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China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, the most of any country in the world, tied with Russia. Covering an area of approximately , it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and financial center is Shanghai.

Modern Chinese trace their origins to a cradle of civilization in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. The semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE and the well-attested Shang and Zhou dynasties developed a bureaucratic political system to serve hereditary monarchies, or dynasties. Chinese writing, Chinese classic literature, and the Hundred Schools of Thought emerged during this period and influenced China and its neighbors for centuries to come. In the third century BCE, Qin's wars of unification created the first Chinese empire, the short-lived Qin dynasty. The Qin was followed by the more stable Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), which established a model for nearly two millennia in which the Chinese empire was one of the world's foremost economic powers. The empire expanded, fractured and re-unified, was conquered and reestablished, absorbed foreign religions and ideas, and made world-leading scientific advances, such as the Four Great Inventions: gunpowder, paper, the compass, and printing. After centuries of disunion following the fall of the Han, the Sui (581–618) and Tang (618–907) dynasties reunified the empire. The multi-ethnic Tang welcomed foreign trade and culture that came over the Silk Road and adapted Buddhism to Chinese needs. The early modern Song dynasty (960–1279) became increasingly urban and commercial. The civilian scholar-official or literati used the examination system and the doctrines of Neo-Confucianism to replace the military aristocrats of earlier dynasties. The Mongol invasion established the Yuan dynasty in 1279, but the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) re-established Han Chinese control. The Manchu-led Qing dynasty nearly doubled the empire's territory and established a multi-ethnic state that was the basis of the modern Chinese nation, but suffered heavy losses to foreign imperialism in the 19th century.

The Chinese monarchy collapsed in 1912 with the Xinhai Revolution, when the Republic of China (ROC) replaced the Qing dynasty. In its early years as a republic, the country underwent a period of instability known as the Warlord Era before mostly reunifying in 1928 under a Nationalist government. A civil war between the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began in 1927. Japan invaded China in 1937, starting the Second Sino-Japanese War and temporarily halting the civil war. The surrender and expulsion of Japanese forces from China in 1945 left a power vacuum in the country, which led to renewed fighting between the CCP and the Kuomintang. The civil war ended in 1949 with the division of Chinese territory; the CCP established the People's Republic of China on the mainland while the Kuomintang-led ROC government retreated to the island of Taiwan. Both claim to be the sole legitimate government of China, although the United Nations has recognized the PRC as the sole representation since 1971. From 1959 to 1961, the PRC implemented an economic and social campaign called the Great Leap Forward, that resulted in a sharp economic decline and an estimated 15 to 55 million deaths, mostly through man-made famine. From 1966 to 1976, the turbulent period of political and social chaos within China known as the Cultural Revolution led to greater economic and educational decline, with millions being purged or subjected to either persecution or politicide based on political categories. Since then, the Chinese government has rebuked some of the earlier Maoist policies, conducting a series of political and economic reforms since 1978, which has greatly raised Chinese standards of living, and increased life expectancies.

China is currently governed as a unitary Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist republic by the CCP. China is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and a founding member of several multilateral and regional cooperation organizations such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Silk Road Fund, the New Development Bank, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the RCEP, and is a member of the BRICS, the G8+5, the G20, the APEC, and the East Asia Summit. It ranks among the lowest in measurements of democracy, civil liberties, government transparency, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and ethnic minorities. The Chinese authorities have been criticized by human rights activists and non-governmental organizations for human rights abuses, including political repression, mass censorship, mass surveillance of their citizens, and violent suppression of protests.

Making up around one-fifth of the world economy, China is the world's largest economy by GDP by purchasing power parity, the second-largest economy by nominal GDP, and the second-wealthiest country. The country is one of the fastest growing major economies and is the world's largest manufacturer and exporter, as well as the second-largest importer. China is a recognized nuclear-weapon state with the world's largest standing army by military personnel and second-largest defense budget. China is considered to be a potential superpower due to its large markets, high innovation, economic potential, growing military strength, and influence in international affairs.

