedong proclaims the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 after a civil war. Chiang's defeated army flees the communist-controlled mainland to the island of Taiwan. Closely allied to the Soviet Union in the first years after the revolution, China models itself on Stalin's centralized system. Ideological and foreign policy arguments break out and the two communist giants split bitterly in the early 1960s.
Clashes break out along their common frontier.
India and China fight a brief war along their Himalayan border in 1962. Liu dies in prison, Deng is cast into political exile. Millions of ordinary people have their lives scarred forever by the decade of trauma. In 1971, a planned coup led by Defense Minister Lin Biao is foiled and Lin is killed when his plane crashes in Mongolia during an escape attempt to the Soviet Union. China is admitted to the United Nations in 1971 and President Richard Nixon becomes the first U.S. leader to visit communist China in 1972.