Dynastic Period

China is one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations, with written records dating back 3,500 years. Successive dynasties developed a system of bureaucratic control which gave the agrarian-based Chinese an advantage over neighboring nomadic and hill cultures. Chinese civilization was further strengthened by the development of a Confucian 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 civilization and staffed the bureaucracy with Chinese.

Turtle shells with markings reminiscent of ancient Chinese writing from the Shang Dynasty have been carbon-dated to around 1,500 BC. These records suggest that the origins of Chinese civilization started with city-states that may go back more than 5,000 years. 2,000 years ago is commonly used as the date when China became unified under a large kingdom or empire. Successive dynasties developed systems of bureaucratic control that would allow the emperor to control the large territory that would become China Proper.

The forced imposition of a common system of writing by the Qin emperor (200 BC) and the development of a state ideology based on Confucianism (100 BC) marked the foundation of what we now call the Chinese civilization. Politically, China alternated between periods of political unity and disunity, and was occasionally conquered by external groups of people, some eventually being assimilated into the Chinese population. Cultural and political influences from many parts of Asia, carried by successive waves of immigration, merged to create the image of Chinese culture today. 

Prehistoric times

China was inhabited, possibly more than a million years ago, by Homo erectus. The excavations at Yuanmou and later Lantian show early habitation. Perhaps the most famous specimen of Homo erectus found in China is the so-called Peking Man found in 1923. The Homo sapiens or modern human might have reached China about 65,000 years ago from Africa. Early evidence for proto-Chinese rice paddy agriculture is carbon-dated to about 6000 BC, and associated with the Peiligang culture of Xinzheng county, Henan. With agriculture came increased population, the ability to store and redistribute crops, and to support specialist craftsmen and administrators. In late Neolithic times, the Huang He valley began to establish itself as a cultural center, where the first villages were founded; the most archaeologically significant of those was found at Banpo, Xi'an.

Ancient history 

Archaeological sites such as Sanxingdui and Erlitou show evidence of a Bronze Age civilization in China. The earliest written record of China's past dates from the Shang Dynasty in perhaps the 13th century BC, and takes the form of inscriptions of divination records on the bones or shells of animals—the so-called oracle bones. However the earliest comprehensive history of China, the Historical Records by Sima Qian, a renowned Chinese historiographer of the 2nd century BC, begins perhaps 1300 years earlier, with an account of the Five Emperors (三皇五帝). These rulers were semi-mythical sage-kings and moral exemplars, and one of them, the Yellow Emperor, is said to be the ancestor of all Chinese people.

Sima Qian relates that the system of inherited rulership was established during the following early period called the Xia Dynasty, and that this model was perpetuated in the recorded Shang and Zhou dynasties. It is during this period of the Three Dynasties (Chinese: 三代; pinyin: sāndài) that the historical China begins to appear.

Xia Dynasty

Sima Qian's account dates the founding of the Xia Dynasty (夏朝) to some 4,000 years ago, but this date has not been corroborated. Some archaeologists connect the Xia to excavations at Erlitou in central Henan province, where a bronze smelter from around 2000 BC was unearthed. Early markings from this period, found on pottery and shells, have been alleged to be ancestors of modern Chinese characters, but such claims have not been accepted by many scholars. Proof of Xia's existence still requires further archaeological discovery. With no clear written records to match the Shang oracle bones or the Zhou bronze vessel writings, the Xia era remains poorly understood.

Shang Dynasty

Archaeological findings providing evidence for the existence of the Shang Dynasty (商朝), c 1600–1046 BC is divided into two sets. The first, from the earlier Shang period (c 1600–1300) comes from sources at Erligang, Zhengzhou and Shangcheng. The second set, from the later Shang or Yin period, consists of a large body of oracle bone writings. Anyang in modern day Henan has been confirmed as the last of the six capitals of the Shang (c 1300–1046 BC).

Chinese historians living in later periods were accustomed to the notion of one dynasty succeeding another, but the actual political situation in early China is known to have been much more complicated. Hence, as some scholars of China suggest, the Xia and the Shang can possibly refer to political entities that existed concurrently, just as the early Zhou (successor state of the Shang), is known to have existed at the same time as the Shang.

Zhou Dynasty

By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Zhou Dynasty (周朝) began to emerge in the Huanghe valley, overrunning the Shang. The Zhou appeared to have begun their rule under a semi-feudal system. Near the end of this dynasty, power became decentralized during the Spring and Autumn Period when regional feudal lords began to assert their power, absorb smaller powers, and vie for hegemony. The Hundred Schools of Thought of Chinese philosophy blossomed during this period and such influential intellectual movements as Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism and Mohism were founded. After further political consolidation, seven prominent states remained by the end of 5th century BC, and the years in which these few states battled each other is known as the Warring States period. Though there remained a nominal Zhou king until 256 BC, he was largely a figurehead and held little real power.

