Taiwan pushes back after Xi seeks to win over Trump

Taiwan is pushing back against what it sees as Beijing's efforts to rewrite the history of World War Two after Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump highlighted the wartime alliance between their countries at a summit last week.



That has rattled Taipei, which is wary that Washington could be won over to Beijing's interpretation of history, potentially lessening support for the island from its most important arms supplier.



Democratically governed Taiwan, claimed by China as its own territory, says the version of events Beijing is promoting is distorted, given that the Republic of China was the government at the time, fighting alongside the Allies.



The Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists and retains the formal name to this day.



Beijing says that during the war, communist guerrilla forces acted as the "backbone" of the fighting in China, and its official history gives little mention of the Republican forces.



At their state dinner in Washington on Thursday, both Xi and Trump lauded how their countries fought together in the war.