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A country of eastern Asia. Its ancient civilization traditionally dates to c. 2700 B.C.. After a bitter civil war (1946–1949) a people's republic led by Mao Zedong was established on the mainland, and the Nationalists fled to Taiwan. Beijing is the capital and Shanghai the largest city. Population: 1,320,000,000.
In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the China Yuan Renminbi.
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The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion.
The discovery of Peking man in 1927 (see Zhoukoudian) dates the advent of early hominins (human ancestors) to the Paleolithic Period. Chinese civilization is thought to have spread from the Huang He valley. The first dynasty for which there is definite historical material is the Shang (c. 17th century BC), which had a writing system and a calendar. The Zhou, a subject state of the Shang, overthrew its Shang rulers in the mid-11th century and ruled until the 3rd century BC. Daoism and Confucianism were founded in this era. A time of conflict, called the Warring States period, lasted from the 5th century until 221 BC. Subsequently the Qin (or Chin) dynasty (from whose name China is derived) was established, after its rulers had conquered rival states and created a unified empire. The Han dynasty was established in 206 BC and ruled until AD 220. A time of turbulence followed, and Chinese reunification was achieved with the founding of the Sui dynasty in 581 and continued with the Tang dynasty (618 – 907). After the founding of the Song dynasty in 960, the capital was moved to the south because of northern invasions. In 1279 this dynasty was overthrown and Mongol (Yuan) domination began. During that time Marco Polo visited Kublai Khan. The Ming dynasty followed the period of Mongol rule and lasted from 1368 to 1644, cultivating antiforeign feelings to the point that China closed itself off from the rest of the world. Peoples from Manchuria overran China in 1644 and established the Qing (Manchu) dynasty. Ever-increasing incursions by Western and Japanese interests led in the 19th century to the Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion, and the Sino-Japanese War, all of which weakened the Manchu. The dynasty fell in 1911, and a republic was proclaimed in 1912 by Sun Yat-sen. The power struggles of warlords weakened the republic. Under Chiang Kai-shek some national unification was achieved in the 1920s, but Chiang broke with the communists, who had formed their own armies. Japan invaded northern China in 1937; its occupation lasted until 1945 (see Manchukuo). The communists gained support after the Long March (1934 – 35), in which Mao Zedong emerged as their leader. Upon Japan's surrender at the end of World War II, a fierce civil war began; in 1949 the Nationalists fled to Taiwan, and the communists proclaimed the People's Republic of China. The communists undertook extensive reforms, but pragmatic policies alternated with periods of revolutionary upheaval, most notably in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The anarchy, terror, and economic paralysis of the latter led, after Mao's death in 1976, to a turn to moderation under Deng Xiaoping, who undertook economic reforms and renewed China's ties to the West. The government established diplomatic relations with the U.S. in 1979. Since the late 1970s the economy has been moving from central planning and state-run industries to a mixture of state-owned and private enterprises in manufacturing and services, in the process growing dramatically and transforming Chinese society. The Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 was a challenge to an otherwise increasingly stable political environment after 1980. In 1997 Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule, as did Macau in 1999.
For more information on China, visit Britannica.com.
Photography in China experienced three distinct developments. In the mid-19th century, the conservative Chinese empire had no desire to be disturbed and did not welcome Westerners and their inventions. The 1842 war with Britain and the subsequent campaigns (and Chinese defeats) of 1857 and 1860 forced it to open several ports to foreign trade, but photography, which had reached Chinese shores at the same time as (or even aboard) gunboats, long remained a foreign medium with a limited reach. The situation changed radically in the early 20th century, when social changes and the advent of the Republic in 1911 led to the development of a fully Chinese style. It changed again in 1949 with Communism, which used photography as a major propaganda tool.
The 19th century
Until 1900, photography was practised only in the few ‘treaty ports’ open to foreign trade along the coast and the Yangtze River. The first treaty ports were Canton, Amoy (Xiamen), Fuzhou (Foochow), Ningbo (Ningpo), and Shanghai, Hong Kong being under direct British control. In 1860 Beijing was opened to foreign diplomatic residence, and additional ports were added to the original list as time went on. Deep prejudice against both cameras and foreigners ensured that early photographers rarely ventured outside the ports. Consequently, their work reflects only the places and people depicted, not late imperial China at large.
Most early photographers were visitors for whom, 150 years later, no significant traces or pictures have been found. They were either amateur or itinerant commercial practitioners. Photographers reached China shortly after 1839; the earliest reports of activities are dated 1842; the oldest identified daguerreotypes (by Jules Itier, a Frenchman), 1844-5. The first newspaper advertisement by a travelling daguerreotypist (a Mr West) goes back to March 1845, in Hong Kong. Permanent studios started operating in the late 1850s in Shanghai (Legrand, in 1857) and in Hong Kong (Weed and Howards, in 1860), ports which would remain China's two major photographic centres. Photography never attained comparable significance in other ports: Canton had started well but soon lost ground to Hong Kong; Fuzhou, the important tea-export centre, already supported several studios by the 1860s but then fell behind Shanghai, while Ningbo mostly attracted amateurs. A different pattern characterized the second generation of treaty ports opened after 1858, where photography was started by the Chinese and Westerners never predominated, if they were even present. Examples include the major cities of Hankou (Hankow in Hubei, now Wuhan), Nanjing (Nanking), or Tianjin (Tientsin). In Beijing, the first studio opened only in 1892 (Fengtai, a Chinese business).
Christian missions, which originated from the 16th century, were revived when the Nanking Treaty of 1842 again allowed missionaries into the country. Catholic and Protestant churches alike eagerly seized the opportunity for fieldwork, while photography became a propaganda instrument used to stimulate Western public support. Because Chinese missionaries insisted on going anywhere they wanted, irrespective of treaty port restrictions, early images often cover areas of China not otherwise photographed at the time. However, early production includes only those mission stations with trained photographers, and able to afford the expense. In south China, the Missions Étrangères de Paris photographed churches and other religious buildings, schools, orphanages, staff, and flock. Protestants added a further dimension with medical facilities and Chinese helpers such as the ‘bible women’ whose task was to make contact with the female population. At home, the pictures were used in religious periodicals or books, or even in general-interest publications. They were also—especially portraits of missionaries—sold directly to the public. From c.1900, postcards were issued on a vast scale, reaching all classes of Western society.
Early wet-plate commercial work includes two sets of stereoscopic views by P. Rossier (itinerant, 1858 in Canton) and Louis Legrand (Shanghai, 1857-9), who heads a long cosmopolitan list of resident photographers in Shanghai: French, British, American, German, and Japanese. On the Chinese side, many photographers were Cantonese. Most studios remained active for a relatively short time, although some survived for decades. They included, in Shanghai, William Saunders (1862-87), L. F. Fisler (1871-84), or Kung Tai (Gongtai, 1860s-1890s); Thomas Child, semi-amateur in Beijing (1871-89); F. Schoenke (Fuzhou, 1861-75), or St J. H. Edwards (Amoy, 1870s-1890s). In Hong Kong, the Afong studio was reputedly active over three generations, from 1859 to c.1941, while Pun Lun (1860s-1880s) had ‘branches’ in Hong Kong, Fuzhou, Saigon, and Singapore.
In short, by the early 1870s the Chinese already dominated the field. From the start, several Chinese studios targeted the Western market and advertised vigorously in the foreign-language local press and directories. Chinese dominance in Shanghai became very plain when upmarket studios such as Kung Tai in the 1870s and Sze Yuen Ming in the 1890s started advertising in English, while in Hong Kong few foreigners withstood the competition for long. Their heyday was in the late 1860s-early 1870s, when Hong Kong saw W. P. Floyd (1867-74) compete with Thomson (1868-72), E. Riisfeldt (1872-3), H. Everitt (1874-7), and numerous Chinese, while Saunders in Shanghai held his own against the Dinmore brothers (c. 1865-9), Weed, Fisler, and Kung Tai.
