The 1949 Communist victory over the nationalist Kuomintang birthed a sustained period of tense relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The United States recognized the exiled Kuomintang government on the island of Taiwan as the official government of China, while the PRC cemented close ties to the Communist Soviet Union (USSR). War on the Korean peninsula (1950–53) found the United States at war with the PRC, and continued tensions surrounding the Taiwan Straits in the 1950s seemed to solidify this broken relationship.