As neighboring territories of these warring states, including areas of modern Sichuan and Liaoning, were annexed, they were governed under the new local administrative system of commandery and prefecture (郡縣). This system had been in use since the Spring and Autumn Period and parts can still be seen in the modern system of Sheng & Xian (province and county). The final expansion in this period began during the reign of Ying Zheng, the king of Qin. His unification of the other six powers, and further annexations in the modern regions of Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi in 214 BC enabled him to proclaim himself the First Emperor (Shi Huangdi).

 Qin Dynasty: The first Chinese Empire

The Qin empire in 210 BC.Though the unified reign of the Qin (秦) Emperor lasted only twelve years, he managed to subdue great parts of what constitutes the core of the Han Chinese homeland and to unite them under a tightly centralized Legalist government seated at Xianyang (in modern Xi'an). 

His sons, however, were not as successful; as soon as the Qin reign ended, the Qin imperial structure collapsed. The Qin Dynasty is well known for building the Great Wall of China, which would later be augmented and enhanced during the Ming Dynasty.

The English word China was derived from the porcelain or ceramic ware originally made in China. The phonetic derivative was most probably introduced into the English language from Persian or Sanskrit terms for "Chinese People" ultimately derived from 秦 qín (pronounced similarly to "chin".)

Han Dynasty: A period of prosperity

The Han Dynasty (漢朝) emerged in 202 BC. It was the first dynasty to embrace the philosophy of Confucianism, which became the ideological underpinning of all regimes until the end of imperial China. Under the Han Dynasty, China made great advances in many areas of the arts and sciences. Emperor Wu (Han Wudi) consolidated and extended the Chinese empire by pushing back the Xiongnu (sometimes identified with the Huns) into the steppes of modern Inner Mongolia, wresting from them the modern areas of Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai. This enabled the first opening of trading connections between China and the West, the Silk Road.

Nevertheless, land acquisitions by elite families gradually drained the tax base. In AD 9, the usurper Wang Mang founded the short-lived Xin ("New") Dynasty and started an extensive program of land and other economic reforms. These programs, however, were never supported by the land-holding families, for they favored the peasant and lesser gentry, and the instability they produced brought on chaos and uprisings.

Emperor Guangwu reinstated the Han Dynasty with the support of land-holding and merchant families at Luoyang, east of Xi'an. This new era would be termed the Eastern Han Dynasty (東漢朝). Han power declined again amidst land acquisitions, invasions, and feuding between consort clans and eunuchs. The Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out in 184, ushering in an era of warlords. In the ensuing turmoil, three states tried to gain predominance in the Period of the Three Kingdoms (三国). This time period has been greatly romanticized in works such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Jin, the Sixteen Kingdoms, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties

Though these three kingdoms were reunited temporarily in 280 by the (Western) Jin Dynasty (晉朝), the contemporary non-Han Chinese (Wu Hu) ethnic groups controlled much of the country in the early 4th century and provoked large-scale Han Chinese migrations to south of the Yangtze River. In 303 the Di people rebelled and later captured Chengdu. Under Liu Yuan the Xiongnu rebelled near today's Linfen County. His successor Liu Cong captured and executed the last two Western Jin emperors. Sixteen kingdoms were established by these ethnic groups. The chaotic north was temporarily unified by Fu Jian who was defeated at the Battle of Feishui when he attempted to invade the south of China. Later on, Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei reunified the north again, marking the beginning of the Northern Dynasties, a sequence of local regimes ruling over the regions north of Yangtze.

Along with the refugees from the North, Emperor Yuan of Jin China reinstated the Jin regime at Nanjing in the south. From this came the sequence of Southern dynasties of Song, Qi, Liang and Chen, which all had their capitals at Jiankang (near today's Nanjing). As China was ruled by two independent dynasties, one in the south and the other in the north, this is called the era of Southern and Northern Dynasties (南北朝).

Sui Dynasty: Reunification

The Sui Dynasty (隋朝) managed to reunite the country in 589 after almost 300 years of disjunction.

The unification is the second shortest dynasty in the history of China after Qin Dynasty, and during this time, millions laboured on the Grand Canal of China, still the longest canal in the world to date.