While the commercial studios operating in the pre-1900 treaty ports can certainly be numbered in the hundreds, their identification has barely started. In fact, the history of photography in China is poorly researched by comparison with other, similar cultures, especially as regards the 19th century. Many photographs were taken to the West, where, however, they remain scattered, unindexed, and unidentified. Inside China, successive upheavals, from the 1900 Boxer Rebellion to the Cultural Revolution, caused enormous loss and destruction. The scarcity of sources such as newspapers or commercial registration papers makes it difficult to draw up precise chronologies. In addition, few photos are signed, or, if they are, it may be by copyists. Chinese names are misleading, as they normally refer only to the studio as a business, and were often retained when it changed hands. Who managed a shop is generally unclear, and the photographer's identity is a mystery even for portrait studios.
Moreover, 19th-century photography in China was, essentially, a Western medium of expression. Even when, as was often the case, it was practised by Chinese, it recorded China as Westerners saw or wanted to see it, whether the subject was genre, topography, or events. For example, although the Chinese in general were fascinated by the photographic portrait, the original format owed much to Western-generated photographic traditions; a real ‘Chinese’ portrait style emerged only with the advent of the Republic in 1911, when educated Chinese had become actively interested. Pre-1900 amateur photography was almost exclusively Western, because the kind of scientifically minded people who practised it in the West simply did not exist in 19th-century China. Commercial photographers, whether Western or Chinese, were small shopkeepers without much education or status, who all produced the same standard commercial images.
Broadly, 19th-century photography embraced three principal fields: portraiture, topography (architecture and landscape), and ‘typical’ everyday scenes. From the outset, Chinese studios left the last two to Westerners, apparently because only foreigners could satisfy Western taste.
Topography was important in presenting the ports and their evolution; however, as already noted, the camera did not routinely venture inland until much later. In Hong Kong, Thomson, Floyd, and Afong created sets of views, while Saunders photographed Shanghai and H. C. Cammidge (1860s-1874) its waterways, Edwards of Amoy recorded Formosa (Taiwan) and Child inventoried Beijing's monumental architecture. Views privileged the signs of Western presence, and Chinese monuments, while Chinese dwellings hardly appear. In addition to working locally, photographers travelled to other Chinese ports and even to Japan to enlarge their portfolios, made agreements to represent competitors or amateurs, and generally tried to offer their customers as wide a range of images as possible.
Everyday scenes followed in the steps of an older tradition, that of ‘export painting’ for the foreign market. The activities shown were exclusively public ones, preferably—like weddings, funerals, or the ubiquitous barber—with a counterpart in the West. They belong to the universal genre of the ‘exotic’. But they are also unique records of a forgotten way of life. The most prolific and influential scene specialist was Saunders of Shanghai in the 1860s. Carefully staged, agreeable, and informative, his scenes were extensively copied and pirated. They also inspired later Chinese photographers, who in the 1890s sometimes gave them a negative slant reflecting China's contemporary image in the West.
In China even more than elsewhere, and certainly in quantitative terms, the centrepiece of photography was portraiture. The emergence of a bourgeoisie in Hong Kong and Shanghai, in a new Western-influenced atmosphere in which wealth took precedence over learning, was crucial. It created a new market of people free from the constraints of traditional Chinese society's rigid hierarchy. Courtesans were an important part of this in Shanghai and, after 1900, Tianjin.
There were two ways to make a portrait, one for Chinese sitters and another for Western (or Japanese) ones, and the photographer's cultural background appears irrelevant. The corpus was surprisingly coherent: just as there was a vocabulary for Western portraits, an enduring Chinese equivalent emerged on the Chinese coast in the early 1860s. It stressed the sitter's social status through specific Chinese forms of representation (full face, displaying assets such as rich clothing, small feet, long nails, or Manchu archer ring for men), and blended them seamlessly with pre-established photographic traditions.
Both Chinese and Western studios catered to all comers, the Chinese ones being cheaper and therefore attractive to foreign sailors or less wealthy residents, while the Western ones were more prestigious for everyone. A few artists stand out, such as, in Hong Kong, Milton H. Miller in the early 1860s and Thomson (1868), or the early Chinese studios in Shanghai of Su Sanxing or Kung Tai, or Sze Yuen Ming c. 1900, which did a brisk trade in portraits of local high-ranking courtesans, which it sold as photographic cards and, later, postcards. This genre served both markets, the Chinese one as celebrity photography and the foreign one as anonymous exotic beauties.
The Republic (1911-1949)
Around the turn of the century, new conditions emerged which changed Chinese photography's character. In the late 1890s smaller, portable cameras arrived. Then, after 1900, foreigners were allowed to travel inland. Yet the crucial, unstoppable change was born of the growing number of Western-educated young Chinese for whom photography and personal cameras were part of everyday life. The medium in fact became an important tool of ongoing modernization.
As amateur photography was evolving from scratch, every style of photograph could be found. However, the persistence of scholarly traditions created special problems with landscape, the all-important subject of countless paintings down the centuries. Efforts were made to duplicate the dreamy quality of classical painting, in particular the convention of framing a scene with paths leading into the image. But the camera could only show things as they were rather than as the traditionally schooled mind saw them. (Landscape remains only a minor genre in Chinese photography.)
Portraiture developed a character both distinctively ‘Chinese’ and modern. Props highlighted the approach of a new era, and studio styles acknowledged a new Chinese cultural identity. Photojournalists actively recorded the New China, with views of universities, railways, and modern social and domestic life. Newspapers' illustrated supplements were filled with images of stage and movie stars, and new fashions. But change was uneven. While Shanghai, as usual, was in the vanguard of cultural change, elsewhere the only noticeable alteration might be—at most—the appearance of telegraph poles. In some places, change was documented photographically over decades: in Yunnan, for example, where, from Auguste François at the turn of the century, a succession of French consuls were talented photographers.
As China changed, some knowledgeable and sympathetic foreigners recorded disappearing customs. Beijing, which remained in many ways old fashioned, was a favourite subject for the likes of Sidney D. Gamble or Hedda Hammer Morrison. These ‘foreign’ images are now an invaluable source on early 20th-century China. In particular, they show both the old and the new, and indicate how quickly changes occurred locally, from the disappearance of men's pigtails and women's bound feet to modern crowds and changing cityscapes.
Communism
The outbreak of war with Japan in 1937 inaugurated another period of brutal change, reflected in portraits of warlords and news photographs of bombing, refugees, and executions. Other kinds of photography fell victim to the need to survive. After the 1949 communist takeover, photographic diversity faded and propaganda needs became paramount. Themes included the Long March and the dedication of the People's Liberation Army. Myriad bicycles on posters and in news photographs testified to prosperity. Old age was secure, and youth was China's vanguard and future. Snapshots from the 1970s show the vast expanse of Tiananmen Square, carved out of old Beijing; clean, healthy workers in the new factory or agricultural commune; kindergarten toddlers eager to learn for Mao; barefoot doctors; people performing their gymnastics in any convenient space; cultural minorities secure in their identities, yet fully part of China. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), such subjects were overshadowed by the little red book, the Red Guards and their mass demonstrations and public shaming sessions, and the revolutionary Peking Opera. But, throughout, a single vision was spread, that of Mao's successful revolution. To a significant extent, this message was propagated by Western visitors and photojournalists—an echo of the 19th-century situation in which China's image in the outside world was formed and disseminated by foreigners. Much more still needs to be known and written about Chinese photographic practice under Mao. The work of Li Zhensheng in the north-eastern province of Heilongjiang in the 1960s and 1970s, smuggled abroad when he left China, so far remains exceptional in size and importance. In the meantime, the growth of urban affluence, consumerism, and a degree of cultural pluralism in the post-Maoist period has been accompanied by a predictable upsurge of camera ownership and photographic activity.
