Every culture has its superstitions and rituals to observe. Of the many existing in Chinese culture, one of the most widespread and is showy display of fireworks to celebrate various events.
According to legend, the fireworks were discovered more than 2000 years and by chance by a Chinese cook who, in the kitchen of the regiment, kept in a spare piece of bamboo charcoal, sulfur and potassium, which, mixed , exploited to produce stunning color lights.
As that campaign ended in victory, the fires were considered essential to ward off ghosts and evil spirits and ensure prosperity and victory.
Therefore, in Taipei, with a grand and exuberant exhibition held at the Tower 101, celebrated the one hundred years of the Republic of China.
The Republic of China was proclaimed by Dr. Sun Yat-sen on January 1, 1912 and with it, the three fundamental principles that would govern it: nationalism, democracy and equality.
According to these "People's Principles", Sun said China's government should be in Chinese hands (and not puppets of foreign powers dynasties), being a Republican (which favored the separation of powers and a series of rights civil and political rights) and democracy (which ensured the election).
stated that these principles were derived from the "four powers of the people" to vote, to remove, to legislate and plebiscite.
The proclamation ended the reign of the Qing dynasty weakened, but did not lead to immediate enforcement of the principles that declared: Sun believed that the Chinese people needed a period to democracy, a period that was raised as the "three stages of the Revolution. "
The first stage would be headed by a military government (whose task would be to dismantle the imperial apparatus.) Then ensue a period of "political protection" (in which both the military autocracy and the people would be trained in democratic practices), the prelude to the final stage, where democracy acquire full force. And although Sun died in 1924, with China in chaos, anarchy and violence, their ideas would feed the revolutionary fervor that dominated the twentieth century and would become the foundation of the Kuomintang Chinese Nationalist Party and the nationalist government of General Chiang Kai-shek. Trained military in Japan, Chiang returned to China when the Wuchang Uprising marked the beginning of the end of Imperial China.
After Sun's death, in 1925 Chiang became the absolute leader of the Kuomintang and supported by the Soviet Communists and the Chinese Communist Party established the capital of China in Nanking.
Once in power, began a purge of communists in government and in his own party, purging fire that would mark the events to come. But soon they had to ally again, due to the invasion of the Empire of Japan, who joined Chiang and the Communists in a common front to resist the invader.
The hostilities between the Nationalists and Communists also renewed the term of the Second World War.
in 1945, and defeated, the Japanese had to withdraw from China and the former colony of Taiwan. In 1948, Chiang took office as President of the Republic of China. The civil war between Communists and Chinese nationalists ended with the victory of Mao Zedong and the proclamation of the People's Republic of China on October 1 1949.
Chiang was forced to flee mainland China and replicate the forces and the nationalist government in Taiwan.
Followed by nearly two million Chinese, Chiang was established in Taiwan, Taipei designated the provisional capital of the Republic of China founded in 1912 by the "Father of the Sun Yat-sen" and led the government institutions of the continent and constitutional guarantees enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of China, 1947.
Such guarantees were almost immediately suspended, because the by then Generalissimo Chiang said that "considering the necessity for being at war with China with the communist revolution on the continent, should govern the martial law and suspended many civil and political rights. "
Soon the Korean War broke out, and fear of communist expansion in East Asia, USA and a number of nations around the world continued to recognize the legitimacy of the Nationalist government of China, while countries Soviet orbit were quick to recognize the People of China.
American recognition, coupled with that country's troops stationed on the island, plus the presence of the Seventh Fleet of the U.S. Navy patrolling the waters of the Taiwan Strait, prevented Mao invade the island, which the Generalissimo Chiang was consolidated in power, carrying out a series of reforms that underpinned the economic takeoff of China National.
The Chiang-driven land reforms were complemented by his son Chiang Ching-kuo and led to unprecedented economic success.
Chiang Kai-shek died without recognizing the People's Government of China, holding to the end that the Republic of China, the "Free China" was the only legal and authentic Chinese state. As such maintained its place at the United Nations until 1971, when the site became occupied by Communist China.
Yet the Republic's economic growth of China on Taiwan has become one of the most industrialized and developed countries of Asia and even in December 1978 when President Jimmy Carter withdrew diplomatic recognition to the Republic of China and gave it to the People's Republic of China, the United States Congress passed the "Taiwan Relations Act", which ratified and guaranteed military support to the Republic of China on Taiwan, which remains today.
On the hundredth anniversary of its founding, the Republic of China on Taiwan can proudly displays a population that is among the most educated in the world, industrialization that placed it among world economic powers, an expansion of its domestic market with a GDP which, in terms of purchasing power parity, has exceeded that of Japan in November 2010 and a marked reduction of social conflicts, qualities of a seriously people, industrious, proud of their effort and their achievements and determined to be enforced.