Tang Dynasty: Return to prosperity

On June 18, 618, Gaozu took the throne, and the Tang Dynasty (唐朝) was established, opening a new age of prosperity and innovations in arts and technology. Buddhism, which had gradually been established in China from the first century, became the predominant religion and was adopted by the royal family and many of the common people.

Chang'an (modern Xi'an), the national capital, is thought to have been the world's biggest city at the time. The Tang and Han are often referred to as the most prosperous periods of Chinese history.

The Tang, like the Han, kept the trade routes open to the west and south and there was extensive trade with distant foreign countries and many foreign merchants settled in China.

From about 860 the Tang Dynasty began to decline due to a series of rebellions within China itself, and in the previously subject Kingdom of Nanzhao to the south. One of the warlords, Huang Chao, captured Canton in 879, killing most of the 200,000 inhabitants including most of the large colony of foreign merchant families there. In late 880 Luoyang surrendered to him and on 5 January, 881 he conquered Changan. The emperor Xizong fled to Chengdu and Huang established a new dynasty. Another time of political chaos followed: the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period.

Song Dynasty and its northern neighbors, the Liao and the Jin

In 960, the Song Dynasty (960-1279) (宋朝) gained power over most of China and established its capital in Kaifeng, establishing a period of economic prosperity, while the Khitan Liao Dynasty (辽朝) ruled over Manchuria and eastern Mongolia. In 1115 the Jurchen Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) (金朝) emerged to prominence, annihilating the Liao Dynasty in 10 years. It also took power over northern China and Kaifeng from the Song Dynasty, which moved its capital to Hangzhou. The Southern Song Dynasty also suffered the humiliation of having to acknowledge the Jin Dynasty as formal overlords. In the ensuing years China was divided between the Song Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty, and the Tangut Western Xia. Southern Song was a period of great technological development which can be explained in part by the military pressure that it felt from the north.

Mongols and the Yuan Dynasty

(元朝) The Jin Dynasty was defeated by the Mongols, who then proceeded to defeat the Southern Song in a long and bloody war — the first war ever where firearms played an important role. Some estimate that about half the population, i.e. 50 million Han Chinese people may have perished in total as a result of the Mongols' invasion and conquest. During the era after the war, called the Pax Mongolica, adventurous Westerners such as Marco Polo travelled all the way to China and brought the first reports of its wonders to their unbelieving compatriots in Europe. In China, the Mongols were divided between those who wanted to remain focused on the steppes, and those who wished to adopt the customs of those whom they conquered.

Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, wanting to adopt Han Chinese customs, established the Yuan Dynasty. This was the first dynasty to rule the whole of China from Beijing as the capital. Beijing had been ceded to Liao in AD 938 with the 16 Prefectures of Yan Yun (燕雲十六州); though before that, it had been the capital of the Jin, who did not rule all of China.

Ming Dynasty: Revival of Chinese culture

Among the populace, however, there was strong sentiment against the rule of the "foreigner" (known as Dázi 韃子), which finally led to peasant revolts; Mongolian rule was pushed back to the steppes and replaced by the Ming Dynasty (明朝) in 1368. Ming means "bright" in Chinese, and the period was important especially in the arts. This dynasty started as a time of renewed cultural blossoming: Arts, especially the porcelain industry, reached an unprecedented height; Chinese merchants explored all of the Indian Ocean, reaching East Africa with the voyages of Zheng He (original name Ma Sanbao 馬三保). A vast navy was built, including four-masted ships displacing 1,500 tons; there was a standing army of 1 million troops (some estimate as many as 1.9 million). Over 100,000 tons of iron per year were produced. Many books were printed using movable type. The imperial palace in Beijing's Forbidden City reached its current splendor largely through the efforts of Ming architects. This was a stable period, and the population numbered some 100 million. The Ming period seems to have been one of China's most prosperous. Some would argue that Ming was the most advanced nation on Earth.

It was also during these centuries that the great potential of south China came to be fully exploited. New crops such as maize, cotton, and sweet potato were widely cultivated, and industries such as those producing porcelain and textiles flourished.

Another accomplishment of the Ming was the final and lasting construction of the Great Wall. While the Great Wall had been built in earlier times, most of what is seen today was either built or repaired by the Ming. The brick and granite work was enlarged, the watch towers were redesigned, and cannon were placed along its length.

