China

CHINA


 * = Historical Summary

||= Historical Timeline

||= Historical Enemies

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 * Historical Conflicts

|| Map of the Country

|| Flag and Significance ||
 * Traditional Cultures

|| Traditional Clothing

|| Traditional Foods

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= China's flag and meaning =

The flag of China is called wû xīng hóng qí (Five Stars Red Flag) and was most recently adopted on 1 October 1949. Its red background symbolizes revolution. The larger star represents the Chinese Communist Party; the smaller four stars represent the workers, business people, intellectuals, and farmers of the Chinese people. http://online.culturegrams.com/world/world_country.php?contid=3&wmn=Asia&cid=34&cn=China

= ﻿Chinese history =

The Chinese have one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations, spanning some five thousand years. China has long been ruled by dynasties. The first Chinese dynasty was the Xia Dynasty, established around 2000 BC. In more than four thousand years, China experienced at least 28 dynasties with more than five hundred emperors. The first imperial dynasty to unify all of China was the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC). Qin Shi Huang, known as the first emperor of China, built the Great Wall to guard against invading nomadic groups, and was the emperor for whom the famous Terracotta Army was fashioned. The Han Dynasty (206 BC to AD 220) was the second unified imperial dynasty and is considered the first Golden Age of China. The Silk Road, or the trade route between western Asia and Europe, flourished during this time. The Tang Dynasty (AD 618–907) is also considered one of the most prosperous periods in China's history. The Tang emperors, one of whom (Wu Ze Tian) was a woman, appointed foreign scholars as senior officials in the royal court. Literature, the arts, science, technology, and trade all thrived during the Tang Dynasty. China's capital during this time, Chang'an (now Xi'an), was the most populous city in the world, and hosted many foreign students and merchants. Some of the Chinese dynasties were formed by native Han (such as the Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644), and others were established after nomadic tribes from the north conquered China proper (as did the Qing Dynasty, 1644–1911). Nomadic tribes were eventually absorbed into Chinese culture. A revolution inspired by Sun Yat-sen overthrew the Qing Dynasty in 1911. In 1912, with the country fragmented by opposing warlords, Sun Yat-sen established the Kuomintang (KMT) party in an effort to unify China. After Sun's death in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek took control (1927) and ousted the once-allied Communist Party. The Communists, led by Mao Zedong, struggled with the KMT for control of China while both groups fought Japan in World War II. After the Japanese were defeated (1945), the civil war ended with Mao's forces in control and Chiang's army fleeing to Taiwan to regroup. They never returned, and Mao ruled from 1949 to 1976. China still considers Taiwan its 23rd province. In 2009, leaders of China and Taiwan exchanged their first direct messages in more than 60 years. While the Chinese initially welcomed communism, the Great Leap Forward (1958–61) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) had disastrous effects on the country. More than 40 million people starved or were killed during Mao's rule. After Mao died in 1976, Deng Xiaoping came to power and gradually moved away from Maoism. His more moderate policies led to foreign tourism, a more liberal economy, private enterprise, growth, trade, and educational exchanges with other nations. The Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989 and a subsequent government crackdown derailed these measures for a time. By 1992, China was again focusing on economic reform, and it quickly cultivated one of the world's fastest-growing economies. However, Deng did not favor political liberalization. Since Deng's death in 1997, his successors have reiterated his policy of a socialist market economy with a strong central government. Hong Kong (a British colony) reverted to Chinese control in 1997, and China was admitted to the World Trade Organization in 2001. The nation also hosted the 2008 Olympic Games. In 2008, a powerful earthquake in Sichuan Province killed tens of thousands, and months later thousands of children were sickened in a tainted-milk scandal that resulted in a world-wide recall of products. In 2009, ethnic violence flared in the Xinjiang region. In 2010, the web company Google ended its compliance with internet censorship in China after cyber attacks on human rights activists' email accounts. Despite these setbacks, the nation continues to rank among the world's leaders in gross domestic product, exports, and receipt of foreign investment. http://online.culturegrams.com/world/world_country_sections.php?contid=3&wmn=Asia&cid=34&cn=China&sname=History&snid=2

Map of China (regional)
http://www.sinopro.com/images/china_map.gif

Map of China (compared to the world)
http://www.goingtochina.com/files/images/location.gif

