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The Presidential Office Building in Taiwan houses the president of the Republic of China.

Further complicating the territorial status of China are two cities, HongKong andMacau,which enjoy“SpecialAdministrativeRegion” status. This status reflects their historic ownership by Britain and Portugal, respectively, which each signed a lease to govern the two cities in the 1800s. These leases have since expired, returning the two cities to Chinese jurisdiction but allowing them to retain their own currencies,police forces, schools,and (to a degree) independent government. The status of these two city-regions today provokes questions about whether China’s authorities will continue to allow Western-style governance in Hong Kong and Macau, including democratic elections. Chinese history spans 4,000 years, creating the oldest continually functioning civilization in the world today. Much of its history has been characterized by the rise and fall of dynastic powers: Some imperial dynasties lasted centuries, others just a few years, creating an ebb and flow that correlates to Eastern philosophical ideas that time is a circle rather than a straight line. China developed poetry

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