• China is a very ancient civilization

• The kingdom from which China grew was established for many centuries

• The first emperor, Shi Huangdi, established the Qin Empire in 221 BC

• Shang: c.1600 - c.1100 BC• Zhou: c.1100 BC - 256 BC• Qin: 256 BC - 206 BC• Han: 206 BC - 220 AD• 3 Kingdoms: 220 - 265• Six dynasties: 265 - 589• Sui: 589 - 618• Tang: 618 - 907• 5 dynasties & 10 kingdoms: 907-980• Song: 980 - 1279

• Yuan: 1279 – 1368 (the Mongol Empire)

• Ming: 1368 – 1644– The first Ming emperor drove out the Mongols

and re-established the Chinese Empire)

• Qing: 1644 – 1912

• The Chinese Empire survived for 2133 years. In comparison, the Roman Empire survived for about 500 years and the British Empire for about 350.

• Early modern Chinese history starts with the Ming Dynasty, about 1500 AD– Large army and navy– Expansive trade with Europeans (porcelain,

tea, silk)

• Trade declines due to shortage of silver from S. America along with the “Little Ice Age” – Ming Dynasty collapses

• Invaders from north, the Manchu's, establish Qing Dynasty– 1644 -1911 rule (nearly 300 years)

– Prospered as traders, specifically with Britain• Main trade: tea, porcelain, and silk were

traded for opium, an incredibly addictive drug

• 90% of all Chinese males under the age of forty in the country's coastal regions used the drug (estimated to be upwards of 12 million)

• Business activity was much reduced• Civil service ground to a halt, and the

standard of living fell• 57% of all Chinese imports were opium

• Two wars were fought the First from 1839 to 1842 and the Second from 1856 to 1860

• Fought between Great Britain and Chine over trade and diplomatic relations when China forbade the opium trade in the country.

• Outcome of both wars: China loses

• 1899 -1901: a group of peasants from the north banded together into a secret society known as I-ho ch'üan ("Righteous and Harmonious Fists"), called the "Boxers" by Western press.

• Goal: Rid China of all western influence

• By late 1899, bands of Boxers massacred western missionaries and Chinese Christians; burnt churches and foreign residences, and destroyed railroad stations and property

• Response of the Qing Dynasty: Empress Dowager Tzu'u Hzi sends out Imperial Army in support of Boxers; declares war on all foreign nations with diplomatic ties in China.

• International force of approximately 54,000 troops from 8 nations (Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) arrived to take Beijing and rescue the foreigners and Chinese Christians.

• Result: Rebellion put down• Aftermath: weakening of the Qing Dynasty

Forces of the Eight-Nation Alliance

Country Warships Marines Army

Japan 18 540 20,300

Russia 10 750 12,400

UK 8 2020 10,000

France 5 390 3,130

USA 2 295 3,125

Germany 5 600 300

Austria-Hungary 4 296

Italy 2 80

Total 54 4971 49,255

• 1911, idea of rebellion against a ruling class and establishment of a government by the people reaches China

• The child emperor, Puyi, was forced by rebels to abdicate

• In 1912, the Republic of China was founded by the Kuomintang (KMT, or "Nationalist Party")

• Preceded by the Qing Dynasty and followed by the People’s Republic of China in 1949

• Republic was founded after a revolution that ended the 2,000 year imperial rule of China

• During the period between 1912 and the end of the Republic in 1949, China was primarily ruled by warlords.

• Chinese military & political leader

• Led Kuomintang (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party) for five decades

• Head of state of the Chinese Nationalist government between 1928 and 1949.

• Fought against communists, which grew after 1917.

• Sino = a prefix used to refer to China• Empire of Japan begins attacks on China in 1937; quickly

seizes many northern and coastal areas• US gunboat Panay is sunk by Japanese bombers while

peace still exists between the US and Japan• With the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Japan

captures European and US territories in China ( e.g. Hong Kong and Macau)

• Chinese, US and British forces fight back from western and central China

• The Japanese are eventually defeated in 1945 but many areas of northern, southern and eastern China are devastated by the war

• Despite partial alliances against the Japanese, a state of war exists between the Kuomintang and Communist forces for over 20 years from 1926

• Civil War fully breaks out in 1946• The Communist Party of China

seizes power on October 1st, 1949• Various offshore islands stay

loyal to the Kuomintang and Chang Kai-Shek re-establishes the Chinese Republic on Taiwan

• Served as chairman of the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1959, and led the Chinese Communist Party from 1935 until his death in 1976

• For Homework: Please read the biography of Mao.

• The Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) saw Mao attempt to turn China from an agrarian economy to an industrialized society a la Soviet Union

• Poster: “We’ll smash the old world and build a new one”.

• Government executed people who did not agree with the pace of radical change. – The crackdown led to the deaths of 550,000

people by 1958.

• Government plunged into debt by increasing spending on development of industry

• Local leaders competed with one another to see who could create the most activity– Result: agricultural tasks were neglected

leaving the grain harvest to rot in the fields– Result: leaders over reported their harvests to

their superiors in Beijing– Result: what was thought to be surplus grain

was sold abroad– Result: Famine!

• Scholars have estimated that somewhere between 16.5 million and 40 million people died before the experiment came to an end in 1961, making the Great Leap Famine the largest in world history.