Etymology

The word "China" has been used in English since the 16th century; however, it was not a word used by the Chinese themselves during this period. Its origin has been traced through Portuguese, Malay, and Persian back to the Sanskrit word ''Chīna'', used in ancient India. "China" appears in Richard Eden's 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa.). Barbosa's usage was derived from Persian ''Chīn'' (), which was in turn derived from Sanskrit '' Cīna'' ().China
. ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' (2000). Boston and New York: Houghton-Mifflin. ''Cīna'' was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the ''Mahābhārata'' (5th century BCE) and the ''Laws of Manu'' (2nd century BCE).Wade, Geoff.
The Polity of Yelang and the Origin of the Name 'China'
. ''Sino-Platonic Papers'', No. 188, May 2009, p. 20. In 1655, Martino Martini suggested that the word China is derived ultimately from the name of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE).Martino, Martin, ''Novus Atlas Sinensis'', Vienna 1655, Preface, p. 2. Although usage in Indian sources precedes this dynasty, this derivation is still given in various sources. The origin of the Sanskrit word is a matter of debate, according to the ''Oxford English Dictionary''. Alternative suggestions include the names for Yelang and the Jing or Chu state.
The official name of the modern state is the "People's Republic of China" (). The shorter form is "China" ' () from ' ("central") and ' ("state"), a term which developed under the Western Zhou dynasty in reference to its royal demesne. It was then applied to the area around Luoyi (present-day Luoyang) during the Eastern Zhou and then to China's Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing. It was often used as a cultural concept to distinguish the Huaxia people from perceived "barbarians". The name ''Zhongguo'' is also translated as in English. China (PRC) is sometimes referred to as the Mainland when distinguishing the ROC from the PRC.

History

Prehistory

China is regarded as one of the world's oldest civilisations. Archaeological evidence suggests that early hominids inhabited the country 2.25 million years ago. The hominid fossils of Peking Man, a ''Homo erectus'' who used fire, were discovered in a cave at Zhoukoudian near Beijing; they have been dated to between 680,000 and 780,000 years ago. The fossilized teeth of ''Homo sapiens'' (dated to 125,000–80,000 years ago) have been discovered in Fuyan Cave in Dao County, Hunan. Chinese proto-writing existed in Jiahu around 6600 BCE, at Damaidi around 6000 BCE, Dadiwan culture, Dadiwan from 5800 to 5400 BCE, and Banpo dating from the 5th millennium BCE. Some scholars have suggested that the Jiahu symbols (7th millennium BCE) constituted the earliest Chinese writing system.

Early dynastic rule

According to Chinese tradition, the list of Chinese dynasties, first dynasty was the Xia dynasty, Xia, which emerged around 2100 BCE. The Xia dynasty marked the beginning of China's political system based on hereditary monarchies, or dynasties, which lasted for a millennium. The Xia dynasty was considered Chinese mythology, mythical by historians until scientific excavations found early Bronze Age sites at Erlitou culture, Erlitou, Henan in 1959. It remains unclear whether these sites are the remains of the Xia dynasty or of another culture from the same period. The succeeding Shang dynasty is the earliest to be confirmed by contemporary records. The Shang ruled the plain of the Yellow River in eastern China from the 17th to the 11th century BCE. Their oracle bone script (from BCE) represents the oldest form of Chinese writing yet found and is a direct ancestor of modern Chinese characters.

The Shang was conquered by the Zhou, who ruled between the 11th and 5th centuries BCE, though centralized authority was slowly eroded by feudal warlords. Some principalities eventually emerged from the weakened Zhou, no longer fully obeyed the Zhou king, and continually waged war with each other during the 300-year Spring and Autumn period. By the time of the Warring States period of the 5th–3rd centuries BCE, there were only seven powerful states left.

Imperial China

The Warring States period ended in 221 BCE after the Qin (state), state of Qin conquered the other six kingdoms, reunited China and established the dominant order of autocracy. King Zheng of Qin proclaimed himself the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty. He enacted Qin's Legalism (Chinese philosophy), legalist reforms throughout China, notably the forced standardization of Chinese characters, Chinese units, measurements, road widths (i.e., the cart axles' length), and history of Chinese currency, currency. His dynasty also Qin's campaign against the Yue tribes, conquered the Yue tribes in Guangxi, Guangdong, and Vietnam. The Qin dynasty lasted only fifteen years, falling soon after the First Emperor's death, as his harsh authoritarian policies led to widespread rebellion.Bodde, Derk. (1986). "The State and Empire of Ch'in", in ''The Cambridge History of China: Volume I: the Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C. – A.D. 220''. Edited by Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .

Following a Chu–Han Contention, widespread civil war during which the imperial library at Xianyang List of destroyed libraries#Human action, was burned, the Han dynasty emerged to rule China between 206 BCE and CE 220, creating a cultural identity among its populace still remembered in the ethnonym of the Han Chinese. The Han History of the Han dynasty, expanded the empire's territory considerably, with military campaigns reaching Han–Xiongnu War, Central Asia, Mongolia, Gojoseon–Han War, South Korea, and Han campaigns against Dian, Yunnan, and the Southward expansion of the Han dynasty, recovery of Guangdong and northern Vietnam from Nanyue. Han involvement in Central Asia and Sogdia helped establish the land route of the Silk Road, replacing the earlier path over the Himalayas to India. Han China gradually became the largest economy of the ancient world. Despite the Han's initial decentralization and the official abandonment of the Qin philosophy of Legalism (Chinese philosophy), Legalism in favor of Confucianism, Qin's legalist institutions and policies continued to be employed by the Han government and its successors.

After the end of the Han dynasty, a period of strife known as Three Kingdoms followed, whose central figures were later immortalized in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of the Four Classics of Chinese literature. At its end, Cao Wei, Wei was swiftly overthrown by the Jin dynasty (265–420), Jin dynasty. The Jin fell to War of the Eight Princes, civil war upon the ascension of a Emperor Hui of Jin, developmentally disabled emperor; the Five Barbarians then uprising of the Five Barbarians, invaded and ruled northern China as the Sixteen Kingdoms, Sixteen States. The Xianbei unified them as the Northern Wei, whose Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei, Emperor Xiaowen reversed his predecessors' apartheid policies and Northern dynasties, enforced a drastic sinification on his subjects, largely integrating them into Chinese culture. In the south, the general Emperor Wu of Liu Song, Liu Yu secured the abdication of the Jin in favor of the Liu Song. The various successors of these states became known as the Northern and Southern dynasties, with the two areas finally reunited by the Sui in 581. The Sui restored the Han to power through China, reformed its agriculture, economy and imperial examination system, constructed the Grand Canal of China, Grand Canal, and patronized Buddhism in China, Buddhism. However, they fell quickly when their conscription for public works and a Goguryeo–Sui War, failed war in Goguryeo, northern Korea provoked widespread unrest.

Under the succeeding Tang and Song dynasty, Song dynasties, Chinese economy, technology, and culture entered a golden age. The Tang dynasty retained control of the Western Regions and the Silk Road, which brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and the Horn of Africa, and made the capital Chang'an a cosmopolitan urban center. However, it was devastated and weakened by the An Lushan Rebellion in the 8th century. In 907, the Tang disintegrated completely when the local military governors became ungovernable. The Song dynasty ended the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, separatist situation in 960, leading to a balance of power between the Song and Khitan Liao. The Song was the first government in world history to issue paper money and the first Chinese polity to establish a permanent standing navy which was supported by the developed shipbuilding industry along with the sea trade.

Between the 10th and 11th centuries, the population of China doubled in size to around 100 million people, mostly because of the expansion of rice cultivation in central and southern China, and the production of abundant food surpluses. The Song dynasty also saw a Neo-Confucianism, revival of Confucianism, in response to the growth of Buddhism during the Tang, and a flourishing of philosophy and the arts, as landscape art and porcelain were brought to new levels of maturity and complexity. However, the military weakness of the Song army was observed by the Jurchen people, Jurchen Jin dynasty (1115–1234), Jin dynasty. In 1127, Emperor Huizong of Song and the capital Bianjing were captured during the Jin–Song Wars. The remnants of the Song retreated to Northern and southern China, southern China.

The Mongol conquest of China began in 1205 with the Mongol conquest of Western Xia, gradual conquest of Western Xia by Genghis Khan, who also Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty, invaded Jin territories. In 1271, the Mongols, Mongol Khagan, leader Kublai Khan established the Yuan dynasty, which Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty, conquered the last remnant of the Song dynasty in 1279. Before the Mongol invasion, the population of Song China was 120 million citizens; this was reduced to 60 million by the time of the census in 1300. A peasant named Zhu Yuanzhang Red Turban Rebellions, led a rebellion that overthrew the Yuan in 1368 and founded the Ming dynasty as the Hongwu Emperor. Under the Ming dynasty, China enjoyed another golden age, developing one of the strongest navies in the world and a rich and prosperous economy amid a flourishing of art and culture. It was during this period that admiral Zheng He led the Ming treasure voyages throughout the Indian Ocean, reaching as far as East Africa.