— Régine Thiriez
Bibliography
- Worswick, C., Imperial China: Photographs 1850-1912 (1978).
- Chen, S., and Hu, Z., Zhongguo sheying shi (History of Photography in China (1840-1937; 1987).
- Spence, J., and Jenner, W. J. F., China: A Photo-History, 1937-1987 (1988).
- Thiriez, R., Barbarian Lens: Western Photographers and the Emperor of China's European Palaces, 1860-1925 (1994).
- Thiriez, R., ‘Photography and Portraiture in Nineteenth-Century China’,
East Asian History , 17/18 (1999). - Lai, E. K., ‘A History of the Daguerreotype in Hong Kong 1839-1880’,
The Daguerreian Annual 2000 (2000). - Van Tugl, G., et al., The Chinese: Photography and Video in China (2004)
Dictionary of Dance:
China
The country has a long tradition of folk and acrobatic dance, which reached the height of virtuosity as part of the Peking Opera. Western theatrical dance found a toehold in China in the middle of the 20th century, under the guidance of the Soviets. China's first ballet company was the Experimental Ballet Troupe, set up in the Beijing Dance Academy, which had been founded in 1954. Teachers from the Bolshoi and the Kirov helped to establish the Beijing school and the Shanghai Dance School in 1960. In 1959 the Beijing students staged their first full-length ballet, Swan Lake, under the guidance of the Russian ballet master Petr Gusev; this marked the founding of China's national ballet company (the Central Ballet of China). In 1962 the Beijing Ballet (as it was then known) made its first international foray, visiting Burma. In 1964 the British ballerina Beryl Grey went to China to work with the company. However, with the arrival of the Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960s ballet was denounced as politically damaging. With relations between the Soviet Union and China now severed, China was left to go its own way. In the absence of foreign teachers and choreographers, and in an effort to appease its political opponents, Chinese ballet turned to national revolutionary subject-matter, most notably, in 1964, with the groundbreaking The Red Detachment of Women and The White-Haired Girl (staged by the Shanghai School of Dance), both of which were personally supervised by Mao Zedong's wife and both of which were performed to the exclusion of all else until the end of the Cultural Revolution. The style of these new ballets blended the classical academic vocabulary with the more athletic feats of traditional Chinese mime. Western classical ballet was reintroduced into China in the 1970s. Today the leading company is the Beijing-based Central Ballet of China (also called the National Ballet of China), which draws its dancers from the Beijing Dance Academy. The Shanghai Ballet is the country's second company. In 1992 the Guangdong Modern Dance Company was founded by the Chinese Government, the first professional modern dance company in China. In 1993 the Beijing Dance Academy started a modern dance course and some of its graduates have been taken into the Beijing Modern Dance Company.
Buddhism Dictionary:
China
Buddhism first entered China some time during the 1st century ce, probably with foreign traders who arrived via the Silk Road or from the maritime route along the south-eastern seaboard. For the first two centuries or so, it existed primarily among immigrant settlements, while slowly making its presence known among the native Chinese population. As interest grew during the 2nd century, a few monks began translating scriptures into Chinese. Notable among these were An Shih-kao and Lokakṣema. With the fall of the Han dynasty in the early 3rd century, interest in Buddhism among the Chinese increased as the unstable political situation inspired people to seek new answers. At the same time, the division of China into kingdoms north and south of the Yangtze River gave Buddhism a different character in these two regions. In the north, greater proximity to India meant that Buddhism in this region had a greater number of Indian and central Asian monks and meditation teachers, and so tended to emphasize religious practice over textual study. In addition, from the early 4th century to the late 6th, the north was under non-Chinese rule. These ‘barbarian’ rulers favoured Buddhism and many monks served as court advisers, giving Buddhism in the north a more overtly political character. Many of the literati had fled the troubles of the north and migrated to the Southern Kingdoms, bringing with them their emphasis on literary skill. In addition to this, the Northern Kingdoms blocked their access to the living traditions of India and Central Asia, and so the south developed a more literary approach to Buddhist study. During this time, Tao-an (312-85) produced the first catalogue of Buddhist scripture, and he and his disciples worked to produce critical editions of scriptures and treatises, and to develop principles for their translation into Chinese. It was during this period that Kumārajīva arrived in 402 and opened his translation bureau in the north, producing some of the finest translations from Sanskrit, many of which are still considered the standard. His rendering of Indian Madhyamaka texts led to the foundation of the San-lun (or ‘Three Treatise’) school that specialized in Madhyamaka philosophy. Also, the dissemination of Buddhist texts and teachings among the educated élite led to a prolonged exchange of ideas between Buddhism and Taoism, and Buddhism absorbed and modified many Taoist ideas.
Other significant figures of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms period include Tao-sheng (360-434) a great textual scholar; Lu-shan Hui-yüan (344-416) and T'an-luan (476-542), who helped establish the Pure Land teachings; the San-lun master Seng-chao (374-414); and the great translator Paramārtha (499-569), whose translations of Indian Mind-only (citta-mātra) literature paved the way for the future establishment of the Fa-hsiang school.
China was reunified by the Sui dynasty in 581 bce, but this was quickly toppled by the T'ang dynasty in 618. The T'ang dynasty held power for almost 300 years, and this period represents one of China's golden ages. Buddhism flourished during this period, although it also suffered severe setbacks. Increased affluence and patronage enabled many original thinkers and practitioners to establish schools of Buddhism more in keeping with Chinese cultural and intellectual patterns and less dependent upon pre-existing Indian schools of thought. Examples include Chih-i (538-97), who founded the T'ien-t'ai school; Fa-tsang (643-712), who consolidated the Hua-yen school; and the various meditation masters who established Ch'an as a separate school that transmitted the Buddha-mind directly ‘outside of words and scriptures’. Tao-ch'o (562-645), Shan-tao (613-81), and others continued building up the Pure Land movement, extending T'an-luan's teaching further. During this time Hsüan-tsang (596-664) travelled in India for sixteen years and brought back many texts which he translated into Chinese. After Kumārajīva, he is considered the second of the great translators in Chinese Buddhist history. He concentrated on Indian Yogacāra thought, and, building on the foundation laid by Paramārtha, founded the Fa-hsiang school.
Prosperity brought its own difficulties. As the numbers of ordained clergy increased, the government became concerned about the revenue and labour pool that would be lost due to the clergy's tax-and labour-exempt status. In addition, ever since Buddhism's inception in China some traditional Confucian scholars had decried it as a foreign religion that violated basic Chinese values, especially the loyalty that all citizens owed to the state and the filial piety that sons and daughters owed their parents. In addition, Taoists sometimes saw in Buddhism an antagonist and competitor rather than a colleague. In the past, the government instituted ordination examinations and state-issued certificates to control the size of the Saṃgha, and twice during the Northern and Southern Kingdoms period the state had suppressed Buddhism (in 446 and 574). In the year 845, the T'ang court was incited to suppress Buddhism once again, and for three years it pursued this policy of razing monasteries and temples, forcing clergy back into lay life or even killing them, and burning books, images, and properties. Unlike the previous two persecutions, this suppression happened in a unified China and affected all areas. Scholars are agreed that this event marked the end of Buddhism's intellectual and cultural dominance, as the Saṃgha never recovered its former glory. The T'ien-t'ai and Hua-yen schools experienced some revivals thereafter, but lost most of their vigour. The Pure Land and Ch'an school, being much less dependent upon patronage and scholarship, fared better and became the two dominant schools of Buddhism in China thereafter. After the persecution, Ch'an communities experimented with new teaching methods that circumvented conventional teaching and inculcated a dramatic, instantaneous experience of enlightenment (bodhi). The leading figures in this movement were Ma-tsu Tao-i (709-88), Pai-chang Huai-hai (749-814), Huang-po Hsi-yün (d. 850), Lin-chi I-hsüan (founder of the Lin-chi school, d. 866), Tung-shan Liang-chieh (807-69), and Ts'ao-shan Pen-chi (840-901), the two founders of the Ts'ao-tung school.
