China, Mandarin Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo [central glorious people's united country; i.e., people's republic], officially People's Republic of China, country (2000 pop. 1,295,000,000), 3,691,502 sq mi (9,561,000 sq km), E Asia. The most populous country in the world, China has a 4,000-mi (6,400-km) coast that fronts on the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. It is elsewhere bounded on the east by Russia and North Korea, on the north by Russia and Mongolia, on the west by Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and on the south by India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. China's capital is Beijing; Shanghai is its largest city.
See also the entries on Chinese architecture, Chinese art, Chinese literature, and Chinese music for aspects of Chinese culture that are not treated in this article.
Land
China may be divided into the following geographic regions: the 12,000-ft-high (3,660-m) Tibetan plateau, bounded in the N by the Kunlun mountain system; the Tarim and Dzungarian basins of Xinjiang, separated by the Tian Shan; the vast Inner Mongolian tableland; the eastern highlands and central plain of Manchuria; and what has been traditionally called China proper. This last region, which contains some four fifths of the country's population, falls into three divisions. North China, which coincides with the Huang He (Yellow River) basin and is bounded in the S by the Qingling Mts., includes the loess plateau of the northwest, the N China plain, and the mountains of the Shandong peninsula. Central China, watered by the Chang (Yangtze) River, includes the basin of Sichuan, the central Chang lowlands, and the Chang delta. South China includes the plateau of Yunnan and Guizhou and the valleys of the Xi and Pearl rivers.
To the extent that a general statement about the climate of such a large country can be made, China may be described as wet in the summer and dry in the winter. Regional differences are found in the highlands of Tibet, the desert and steppes of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, and in China proper. There the Qingling Mts. are the major dividing range not only between semiarid N China and the more humid central and S China but also between the grain-growing economy of the north and the rice economy of the south.
China comprises 22 provinces (Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guizhou, Hainan, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Gansu, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang, and, in the northeast (Manchuria), Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning), five autonomous regions (Tibet, the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region), and four government-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Tianjin). The country officially divides itself into 23 provinces, numbering Taiwan as its 23d. Hong Kong became a special administrative region of China in 1997, and Macao achieved this status in 1999.
People
The Han Chinese (so called for the Han dynasty) make up approximately 92% of the total population. They are linguistically homogeneous in the north, where they speak Mandarin (the basis of the national language of China), while in the south Cantonese, Wu, Hakka, and many other dialects are spoken (some 108 dialects are spoken in Fujian prov. alone). The written language is universal; Chinese ideographs are common to all the dialects.
Non-Chinese groups represent only about 8% of the population, but the interior regions in which they live constitute more than half of the total area of the country. Among the main non-Chinese minorities are the Zhuang, a Thai-speaking group, found principally in Guangxi; the Hui (Muslims), found chiefly in Ningxia; the Uigurs, who live mainly in Xinjiang; the Yi (Lolo), who live on the borders of Sichuan and Yunnan; the Tibetans, concentrated in Tibet and Qinghai; the Miao, widely distributed throughout the mountainous areas of S China; the Mongols, found chiefly in the Mongolian steppes; and the Koreans, who are concentrated in Manchuria.
The constitution of the People's Republic of China provides for religious freedom, but religious practice is not encouraged. Traditionally, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and ancestor worship were practiced in an eclectic mixture with varying appeals, and these religions have experienced a revival. Islam, the largest monotheistic sect, is found chiefly in the northwest. There is also a small but growing Christian minority. In recent years there have been some well-publicized confrontations between the Chinese government and religious groups. Places of worship for unregistered Christian churches and traditional sects have at times been destroyed, leaders of such groups have been sentenced to death on apparently trumped-up charges, and orthodox Islamic practices have been discouraged or suppressed out of fear that they would be a focus for Muslim-minority separatists. In 1999 the government banned the Falun Gong (Buddhist Law), a spiritual group with broad appeal that has organized public protests, and began an ongoing campaign to eradicate the religion.
