Communist China's creation seven decades ago irrevocably changed Taiwan, but Beijing's huge celebrations this week will be met with a collective shrug on an island where people increasingly see themselves as distinct from the mainland.
After the People's Republic of
China was declared on 1 October 1949, its rival, the Republic of China, set up in Taiwan -- the island Chiang Kai-shek's defeated Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists fled to and imposed their will upon.
Taiwan remains a sore point to this day among party leaders in
Beijing -- viewed as a missing piece of a geographical puzzle that must one day be completed, regardless of what the island's 24 million inhabitants want.