HISTORY
"The years cannot be recalled, nor time suspended; all is impermanent, waxing and waning,
with each ending followed by a new beginning." (Zhuangzi)
Chinese civilisation began in the Yellow River basin of northern China, an area of fertile loess (wind-deposited) soils, where neolithic agricultural communities developed in the 5th and 6th centuries BC. In 221 BC, the King of Qin completed the conquest of neighbouring states, and for the first time an extensive area of China was united under a single ruler. By this time cities and commerce had emerged with an administration capable of undertaking drainage and irrigation projects; agricultural and basic industrial techniques were well developed; and the bases of Chinese thought – Confucianism, Daoism (Taoism), and Legalism had been established. During the Qin Dynasty and its successor, the Han Dynasty, the administrative system was further developed, weights and measures, the written language and the legal code were unified, and Chinese rule extended westwards and southwards.
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The Han Dynasty fell in AD 220 and China remained divided until reunited by the Sui in 589. The Sui gave way to the Tang Dynasty (618-907), when an effective Confucian bureaucracy was set up, Chinese culture flourished and Chinese rule spread into inner Asia. There was then a period of division in which the Chinese Song Dynasty ruled in southern China and the Mongols, under Genghis Khan, in the north. In 1279 Kublai Khan defeated the Song and reunited China under Mongol rule, with his capital at what is now Peking. The Mongols called their capital Dadu. The name Peking (northern capital) is now rendered as Beijing in the pinyin romanisation.
In 1368 the Chinese threw off Mongol rule. Under the new Ming Dynasty, the traditional Chinese economic and administrative system was perfected. In 1644 the Manchu people from the northeast conquered China and founded the Qing Dynasty. The Manchus had long been in contact with Chinese civilisation and took over the Ming system almost intact (although leading posts were reserved for Manchus). The Qing extended their rule over the Asian periphery of China, including Tibet, so that by the mid-eighteenth century the traditional Chinese Empire was at the height of its strength and prosperity.
During the nineteenth century the Qing faced repeated challenges from peasant revolts and the attentions of the western powers. Following the Chinese defeat in the first "Opium War" (1839-42), the Qing ceded Hong Kong island to Britain, and were forced to open certain ports to foreign trade. Further concessions were obtained by Britain and other powers, including the establishment of extra-territorial rights. At the same time a massive popular revolt, the Taiping Rebellion (1855-65), devastated much of central China. Half-hearted attempts at reform were made, but the dynasty never really recovered.
The Qing Dynasty fell in 1911. A fluid political situation followed, in which many areas were under domination of local warlords. The Nationalist Party led by Dr Sun Yat-sen (who died in 1925), and the Communist Party, whose founder members included Mao Zedong, were formed in 1912 and 1921 respectively.
A brief period of co-operation between the two parties came to an end in 1927 when the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek turned against the Communists. Communist guerrillas established bases in rural areas, the principal ones being in the southern province of Jiangxi from 1928 to 1934 and subsequently, following the Long March (1934-35), in the northwest around Yan'an in north Shaanxi. The two parties agreed on a "united front" against the Japanese in 1937, but after the Japanese defeat, full-scale civil war between the Communists and Nationalists resumed in 1946. In August 1949 the Nationalists took refuge on the island of Taiwan off the southeast coast which they continue to hold with some smaller islands, including the Jinmen (Quemoy) and Mazu (Matsu) groups close to the mainland. The Nationalists still claim to constitute the lawful government of China. Both the Nationalists and the Communists regard Taiwan as a province of China and oppose any idea of an independent Taiwan.
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