Radio Taiwan International 3.8

Radio Taiwan International is the English name and call sign of the international radio service, the Central Broadcasting System of the Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan. It is a government-owned station that broadcasts in 13 languages around the world, with a majority emphasis on Mandarin-language broadcasts over shortwave into China.HistoryThe Central Broadcasting System was founded in 1928 as the voice of the Kuomintang (KMT) government quartered in Nanking on mainland China. During the Second Sino-Japanese War the KMT was forced by Japanese advances to relocate the radio station, along with the capital city, first to Hankou in the central Hubei Province and then to Chungking in south-central China.After the conclusion of the Second World War, which saw the surrender and withdrawal of Japanese forces, the KMT and the Communist Party of China resumed their civil war. The defeated KMT retreated to Taiwan in 1949 and the Central Broadcasting System moved with them.Current statusAfter undergoing restructuring during the period 1996–98, CBS broadcast to mainland China and the rest of the world under the call sign Radio Taipei International and the Voice of Asia. Radio Taipei International essentially replaced the international radio services of the Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC), known as the Voice of Free China. Radio Taipei International broadcast to China and to an international audience; by contrast, the Voice of Asia was broadcast to the Asia-Pacific region only and offered a lighter format than RTI. In 2002 the Voice of Asia call sign was dropped to leave Radio Taipei International as the sole broadcasting name for the service. This was in turn changed to Radio Taiwan International, to avoid confusion on the part of listeners, who had trouble associating Taipei with Taiwan.