After the 1950s there was a steady migration of China's people to growing industrial areas in outlying regions such as Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Qinghai. In addition, there has been increased movement to urban areas since the late 1970s. In the late 1990s, some 60–100 million dislocated rural workers were unable to obtain permanent jobs or government services in the cities because of strict residency requirements under the hukuo system, which binds people to their place of birth. In 2001, however, under pressure from businesses, the government began a gradual reform of the hukuo system.
Economy
Although China is still a developing country with a relatively low per capita income, it has experienced tremendous economic growth since the late 1970s. In large part as a result of economic liberalization policies, the GDP quadrupled between 1978 and 1998, and foreign investment soared during the 1990s. China's challenge in the early 21st cent. will be to balance its highly centralized political system with an increasingly decentralized economic system.
Agriculture is by far the leading occupation, involving over 50% of the population, although extensive rough, high terrain and large arid areas—especially in the west and north—limit cultivation to only about 10% of the land surface. Since the late 1970s, China has decollectivized agriculture, yielding tremendous gains in production. Even with these improvements, agriculture accounts for only 20% of the nation's gross national product. Despite initial gains in farmers' incomes in the early 1980s, taxes and fees have increasingly made farming an unprofitable occupation.
Except for the oasis farming in Xinjiang and Qinghai, some irrigated areas in Inner Mongolia and Gansu, and sheltered valleys in Tibet, agricultural production is restricted to the east. China is the world's largest producer of rice and wheat and a major producer of sweet potatoes, sorghum, millet, barley, peanuts, corn, soybeans, and potatoes. In terms of cash crops, China ranks first in cotton and tobacco and is an important producer of oilseeds, silk, tea, ramie, jute, hemp, sugarcane, and sugar beets.
Livestock raising on a large scale is confined to the border regions and provinces in the north and west; it is mainly of the nomadic pastoral type. China ranks first in world production of red meat (including beef, veal, mutton, lamb, and pork). Sheep, cattle, and goats are the most common types of livestock. Horses, donkeys, and mules are work animals in the north, while oxen and water buffalo are used for plowing chiefly in the south. Hogs and poultry are widely raised in China, furnishing important export staples, such as hog bristles and egg products. Fish and pork supply most of the animal protein in the Chinese diet. Due to improved technology, the fishing industry has grown considerably since the late 1970s.
China is one of the world's major mineral-producing countries. Coal is the most abundant mineral (China ranks first in coal production); high-quality, easily mined coal is found throughout the country, but especially in the north and northeast. There are also extensive iron-ore deposits; the largest mines are at Anshan and Benxi, in Liaoning province. Oil fields discovered in the 1960s and after made China a net exporter, and by the early 1990s, China was the world's fifth-ranked oil producer. Growing domestic demand beginning in the mid-1990s, however, has forced the nation to import increasing quantities of petroleum. Offshore exploration has become important to meeting domestic needs; massive deposits off the coasts are believed to exceed all the world's known oil reserves.
China's leading export minerals are tungsten, antimony, tin, magnesium, molybdenum, mercury, manganese, barite, and salt. China is among the world's four top producers of antimony, magnesium, tin, tungsten, and zinc, and ranks second (after the United States) in the production of salt, sixth in gold, and eighth in lead ore. There are large deposits of uranium in the northwest, especially in Xinjiang; there are also mines in Jiangxi and Guangdong provs. Alumina is found in many parts of the country; China is one of world's largest producers of aluminum. There are also deposits of vanadium, magnetite, copper, fluorite, nickel, asbestos, phosphate rock, pyrite, and sulfur.
Coal is the single most important energy source; coal-fired thermal electric generators provide over 70% of the country's electric power. China's exploitation of its high-sulfur coal resources has resulted in massive pollution. China also has extensive hydroelectric energy potential, notably in Yunnan, W Sichuan, and E Tibet, although hydroelectric power accounts for only 5% of the country's total energy production. Hydroelectric projects exist in provinces served by major rivers where near-surface coal is not abundant. The largest completed project, Gezhouba Dam, on the Chang (Yangtze) River, opened in 1981; the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest engineering project, on the lower Chang, is scheduled for completion in 2009.