Zhu Yuanzhang or (Hong-wu), the founder of the dynasty, laid the foundations for a state interested less in commerce and more in extracting revenues from the agricultural sector. Perhaps because of the Emperor's background as a peasant, the Ming economic system emphasized agriculture, unlike that of the Song, which had preceded the Mongolian and relied on traders and merchants for revenue. Neo-feudal landholdings of the Song and Mongol periods were expropriated with the establishment of the Ming. Great landed estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented, and rented out; and private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after the death of Emperor Yong-le, independent peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture. These laws might have paved the way to social harmony and removed the worst of the poverty during the previous regimes. The laws against the merchants and the restrictions under which the craftsmen worked, remained essentially as they had been under the Song, but now the remnants of the older foreign merchant class also fell under these new Ming laws, and their influence quickly dwindled.

The dynasty is best known for its strong and complex central government that unified and controlled the empire. Ironically, it was this same complexity that later prevented the Ming government from being able to adapt to changes in society, and eventually led to its decline.

The emperor's role became more autocratic, although Zhu Yuanzhang necessarily continued to use what he called the "Grand Secretaries" to assist with the immense paperwork of the bureaucracy, including memorials (petitions and recommendations to the throne), imperial edicts in reply, reports of various kinds, and tax records.

During Mongol rule, the population had dropped by 40 percent, to an estimated 60 million. Two centuries later, it had doubled. Urbanization thus progressed as population grew and as the division of labor grew more intricate. Large urban centers, such as Nanjing and Beijing, also contributed to the growth of private industry. In particular, small-scale industries grew up, often specializing in paper, silk, cotton, and porcelain goods. For the most part, however, relatively small urban centers with markets proliferated around the country, rather than growth being concentrated in a few large cities. Town markets mainly traded food, with some necessary manufactures such as pins or oil.

Zheng He's exploration

Despite the xenophobia and intellectual introspection characteristic of the increasingly popular new school of neo-Confucianism, China under the early Ming Dynasty was not isolated; foreign trade and other contacts with the outside world, particularly Japan, increased considerably. Emperor Yong-le strenuously tried to extend China's influence beyond her borders, by encouraging other rulers to send ambassadors to China to present tribute. The Chinese armies conquered Annam while the Chinese fleet sailed the China seas and the Indian Ocean, cruising as far as the east coast of Africa. The Chinese gained a certain influence over Turkestan. The maritime Asian nations sent envoys with tribute for the Chinese emperor. Domestically, the Grand Canal was expanded to its farthest limits, and proved to be a stimulus to domestic trade.

The most extraordinary venture during this stage, however, was the dispatch of Zheng He's seven naval expeditions, which traversed the Indian Ocean and the Southeast Asian archipelago. An ambitious Muslim eunuch of Mongol descent and a quintessential outsider in the establishment of Confucian scholar elites, Zheng He led seven maritime expeditions from 1405 to 1433, with six of them under the auspices of Emperor Yong-le, probing into the South Seas, across the Indian Ocean, and perhaps as far as the Cape of Good Hope. His appointment in 1403 to lead a sea-faring task force was a triumph of the commercial lobbies that sought to stimulate conventional trade, not mercantilism. The interests of the commercial lobbies and those of the religious lobbies were also linked; both were in conflict with the neo-Confucian sensibilities of the scholarly elite. The first expedition in 1405 consisted of 63 gigantic ships, ranging from 200 feet to 625 feet in length, according to the historian Sir Joseph Needham. And with a contingent of 28,000 men, it was one of the largest naval expeditions in history. Zheng He's 400-600 ft multi-decked ships, termed baochuan "treasure ships", carried at least 500 troops if not more, but also tons of cargo: usually export goods, mainly silks and porcelains, but they also returned with foreign luxuries such as spices, tropical woods, and a giraffe -- from the Chinese travels to East Africa. When the giraffe arrived in Beijing, the emperor went out to greet it in great state. He is reported to have said:

This event is due to the abundant virtue of the late Emperor, my father, and also to the assistance rendered me by my Ministers. That is why distant people arrive in uninterrupted succession. From now on it behoves Us even more than in the past to cling to virtue and it behoves you to remonstrate with Us about Our shortcomings.

By the end of the 15th century, Chinese imperial subjects were forbidden from building ocean-going ships, or even from leaving the country. The aim behind the legislation was to protect the country against pirates, but it also reflected the waning power of commercial interests and of the eunuchs of the court. In any case, the restrictions on emigration and ship-building were largely lifted by the mid-17th century.

Qing Dynasty

The last dynasty was established in 1644 when the nomadic Manchus overthrew the native Ming dynasty and established the Qing (Ch'ing) 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 Tibet Mongolia and Taiwan. The success of the early Qing period was based on the combination of Manchu martial prowess and traditional Chinese bureaucratic skills.  