After the T'ang, the intellectual vigour of Buddhism was eclipsed by the rise of Neo- Confucianism in the Sung dynasty. Nevertheless, there were significant figures and movements during this time. Many figures worked to reconcile the very different outlooks and methods of the Ch'an and Pure Land schools, notably Yüng-ming Yen-shou (904-75) and Yün-ch'i Chu-hung (1532-1612). The latter was part of a revival of Ch'an in the latter half of the Ming dynasty that also included Tz'u-p'o Chen-k'o (1543-1603), Han-shan Te'-ch'ing (1546-1623), and Ou-i Chih-hsü (1599-1655). All agreed that Pure Land and Ch'an, though differing in method, strove toward the same goal, though Han-shan and Tz'u-p'o still tended to define this goal in Ch'an terms. Chih-hsü, however, emphasized Pure Land teaching almost exclusively and came to be regarded as one of the patriarchs of this school.
From the Ming to the Ch'ing dynasty, Buddhism stagnated (although it remained strong in the central eastern seaboard) until the end of the 19th century, when there was a revival of interest in it as a part of the Chinese heritage that could be brought out to counter Western culture's claims of superiority. During the early years of the 20th century, figures such as Ou-yang Ching-wu (1871-1943) and the monk T'ai-hsü (1889-1947) sponsored new editions of the scripture and advocated a modernized educational system that would bring Buddhism into alignment with modern currents of thought.
The Communist victory in 1949 cut short the revival of Buddhism, as the new regime tried to undercut all societal support for religion in general. The Cultural Revolution proved a catastrophe for Buddhism during the 1960s and 1970s, as Red Guards destroyed many temples and treasures, and clergy were forced to return to lay status and submit to re-education. However, after the death of Communist leader Mao Tse-tung in 1976 and the passing of many of his allies, the government has grown more tolerant, and many monasteries are back in operation. Currently, the Chinese Buddhist Association is a thriving organization, and Chinese universities sponsor the academic study of Buddhism. To what extent Buddhism will recover from the setbacks of the Mao era remains to be seen.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
China,
Mandarin Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo [central glorious people's united country; i.e., people's republic], officially People's Republic of China, country (2000 pop. 1,295,000,000), 3,691,502 sq mi (9,561,000 sq km), E Asia. The most populous country in the world, China has a 4,000-mi (6,400-km) coast that fronts on the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. It is elsewhere bounded on the east by Russia and North Korea, on the north by Russia and Mongolia, on the west by Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and on the south by India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. China's capital is Beijing; Shanghai is its largest city.
See also the entries on Chinese architecture, Chinese art, Chinese literature, and Chinese music for aspects of Chinese culture that are not treated in this article.
Land
China may be divided into the following geographic regions: the 12,000-ft-high (3,660-m) Tibetan plateau, bounded in the N by the Kunlun mountain system; the Tarim and Dzungarian basins of Xinjiang, separated by the Tian Shan; the vast Inner Mongolian tableland; the eastern highlands and central plain of Manchuria; and what has been traditionally called China proper. This last region, which contains some four fifths of the country's population, falls into three divisions. North China, which coincides with the Huang He (Yellow River) basin and is bounded in the S by the Qingling Mts., includes the loess plateau of the northwest, the N China plain, and the mountains of the Shandong peninsula. Central China, watered by the Chang (Yangtze) River, includes the basin of Sichuan, the central Chang lowlands, and the Chang delta. South China includes the plateau of Yunnan and Guizhou and the valleys of the Xi and Pearl rivers.
To the extent that a general statement about the climate of such a large country can be made, China may be described as wet in the summer and dry in the winter. Regional differences are found in the highlands of Tibet, the desert and steppes of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, and in China proper. There the Qingling Mts. are the major dividing range not only between semiarid N China and the more humid central and S China but also between the grain-growing economy of the north and the rice economy of the south.
China comprises 22 provinces (Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guizhou, Hainan, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Gansu, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang, and, in the northeast (Manchuria), Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning), five autonomous regions (Tibet, the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region), and four government-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Tianjin). The country officially divides itself into 23 provinces, numbering Taiwan as its 23d. Hong Kong became a special administrative region of China in 1997, and Macao achieved this status in 1999.
People
The Han Chinese (so called for the Han dynasty) make up approximately 92% of the total population. They are linguistically homogeneous in the north, where they speak Mandarin (the basis of the national language, known as putonghua, of China), while in the south Cantonese, Wu, Hakka, and many other dialects are spoken (some 108 dialects are spoken in Fujian prov. alone). Putonghua is spoken as a first or second language by roughly half of the population. The written language is universal; Chinese ideographs are common to all the dialects.
Non-Chinese groups represent only about 8% of the population, but the interior regions in which they live constitute more than half of the total area of the country. Among the main non-Chinese minorities are the Zhuang, a Thai-speaking group, found principally in Guangxi; the Hui (Muslims), found chiefly in Ningxia; the Uigurs, who live mainly in Xinjiang; the Yi (Lolo), who live on the borders of Sichuan and Yunnan; the Tibetans, concentrated in Tibet and Qinghai; the Miao, widely distributed throughout the mountainous areas of S China; the Mongols, found chiefly in the Mongolian steppes; and the Koreans, who are concentrated in Manchuria.
The constitution of the People's Republic of China provides for religious freedom, but religious practice is not encouraged. Traditionally, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and ancestor worship were practiced in an eclectic mixture with varying appeals, and these religions have experienced a revival. Islam, the largest monotheistic sect, is found chiefly in the northwest. There is also a small but growing Christian minority. In recent years there have been some well-publicized confrontations between the Chinese government and religious groups. Places of worship for unregistered Christian churches and traditional sects have at times been destroyed, leaders of such groups have been sentenced to death on apparently trumped-up charges, and orthodox Islamic practices have been discouraged or suppressed out of fear that they would be a focus for Muslim-minority separatists. In 1999 the government banned the Falun Gong (Buddhist Law), a spiritual group with broad appeal that has organized public protests, and began an ongoing campaign to eradicate the religion. There also have been a number of attempts to assert government control over Tibetan Buddhism.
After the 1950s there was a steady migration of China's people to growing industrial areas in outlying regions such as Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Qinghai. In addition, there has been increased movement to urban areas since the late 1970s. In the late 1990s, some 60–100 million dislocated rural workers were unable to obtain permanent jobs or government services in the cities because of strict residency requirements under the hukuo system, which binds people to their place of birth. In 2001, however, under pressure from businesses, the government began a gradual reform of the hukuo system.
Economy
Although China is still a developing country with a relatively low per capita income, it has experienced tremendous economic growth since the late 1970s. In large part as a result of economic liberalization policies, the gross domestic product (GDP) increased tenfold between 1978 and 2006, and foreign investment soared during the 1990s. China's challenge in the early 21st cent. will be to balance its centralized political system with an increasingly decentralized economic system.