In the early years of the Ming dynasty, China's capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing. With the budding of capitalism, philosophers such as Wang Yangming further critiqued and expanded Neo-Confucianism with concepts of individualism and equality of four occupations. The scholar-official stratum became a supporting force of industry and commerce in the tax boycott movements, which, together with the famines and defense against Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598) and Qing conquest of the Ming, Manchu invasions led to an exhausted treasury. In 1644, Beijing was captured by a coalition of peasant rebel forces led by Li Zicheng. The Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide when the city fell. The Manchu Qing dynasty, then allied with Ming dynasty general Wu Sangui, overthrew Li's short-lived Shun dynasty and subsequently seized control of Beijing, which became the new capital of the Qing dynasty.

The Qing dynasty, which lasted from 1644 until 1912, was the last imperial dynasty of China. Its Transition from Ming to Qing, conquest of the Ming (1618–1683) cost 25 million lives and the Economic history of China before 1912#Qing dynasty (1644–1912), economy of China shrank drastically. After the Southern Ming ended, the further conquest of the Dzungar Khanate added Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang to the empire. The centralized autocracy was strengthened to suppress anti-Qing sentiment with the policy of valuing agriculture and restraining commerce, the ''Haijin'' ("sea ban"), and ideological control as represented by the literary inquisition, causing social and technological stagnation.

Fall of the Qing dynasty

In the mid-19th century, the Qing dynasty experienced Western imperialism in the Opium Wars with Britain and France. China was forced to pay compensation, open treaty ports, allow extraterritoriality for foreign nationals, and cede Hong Kong to the British under the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, the first of the Unequal Treaties. The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) resulted in Qing China's loss of influence in the Korean Peninsula, as well as the Treaty of Shimonoseki, cession of Taiwan to Japan Empire, Japan.
The Qing dynasty also began experiencing Timeline of late anti-Qing rebellions, internal unrest in which tens of millions of people died, especially in the White Lotus Rebellion, the failed Taiping Rebellion that ravaged southern China in the 1850s and 1860s and the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) in the northwest. The initial success of the Self-Strengthening Movement of the 1860s was frustrated by a series of military defeats in the 1880s and 1890s.

In the 19th century, the great Chinese emigration, Chinese diaspora began. Losses due to emigration were added to by conflicts and catastrophes such as the Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879, in which between 9 and 13 million people died. The Guangxu Emperor drafted a Hundred Days' Reform, reform plan in 1898 to establish a modern constitutional monarchy, but these plans were thwarted by the Empress Dowager Cixi. The ill-fated anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1901 further weakened the dynasty. Although Cixi sponsored a program of reforms, the Xinhai Revolution of 1911–1912 brought an end to the Qing dynasty and established the Republic of China.Li, Xiaobing. [2007] (2007). ''A History of the Modern Chinese Army''. University Press of Kentucky. , . pp. 13, 26–27. Puyi, the last Emperor of China, abdicated in 1912.

Establishment of the Republic and World War II

On 1 January 1912, the Republic of China was established, and Sun Yat-sen of the Kuomintang (the KMT or Nationalist Party) was proclaimed provisional president. On 12 February 1912, regent Empress Dowager Longyu sealed the Imperial Edict of the Abdication of the Qing Emperor, imperial abdication decree on behalf of 4 year old Puyi, the last emperor of China, ending 5,000 years of Monarchy of China, monarchy in China. In March 1912, the presidency was given to Yuan Shikai, a former Qing general who in 1915 proclaimed himself Empire of China (1915–1916), Emperor of China. In the face of popular condemnation and opposition from his own Beiyang Army, he was forced to abdicate and re-establish the republic in 1916.