An 1875 map of China proper by Milner (Thomas)The Qing Dynasty (清朝, 1644–1911) was founded after the defeat of the Ming, the last Han Chinese dynasty, by the Manchus, formerly known as the Jurchen, who invaded from the north in the late seventeenth century. For many decades, historians played down the differences between the Manchu rulers and their Chinese subjects. Even though the Manchus started out as alien conquerors, they quickly adopted the Confucian norms of traditional Chinese government, in effect becoming honorary Chinese as they ruled in the manner of traditional native dynasties.

The Manchus antagonized the Han Chinese as a result of enforcing the 'queue order' forcing the Han Chinese to adopt the Manchu hairstyle (the pigtail) and Manchu-style clothing. During the 268 years of Manchu rule, numerous Chinese rebellions had occurred because of the strict rule of hair cutting. The Manchus had a special hair style: the infamous "queue". They cut hair off the front of their heads and made the remaining hair into a long pigtail. The penalty for not complying was death. The traditional Chinese clothing, or Hanfu was also replaced by Manchu-style clothing. Qipao (or Chinese dress ) and Tangzhuang, usually regarded as traditional Chinese clothing nowadays, are actually Manchu-style clothing.

The Manchus edited and forged the history of the former dynasty, Ming Shi (History of the Ming Dynasty). One good example would be the claim that Zhang Xianzhong, who was killed in 1646, had made a stone monument entitled "seven killings". Manchu historians tried to cover up their slaughter of Sichuan Chinese, as well as to legitimize Manchu rule over China. To be noted would be the dramatic population drop during the Ming–Qing dynastic transition: In 1620, the first year of Ming Emperor Guangzong's Taichang Era, China boasted a population of 51.66 million people, but in 1651, the eighth year of Qing Emperor Shizu's Shunzhi Era, China had only 10.63 million people. The conclusion is that China's brave men had fallen in martyrdom in the resistance to the Manchu invasion.

To further suppress the Chinese intellectuals, Manchu emperors, like the Qianlong Emperor, resorted to "literary inquisition" --i.e. Wen Zi Yu (imprisonment due to writings) -- for controlling the minds and thoughts of Chinese. Wen Zi Yu forbade political writings. Many people died from Wen Zi Yu without even having written anything politically provocative. The Manchu forbade the assembly of scholars or intellectuals into societies, and moreover advocated the "eight-part essay" [i.e. stereotyped essay] as the format for imperial civil service exams.

Emperor Kangxi commanded the most complete dictionary of Chinese characters ever put together at the time, and under Emperor Qianlong, the compilation of a catalogue of the important works on Chinese culture was made. Tens of thousands of books viewed by the Manchu emperors as politically unacceptable were destroyed while compiling the catalogue.

The Manchu also adopted predatory methods of land deprivation. They set up the "Eight Banners" system in an attempt to avoid the possibility of being assimilated into Chinese society. "Eight Banners" were military institutions, set up to provide a structure with which the Manchu "bannermen" were meant to identify. Banner membership was to be based on traditional Manchu skills such as archery, horsemanship, and frugality. In addition, they were encouraged to use the Manchu language, rather than Chinese. Bannermen were given economic and legal privileges in Chinese cities, meaning that they could often avoid working because they had an "iron rice bowl of privilege".

Over the next half-century, the Manchus consolidated control of some areas originally under the Ming, including Yunnan, and further stretched their sphere of influence over Xinjiang, Tibet and Mongolia.

 In this famous French political cartoon, China is being divided by the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, France, and JapanDuring the 19th century, Qing control weakened. China suffered massive social strife, economic stagnation, explosive population growth, and Western penetration and influence. 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 war; Britain and other Western powers, including the United States, thereupon forcibly occupied "concessions" and gained special commercial privileges. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking. In addition, the Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864) and the Nian Rebellion occurred. 

The 2 Opium wars and the opium trade were costly outcomes for the Chinese, not just in monetary terms but also in terms of social cost. The Manchu Imperial treasury had been declared bankrupt twice arising from indemnities incurred in the Opium wars, and a large outflow of silver due to opium trade (in tens of billions of ounces). China's wealth was, in this case, simply sucked dry. China suffered two extreme famines exactly twenty years after each opium war in the 1860s and 1880s, and the Manchu imperial authority literally left the general population to fend for themselves -- even during the Taiping insurrection of the 1860s. To a great extent, the whole countryside was devoid of vegetation, and widespread cannibalism was even reported. Socially it had been crippling. Of the 400 million in China then, 300 million were children -- and the remaining 100 million, adults. Fully a third of these adults were serious opium addicts. With this in mind, the pressure on the remaining 67 million sober adults -- having to support the entire Chinese population -- was immense. As result, the country was in semi-anarchy.