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Geography of China
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">With an area of 3,705,407 square miles (9,596,961 square kilometers), China is roughly the same size as the United States. Because mountains or deserts cover much of western China, the majority of the population lives in the east, where rivers and plains allow for productive agriculture. China's other major geographic features differ vastly between regions, ranging from the Himalaya Mountains to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (“the roof of the world”) to subtropical islands. The Great Wall of China stretches 5,488 miles (8,851 kilometers). Some of the world's longest rivers are in China; the Yangtze River runs 3,900 miles (6,300 kilometers). <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">China's climate ranges from sub-arctic in the north to sub-tropical in the south. Monsoons in the southeast cause frequent summer floods that can kill thousands each year. Sandstorms in the north are increasingly common due to desertification. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">China's diverse plant life includes more than 2,800 species of trees, such as metasequoia, bamboo, palm, oak, China fir, evergreen, and China cypress. Deforestation is an increasing problem, especially in the east, as housing developments and industries replace natural forests. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">http://online.culturegrams.com/world/world_country_sections.php?contid=3&wmn=Asia&cid=34&cn=China&sname=Land_and_Climate&snid=1

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Tiananmen Square
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 16px;">Tiananmen Square is a historic area just outside the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. The Forbidden City is a part of Beijing that includes former emperors’ palaces, which today are preserved as a museum. The Forbidden City is so named because, for hundreds of years, only members of the emperor's household could enter it. Tiananmen Square is the area between the Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tiananmen) and the Front Gate (Qianmen). The two gates once marked a walled approach to the Imperial City, which surrounded the Forbidden City. At about 1,000 acres (40 hectares), it is the world’s largest urban public square and a major tourist attraction. Tiananmen Square has been the site of numerous ceremonies, gatherings, and historic events.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 16px;">During much of China’s Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties, the space was used for official events, such as ceremonies for new emperors and empresses. The area was made accessible to the public after the 1911 revolution that led to the creation of the Chinese republic. In May 1919, students gathered at Tiananmen to protest the Versailles Peace Conference, which permitted Japan to keep parts of China seized during World War I (1914-1918). Tiananmen was the site of another demonstration against Japanese aggression in December 1935. Chinese Communist leaders converted the space into an urban public square in the 1950’s. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 16px;">The square has historically been a contested space where the Chinese government has claimed its legitimacy and opponents have challenged its policies. During the mid-1900’s, the Chinese government built a number of Communist landmarks at the square, such as the Monument to the People’s Heroes (completed in 1958) and Mao Zedong Memorial Hall (completed in 1977). During the late 1900’s, as dissatisfaction with the Communist regime grew, Tiananmen Square became the site of new demonstrations. Demonstrators and government forces clashed at the square on April 5, 1976. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 16px;">On April 15, 1989, students in Beijing who were frustrated with rising government corruption and high inflation staged a protest calling for more democracy. The protesters occupied Tiananmen Square and attracted millions of supporters. On June 4, the Chinese military fought their way into Beijing and crushed the movement, killing hundreds of people. After the Falun Gong spiritual sect was outlawed in China in 1999, members of the group protested in Tiananmen Square in search of official recognition. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 16px;">http://www.worldbookonline.com/student/article?id=ar557025&st=tiananmen+square

