China

Overview

Ask anyone what they think of when they think of China, and it is nearly guaranteed that each will provide a different answer to the next. Undoubtedly someone will mention pandas, and someone will say the Great Wall. Perhaps someone will mention Mao and Communism or the incident at Tian An Men Square. Or maybe the Terracotta Army of Warriors, if the were historically inclined, or the Bund in Shanghai if they had a business brain. And China is a rare country, in that every one of its many faces is an accurate one.

In Beijing the ancient citadel of the Forbidden City, rubs shoulders with, among others, the ongoing presence of Mao in his Mausoleum and preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games. A city of huge contradictions, Beijing is both beautiful and hard to believe. While staying at the famous Friendship Hotel, a swimming pool nearby was being rebuilt and palm trees lined the clean and complicated dual carriageways road systems. Yet poverty is all around despite government attempts to focus the attention on those pools and palms and particularly now the Olympic Games. Similarly attempts to underplay the ongoing influence of Mao by our tour guide were lost as the bus came to stop outside the wall of the Forbidden city on which a huge poster of Mao hung, overlooking his Mausoleum, which we were advised not to queue for because it could take all day to get inside. The Forbidden City is a must-see sight in the capital...more

History

Dynastic Period

China is the oldest continuous major world civilisation with records dating back about 3 500 years. Successive dynasties developed a system of bureaucratic control which gave the agrarian-based Chinese an advantage over neighbouring nomadic and hill cultures. Chinese civilisation was further strengthened by the development of a Confucian (Kongzi) state ideology and a common written language that bridged the gaps among the country's many local languages and dialects. Whenever China was conquered by nomadic tribes as it was by the Mongols in the 13th century the conquerors sooner or later adopted the ways of the "higher" Chinese civilisation and staffed the bureaucracy with Chinese.

The last dynasty was established in 1644 when the nomadic Manchus overthrew the native Ming dynasty and established the Qing dynasty with Beijing as its capital. At great expense in blood and treasure the Manchus over the next half century gained control of many border areas including Xinjiang, Yunnan, Mongolia, and Taiwan. The success of the early Qing period was based on the combination of Manchu martial prowess and traditional Chinese bureaucratic skills.

During the 19th century Qing control weakened and prosperity diminished. China suffered massive social strife economic stagnation explosive population growth and Western penetration and influence. The Taiping and Nian rebellions along with a Russian-supported Muslim separatist movement in Xinjiang drained Chinese resources and almost toppled the dynasty. Britain's desire to continue its illegal opium trade with China collided with imperial edicts prohibiting the addictive drug and the First Opium War erupted in 1840. China lost the...more