This situation has been far-reaching for the generations that followed, and even now. China remains poor and has never fully recovered from such a purge. A sizable outflow of able-bodied population left China to look for living. Some returned, and others settled in Europe, North America and Southeast Asia. These people are the ancestors of most of the 40 million overseas Chinese today.

(捻軍起義) (1853-1868), along with Russian-supported Muslim separatist movements in Gansu province and Chinese Turkestan (i.e. Xinjiang province), drained Chinese resources and almost toppled the dynasty. Indeed the largest rebellion, the Taiping Rebellion, involved around a third of China falling under control of the Taiping Tianguo, ruled by the "Heavenly King" Hong Xiuquan. Only after almost fourteen years were the Taipings finally crushed - the Taiping army was destroyed in the Third Battle of Nanking in 1864. In total between twenty million and fifty million lives had been lost, making it the second deadliest war in human history -- surpassed only by the Second World War. Imperial unity and strength was seriously impacted, and the decline of the Qing Dynasty towards terminal collapse became inevitable.

China's problems were compounded by the Manchus' policies of suppressing Han Chinese. Manchu officials were slow to adopt modernity, and suspicious of social and technological advances that they viewed as a threat to their absolute control over China. (Gunpowder had been widely used by the army of the Song and Ming Dynasties, then forbidden by the Manchu rulers after they took over China.) Therefore, the dynasty was ill-equipped to handle the Western encroachment. Western powers did intervene militarily to quell domestic chaos, such as the horrific Taiping Rebellion and the anti-imperialist Boxer Rebellion. General Gordon, later killed in the siege of Khartoum, Sudan, was often credited with having saved the Manchu dynasty from the Taiping insurrection. 

By the 1860s, the Qing Dynasty had put down the rebellions at enormous cost and loss of life. Further, the suppression of the rebellions was achieved chiefly by armies commanded or advised by western leaders -- thus undermining the credibility of the Qing regime -- and by local initiatives spearheaded by provincial leaders and gentry, that decentralized authority within the Empire and contributed to the rise of warlordism in China. The Qing Dynasty then proceeded to deal with the problem of modernization, through the Self-Strengthening Movement. However, the Empress Dowager, with the help of conservatives, initiated a military coup, effectively removed the young Emperor from power, and overturned most of the more radical reforms. Official corruption, cynicism, and imperial family quarrels made most of the military reforms useless. Some of China's new battleships didn't even have gunpowder, because the officials in charge had embezzled the maintenance money, and a huge amount of the capital had been spent to construct the Summer Palace, Yiheyuan. As a result, the Qing's "New Armies" were soundly defeated in the Sino-French War (1883-1885) and the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895).

At the start of the 20th century, the Qing Dynasty was in shambles. Corruption was rampant and population growth had impoverished the people. The Qing court was dominated by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative figure who resisted most efforts at reform. The reformist Emperor Guangxu died one day before the death of Cixi (some believe Guangxu was poisoned by Cixi). 

Frustrated by the Qing court's resistance to reform young officials military officers and students--inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yat-sen--began to advocate the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and creation of a republic. A revolutionary military uprising on October 10 1911 led to the abdication of the last Qing monarch. As part of a compromise to overthrow the dynasty without a civil war the revolutionaries and reformers allowed high Qing officials to retain prominent positions in the new republic. One of these figures General Yuan Shikai was chosen as the republic's first president. Before his death in 1916 Yuan unsuccessfully attempted to name himself emperor. His death left the republican government all but shattered ushering in the era of the "warlords" during which China was ruled and ravaged by shifting coalitions of competing provincial military leaders.

In the 1920s Sun Yat-sen established a revolutionary base in south China and set out to unite the fragmented nation. With Soviet assistance he organized the Kuomintang (KMT or "Chinese Nationalist People's Party") and entered into an alliance with the fledgling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After Sun's death in 1925 one of his proteges Chiang Kai-shek seized control of the KMT and succeeded in bringing most of south and central China under its rule. In 1927 Chiang turned on the CCP and executed many of its leaders. The remnants fled into the mountains of eastern China. In 1934 driven out of their mountain bases the CCP's forces embarked on a "Long March" across China's most desolate terrain to the northwest where they established a guerrilla base at Yan'an in Shaanxi Province.

