The Taiwan story

When the bloody Chinese Civil War concluded in 1949 two Chinas were born. Mao's communists won and took China's Mainland; Chiang Kai-shek's nationalists fled to the island Taiwan. Since then, China and Taiwan have drifted into being separate political and cultural entities. Taiwan is now a flourishing democracy, has a successful economy - underpinned by a single company producing 85% of the world's semiconductors: the beating heart of the world economy - and a free, diverse society. For the US and the West, the island is a bastion of freedom against Chinese aggression in the region. And yet China, increasingly bellicose under Xi Jinping, insists Taiwan is part of its territory and must be returned to it.