History of China

China is the oldest continuous major world civilization, 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 neighboring nomadic and hill cultures. Chinese civilization was further strengthened by the development of a state ideology based on Confucianism and a common written Chinese 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.

Prehistoric Time

China was inhabited more than 1,000,000 years ago by Homo erectus. Modern humans probably reached China about 75,000 years ago. The excavations of Lantian and Yuanmou show early habitation. In neolithic times, the Huang he valley began to establish itself as a cultural center, where the first villages were founded (as the one excavated at Banpo near Xian).

Ancient Chinese History

Chinese historiographers traditionally began their accounts of Chinese history with the foundation of the Xia Dynasty in the 21st century B.C., followed by the Shang Dynasty half a millennium later, but the reliability of these accounts is at issue, since they were written many centuries after the related events. Archaeological findings provide evidence for the existence of at least the Shang dynasty, however. Shang China had an advanced culture somewhat different from later Chinese civilization, with writing, bronze working, and chariots, the last suggesting possible influence from western migrants akin to the contemporary Hittites and Indo-Aryans.

Furthermore Imperial Chinese historiographers were accustomed to the notion of one dynasty succeeding each other, while the actual political situation in early China is known to be much more complicated. It is therefore quite possible that the Xia Dynasty and the Shang Dynasty refers to political entities that existed at the same time just as the Chou Dynasty and the successor state to the Shang Dynasty existed at the same time.

In the 2nd millennium B.C. a second culture began to emerge in the Huanghe valley, overrunning the Shang, and the existence of the Chou dynasty, instituted in the 11th century B.C., is the first for which there is a reliable historical tradition. Although the Chou dynasty appears to have began as a centralized dynasty, power became decentralized. Some historians have termed this system feudal, while others have objected to the term feudal as it tends to stretch the extent of the term feudalism into meaninglessness, and it implies similarities with European feudalism which may not exist.

This period of decentralization is known as the Spring and Autumn Period from the annals which chronicle it. During the Spring and Autumn Period there was consolidation as larger states defeated and absorbed smaller states. This period was an important one for Chinese philosophy and culture as it marked the era in which Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism and Mohism were born. As the political consolidation continued, there remained seven states, and the period in which these few states battled each other is known as the Period of the Warring States. Though there still was a Chou emperor until 256 B.C., he held no power whatsoever.

The Chinese Empire

In the 220s B.C., the prince Zheng of Qin (Qin wang zheng) managed to overwhelm the state of Chu, the biggest of the Warring States and then proceeded to conquer the remaining states. Zheng proclaimed himself First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty (Qin Shi Huang Di). Though his reign lasted only 11 years, he managed to subdue great parts of what constitutes present-day China and to unite them under a tight centralized government seated in Xianyang (near Xian). His sons, however, weren't as successful and soon the Qin dynasty ended and the Han Dynasty took over the power.

It was the first dynasty to embrace Confucianism, which became the ideological underpinning of all dynasties until the end of the Qing dynasty. Under the Han dynasty, historiography and arts flourished, inventions made life easier and emperors like Wu Di consolidated and extended the Chinese empire by pushing back the Xiongnu (sometimes identified with the Huns) and subjugating areas in the west. The Silk Road was established and for the first time there were trading connections between China and the occident.

But in the 1st century B.C., the Han rulers' power declined and in A.D. 9 the usurper Wang Mang founded the short-lived Xin Dynasty. In A.D. 25, however, the Han dynasty was restored and lasted until early 3rd century A.D.. Then, there was again a period of turmoil, in which three states tried to gain predominance (the Period of the Three Kingdoms). Though these three kingdoms were reunited temporarily in 280 A.D. by Wu Di of the Jin Dynasty (265-420) , the Wu Hu barbarians ravaged the country since early 4th century provoking large scale Chinese migration to the south of the Chang Jiang. Along with the immigrants and residents of the south Yuan Di of the Jin Dynasty set up the first of five dynasties Southern Dynasties which all seated at Jiangkang (near today Nanjing). The barbarian north was united once by Fu Jian of the Former Qin Empire in 376 A.D. then again by Tai Wu Di of the Northern Wei Dynasty in 439 A.D.. The latter unification signified the start of a bunch of local dynasties Northern Dynasties (Southern and Northern Dynasty), the direct descendant of which, the Sui Dynasty managed to reunite the country in 589 A.D. after almost 300 years of disjunction.