Agriculture is by far the leading occupation, involving almost 50% of the population, although extensive rough, high terrain and large arid areas—especially in the west and north—limit cultivation to only about 15% of the land surface. Since the late 1970s, China has decollectivized agriculture, yielding tremendous gains in production. Even with these improvements, agriculture accounts for only 12% of the nation's GDP. Despite initial gains in farmers' incomes in the early 1980s, taxes and fees have increasingly made farming an unprofitable occupation, and because the state owns all land, farmers have at times been easily evicted when croplands are sought by developers.
Except for the oasis farming in Xinjiang and Qinghai, some irrigated areas in Inner Mongolia and Gansu, and sheltered valleys in Tibet, agricultural production is restricted to the east. China is the world's largest producer of rice and wheat and a major producer of potatoes, corn, peanuts, millet, barley, apples, sweet potatoes, sorghum, and soybeans. In terms of cash crops, China ranks first in cotton and tobacco and is an important producer of tea, oilseeds, silk, ramie, jute, hemp, sugarcane, and sugar beets.
Livestock raising on a large scale is confined to the border regions and provinces in the north and west; it is mainly of the nomadic pastoral type. China ranks first in world production of red meat (including beef, veal, mutton, lamb, and pork). Sheep, cattle, and goats are the most common types of livestock. Horses, donkeys, and mules are work animals in the north, while oxen and water buffalo are used for plowing chiefly in the south. Hogs and poultry are widely raised in China, furnishing important export staples, such as leather and egg products. Fish, chicken, and pork supply most of the animal protein in the Chinese diet. Due to improved technology, the fishing industry has grown considerably since the late 1970s.
China is one of the world's major mineral-producing countries. Coal is the most abundant mineral (China ranks first in coal production); high-quality, easily mined coal is found throughout the country, but especially in the north and northeast. There are also extensive iron-ore deposits; the largest mines are at Anshan and Benxi, in Liaoning province. Oil fields discovered in the 1960s and after made China a net exporter, and by the early 1990s, China was the world's fifth-ranked oil producer. Growing domestic demand beginning in the mid-1990s, however, has forced the nation to import increasing quantities of petroleum. Offshore exploration has become important to meeting domestic needs; massive deposits off the coasts are believed to exceed all the world's known oil reserves.
China's leading export minerals are tungsten, antimony, tin, magnesium, molybdenum, mercury, manganese, barite, and salt. China is among the world's four top producers of antimony, magnesium, tin, tungsten, and zinc, and ranks second (after the United States) in the production of salt, sixth in gold, and eighth in lead ore. There are large deposits of uranium in the northwest, especially in Xinjiang; there are also mines in Jiangxi and Guangdong provs. Alumina is found in many parts of the country; China is one of world's largest producers of aluminum. There are also deposits of vanadium, magnetite, copper, fluorite, nickel, asbestos, phosphate rock, pyrite, and sulfur.
Coal is the single most important energy source; coal-fired thermal electric generators provide over 70% of the country's electric power. China's exploitation of its high-sulfur coal resources has resulted in massive pollution. China also has extensive hydroelectric energy potential, notably in Yunnan, W Sichuan, and E Tibet, although hydroelectric power accounts for only 18% of the country's total energy production. Hydroelectric projects exist in provinces served by major rivers where near-surface coal is not abundant. The largest completed project, Gezhouba Dam, on the Chang (Yangtze) River, opened in 1981; the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest engineering project, on the lower Chang, was largely completed by 2006.
Beginning in the late 1970s, changes in economic policy, including decentralization of control and the creation of “special economic zones” to attract foreign investment, led to considerable industrial growth, especially in light industries that produce consumer goods. In the 1990s a program of shareholding and greater market orientation went into effect; however, state enterprises continue to dominate many key industries in China's “socialist market economy.” In addition, implementation of some reforms was stalled by fears of social dislocation and by political opposition, but by 2007 economic changes had become so great that the Communist party added legal protection for private property rights (while preserving state ownership of all land) and passed a labor law designed to improve the protection of workers' rights (the law was passed amid a series of police raids that freed workers engaged in forced labor). Major industrial products are textiles, chemicals, fertilizers, machinery (especially for agriculture), armaments, processed foods, iron and steel, building materials, plastics, toys, electronics, telecommunications equipment, automobiles, rail cars and locomotives, ships, aircraft, commercial space launch vehicles, and satellites.
Before 1945, heavy industry was concentrated in the northeast (Manchuria), but important centers were subsequently established in other parts of the country, notably in Shanghai and Wuhan. After the 1960s, the emphasis was on regional self-sufficiency, and many factories sprang up in rural areas. The iron and steel industry is organized around several major centers (including Anshan, one of the world's largest), but many smaller iron and steel plants also have been established throughout the country. Brick, tile, cement, and food-processing plants are found in almost every province. Shanghai and Guangzhou are the traditionally great textile centers, but many new mills have been built, concentrated mostly in the cotton-growing provinces of N China and along the Chang (Yangtze) River.
Coastal cities, especially in the southeast, have benefited greatly from China's increasingly open trade policies. Most of China's large cities, e.g. Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangzhou, are also the country's main ports. Other leading ports are rail termini, such as Lüshun (formerly Port Arthur, the port of Dalian), on the South Manchuria RR; and Qingdao, on the line from Jinan. In the northeast (Manchuria) are large cities and rail centers, notably Shenyang (Mukden), Harbin, and Changchun. Great inland cities include Beijing and the river ports of Nanjing, Chongqing, and Wuhan. Taiyuan and Xi'an are important centers in the less populated interior, and Lanzhou is the key communications junction of the vast northwest. Although a British crown colony until its return to Chinese control in 1997, Hong Kong has long been a major maritime outlet of S China.
Rivers and canals (notably the Grand Canal, which connects the Huang He [Yellow] and Chang [Yangtze] rivers) remain important transportation arteries. The east and northeast are well served by railroads and highways, and there are now major rail and road links with the interior. There are railroads to North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, and Vietnam, and road connections to Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Myanmar. Since the 1980s China has undertaken a major highway construction program. As part of its continuing effort to become competitive in the global marketplace, China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001; its major trade partners are the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan. China's economy, though strengthened by more liberal economic policies since the 1980s, continues to have some inadequacies in transportation, communication, and energy resources.
Government
China is a one-party state, with real power lying with the Chinese Communist party. The country is governed under the constitution of 1982 as amended, the fifth constitution since the accession of the Communists in 1949. The unicameral legislature is the National People's Congress (NPC), consisting of deputies who are indirectly elected to terms of five years. The NPC decides on national economic strategy, elects or removes high officeholders, and can change China's constitution; it normally follows the directives of the Communist party's politburo. The executive branch consists of the president, who is head of state, and the premier, who is head of government. The president is elected by the NPC for a five-year term and and is eligible for reelection. The premier is nominated by the president and approved by the NPC. Administratively, the country is divided into 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, and four municipalities. Despite the concentration of power in the Communist party, the central government's control over the provinces and local governments is limited, and they are often able to act with relative impunity in many areas.
China began to build a modern legal system in the late 1970s, after opening itself economically to the rest of the world. Since then it has developed legal codes in the areas of criminal, civil, administrative, and commercial law. The legal system is not independent of the government, however, a problem that is especially acute on the local level, where corrupt officials manipulate the process to protect themselves and limit citizens' rights.