Beginning in the late 1970s, changes in economic policy, including decentralization of control and the creation of “special economic zones” to attract foreign investment, led to considerable industrial growth, especially in light industries that produce consumer goods. In the 1990s a program of share-holding and greater market orientation went into effect; however, state enterprises continue to dominate many key industries in China's “socialist market economy.” In addition, implementation of some reforms was stalled by fears of social dislocation and by political opposition, but by 2004 economic changes had become so great that the Communist party moved to add protection for private property rights to the country's constitution. Major industrial products are textiles, chemicals, fertilizers, machinery (especially for agriculture), processed foods, iron and steel, building materials, plastics, toys, and electronics.
Before 1945, heavy industry was concentrated in the northeast (Manchuria), but important centers were subsequently established in other parts of the country, notably in Shanghai and Wuhan. After the 1960s, the emphasis was on regional self-sufficiency, and many factories sprang up in rural areas. The iron and steel industry is organized around several major centers (including Anshan, one of the world's largest), but thousands of small iron and steel plants have also been established throughout the country. Brick, tile, cement, and food-processing plants are found in almost every province. Shanghai and Guangzhou are the traditionally great textile centers, but many new mills have been built, concentrated mostly in the cotton-growing provinces of N China and along the Chang (Yangtze) River.
Coastal cities, especially in the southeast, have benefited greatly from China's increasingly open trade policies. Most of China's large cities, e.g. Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangzhou, are also the country's main ports. Other leading ports are rail termini, such as Lüshun (formerly Port Arthur, the port of Dalian), on the South Manchuria RR; and Qingdao, on the line from Jinan. In the northeast (Manchuria) are large cities and rail centers, notably Shenyang (Mukden), Harbin, and Changchun. Great inland cities include Beijing and the river ports of Nanjing, Chongqing, and Wuhan. Taiyuan and Xi'an are important centers in the less populated interior, and Lanzhou is the key communications junction of the vast northwest. Although a British crown colony until its return to Chinese control in 1997, Hong Kong has long been a major maritime outlet of S China.
Rivers and canals (notably the Grand Canal, which connects the Huang He and the Chang [Yangtze] rivers) remain important transportation arteries. The east and northeast are well served by railroads and highways, and there are now major rail and road links with the interior. There are railroads to North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, and Vietnam, and road connections to Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Myanmar. Since the 1980s China has undertaken a major highway construction program. As part of its continuing effort to become competitive in the global marketplace, China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001; its major trade partners are the United States, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Germany. China's economy, though strengthened by the more liberal economic policies of the 1980s and 90s, continues to suffer from inadequate transportation, communication, and energy resources.
Government
China is a one-party state, with real power lying with the Chinese Communist party. The country is governed under the constitution of 1982 as amended in 1993, the fifth since the accession of the Communists in 1949. The unicameral legislature is the National People's Congress (NPC), consisting of deputies elected to terms of five years. The NPC decides on national economic strategy, elects or removes high officeholders, and can change China's constitution; it normally follows the directives of the Communist party's politburo. In the executive branch are a premier, who is head of government, and a president, who is head of state. Despite the concentration of power in the Communist party, the central government's control over the provinces and local governments is limited, and they are often able to act with relative impunity in many areas. China began to build a modern legal system in the late 1970s, after opening itself economically to the rest of the world. Since then it has developed legal codes in the areas of criminal, civil, administrative, and commercial law. The legal system is not independent of the government, however, a problem that is especially acute on the local level where corrupt officials manipulate the process to protect themselves and limit citizens' rights.
History
Origins and Early History
The stone tools and fossils of Homo erectus found in N and central China are the earliest discovered protohuman remains in NE Asia; some of the tools date to more than 1.3 million years ago. About 20,000 years ago, after the last glacial period, modern humans appeared in the Ordos desert region. The subsequent culture shows marked similarity to that of the higher civilizations of Mesopotamia, and some scholars argue a Western origin for Chinese civilization. However, since the 2d millennium B.C. a unique and fairly uniform culture has spread over almost all of China. The substantial linguistic and ethnological diversity of the south and the far west result from their having been infrequently under the control of central government.
