Government China is one of the world's few remaining communist countries and is under the control of a president and the party leaders. Religion Before Communism, most Chinese practised a mixture of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Chinese cities date back over 3500 years and cities today, such as Beijing and Shanghai, are among the world's largest. Yet four out of five Chinese still live in the countryside, many growing rice in flooded fields called paddies. Although China has adopted modern surgical and drug treatments from the West, it has its own tradition of medicine dating back thousands of years.
Chinese chemists sell a wide range of herbal and other natural remedies.
Many people are helped by acupuncture, an ancient healing and pain-relieving system, involving sticking thin needles into the skin in any of some 800 specific points. Until this century, China was ruled by emperors, and the country had changed little for 3000 years. But in 1911, the last emperor was forced from the throne. In 1949, after a long struggle, the communists came to power, led by Mao Zedong. Now people in the country live and work on huge farming communes and people in cities work in big factories.