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From the Remote Antiquity to the Slave Society (1.7 million
years ago - 476 B.C.)
China, one of the world's most ancient civilizations, has a recorded
history of nearly 4,000 years.
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- A fossil anthropoid unearthed in Yuanmou
in Yunnan Province, "Yuanmou Man", who lived approximately
1.7 million years ago, is China's earliest primitive man
known so far. "Peking Man", who lived in the Zhoukoudian
area near Beijing 600,000 years ago, was able to walk upright,
make and use simple tools, and knew how to make fire. The
Neolithic Age started in China about 10,000 years ago, and
relics from this period can be found all over the country.
Artificially-grown rice and millet as well as farming tools
have been found in the remains of Hemudu in Yuyao, Zhejiang
Province, and Banpo, near Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province,
respectively. These relics date back some 6,000-7,000 years.
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- The Xia Dynasty was founded in 2070 B.C. The center of
its activities was the western section of modern Henan Province
and the southern section of modern Shanxi Province, and
its sphere of influence reached the northern and southern
areas of the Yellow River. Starting from the Xia Dynasty,
China entered slave society. The following Shang (1600-1046
B.C.) and Western Zhou (1046-771 B.C.) dynasties saw further
development of the slave society. This era was followed
by the Spring and Autumn (770-476 B.C.) and Warring States
(475-221 B.C.) periods, characterized by the decline in
power of the ruling house and struggles for power among
regional powers, marking the transition from the slave society
to the feudal society.
- Chinese had mastered the technology of smelting bronze
approximately 5,000 years ago and iron tools came into use
during the Shang Dynasty, 3,000 years ago. White pottery
and glazed pottery were produced. Silk production was considerably
developed and the world's first figured inlaid silk weaving
technique appeared. During the Spring and Autumn Period
steel production technologies made their debut. In these
periods, there was a great upsurge of intellectual activity,
producing many famous philosophers, such as Lao Zi, Confucius,
Mencius and Mo Zi, and the well-known military scientist
Sun Wu.
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| Qin Shi Huang (259 - 210 B.C.) and His Empire |
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- In 221 B.C., Ying Zheng, the ruler of the State
of Qin and a man of great talent and bold vision, ended
the 250-odd years of rivalry among the independent principalities
during the Warring States Period, establishing the first
centralized, unified, multi-ethnic feudal state in Chinese
history. The Qin Dynasty (221-207 B.C.). He called himself
Qin Shi Huang or "First Emperor of Qin". He standardized
the written script, weights and measures, and currencies,
and established the system of prefectures and counties.
The sovereigns of the next 2,000-odd years followed the
feudal governmental structure established by him. He mobilized
more than 300,000 people over a period of a dozen years
to build the Great Wall, which stretches for 5,000 km in
northern China. Qin Shi Huang had work on his enormous mausoleum
started early in his reign. The terracotta warriors of the
"underground army" guarding the mausoleum, unearthed
in 1974, amazed the world. 8,000 vivid, life-size pottery
figures, horses and chariots have been called the "eighth
wonder of the world".
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| The Han Dynasty (206 B.C. - 220 A.D.) and the "Silk
Road" |
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- Liu Bang established the powerful Han Dynasty in 206 B.C.
During the Han Dynasty, agriculture, handicrafts and commerce
flourished, and the population reached 50 million. During
his reign (140-87 B.C.), the most prosperous period of the
Han Dynasty, Liu Che, Emperor Wudi, expanded the territory
of the empire from the Central Plain to the Western Regions
(present-day Xinjiang and Central Asia). He dispatched Zhang
Qian twice as his envoy to the Western Regions, and in the
process pioneered the route known as the "Silk Road"
from Chang'an (today's Xi'an, Shaanxi Province), through
Xinjiang and Central Asia, and on to the east coast of the
Mediterranean Sea. Chinese silk goods were traded to the
West along the Silk Road. As contacts between the East and
West increased, Buddhism spread to China in the first century.
In 105, an official named Cai Lun invented a technique for
making fine paper, which is considered to have been a revolution
in communication and learning.
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| The Tang Dynasty (618 - 907) |
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- After the Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms Period
(220-265), the Jin Dynasty (265-420), the Southern and Northern
Dynasties (420-589), the Sui Dynasty (581-618) and the Tang
Dynasty (618-907) succeeded. The Tang Dynasty was established
by Li Yuan in 618. Li Shimin, or Emperor Taizong (r. 626-649),
son of Li Yuan, adopted a series of liberal policies, pushing
the prosperity of China's feudal society to its peak: agriculture,
handicrafts and commerce flourished; technologies for textile
manufacturing and dyeing, pottery and porcelain production,
smelting and shipbuilding were further developed; and land
and water transportation greatly improved. By the 660s,
China's influence had firmly taken root in the Tarim and
Junggar basins and the Ili River valley, and even extended
to many city-states in Central Asia. During this period,
extensive economic and cultural relations were established
with many countries, including Japan, Korea, India, Persia
and Arabia.
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| Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties (960 - 1911) |
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- The period of the Five Dynasties and Ten States, which
succeeded the Tang Dynasty, was one of almost continual
warfare. In 960, Zhao Kuangyin, a general of the State of
Later Zhou, established the Song Dynasty (960-1279), historically
known as the Northern Song Dynasty. When the Song Dynasty
moved its capital to the south, historically called the
Southern Song Dynasty, it brought advanced economy and culture
to the south, giving a great impetus to economic development
there China in the Song Dynasty was in the front rank of
the world in astronomy, science and technology and printing
technology as evidenced, for example, by Bi Sheng's inventing
movable type printing, a great revolution in printing history.