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Chinese Civil War
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">During World War II it was envisioned that in a two-front war Europe would have to come first, and this judgment that Germany must be defeated before Japan stood as the most important single strategic concept of the war. But it was only after the start of war in Europe did the President accept a war strategy which not only assumed a two-front conflict but also made the European conflict a higher priority than the fight with Japan. This debate during the early 1940s pitted commanders such as MacArthur and Marshall against each other, and these feuds were not forgotten after the end of the war. Long-time rivals, in many ways Marshall and MacArthur represented different viewpoints: moderate conservative versus committed right-winger, Europe-first versus concentration on Asia, and limited war versus total war. Indeed, formulation of policy towards the Soviet Union in what eventually became the Cold War followed the same pattern, ultimately with the same Europe-first conclusion. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">The story of the Chinese civil war is the tale of a failed state in which numerous domestic political and military factions are vying for power, while aggressive foreign powers are impinging on Chinese sovereignty, and at the same time the entire world is plunged into the Great Depression, WWII, and the early stages of the Cold War. Given the huge size of China, in both population and geographic scope, and the chaos that followed the fall of the last dynasty, it is no surprise that this is a very complicated tale. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">The first round of the Chinese civil war was won not by Mao Tse-tung, but by Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang, which broke an alliance of convenience with the Communists on its way to the establishment of a new National government in 1928. By the eve of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the Kuomintang had forced a historic Communist retreat to a barren and remote base area in northwest China. By then, the Red Army had been attrited to a fraction of its former modest size. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">But Mao was developing a theory of revolutionary war that theoretically would take his party from this low point to the fulfillment of its unlimited political objectives. Though Mao never brought together all the strands of his strategic thought in one coherent exposition, three sets of basic ideas emerge from what he did write: first, how to bring about the political mobilization of the peasantry; second, how Communist forces could make a military transition from the strategic defense to the strategic offense in a protracted war; and third, how the process of political mobilization and the actions of the armed forces could interact synergistically to produce victory. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">In this war there proved to be a complicated relationship between theory and reality. Mao was able to take opportunistic advantage of the Japanese invasion and occupation of large parts of China from 1937 to 1945 and also exploit the Soviet defeat of Japanese forces in Manchuria at the end of the Second World War. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">During World War II, the United States emerged as a major actor in Chinese affairs. As an ally it embarked in late 1941 on a program of massive military and financial aid to the hard-pressed Nationalist government. In January 1943 the United States and Britain led the way in revising their treaties with China, bringing to an end a century of unequal treaty relations. Within a few months, a new agreement was signed between the United States and China for the stationing of American troops in China for the common war effort against Japan. In December 1943 the Chinese exclusion acts of the 1880s and subsequent laws enacted by the United States Congress to restrict Chinese immigration into the United States were repealed. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">The wartime policy of the United States was initially to help China become a strong ally and a stabilizing force in postwar East Asia. As the conflict between the Nationalists and the Communists intensified, however, the United States sought unsuccessfully to reconcile the rival forces for a more effective anti-Japanese war effort. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">Toward the end of the war, United States Marines were used to hold Beiping and Tianjin against a possible Soviet incursion, and logistic support was given to Nationalist forces in north and northeast China. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">American policymakers and strategists in the late 1940s debated the extent to which the United States should intervene to try to prevent a Communist victory in the Chinese civil war. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">On 27 November 1945 General of the Army George Catlett Marshall began efforts to mediate a solution to the Chinese civil war. General of the Army George Catlett Marshall, if not America’s greatest soldier, was one of the nation’s most capable and one of the great men of the twentieth century. Marshall had retired as chief of staff in November 1945 at the age of 65. Only days after Marshall left the army, President Harry Truman persuaded him to go to China, as his special representative, to try to mediate the bitter civil war there. After acting as aide-de-camp to General Pershing from 1919 to 1924, and served in China from 1924 to 1927. Nominated for Army chief of staff by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in early 1939, Marshall had served as acting chief for two months and then took full control on September 1, 1939 — the day that World War II began with Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland. As head of the Army, Marshall directed the American military buildup for World War II. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">In December 1945 General Marshall arrived in China with the hope of brokering a cease-fire between the KMT and the CCP, and of building a coalition government that would include all of the contending political/military groups in China. Under Marshall's guidance, the Nationalist and Communist factions established an Executive Headquarters at Peiping, China (also known as Peking or Beijing), in January 1946. The US Army assigned military personnel to the Headquarters to help administer the cease-fire negotiations. U.S. forces were responsible for investigating incidents of violence between Nationalist and Communist forces. The U.S. also helped repatriate Japanese army personnel who had been left in China at the end of World War II. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">Unfortunately for Marshall, neither the Communists (represented by Chou En-lai) nor Chiang Kai-shek’s representatives were willing to compromise on certain fundamental issues or relinquish the territories they had seized in the wake of the Japanese surrender. The Nationalist and Communist officials did not negotiate in good faith and the cease-fire attempts failed after several months. Battles between Nationalists and Communists soon resumed. The truce fell apart in the spring of 1946, although negotiations continued. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">On 08 January 1947 Marshall was recalled, having realized that American efforts short of large-scale armed intervention could not stop the war. Marshall was commissioned as Secretary of State in President Truman's Cabinet, when the U.S. Senate disregarded precedent and unanimously approved the nomination without a hearing on January 8, 1947, making Marshall the first military leader to become the head of the U.S. Department of State. He entered upon his duties January 21, 1947, and served until January 20, 1949. Marshall, as Secretary of State, opposed American intervention in the Chinese Civil war, when others advocated providing military assistance to the Nationalist forces led by Chiang Kai-shek. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">Marshall directed his staff to formulate a program of economic recovery for Europe, which he outlined in a brief but historic address to Harvard University's graduating class on June 5, 1947. He convinced Congress to give Europe $13 billion to help rebuild. This very popular "Marshall Plan" brought hope and peace to many nations. For his great achievement, Marshall received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">The Chinese Civil War, in which the United States aided the Nationalists with massive economic loans but no military support, became more widespread. Battles raged not only for territories but also for the allegiance of cross sections of the population. By using Manchuria as a base of supply and manpower and by accelerating the stages of Mao’s theory, Communists field commanders defeated Kuomintang forces in a series of conventional engagements in the late 1940s and established the People’s Republic of China in October 1949. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">After numerous operational set-backs in Manchuria, especially in attempting to take the major cities, the Communists were ultimately able to seize the region and then focus on the war south of the Great Wall. And yet, even though the balance of power was shifting toward the CCP, there were still numerous opportunities for a negotiated settlement. Stalin actually tried to restrain Mao on several occasions while he gauged American responses to developments in China. After the Huai-hai Campaign, it seemed that the Communists were going to pause on the northern bank of the Yangtze River. Only when it became clear that American and British support for negotiations was lacking, did Stalin give Mao the go-ahead to cross the river. This culminated in the collapse of KMT resistance, which led directly toChiang Kai-shek’s retreat to Taiwan, and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949. The Mandate of Heaven had been withdrawn from Chiang Kai-shek. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">The victory of the Communist forces led by Mao Tsetung (Mao Zedong) in the Chinese civil war cast an ominous pall over world affairs. In that same year, Russia detonated its first atomic bomb, ending the US monopoly over nuclear weapons. The arms race had begun, and the threat of nuclear war thereafter became a constant concern. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">The debate which took place in the United States as a result of the removal of Chiang-Kai-shek to the island of Formosa centered on Republican charges that the Democrats "lost" China. "Without question, the critics had by early 1949 convinced many Americans that Truman was, shockingly, abandoning China, China being equivalent with Chiang's dying order," journalist Robert Donovan wrote in his two-volume history of Truman's presidency. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">In the debate over what to do about the changed military situation in Korea following the second, and massive, Chinese military intervention in late November 1950, Marshall opposed a cease–fire with the Chinese — it would represent a “great weakness on our part”–and added that the United States could not in “all good conscience” abandon the South Koreans. When British Prime Minister Clement Attlee suggested negotiations with the Chinese, Marshall expressed opposition, arguing that it was almost impossible to negotiate with the Chinese Communists; he also expressed fear of the effects on Japan and the Philippines of concessions to the Communists. At the same time Marshall sought ways to avoid a wider war with China. When many in Congress favored an expanded war, Marshall was among the administration leaders who, in February 1951, stressed the paramount importance to the United States of Western Europe. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">On 10 April 1951 President Truman relieved MacArthur of his commands in the Far East. On 09 June 1951 Gen. Douglas MacArthur charged that the post-war Marshall mission to China committed "one of the greatest blunders in American diplomatic history, for which the free world is now paying in blood and disaster." The deposed Far Eastern commander added that the free world "in all probability" will continue to pay this blood price "indefinitely." In June 1951, when Senator Joseph McCarthy demanded the resignations of Acheson and Marshall and threatened Truman with impeachment, he all but called Marshall a Communist. McCarthy, who had earlier accused the Truman administration of harboring Communists, spoke for three hours in the Senate; he released a 60,000-word document reviewing Marshall's career since 1939 and charging him with leading a conspiracy to sacrifice the United States to the intrigues of the Soviet Union. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">The investigation of the Institute of Pacific Relations was the first major investigation initiated by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS). Because of the nature of its investigations, the subcommittee is considered by some to be the Senate equivalent to the older House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The IPR was established in 1925 to provide a forum for discussion of Asian problems and relations between Asia and the West. To promote greater knowledge of the FarEast, the IPR established a large research program, which was supported financially by grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and other major corporations. While the IPR leadership maintained it was a nonpartisan body, others, including some former members, accused it of supporting the Communist line with respect to its analysis of political developments in the Far East. Some people accused the IPR leadership of spying for the Soviet Union. Owen Lattimore, editor of the IPR journal Pacific Affairs, was especially singled out for criticism. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">Amerasia was a journal on Far Eastern affairs, edited by Phillip J. Jaffe and Kate L. Mitchell. Classified documents concerning U.S. policy in China were found in the possession of several defendants. Because the OSS burglarized the office of Amerasia and the homes of several individuals, the evidence was deemed tainted and charges were reduced or dropped. Congressional interest in the case continued however. In 1946, a House Judiciary subcommittee chaired by Rep. Samuel F. Hobbs and, in 1950, the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Investigation of Loyalty of State Department Employees investigated the Amerasia case. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">Two of Marshall's harshest critics were U.S. Senators Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and William Jenner of Indiana. Both men fed the anti-communist hysteria of the era that became known as "McCarthyism." In one Senate speech Jenner said "General George C. Marshall is a living lie" and asserted that "he is eager to play the role of a front man for traitors." An even more vicious assault came from McCarthy, who published two books attacking Marshall's entire career and delivered a 60,000-word Senate speech that accused Marshall of being part of "a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man." <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">US policy toward China during President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration remained essentially what it had been during the Kennedy and Eisenhower administrations--non-recognition of the Peopleâs Republic of China (P.R.C.), support for Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government and its possession of China's seat in the United Nations, and a ban on trade and travel to the PRC. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: normal;">[]#

= China's Timeline =


 * 1840-1842:** This is the time period in which the opium War took place. The opium War was when the British defeated China in South China and forced the terms of the "Treaty of Nanjing" upon the people. During this time period the "Treaty Ports" treaty was established and Hong Kong as ceded to Britain as a colony.
 * 1894-1895:** This is the time period of the Sino-Japanese War. This was a war fought between Japan and China over control of Korea. This war ended when the Chinese sought peace. The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed. This treaty let China recognize Korea as an independent country and ceded the strategic Liaodong Peninsula