During the "Long March the Communists reorganized under a new leader, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung). The bitter struggle between the KMT and the CCP continued openly or clandestinely through the 14-year long Japanese invasion (1931-45), even though the two parties nominally formed a united front to oppose the Japanese invaders in 1937. The war between the two parties resumed after the Japanese defeat in 1945. By 1949, the CCP occupied most of the country.

Chiang Kai-shek fled with the remnants of his KMT government and military forces to Taiwan, where he proclaimed Taipei to be China's provisional capital" and vowed to reconquer the Chinese mainland. The KMT authorities on Taiwan still call themselves the "Republic of China."

The People's Republic of China

In Beijing on October 1 1949 Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China. The new government assumed control of a people exhausted by two generations of war and social conflict and an economy ravaged by high inflation and disrupted transportation links. A new political and economic order modeled on the Soviet example was quickly installed.

In the early 1950s China undertook a massive economic and social reconstruction. The new leaders gained popular support by curbing inflation restoring the economy and rebuilding many war-damaged industrial plants. The CCP's authority reached into almost every phase of Chinese life. Party control was assured by large politically loyal security and military forces; a government apparatus responsive to party direction; and ranks of party members in labor women's and other mass organizations.

The "Great Leap Forward" and the Sino-Soviet Split

In 1958 Mao broke with the Soviet model and announced a new economic program the "Great Leap Forward aimed at rapidly raising industrial and agricultural production. Giant cooperatives (communes) were formed, and backyard factories" dotted the Chinese landscape. The results were disastrous. Normal market mechanisms were disrupted agricultural production fell behind and China's people exhausted themselves producing what turned out to be shoddy unsalable goods. Within a year starvation appeared even in fertile agricultural areas. From 1960 to 1961 the combination of poor planning during the Great Leap Forward and bad weather resulted in famine.

The already strained Sino-Soviet relationship deteriorated sharply in 1959 when the Soviets started to restrict the flow of scientific and technological information to China. The dispute escalated and the Soviets withdrew all of their personnel from China in August 1960. In 1960 the Soviets and the Chinese began to have disputes openly in international forums.

The Cultural Revolution

In the early 1960s State President Liu Shaoqi and his protege Party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping took over direction of the party and adopted pragmatic economic policies at odds with Mao's revolutionary vision. Dissatisfied with China's new direction and his own reduced authority Party Chairman Mao launched a massive political attack on Liu Deng and other pragmatists in the spring of 1966. The new movement the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was unprecedented in Communist history. For the first time, a section of the Chinese Communist leadership sought to rally popular opposition against another leadership group. China was set on a course of political and social anarchy which lasted the better part of a decade.

In the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, Mao and his closest comrade in arms National Defense Minister Lin Biao, charged Liu, Deng, and other top party leaders with dragging China back toward capitalism. Radical youth organizations, called Red Guards, attacked party and state organizations at all levels, seeking out leaders who would not bend to the radical wind. In reaction to this turmoil, some local People's Liberation Army (PLA) commanders and other officials maneuvered to outwardly back Mao and the radicals while actually taking steps to rein in local radical activity.

Gradually, Red Guard and other radical activity subsided, and the Chinese political situation stabilized along complex factional lines. The leadership conflict came to a head in September 1971, when Party Vice Chairman and Defense Minister Lin Biao reportedly tried to stage a coup against Mao; Lin Biao allegedly later died in a plane crash in Mongolia.

In the aftermath of the Lin Biao incident, many officials criticized and dismissed during 1966-69 were reinstated. Chief among these was Deng Xiaoping, who reemerged in 1973 and was confirmed in 1975 in the concurrent posts of Politburo Standing Committee member, PLA Chief of Staff, and Vice Premier.

The ideological struggle between more pragmatic, veteran party officials and the radicals re-emerged with a vengeance in late 1975. Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, and three close Cultural Revolution associates (later dubbed the Gang of Four") launched a media campaign against Deng. In January of 1976 Premier Zhou Enlai a popular political figure died of cancer. On April 5 Beijing citizens staged a spontaneous demonstration in Tiananmen Square in Zhou's memory with strong political overtones in support of Deng. The authorities forcibly suppressed the demonstration. Deng was blamed for the disorder and stripped of all official positions although he retained his party membership.

The Post-Mao Era

Mao's death in September 1976 removed a towering figure from Chinese politics and set off a scramble for succession. Former Minister of Pubic Security Hua Guofeng was quickly confirmed as Party Chairman and Premier. A month after Mao's death Hua backed by the PLA arrested Jiang Qing and other members of the "Gang of Four." After extensive deliberations the Chinese Communist Party leadership reinstated Deng Xiaoping to all of his previous posts at the 11th Party Congress in August 1977. Deng then led the effort to place government control in the hands of veteran party officials opposed to the radical excesses of the previous two decades.