History
Origins and Early History
The stone tools and fossils of Homo erectus found in N and central China are the earliest discovered protohuman remains in NE Asia; some of the tools date to more than 1.3 million years ago. About 20,000 years ago, after the last glacial period, modern humans appeared in the Ordos desert region. The subsequent culture shows marked similarity to that of the higher civilizations of Mesopotamia, and some scholars argue a Western origin for Chinese civilization. However, since the 2d millennium B.C. a unique and fairly uniform culture has spread over almost all of China. The substantial linguistic and ethnological diversity of the south and the far west result from their having been infrequently under the control of central government.
China's history is traditionally viewed as a continuous development with certain repetitive tendencies, as described in the following general pattern: The area under political control tends to expand from the eastern Huang He and Chang (Yangtze) basins, the heart of Chinese culture, and then, under outside military pressure, to shrink back. Conquering barbarians from the north and the west supplant native dynasties, take over Chinese culture, lose their vigor, and are expelled in a surge of national feeling. Following a disordered and anarchic period a new dynasty may arise. Its predecessor, by engaging in excessive warfare, tolerating corruption, and failing to keep up public works, has forfeited the right to rule—in the traditional view, the dynasty has lost “the mandate of Heaven.” The administrators change, central authority is reestablished, public works constructed, taxation modified and equalized, and land redistributed. After a prosperous period disintegration reappears, inviting barbarian intervention or native revolt.
Although traditionally supposed to have been preceded by the semilegendary Hsia dynasty, the Shang dynasty (c.1523–1027 B.C.) is the first in documented Chinese history (see the table entitled Chinese Dynasties). During the succeeding, often turbulent, Chou dynasty (c.1027–256 B.C.), Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Mencius lived, and the literature that until recently formed the basis of Chinese education was written. The use of iron was the main material advance. The semibarbarous Ch'in dynasty (221–206 B.C.) first established the centralized imperial system that was to govern China during stable periods. The Great Wall was begun in this period. The native Han dynasty period (202 B.C.–A.D. 220), traditionally deemed China's imperial age, is notable for long peaceable rule, expansionist policies, and great artistic achievement.
The Three Kingdoms period (A.D. 220–65) opened four centuries of warfare among petty states and of invasions of the north by the barbarian Hsiung-nu (Huns). In this inauspicious time China experienced rapid cultural development. Buddhism, which had earlier entered from India, and Taoism, a native cult, grew and seriously endangered Confucianism. Indian advances in medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and architecture were adopted. Art, particularly figure painting and decoration of Buddhist grottoes, flourished. Feudalism partly revived under the Tsin dynasty (265–420) with the decay of central authority.
Under the Sui (581–618) and the T'ang (618–907) a vast domain, much of which had first been assimilated to Chinese culture in the preceding period, was unified. The civil service examination system based on the Chinese classics and a renaissance of Confucianism were important developments of this brilliant era. Its fresh and vigorous poetry is especially noted. The end of the T'ang was marked by a withdrawal from conquered border regions to the center of Chinese culture.
The period of the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms (907–60), which was a time of chaotic social change, was followed by the Sung dynasty (960–1279), a time of scholarly studies and artistic progress, marked by authentication of the Confucian literary canon and the improvement of printing techniques through the invention of movable type. The poetry of the Sung period was derivative, but a new popular literary form, the novel, appeared at that time. Neo-Confucianism developed systematically. Gunpowder was first used for military purposes in this period.
While the Sung ruled central China, barbarians—the Khitai, the Jurchen, and the Tangut—created northern empires that were swept away by the Mongols under Jenghiz Khan. His grandson Kublai Khan, founder of the Yüan dynasty (1271–1368), retained Chinese institutions. The great realm of Kublai was described in all its richness by one of the most celebrated of all travelers, Marco Polo. Improved roads and canals were the dynasty's main contributions to China.
The Ming dynasty (1368–1644) set out to restore Chinese culture by a study of Sung life. Its initial territorial expansion was largely lost by the early 15th cent. European trade and European infiltration began with Portuguese settlement of Macao in 1557 but immediately ran into official Chinese antiforeign policy. Meanwhile the Manchu peoples advanced steadily south in the 16th and the 17th cent. and ended with complete conquest of China by 1644 and with establishment of the Ch'ing (Manchu) dynasty (1644–1912). Under emperors K'ang-hsi (reigned 1662–1722) and Ch'ien-lung (reigned 1735–96), China was perhaps at its greatest territorial extent.
Foreign Intervention in China
The Ch'ing opposition to foreign trade, at first even more severe than that of the Ming, relaxed ultimately, and in 1834, Guangzhou was opened to limited overseas trade. Great Britain, dissatisfied with trade arrangements, provoked the Opium War (1839–42), obtained commercial concessions, and established extraterritoriality. Soon France, Germany, and Russia successfully put forward similar demands. The Ch'ing regime, already weakened by internal problems, was further enfeebled by European intervention, the devastating Taiping Rebellion (1848–65), and Japan's military success in 1894–95 (see Sino-Japanese War, First). Great Britain and the United States promoted the Open Door Policy—that all nations enjoy equal access to China's trade; this was generally ignored by the foreign powers, and China was divided into separate zones of influence. Chinese resentment of foreigners grew, and the Boxer Uprising (1900), encouraged by Empress Tz'u Hsi, was a last desperate effort to suppress foreign influence.
Belated domestic reforms failed to stem a revolution long-plotted, chiefly by Sun Yat-sen, and set off in 1911 after the explosion of a bomb at Wuchang. With relatively few casualties, the Ch'ing dynasty was overthrown and a republic was established. Sun, the first president, resigned early in 1912 in favor of Yüan Shih-kai, who commanded the military power. Yüan established a repressive rule, which led Sun's followers to revolt sporadically.
Early in World War I, Japan seized the German leasehold in Shandong prov. and presented China with Twenty-one Demands, designed to make all of China a virtual Japanese protectorate. China was forced to accept a modified version of the Demands, although the treaties were never ratified by the Chinese legislature. China entered World War I on the Allied side in 1917, but at the Versailles peace conference was unable to prevent Japan from being awarded the Shandong territory. Reaction to this provision in the Versailles treaty led to Nationalist flare-ups and the May Fourth Movement of 1919. At the Washington Conference (1921–22), Japan finally agreed to withdraw its troops from Shandong and restore full sovereignty to China. The Nine-Power Treaty, signed at the Conference, guaranteed China's territorial integrity and the Open Door Policy.
Yüan had died in 1916 and China was disintegrating into rival warlord states. Civil war raged between Sun's new revolutionary party, the Kuomintang, which established a government in Guangzhou and received the support of the southern provinces, and the national government in Beijing, supported by warlords (semi-independent military commanders) in the north. As cultural ferment seethed throughout China, intellectuals sought inspiration in Western ideals; Hu Shih, prominent in the burgeoning literary renaissance, began a movement to simplify the Chinese written language. Labor agitation, especially against foreign-owned companies, became more common, and resentment against Western religious ideas grew.
In 1921, the Chinese Communist party (see Communist party, in China) was founded. Failing to get assistance from the Western countries, Sun made an alliance with the Communists and sought aid from the USSR. In 1926, Chiang Kai-shek led the army of the Kuomintang northward to victory. Chiang reversed Sun's policy of cooperation with the Communists and executed many of their leaders. Thus began the long civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communists. Chiang established (1928) a government in Nanjing and obtained foreign recognition.
A Communist government was set up in the early 1930s in Jiangxi, but Chiang's continued military campaigns forced (1934) them on the long march to the northwest, where they settled in Shaanxi. Japan, taking advantage of China's dissension, occupied Manchuria in 1931 and established (1932) the puppet state of Manchukuo (see Sino-Japanese War, Second). While Japan moved southward from Manchuria, Chiang chose to campaign against the Communists. In the “Xi'an Incident” (Dec., 1936), Chiang was kidnapped by Nationalist troops from Manchuria and held until he agreed to accept Communist cooperation in the fight against Japan.
