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1. The Period before the Opium War Throughout its history, China's relationship to the outside world was determined by two factors: its geographic situation and its cultural tradition. Geographically, China is surrounded by high mountains, deserts, and oceans. Thus nature gives it an insular character which has not been without influence on its historical development. All around the Chinese Empire there were always foreign nations which were either weaker militarily, or on a lower cultural level than t…

Macau (portug.), Aomen (chin.) Macau (Aomen) 500,000 inhabitants 21,45 km² 23,310 inhabitants/km² Macau is located on the coast of the southern Chinese province of Guangdong in the western part of the Pearl River Delta, 60 km southwest of Hong Kong and 145 km south of Guangzhou. The overall territory includes the two islands of Taipa and Coloane off the coast of the actual Macau Peninsula, which is identical with the city of the same name. In the north of the peninsula, the Porta do Cerco is - up to now …

The history of the PRC is the history of a state and a society that for the past 50 years have been characterized by a one-party system of the Marxist-Leninist type. Its external signs are mass campaigns, stages of turbulent "building of socialism" marked by five-year plans, and by phases of correction; its internal structural characteristics are intra-elite crises and social conflicts. The proclamation of the People's Republic on October 1, 1949, seemed to signal to many observers that the triu…

The early history of Chinese furniture recorded in archaeological materials reveals a mat-level furniture culture. The ancient Chinese knelt or sat cross-legged upon woven mats surrounded by various furnishings including low tables, screens, and armrests. Some excavated lacquer furniture from the ancient kingdom of Chu (ca. 500 BCE) demonstrates an aesthetic of minimalism and simplicity while others are more ornately decorated with painted designs and with fine relief and/or openwork carving. Th…

From its earliest manifestations under the Shang to the fall of the Chinese Empire, the Chinese state was always a structure based on religion and providing meaning and order by integrating cosmos and society. The ruler functioned as high priest and as an intermediary who communicated with the dynastical ancestors and cosmic powers. During the Shang dynasty, the kings secured political legitimacy, longevity, and dynastic continuity with sacrifices to the mighty ancestors, who in turn were able to influence the paramount deity Di. During the Zhou period, ancestor worship was c…

In imperial China, the control over the bureaucratic apparatus was in the hands of the Censorate. Its control agencies reached down to the county level, which was the lowest level at which central state power was represented. Below the county level, the population was supervised by a sub-bureaucracy of the county administration and by self-administrative agencies (local government). This pattern has changed in the People's Republic, due to the fact that all areas of the state, the economy, and o…

With regard to religious policy there has been marked continuity between the traditional Chinese state and the PRC. In imperial times (until 1911), the state already attempted to limit the influence of religion if it threatened to question its authority. Religions were only tolerated if they conformed to the Confucian state orthodoxy. Deviant, heterodox religions were regarded as subversive. This goal of state-control over religion continued during Republican times (1912-49) even though religious freedom was formally assured in Art. 12 of the Constitution of 1912. In the PRC, re…

The development of the transport system in China is closely related to the topographic conditions. Railway, road, and water traffic are developed to differing degrees, depending on the region. In Ningxia nearly all transportation takes place via railways, while the mountainous character of Tibet only allows for transportation of goods on the roads; and for Zhejiang, as for vast parts of southern China, water traffic is indispensable. Before 1949, there was a clear contrast between the few perman…

Lu Jinan 140 counties, 48 cities 93.09 million inhabitants 156,700 km² 594 inhabitants per km² The province of Shandong is located on the north Chinese shore. The province's territory is visibly divided into two segments: the western section is part of the North China Plain; the eastern section forms the Shandong peninsula, which separates the Bohai Gulf in the north from the Yellow Sea in the south. The province stretches 420 km from north to south, and 720 km from east to west. The peninsula has an average w…

Qing Xining 43 counties, 3 cities 5.48 million inhabitants 721,200 km2 8 inhabitants/km2 The province of Qinghai in northwestern China borders on Tibet in the south, Xinjiang in the northwest, Gansu in the northeast, and Sichuan in the east. Besides the capital Xining, Golmud, and Delingha are important cities. Qinghai covers the northeast of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, a high-elevation region dotted with numerous lakes, mostly salty, and surrounded and subdivided by mountain chains, principally the Q…