In 618 A.D., the Tang Dynasty was established and a new age of flourishing began. Buddhism, which had slowly seeped into China in the first centuries A.D., spread over all of China and was finally adopted even by the royal family. Chang'an (modern Xi'an), the then capital, was supposedly the world's biggest city. Finally, however, the Tang dynasty declined as well and another time of political chaos followed, the Period of the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms.

In 960 A.D., the Song Dynasty (960-1279) gained power over most of China and established its capital in Kaifeng whereas the Liao Dynasty ruled over modern Manchuria and eastern Mongolia. In 1115 A.D., the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) emerged as the new dominating power of China. Not only did it annihilate the Liao Dynasty in 10 years, the Song also lost power over Northern China to the Jin Dynasty and moved its capital to Hangzhou. The Song 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 Western Xia who were ruled by Tanguts. The 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.

The Jin Dynasty was defeated by the Mongols who then proceeded to defeat the Southern Song in a long and bloody war, which was the first war ever in which firearms played an important role, a period of peace began for nearly all of Asia. This so-called Pax Mongolica made it possible for adventurous Westerners, like Marco Polo, to travel the Silk Road all the way to China and to bring the first reports of its wonders to their unbelieving compatriots. In China, the Mongol were divided between those who wanted to remain focused on the steppes and those who wanted to adopt the customs of those they conquered. Kublai Khan was one of the latter group and therefore announced the established Yuan Dynasty, the first dynasty both ruling the whole country and making Beijing its capital. Note that Beijing was once the capital of Jin Dynasty.

Among the common people, however, there were strong feelings against the rule of "the foreigners", which finally led to a peasant revolt that pushed the Yuan dynasty back to the Mongolian steppes and established the Ming Dynasty in 1368. This dynasty started out as a time of renewed cultural blossom: Arts, especially the porcelain industry, reached an unprecedented height, Chinese merchants explored all of the Indian ocean, reaching Africa with the voyages of Zheng He (Cheng Ho). A vast navy was built, including 4 masted ships displacing 1,500 tons; there was a standing army of 1 million troops. Over 100,000 tons of iron a year were produced in North China. Many books were printed using movable type. Some would argue that Early Ming China was the most advanced nation on Earth.

Early Ming prosperity contributed to the growing strength of commercial elites who had an uneasy relationship with the ruling Confucian establishment. The early Ming dynasty is characterized by rapid and dramatic population growth, largely due to the increased food supply and Hung-wu’s agricultural reforms during the Reform Stage. Population probably rose by at least 50 percent by the end of the Ming dynasty, stimulated by major improvements in agricultural technology promoted by the pro-agrarian state, which came to power in midst of a pro-Confucian, peasant’s rebellion.

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

Under the Ming many Chinese moved back to the neglected north. Large, devastated areas were reforested. Irrigation and drainage ditches were repaired. Soldiers who had helped drive out the Mongols were settled along border areas with their families, as a defensive measure. Rural reforms brought greater agricultural productivity and prosperity. Sorghum became common in dry areas of the west and northwest. Cotton had grown in Mongol times but was now cultivated intensely as a money crop. The early Ming monarchs, such as Hung-wu and Yung-lo were by no means isolationists; this commercial revolution included extensive trade with foreign countries. Emerging commercial elites often lobbied on behalf of tributary embassies, which were established in Japan, Okinawa, Borneo, the Malaya, Java, the Indian Ocean, and the Eastern Mediterranean were paying their respects to the Son of Heaven and moreover trading in Peking.

The Manchu 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.

Some historians have viewed the Qing as continuing the decline started in the Ming, while others have argued that the early and mid-Qing were periods of growth rather than decline. The Qian Long emperor commanded the compilation of a catalogue of all important works of Chinese philosophy and literature, under emperor Kang Xi, the most complete dictionary of Chinese characters ever was put together. The Qing Dynasty also saw the growth of popular literature such as the Dream of the Red Mansion and agricultural advances such as triple cropping of rice which caused the population of China to more than double from between 180 million in 1700 to 400 million in 1800.