In July, 1937, the Japanese attacked and invaded China proper. By 1940, N China, the coastal areas, and the Chang (Yangtze) valley were all under Japanese occupation, administered by the puppet regime of Wang Ching-wei. The capital was moved inland to Chongqing. After 1938, Chiang resumed his military harassment of the Communists, who were an effective fighting force against the Japanese. With Japan's attack (1941) on U.S. and British bases and the onset of World War II in Asia, China received U.S. and British aid. The country was much weakened at the war's close.
The end of the Japanese threat and the abolition of extraterritoriality did not bring peace to the country. The hostility between the Chinese Nationalists and the Communists flared into full-scale war as both raced to occupy the territories evacuated by the Japanese. The United States, alarmed at the prospect of a Communist success in China, arranged through ambassadors Patrick J. Hurley and George C. Marshall for conferences between Chiang and the Communist leader Mao Zedong, but these proved unsuccessful.
When the Russians withdrew from Manchuria, which they had occupied in accordance with agreements reached at the Yalta Conference, they turned the Japanese military equipment in that area over to the Chinese Communists, giving them a strong foothold in what was then the industrial core of China. Complete Communist control of Manchuria was realized with the capture of Shenyang (Mukden) in Nov., 1948. Elsewhere in the country, Chiang's Nationalists, supplied by U.S. arms, were generally successful until 1947, when the Communists gained the upper hand.
Sweeping inflation, increased police repression, and continual famine weakened public confidence in the Nationalist government, and much of the population came to at least passively support the Communists. Beijing fell to the Communists without a fight in Jan., 1949, followed (Apr.–Nov., 1949) by the major cities of Nanjing, Hankou, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chongqing. In Aug., 1949, when little Nationalist resistance remained, the U.S. Dept. of State announced that no further aid would be given to Chiang's government. The Communists, from their capital at Beijing, proclaimed a central people's government on Oct. 1, 1949. The seat of the Nationalist government was moved to Taiwan in Dec., 1949.
The new Communist government was immediately recognized by the USSR and shortly thereafter by Great Britain, India, and other nations. Recognition was, however, refused by the United States, which maintained close ties with Taiwan. By Apr., 1950, the last pockets of Nationalist resistance were cleaned out, and all of mainland China was secure for the Communists.
China under Mao
Mao Zedong and the Communists brought the soaring inflation under control and effected a more equitable distribution of food. A land-reform program was launched, and police control was tightened. During the first five-year plan (1953–57), agriculture was collectivized and industry was nationalized. With assistance from the USSR, construction of many modern large-scale plants was begun, and railroads were built to link the new industrial complexes of the north and northwest. On the international scene, Chinese Communist troops took possession of Tibet in Oct., 1950. That same month Chinese forces intervened in the Korean War to meet a drive by United Nations forces toward the Manchurian border. Large-scale Chinese participation in the war persisted until the armistice of July, 1953, after which China emerged as a diplomatic power in Asia. Zhou Enlai became internationally known through his role at the Geneva Conference of 1954 and at the Bandung Conference of 1955.
The Great Leap Forward, an economic program aimed at making China a major industrial power overnight, was underway by 1958. It featured the expansion of cooperatives into communes, which disrupted family life but offered a maximum use of the labor force. The industrialization program was pushed too fast, resulting in the overproduction of inferior goods and the deterioration of the industrial plant. At the same time, agriculture was neglected. Many scholars have said that this neglect, rather than poor weather conditions as asserted by the government, caused the three successive crop failures of 1959–61; the widespread famine that resulted was responsible for from 15 million to as many as 55 million deaths.
A severe blow to the economy and political system was the termination of Soviet aid in 1960 and the withdrawal of Soviet technicians and advisers—events that revealed a growing ideological rift between China and the USSR. The rift, which began with the institution of a destalinization policy by the Soviets in 1956, widened considerably after the USSR adopted a more conciliatory approach toward the West in the cold war. There were massive military buildups along the USSR-Chinese border, and border clashes erupted in Manchuria and Xinjiang.
Hostility had continued meanwhile between Communist China and the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, who pledged himself to the reconquest of the mainland. The Communist government insisted upon its right to Taiwan, but the United States made clear its intention to defend that island against direct attack, having even given (1955) a qualified promise to defend the Nationalist-held offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu as well. China's relations with other Asian nations, at first cordial, were affected by China's encouragement of Communist activity within their borders, the suppression of a revolt in Tibet (1959–60), and undeclared border wars with India in the 1960s over disputed territory. In the Vietnam War, China provided supplies, armaments, and technical assistance as well as militant verbal support to North Vietnam.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s the emphasis of China's foreign policy changed from revolutionary to diplomatic; new contacts were established, and efforts were made to improve relations with many governments. China continued to strengthen its influence with other underdeveloped nations, extending considerable economic aid to countries in South America, Africa, and Asia. Important steps in Chinese progression toward recognition as a world power were the successful explosions of China's first atomic bomb (1964) and of its first hydrogen bomb (1967), and the launching of its first satellite (1970).
Internal dissension and power struggles were revealed in such domestic crises as the momentous Cultural Revolution (1966–76); the death (1971) in an airplane crash of defense minister Lin Biao while he was allegedly fleeing to the Soviet Union after an abortive attempt to assassinate Mao and establish a military dictatorship; and a major propaganda campaign launched in 1973, which mobilized the masses against such widely ranging objects of attack as Lin Biao, the teachings of Confucius, and cultural exchanges with the West.
Economically, the emphasis in the 1960s and early 1970s was on agriculture. After the Cultural Revolution, economic programs were initiated featuring the establishment of many small factories in the countryside and stressing local self-sufficiency. Both industrial and agricultural production records were set in 1970, and, despite serious droughts in some areas in 1972, output continued to increase steadily.
China in Transition
In 1971 long-standing objections to the admission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations were set aside by the United States; that October, Communist delegates were seated as the representatives of all China and, despite the opposition of the United States, which favored a “two-China” membership, the Nationalist delegation was expelled. A breakthrough in the hostile relations between the United States and Communist China came with the visit of President Richard M. Nixon to Beijing in Feb., 1972. Although U.S. support of Taiwan remained a sensitive issue, the visit resulted in a joint agreement to work toward peace in Asia and to develop closer economic, cultural, and diplomatic ties.
Although Mao had resigned his position as chairman of the People's Republic during the failures of the Great Leap Forward, as chairman of the central committee of the Communist party he remained the most powerful political figure in China. (Liu Shaoqi, who succeeded Mao as chairman of the Republic in 1959, was deposed during the Cultural Revolution.) By the mid-1970s, political power was balanced between the moderates, led by Deng Xiaoping and Premier Zhou Enlai, and the more radical heirs to the Cultural Revolution, led by the Gang of Four, which included Jiang Qing (Mao's wife), Wang Hongwen, Yao Wenyuan, and Zhang Chunqiao. Mao mediated between the two factions.
With the death of Zhou in Jan., 1976, the Gang of Four convinced Mao that Deng's economic plan, the Four Modernizations, would overturn the legacy of Mao's Cultural Revolution. Deng was purged in April, along with many of his supporters, as the Gang of Four consolidated their power. After Mao's death in Sept., 1976, however, a coalition of political and military leaders purged the Gang of Four, and Hua Guofeng, who had succeeded Zhou as premier, became party chairman. Deng was rehabilitated in 1977 and soon was recognized as the most powerful party member, although he was nominally deputy chairman to Hua. In 1980, Hua stepped down from the premiership in favor of Zhao Ziyang, who was Deng's choice.