China's history is traditionally viewed as a continuous development with certain repetitive tendencies, as described in the following general pattern: The area under political control tends to expand from the eastern Huang He and Chang (Yangtze) basins, the heart of Chinese culture, and then, under outside military pressure, to shrink back. Conquering barbarians from the north and the west supplant native dynasties, take over Chinese culture, lose their vigor, and are expelled in a surge of national feeling. Following a disordered and anarchic period a new dynasty may arise. Its predecessor, by engaging in excessive warfare, tolerating corruption, and failing to keep up public works, has forfeited the right to rule—in the traditional view, the dynasty has lost “the mandate of Heaven.” The administrators change, central authority is reestablished, public works constructed, taxation modified and equalized, and land redistributed. After a prosperous period disintegration reappears, inviting barbarian intervention or native revolt.
Although traditionally supposed to have been preceded by the semilegendary Hsia dynasty, the Shang dynasty (c.1523–1027 B.C.) is the first in documented Chinese history (see the table entitled Chinese Dynasties). During the succeeding, often turbulent, Chou dynasty (c.1027–256 B.C.), Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Mencius lived, and the literature that until recently formed the basis of Chinese education was written. The use of iron was the main material advance. The semibarbarous Ch'in dynasty (221–206 B.C.) first established the centralized imperial system that was to govern China during stable periods. The Great Wall was begun in this period. The native Han dynasty period (202 B.C.–A.D. 220), traditionally deemed China's imperial age, is notable for long peaceable rule, expansionist policies, and great artistic achievement.
The Three Kingdoms period (A.D. 220–65) opened four centuries of warfare among petty states and of invasions of the north by the barbarian Hsiung-nu (Huns). In this inauspicious time China experienced rapid cultural development. Buddhism, which had earlier entered from India, and Taoism, a native cult, grew and seriously endangered Confucianism. Indian advances in medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and architecture were adopted. Art, particularly figure painting and decoration of Buddhist grottoes, flourished. Feudalism partly revived under the Tsin dynasty (265–420) with the decay of central authority.
Under the Sui (581–618) and the T'ang (618–907) a vast domain, much of which had first been assimilated to Chinese culture in the preceding period, was unified. The civil service examination system based on the Chinese classics and a renaissance of Confucianism were important developments of this brilliant era. Its fresh and vigorous poetry is especially noted. The end of the T'ang was marked by a withdrawal from conquered border regions to the center of Chinese culture.
The period of the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms (907–60), which was a time of chaotic social change, was followed by the Sung dynasty (960–1279), a time of scholarly studies and artistic progress, marked by authentication of the Confucian literary canon and the improvement of printing techniques through the invention of movable type. The poetry of the Sung period was derivative, but a new popular literary form, the novel, appeared at that time. Neo-Confucianism developed systematically. Gunpowder was first used for military purposes in this period.
While the Sung ruled central China, barbarians—the Khitai, the Jurchen, and the Tangut—created northern empires that were swept away by the Mongols under Jenghiz Khan. His grandson Kublai Khan, founder of the Yüan dynasty (1271–1368), retained Chinese institutions. The great realm of Kublai was described in all its richness by one of the most celebrated of all travelers, Marco Polo. Improved roads and canals were the dynasty's main contributions to China.
The Ming dynasty (1368–1644) set out to restore Chinese culture by a study of Sung life. Its initial territorial expansion was largely lost by the early 15th cent. European trade and European infiltration began with Portuguese settlement of Macao in 1557 but immediately ran into official Chinese antiforeign policy. Meanwhile the Manchu peoples advanced steadily south in the 16th and the 17th cent. and ended with complete conquest of China by 1644 and with establishment of the Ch'ing (Manchu) dynasty (1644–1912). Under emperors K'ang-hsi (reigned 1662–1722) and Ch'ien-lung (reigned 1735–96), China was perhaps at its greatest territorial extent.