• China was reformed into a series of communes– Average size: 5,000 families– Gave up ownership of personal property - everything

was owned by the commune– Nurseries & Schools provided, as well as elder care

(“Houses of Happiness”)– Soldiers worked alongside people– Communes run by Communist Party members – By 1958, 700 million people had been placed into

26,578 communes

• Propaganda was everywhere – including in the fields where the workers could listen to political speeches as they worked as the communes provided public address systems.

Go all out and aim high. The East leaps forward, the West is worried, 1958

Brave the wind and the waves, everything has remarkable abilities, 1958

Everybody is fully occupied in production, the trade sector is also fully occupied for everybody, 1958

Speed up the mechanization of

agriculture - People's communes are good,

1960

The melons are sweet, grain and rice are

fragrant, everybody tries the flavor, 1958

The power to fight disasters is strong to

quicker raise the levels of production and life -

People's communes are good, 1960

• 1965-1968 - Mao Zedong attempts to reassert his control over the Communist Party.

• Mao felt the Communist party had become too intellectual and “bourgeoisie”– Bourgeoisie = The capitalist class who own most

of society's wealth and means of production.

• Urges the nation’s youth to purge the "impure" elements of Chinese society and revive the revolutionary spirit

• Mao shut down schools

• Students formed paramilitary groups called the Red Guards

• Attacked and harassed members of China's elderly and intellectual population

• Many Chinese cities reached the brink of anarchy by September 1967

Two Chinese citizens branded as "Capitalist" and subjected to physical abuse in the public - to get Chinese who were less

than revolutionary to struggle with their "errors"

Chinese youth conducting a “Struggle Session,” forced on an adult (probably teacher or local official) in some of the worst

cases they would even be beaten

Red Guards denounce a group of Franciscan nuns in front of their

desecrated church in late August 1966.

• President Liu Shaoqi and other Communist leaders were removed from power

• Millions were forced into manual labor, and thousands (possibly millions) were executed or killed in the violence.

• The result was massive civil unrest, and the army was sent in to control student disorder

• Mao's image became displayed almost everywhere, present in homes, offices and shops.

• Student members of the Communist Party were encouraged to carry copies of Mao's Little Red Book of quotation

• Numerous posters, badges and musical compositions referenced Mao in the phrase "Chairman Mao is the red sun in our hearts" and a "Savior of the people".

Advance victoriously while following Chairman Mao's revolutionary line in literature and the arts, 1968

Respectfully wish Chairman Mao eternal life!, 1968

Comrade Mao Zedong is the greatest Marxist-Leninist of the present age, 1969

Chairman Mao gives us a happy life, 1954

Long live Chairman Mao, 1970

Warriors love reading Chairman Mao's books most, 1966

• September 9, 1976 - Mao dies of heart attack, complicated by lung infection

• After Mao's death, there was a power struggle for control of China– The Gang of Four – leading party members

including his wife who wanted to continue Mao’s policies

– Reformers – wanted to change China • Led by Deng Xiaoping

• The Gang of Four effectively controlled the power organs of the Communist Party of China through the latter stages of the Cultural Revolution (even while Mao was alive)– Mao most likely wasn’t

making many decisions due to poor health

The Gang of Four, convicted of anti-party activities

• Was persecuted under Maoist regime for being too liberal

• After Mao’s death he dominated both the government throughout the 1980s, instituting a variety of economic reforms and opening the country to international trade

• Cause: Death of outspoken member of Communist Party sparked mass demonstration of students in Tiananmen Square (approx. 1 million)– Issues protesting: limited career opporutnities, corrupt

government, freedom of speech and press, etc.

• First time in Chinese history a demonstration captured live on television and broadcast around the world.

• Under orders of Deng Xiaoping, troops and tanks stormed into Tiananmen Square

• Ended the peaceful protest with a massacre in which thousands were killed.

• The Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 highlighted China’s growing clamor for liberalization

• Third Generation leaders, under President Jiang Zemin, took power in the 90s and introduced economic liberalization.

• Fourth Generation leaders, under President Hu Jintao, took power early in the 21st century and now control China.

Is it Chinese? Is it Independent?

Well…it’s complicated?!?

• What does "peaceful coexistence" mean?

• What examples can you think of in which countries "peacefully coexist"?

• What examples can you think of in which countries do not?

• People's Republic of China (PRC), commonly known as "China", established in 1949, controlling mainland China

• Republic of China (ROC), established in 1911/1912 and controlled mainland China but since 1949, only Taiwan and some nearby island groups, and is now commonly known as "Taiwan".

– Control of mainland China was lost in the Chinese Civil War by the end of 1949.

• Autonomous (self-ruling) territories that fall within the sovereignty (control) of the People's Republic of China

• Special Administrative Regions:– Hong Kong – Macau

• Only one China, but distinct Chinese regions such as Hong Kong and Macau (and Taiwan) could retain their own capitalist economic and political systems, while the rest of China uses the socialist system.

• Hong Kong became a British colony after the Opium Wars– The Convention of Peking– China “leased” (rent free) Hong Kong to

Britain for 99 years (June 9, 1898)

• During World War II, it was occupied by Japan

• After WWII, Hong Kong returned to the UK until June 30, 1997 when it was returned to the China

• Former Portuguese colony from the 1550s until late 1999, when it was the last remaining European colony in Asia

• Occupied during WWII by Japan

• Portugal relinquished all overseas territories and transferred to China on December 20, 1999