Relations between China and the Mongolian Republic (formerly: Mongolian People's Republic) are characterized by two deep-rooted factors. On the one hand, all of China was under Mongolian rule during the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), which in China even today is regarded as a nightmare of national oppression. On the other hand, the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia is part of China and makes up more than one seventh of China' territory, even though only 15% of its inhabitants were Mongols in the late 1990s. After Genghis Khan had defeated the Jin Empire in 1215, and Kublai Khan h…

On December 29, 1994, the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People's Congress passed the People's Republic of China Prison Law. For the first time in its post-revolution history, the system of penal detention and correction in China was collectively referred to as a prison system. Certainly, prisons had been mentioned before this, but then the term invariably referred to the older prison buildings in cities that were an inheritance from the pre-Communist government. The penal system, up until 1994, was referred to collectively as the "reform through labor" system (laogai). Th…

In contrast to the folk art movement in Japan ( mingei) at the beginning of the 20th century, folk art in China ( minjian yishu or xiangtu yishu) did not receive special attention. However, especially during the time of the Great Leap Forward (1958-61) and also during the Cultural Revolution, peasant painting, which adopted different elements of folk art, played an important role. It was only during the 1980s/90s that traditional folk art began to attract interest in both the PRC and Taiwan. People on both sides were cons…

The term socialism stands for very different, partially contradictory ideologies and social and political movements. In a larger sense they strive, each with different methodological approaches and strategies, to integrate the individual into the social order, and in a narrower sense they aim at a radical egalitarianism. The latter's goal is an equal distribution of goods, community control over the means of production, and the end of exploitation of people by people. Socialist ideas are found in the thought of nearly all reformers at the end of the Qing Dynasty. Am…

Under the influence of the May Fourth Movement, the pioneers of modern astronomy fought for the advancement of astronomical research and for the popularization of astronomical knowledge. On October 30, 1922, the Chinese Astronomical Society (CAS) was founded in Beijing. Its offices were located in the Beijing Ancient Observatory ( Gu guanxiang tai), established in the 13th century, where observational instruments erected by the Jesuits in the 17th and 18th centuries are still in place today. In 1932 the society's headquarters was moved to the Ast…

The oracle inscriptions of the Shang, the inscribed bamboo strips of the Han, and the documents found in Dunhuang can already be considered the remains of archives. The largest number of archival documents still extant today, however, date from the Qing period, the Chinese Republic, and the years after 1949. The most important central archives are the First Historical Archives of China in Beijing, the Palace Museum Archives in Taipei (late Ming and Qing periods), the Second Historical Archives o…

Relations between the PRC and the countries of Eastern Europe in their first four decades were shaped mainly by the Sino-Soviet relationship (Russia). It was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union that this relationship began to develop independently of the shadow of Moscow. However, the loss of their ideological ties and the economic difficulties of the East European countries brought about a new marginalization of the relations. 1. Eastern Europe in China's Global Strategy: 1949-1989 The formation of the socialist camp after the end of World War II brought the PRC…

Meng Hohhot 101 counties, 20 cities 23.97 million inhabitants . 1,183,000 km² 20 inhabitants per km² The Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia ( Nei Menggu zizhiqu) lies in the north and northeast of the PRC. Important cities beside Hohhot are Baotou, Wuhai, Jining, and Chifeng. Inner Mongolia ranges from SW to NE over a length of about 2500 km and a width of some 400 km. Situated at an average of 1000 m above sea level, it belongs to the northern Chinese steppe plateau. To the northeast, the Great Hinggan Mountains with …

When the Xianfeng Emperor died in Rehe on August 22, 1861, the empire seemed close to its demise because of the domestic revolution and of China's surrender to the foreign armies. Eight aristocratic Manchus, favorites of the emperor, formed a regency council for the emperor's only son, who succeeded to his father's throne at the age of five. Prince Gong, a brother of the deceased, helped the two empress dowagers Ci'an (the widow) and Cixi (the emperor's concubine and mother of the new ruler) to …

According to contemporary mainland Chinese terminology, the "legal system" ( sifa, often translated as "judiciary") encompasses, in its more narrow interpretation of the word, merely the judiciary, whereas its broader meaning also includes the activities of the procuratorate and the justice departments, the agencies responsible for public and state security as well as numerous arbitration and mediation agencies, and finally the attorney and notary system. China distinguishes between criminal, civil, comme…