The new pragmatic leadership emphasized economic development and renounced mass political movements. At the pivotal December 1978 Third Plenum (of the 11th Party Congress Central Committee) the leadership adopted economic reform policies aimed at expanding rural income and incentives encouraging experiments in enterprise autonomy reducing central planning and establishing direct foreign investment in China. The plenum also decided to accelerate the pace of legal reform culminating in the passage of several new legal codes by the National People's Congress in June 1979.

After 1979 the Chinese leadership moved toward more pragmatic positions in almost all fields. The party encouraged artists writers and journalists to adopt more critical approaches although open attacks on party authority were not permitted. In late 1980 Mao's Cultural Revolution was officially proclaimed a catastrophe. Hua Guofeng a protege of Mao was replaced as Premier in 1980 by reformist Sichuan party chief Zhao Ziyang and as party General Secretary in 1981 by the even more reformist Communist Youth League chairman Hu Yaobang.

Reform policies brought great improvements in the standard of living especially for urban workers and for farmers who took advantage of opportunities to diversify crops and establish village industries. Literature and the arts blossomed and Chinese intellectuals established extensive links with scholars in other countries.

At the same time however political dissent as well as social problems such as inflation urban migration and prostitution emerged. Although students and intellectuals urged greater reforms some party elders increasingly questioned the pace and the ultimate goals of the reform program. In December of 1986 student demonstrators taking advantage of the loosening political atmosphere staged protests against the slow pace of reform confirming party elders' fear that the current reform program was leading to social instability. Hu Yaobang a protege of Deng and a leading advocate of reform was blamed for the protests and forced to resign as CCP General Secretary in January 1987. Premier Zhao Ziyang was made General Secretary and Li Peng former Vice Premier and Minister of Electric Power and Water Conservancy was made Premier.

1989 Student Movement and Tiananmen Square

After Zhao became the party General Secretary the economic and political reforms he had championed came under increasing attack. His proposal in May 1988 to accelerate price reform led to widespread popular complaints about rampant inflation and gave opponents of rapid reform the opening to call for greater centralization of economic controls and stricter prohibitions against Western influence. This precipitated a political debate which grew more heated through the winter of 1988-89.

The death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 1989 coupled with growing economic hardship caused by high inflation provided the backdrop for a large scale protest movement by students intellectuals and other parts of a disaffected urban population. University students and other citizens in Beijing camped out at Tiananmen Square to mourn Hu's death and to protest against those who would slow reform. Their protests which grew despite government efforts to contain them called for an end to official corruption and for defense of freedoms guaranteed by the Chinese Constitution. Protests also spread through many other cities including Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Martial law was declared on May 20 1989. Late on July 3 and early on the morning of June 4 military units were brought into Beijing. They used armed force to clear demonstrators from the streets. There are no official estimates of deaths in Beijing but most observers believe that casualties numbered in the hundreds.

After June 4 while foreign governments expressed horror at the brutal suppression of the demonstrators the central government eliminated remaining sources of organized opposition detained large numbers of protesters and required political reeducation not only for students but also for large numbers of party cadre and government officials.

Following the resurgence of conservatives in the aftermath of June 4 economic reform slowed until given new impetus by Deng Xiaoping's dramatic visit to southern China in early 1992. Deng's renewed push for a market-oriented economy received official sanction at the 14th Party Congress later in the year as a number of younger reform-minded leaders began their rise to top positions. Deng and his supporters argued that managing the economy in a way that increased living standards should be China's primary policy objective even if "capitalist" measures were adopted. Subsequent to the visit the Communist Party Politburo publicly issued an endorsement of Deng's policies of economic openness. Though not completely eschewing political reform China has consistently placed overwhelming priority on the opening of its economy.

Third Generation of Leaders

Deng's health deteriorated in the years prior to his death in 1997. During that time President Jiang Zemin and other members of his generation gradually assumed control of the day-to-day functions of government. This "third generation" leadership governs collectively with President Jiang at the center.

In March 1998 Jiang was re-elected President during the 9th National People's Congress. Premier Li Peng was constitutionally required to step down from that post. He was elected to the chairmanship of the National People's Congress. Zhu Rongji was selected to replace Li as Premier.

China is firmly committed to economic reform and opening to the outside world. The Chinese leadership has identified reform of state industries as a government priority. Government strategies for achieving that goal include large-scale privatization of unprofitable state-owned enterprises. The leadership has also downsized the government bureaucracy.