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China as a state has had an exceptional duration: two thousand years. It has known two regimes. The first, an Empire, was founded in 202 BC and persisted through twenty dynasties, until its fall in 1919. The second regime was created on October 1, 1949, by Mao Tse-tung, who launched the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing, in front of the Forbidden City. Between the two regimes, China underwent a period marked by a Western, semi-colonial occupation, as well as by struggles between Chinese factions competing for territory. As a young man, Mao Tse-tung was enraged by the desperate situation of his country. He did not join the democratic revolution promoted by a Chinese doctor, Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Republic of China. He was instead drawn to the revolution in the Soviet Union. He joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), created in 1921, where, through his personality and his knowledge of arms, he established himself as a leader capable of fighting opponents of communism. This article describes the history of Chinese politics since Mao Tse-tung in order to explain the current economic power of China.