Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in Mainland China and Singapore, as prescribed by the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are one of the two standard character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the People’s Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s to encourage literacy.[2] They are officially used in the People’s Republic of China, Malaysia and Singapore, while traditional Chinese characters still remain in common use in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan (as well as in South Korea and Japan to a certain extent).