From 1977, Deng worked toward his two main objectives, to modernize and strengthen the economy and to forge closer political ties with Western nations. To this end, four coastal cities were named (1979) special economic zones in order to draw foreign investment, trade, and technology. Fourteen more cities were similarly designated in 1984. China also decollectivized its cooperative farms, which led to a dramatic increase in agricultural production. In order to control population growth, the government instituted a law limiting families to one child, but protests and widespread infanticide forced the government to moderate its policy somewhat.
The People's Republic of China reached a political milestone when formal diplomatic relations were established with the United States on Jan. 1, 1979. In 1980, the People's Republic took Taiwan's place in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. China had a brief border war with Vietnam in 1979 over Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia, but China has generally been able to maintain peaceful foreign relations in order to advance its domestic agenda.
In the early 1980s, China reorganized the structure of the government and the CCP, rehabilitating many people purged in the Cultural Revolution and emphasizing the maintenance of discipline, loyalty, and spiritual purity in the face of increasing international contact. Declaring a policy of “One Country, Two Systems,” China reached agreements with both Great Britain (1984) and Portugal (1987) to return to Chinese sovereignty the territories of Hong Kong (in 1997) and Macao (in 1999). In 1987, following a series of student demonstrations, Hu Yaobang, a reformist who had been named general secretary in 1980, was replaced by Zhao Ziyang, who was in turn replaced as premier by Li Peng.
The death of Hu in Apr., 1989, led to the series of protests that culminated in the violent military suppression at Tiananmen Square. The government arrested thousands of suspected dissidents and replaced Zhao as Communist party secretary with Jiang Zemin, who became China's president in 1993. The incident brought on international economic sanctions, which sent China's economy into decline. International trade gradually resumed during the course of the next year, and in June, 1990, after China released several hundred dissidents, the United States renewed China's most-favored-nation trade status.
In the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre, China sought to avoid sharp political conflict with the West, as by supporting the United Nations coalition in the Persian Gulf War, but tensions continued over such issues as Taiwan. In 1995, in reaction to a U.S. visit by Taiwan's president, Lee Teng-hui, Beijing conducted missile tests in the Taiwan Strait, and in early 1996 China conducted military exercises and missile tests close to the shores of Taiwan, in an attempt to inhibit those voting in the Taiwanese presidential election. Although it released some dissidents, the regime continued to clamp down on dissent; examples of its hard line were the long sentences given out to human-rights activist Wei Jingsheng in 1995 and political activists Xu Wenli and Qin Yongmin in 1998. In July, 1999, the Chinese government outlawed the Falun Gong (Buddhist Law) spiritual movement after a group of several thousand rallied to urge the sect's official recognition. Official corruption, economic, social, and ethnic inequality, and oppressive rural taxes sparked an increasing number of public protests beginning in the late 1990s.
Economic change continued, with the encouragement of Deng Xiaoping, and in 1993 a revision of China's constitution called for the development of a “socialist market economy” in which the Communist party would retain political power while encouraging a free market economy. Deng died in 1997, and Zhu Rongji replaced Li Peng as prime minister in 1998. Floods inundated the Chang (Yangtze) River valley in Aug., 1998, killing over 2,000 people and leaving millions homeless.
In May, 1999, during the Kosovo crisis, the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was mistakenly bombed by NATO, unleashing large anti-American demonstrations in Beijing. In the same month, China was accused by the United States of stealing nuclear design secrets that enabled it to substantially accelerate its weapons program. Nonetheless, a trade agreement was signed in November with the United States that led to Chinese membership (2001) in the World Trade Organization. Also in November, China advanced its space program with the test launching of an unmanned space capsule.
Relations with the United States again became tense in Apr., 2001, after a Chinese fighter and U.S. surveillance plane collided in mid-air, killing the Chinese pilot. Three months later Russia and China signed a friendship and cooperation treaty that seemed in part a response to the G. W. Bush administration's arms sales to Taiwan and push to develop a ballistic missile defense system.
Beginning in 2001 the Chinese Commmunist party began yet another transition, both in its membership and leadership. That year, Jiang Zemin urged the party to recruit business people as members, declaring in the doctrine of the “three represents” that the party must represent capitalists in addition to workers and peasants. The following year, Jiang resigned as party leader and was replaced by Hu Jintao. Hu replaced Jiang as president in 2003, and Wen Jiabao became prime minister. Jiang remained extremely influential, however, in both the party and the government, and retained his chairmanship of the powerful national and party military commissions until Sept., 2004.
The government's handling in 2003 of an outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) that began in S China harmed the nation's international image when the outbreak went unreported (and then underreported), enabling it to spread more readily. Severe measures instituted subsequently to curb the illness hurt the service sector of the economy, but by the end 2003 China had experienced a robust growth rate of more than 9% and a major urban building boom, resulting in part from the migration of rural inhabitants to the cities (22 cities had more than 2 million residents). In 2003, China and India signed a border pact that represented an incremental improvement in their relations, and two years later a new agreement called for the settlement of border issues between the two nations. Also in 2003 a trade pact giving Hong Kong businesses greater access to China's markets also was signed. In Oct., 2003, China became the third nation to put an astronaut into orbit when Shenzhou 5, carrying Yang Liwei, was launched.
Continuing vigorous economic growth in 2004 led the government to put in place a series of measures designed to slow growth to control inflation and reduce overinvestment. Also in 2004, relations with Taiwan become more strained with the reelection of Chen Shui-bian, who had called for Taiwan to declare formal independence from China, as the island's president. In Mar., 2005, China passed an antisecession law that called for the use of force if peaceful means failed to bring about reunification with Taiwan; the law sparked protests in Taiwan. At the same time, China welcomed visits from Taiwanese opposition leaders, who pledged to follow less confrontational approaches to relations with the mainland.
Early 2005 also saw increased tensions with Japan over how Japanese actions during World War II were treated in Japanese textbooks, over the possible appointment of Japan to a permanent UN Security Council seat, and over a disputed exclusive economic zone in the East China Sea. The issues sparked sometimes destructive demonstrations in China. Meanwhile, in Nov., 2004, China signed a free-trade agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN); under the accord, tariffs on many goods will be eliminated with the richer ASEAN members by 2010 and with the rest by 2015. Trade was also an issue with the United States, which called in early 2005 (and subsequently) for China to revalue its currency because of its large trade imbalances with China, whose economy continued its booming growth during into the following year. The tensions with Taiwan and Japan also continued into 2006, and the government became increasingly concerned with the disparity between richer urban and poorer rural China, which had become even more marked since the turn of the century and sparked a growing number of sometimes violent demonstrations. Shanghai's local Communist party leader, who was also a member of the politburo, was dismissed in Sept., 2006, for corruption, but the move was largely seen as a consolidation of power by President Hu rather than a concerted attempt to weed out corrupt officials.
North Korea's test of a nuclear weapon in Oct., 2006, highlighted China's complex relations with its northeastern neighbor. Although China is widely regarded as having more influence than any other nation with North Korea and objected to the test, it was unable to prevent it. Concerned about instability on the Korean peninsula and a potential influx of Korean refugees into NE China, China supported a resolution condemning North Korea and imposing sanctions but expressed reservations about searching North Korean ships and other trade traffic. China did, however, pressure the North to back down on conducting a second nuclear test.
Trade relations with the United States again became problematic in 2007. Following extremely strong economic growth in 2006, which contributed to China huge trade surplus and foreign currency reserves, the United States, under growing domestic pressure, instituted tariffs on some Chine