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. 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; subsequently, Britain and other Western powers, including the United States, forcibly occupied "concessions" and gained special commercial privileges. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanjing. In addition, the Taiping rebellion and Nian rebellions, along with a Russian-supported Muslim separatist movement in Xinjiang, drained Chinese resources and almost toppled the dynasty. .

The The First Opium War and colonialism

Roughly between the Congress of Vienna and the Franco-Prussian War, Britain reaped the benefits of being the world’s sole modern, industrial nation. Following the defeat of Napoleon, Britain was the ‘workshop of the world’, meaning that its finished goods were no longer produced so efficiently and cheaply that they could often undersell comparable, locally manufactured goods in almost any other market. If political conditions in a particular overseas markets were stable enough, Britain could its economy through free trade alone without having to resort to formal rule or mercantilism. Britain was even supplying half the needs in manufactured goods of such nations as Germany, France, Belgium, and the United States. As these other newly industrial powers, the United States, and Japan after the Meiji Restoration began industrializing at a rapid rate, however, Britain’s comparative advantage in trade of any finished good began diminishing.

Sovereign areas already hospitable to informal empire largely avoided formal rule during the shift to New Imperialism. China, for instance, was not a backward country unable to secure the prerequisite stability and security for western-style commerce, but a highly advanced empire unwilling to admit western (often drug-pushing) commerce, which may explain the West’s contentment with informal ‘Spheres of Influences’. China, unlike tropical Africa, was a securable market without formal control. Following the First Opium War, British commerce, and later capital invested by other newly industrializing powers, was securable with a smaller degree of formal control than in Southeast Asia, West Africa, and the Pacific . But in many respects, China was a colony and a large-scale receptacle of Western capital investments. Western powers did intervene military there to quell domestic chaos, such as the horrific Taiping Rebellion and the anti-imperialist Boxer Rebellion. For example, General Gordon, later the imperialist ‘martyr’ in the Sudan, is often accredited as having saved the Manchu dynasty from the Taiping insurrection.

The fall of the Manchus

By the 1860s, the Qing dynasty had put down the rebellions with the help of militia organized by the Chinese gentry. The Qing dynasty then proceeded to deal with problem of modernization, which it attempted with the Self-Strengthening Movement. In the Sino-French War (1883-1885) and the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), the New Armies created by the Qing dynasties were defeated, which produced calls for greater and more extensive reform. After the start of the 20th century, the Qing Dynasty was in a dilemma. It could proceed with reform and thereby alienate the conservative gentry or it could stall reform and thereby alienate the revolutionaries. The Qing Dynasty tried to follow a middle path, but proceed to alienate everyone.

The Republic of China

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 in Wuhan, led to the abdication of the last Qing monarch. A provisional government in Nanjing was formed with Sun Yat-Sen as President, but Sun was forced to turn over power to Yuan Shi-Kai who commanded the New Army. Yuan Shi-Kai proceeded in the next few years to abolish the national and provincial assemblies and to have himself named emperor. Yuan's imperial ambitions were fiercely opposed by hissubordinates and faced with the prospect of rebellion, Yuan backed down. He died shortly after in 1916, leaving a power vacuum in China. 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 "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 protégés, Chiang Kai-shek, seized control of the KMT and succeeded in bringing most of south and central China under its rule in a military campaign known as the Northern Expedition. Having defeated the warlords in south and central China by military force, Chiang was able to secured the nominal allegiance of the warlords in the North. In 1927, Chiang turned on the CCP and executed many of its leaders. The remnants fled from their based in southern China 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 Shanxi 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 during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) portion of World War II 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 capitol" and vowed to reconquer the Chinese mainland. The KMT authorities on Taiwan still call themselves the "Republic of China."

With the proclamation of the People's Republic of China on October, 1st, 1949. China was divided again, into the PRC and the ROC, with two governments that each regarded themselves as the one true Chinese government and denouncing each other as illegitimate. This remained true until the early 1990s when political changes on Taiwan led it to no longer actively portray itself as the sole Chinese government.

For their respective histories after 1949, see the entries on the history of the PRC and the history of Taiwan.

See Chinese historiography for an article on recent scholarship infulenced by post-modernism.