After Yuan Shikai's death in 1916, China was politically fragmented. Its Beijing-based government was internationally recognized but virtually powerless; regional warlords controlled most of its territory. In the late 1920s, the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek, the then Principal of the Republic of China Military Academy, was able to reunify the country under its own control with a series of deft military and political maneuverings, known collectively as the Northern Expedition. The Kuomintang moved the nation's capital to Nanjing and implemented "political tutelage", an intermediate stage of political development outlined in Sun Yat-sen's San-min Doctrine, San-min program for transforming China into a modern democratic state. The List of warlords and military cliques in the Warlord Era, political division in China made it difficult for Chiang to battle the Chinese Communists, communist-led People's Liberation Army (PLA), against whom the Kuomintang had been warring since 1927 in the Chinese Civil War. This war continued successfully for the Kuomintang, especially after the PLA retreated in the Long March, until Japanese aggression and the 1936 Xi'an Incident forced Chiang to confront Imperial Japan.

The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), a Theater (warfare), theater of World War II, forced an uneasy alliance between the Kuomintang and the Communists. Japanese forces committed numerous Japanese war crimes, war atrocities against the civilian population; in all, as many as 20 million Chinese civilians died. An estimated 40,000 to 300,000 Chinese Nanking Massacre, were massacred in the city of Nanjing alone during the Japanese occupation. During the war, China, along with the UK, the United States, and the Soviet Union, were referred to as "trusteeship of the powerful" and were recognized as the Allied "Four Policemen, Big Four" in the Declaration by United Nations. Along with the other three great powers, China was one of the four major Allies of World War II, and was later considered one of the primary victors in the war. After the surrender of Japan in 1945, Taiwan, including the Pescadores, was Retrocession Day, handed over to Chinese control. However, the validity of this handover is controversial, in that whether Taiwan's sovereignty was legally transferred and whether China is a legitimate recipient, due to complex issues that arose from the handling of Japan's surrender, resulting in the unresolved political status of Taiwan, which is a flashpoint of potential war between China and Taiwan. China emerged victorious but war-ravaged and financially drained. The continued distrust between the Kuomintang and the Communists led to the resumption of civil war. Constitutional rule was established in 1947, but because of the ongoing unrest, many provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of China, ROC constitution were never implemented in mainland China.

Civil War and the People's Republic

Before the existence of the People's Republic, the CCP had declared Communist-controlled China (1927–1949), several areas of the country as the Chinese Soviet Republic (Jiangxi Soviet), a predecessor state to the PRC, in November 1931 in Ruijin, Jiangxi. The Jiangxi Soviet was Encirclement campaigns, wiped out by the KMT armies in 1934 and was relocated to Yan'an in Shaanxi where the Long March concluded in 1935. It would be the base of the communists before major combat in the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949. Afterwards, the CCP took control of most of mainland China, and the Republic of China retreat to Taiwan, Kuomintang retreating offshore to Taiwan, reducing its territory to only Taiwan (island), Taiwan, Hainan, and their surrounding islands.

On 1 October 1949, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong formally Proclamation of the People's Republic of China, proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China at the new nation's founding ceremony and inaugural military parade in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. In 1950, the People's Liberation Army Landing Operation on Hainan Island, captured Hainan from the ROC and Annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China, annexed Tibet. However, remaining Kuomintang forces continued to wage Kuomintang Islamic insurgency, an insurgency in western China throughout the 1950s.

The government consolidated its popularity among the peasants through land reform, which included the Land Reform Movement (China), execution of between 1 and 2 million landlords. China developed an independent industrial system and China and weapons of mass destruction, its own nuclear weapons. The Chinese population increased from 550 million in 1950 to 900 million in 1974. However, the Great Leap Forward, an idealistic massive reform project, resulted in an estimated 15 to 55 million deaths between 1959 and 1961, mostly from starvation. In 1966, Mao and his allies launched the Cultural Revolution, sparking a decade of political recrimination and social upheaval that lasted until Mao's death in 1976. In October 1971, the PRC United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758, replaced the Republic of China in the United Nations, and took its seat as a permanent member of the Security Council. This UN action also created the problem of the political status of Taiwan and the Two Chinas issue. See Cross-Strait relations and "Taiwan, China".

Reforms and contemporary history

After Mao's death, the Gang of Four was quickly arrested by Hua Guofeng and held responsible for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978, and instituted significant Chinese economic reform, economic reforms. The CCP loosened governmental control over citizens' personal lives, and the People's commune, communes were gradually disbanded in favor of working contracted to households. This marked China's transition from a planned economy to a mixed e