Puyi in the context of "Manchukuo"

The Republic of China (ROC) was established on 1 January 1912 as a sovereign state in mainland China following the 1911 Revolution, which overthrew the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and ended China's imperial history. From 1927, the Kuomintang (KMT) reunified the country and initially ruled it as a one-party state with Nanjing as the national capital. In 1949, the KMT-led government was defeated in the Chinese Civil War and lost control of the mainland to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP established the People's Republic of China (PRC) while the ROC was forced to retreat to Taiwan; the ROC retains control over the Taiwan Area, and its political status remains disputed. The ROC is recorded as a founding member of both the League of Nations and the United Nations, and previously held a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council until 1971, when the PRC took the seat of China from the ROC in the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758. It was also a member of the Universal Postal Union and the International Olympic Committee. The ROC claimed 11.4 million km (4.4 million sq mi) of territory, and its population of 541 million in 1949 made it the most populous country in the world.

The Republic of China was officially proclaimed on 1 January 1912 by revolutionaries under Sun Yat-sen, the ROC's founder and provisional president of the new republic, following the success of the 1911 Revolution. Puyi, the final Qing emperor, abdicated on 12 February 1912. Sun served briefly before handing the presidency to Yuan Shikai, the leader of the Beiyang Army. Yuan's Beiyang government quickly became authoritarian and exerted military power over the administration; in 1915, Yuan attempted to replace the Republic with his own imperial dynasty until popular unrest forced him to back down. When Yuan died in 1916, the country fragmented between local commanders of the Beiyang Army, beginning the Warlord Era defined by decentralized conflicts between rival cliques. At times, the most powerful of these cliques used their control of Beijing to assert claims to govern the entire Republic.

The House of Aisin-Gioro is a Manchu clan that ruled the Later Jin dynasty (1616–1636), the Qing dynasty (1636–1912), and Manchukuo (1932–1945) in the history of China. Under the Ming dynasty, members of the Aisin Gioro clan served as chiefs of the Jianzhou Jurchens, one of the three major Jurchen tribes at this time. Qing bannermen passed through the gates of the Great Wall in 1644, and eventually conquered the short-lived Shun dynasty, Xi dynasty and Southern Ming dynasty. After gaining total control of China proper, the Qing dynasty later expanded into other adjacent regions, including Xinjiang, Tibet, Outer Mongolia, and Taiwan. The dynasty reached its zenith during the High Qing era and under the Qianlong Emperor, who reigned from 1735 to 1796. This reign was followed by a century of gradual decline.

The house lost power in 1912 following the Xinhai Revolution. Puyi, the last Aisin-Gioro emperor, nominally maintained his imperial title in the Forbidden City until the Articles of Favourable Treatment were revoked by Feng Yuxiang in 1924. The Qing was China's last orthodox imperial dynasty.

The Imperial Edict of the Abdication of the Qing Emperor (simplified Chinese: 宣统帝退位诏书; traditional Chinese: 宣統帝退位詔書; pinyin: Xuāntǒng Dì Tuìwèi Zhàoshū; lit. "Xuantong Emperor's Abdication Edict") was an official decree issued by the Empress Dowager Longyu on behalf of the six-year-old Xuantong Emperor, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty of China, on 12 February 1912, as a response to the Xinhai Revolution. The revolution led to the self-declared independence of 13 southern Chinese provinces and the subsequent peace negotiation between the rest of Qing China and the collective of the southern provinces.

The issuance of the Imperial Edict marked the end of the over 200-year rule of the Qing dynasty, and the era of Chinese imperial rule, which lasted 2,132 years. Furthermore, the Imperial Edict established the Republic of China as the sole successor state to the Qing dynasty and provided the legal basis for the Republic of China to inherit all Qing territories, including China proper, Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet.

Zhang Xun (Chinese: 張勳; pinyin: Zhāng Xūn; Wade–Giles: Chang Hsün; September 16, 1854 – September 11, 1923), courtesy name Shaoxuan (少軒), art name Songshou Laoren (松壽老人), nickname Bianshuai (辮帥, lit. 'marshal with queue'), was a Chinese general and Qing loyalist who attempted to restore the abdicated emperor Puyi in the Manchu Restoration of 1917. He also supported Yuan Shikai during his time as president.

The Manchu Restoration or Dingsi Restoration (Chinese: 丁巳復辟), also known as Zhang Xun Restoration (simplified Chinese: 张勋复辟; traditional Chinese: 張勳復辟), or Xuantong Restoration (simplified Chinese: 宣统复辟; traditional Chinese: 宣統復辟), was an attempt to restore the Chinese monarchy by General Zhang Xun, whose army seized Beijing and briefly reinstalled the last emperor of the Qing dynasty, Puyi, to the throne. The restoration lasted just less than two weeks, from July 1 to July 12, 1917, and was quickly reversed by Republican troops. Despite the uprising's popular name ("Manchu Restoration"), almost all putschists were ethnic Han.

For most of its history, China was organized into various dynastic kingdoms or states under the rule of hereditary monarchs. Beginning with the establishment of dynastic rule by Yu the Great c. 2070 BC, and ending with the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor in AD 1912, China came to organize itself around the succession of monarchical dynasties. Besides those established by the dominant Han ethnic group or its spiritual Huaxia predecessors, dynasties throughout Chinese history were also founded by non-Han peoples.

Dividing Chinese history into dynastic epochs is a convenient and conventional method of periodization. Accordingly, a dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which a family reigned, as well as to describe events, trends, personalities, artistic compositions, and artifacts of that period. For example, porcelain made during the Ming dynasty may be referred to as "Ming porcelain".