- In 1271, Kublai, a grandson of Genghis Khan, conquered
the Central Plain, founded the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368),
and made Dadu (today's Beijing) the capital. Kublai wrote
finis to the centuries-long situation in which many independent
regimes existed side by side, and formed a united country
that brought Xinjiang, Tibet and Yunnan under its sway.
During the Song-Yuan period, the "four great inventions"
in science and technology of the Chinese people in ancient
times. Papermaking, printing, the compass and gunpowder?awere
further developed, and introduced to foreign countries,
making great contributions to world civilization.
- In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)
in Nanjing, reigning as Emperor Taizu. When his son and
successor Zhu Di (r. 1360-1424) ascended the throne, in
1360, he built and expanded the palaces, temples, city walls
and moat in Beijing on a large scale. In 1421, he officially
moved the capital to Beijing. During his reign, he dispatched
a eunuch named Zheng He to lead a fleet of many ships to
make seven far-ranging voyages. Passing the Southeast Asian
countries, the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and Maldives Islands,
Zheng He explored as far as Somalia and Kenya on the eastern
coast of Africa. These were the largest-scale and longest
voyages in the world before the age of Columbus.
- The Manchus of northeast China established the Qing Dynasty
(1644-1911) in 1644, under the leadership of Nurhachi. Kangxi
(r. 1661-1722) was the most famous emperor of the Qing Dynasty.
He brought Taiwan under his rule, and resisted invasions
by tsarist Russia. To reinforce the administration of Tibet,
he also formulated the rules and regulations on the confirmation
of the Tibetan local leaders by the Central Government.
He effectively administered over 11 million sq km of Chinese
territory.
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| Modern Period (1840 - 1919) |
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- During the 19th century, the Qing Dynasty declined
rapidly. Britain smuggled large quantities of opium into
China, making the Qing government impose a ban on the drug.
In an effort to protect its opium trade, Britain launched
a war of aggression against China in 1840. The Qing government
finally signed the Treaty of Nanking, a treaty of national
betrayal and humiliation, with the British government. Many
countries, including Britain, the United States, France,
Russia and Japan, forced the Qing government to sign various
unequal treaties following the Opium War. China was gradually
relegated to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country.
The Revolution of 1911 led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen was one
of the greatest events in modern Chinese history, as it
overthrew the over-200-year-old Qing Dynasty, ending over
2,000 years of feudal monarchy, and established the Republic
of China.
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| New-Democratic Revolution (1919 - 1949) |
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- The May 4th Movement of 1919 is regarded as the ideological
origin of many important events in modern Chinese history.
Its direct cause was the unequal treaties imposed on China
after the First World War. Out of strong patriotism, students
initiated the movement, and it further developed into a
national protest movement of people from all walks of life.
It also marked the introduction into China of various new
ideologies, among which the spread of Marxism-Leninism was
worthy of special mention. Under the influence of Russia's
October Revolution of 1917, 12 delegates, including Mao
Zedong, representing communist groups in different places
throughout the nation, held the First National Congress
in Shanghai in 1921 to found the Communist Party of China
(CPC).
The Chinese people led by the CPC underwent successively
the Northern Expeditionary War (1924-27), War of Agrarian
Revolution (1927-37), War of Resistance Against Japan
(1937-45) and War of Liberation (1946-49). Owing to the
cooperation and joint resistance of the CPC and Kuomintang
the Japanese aggressors were defeated. But shortly after
the anti-Japanese war, the Kuomintang launched a civil
war again. After the three-year War of Liberation led
by the CPC, the Kuomintang government was finally overthrown
in 1949.
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| People's Republic of China (1949- ) |
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- On October 1, 1949 a grand ceremony was witnessed
by 300,000 people in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, and Mao
Zedong, chairman of the Central People's Government, solemnly
proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China
(PRC).
During the initial post-Liberation period, the Chinese government
successfully carried out land reform in areas accounting
for over 90 percent of the total national agricultural population,
and 300 million farmers were granted approximately 47 million
ha of land. Amazing achievements were made during the First
Five-Year Plan period, from 1953 to 1957. The average annual
increase rate of the national income reached over 8.9 percent.
China established basic industries necessary for full industrialization
hitherto non-existent domestically, producing airplanes,
automobiles, heavy machinery, precision machinery, power-generating
equipment, metallurgical and mining equipment, high-grade
alloy steels and non-ferrous metals.
The ten years from 1957 to 1966 was the period in which
China started large-scale socialist construction. Though
China suffered from the mistakes in its policies during
the period, it also accomplished a great deal. The nation's
total industrial fixed assets quadrupled between 1956 and
1966 and the national income increased by 58 percent in
constant prices. The output of essential industrial products
increased by several or even a dozen times. Large-scale
agricultural capital construction and technical transformation
got underway. Unfortunately, the "cultural revolution",
which lasted for ten years (May 1966-October 1976), made
the state and its people suffer the most serious setbacks
and losses since its founding.
The Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary clique was smashed
in October 1976, marking the end of the "cultural revolution",
and the beginning of a new era in Chinese history. The CPC
reinstated Deng Xiaoping, previously general secretary of
the CPC, in all the Party and governmental posts he had
been dismissed from during the "cultural revolution".
In 1979, China instituted a guiding policy of "reform
and opening to the outside world" under Deng's leadership,
and the focus was shifted to modernization. Major efforts
were made to reform the economic and political systems.
China was step by step establishing a road with Chinese
characteristics, a road that would lead to socialist modernization.
Profound changes have come about in China since the country
embarked on the policy of reform and opening-up. The situation
in the country is the best ever, characterized by a swiftly
and vigorously advancing economy and markedly improved living
standard.
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