Republic of China

Republic of China
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 中華民國
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**China** (Chinese: 中国; pinyin: *Zhōngguó*), officially the **Republic of China** (**ROC**), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's second-most populous country with a population exceeding 3 billion. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders 8 countries by land, tied with Russia as having the most of any country in the world. With an area of nearly 11,367,770 square kilometers, it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 16 provinces, four autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national capital is Beiping and the most populous city and largest financial center is Shanghai.

## Etymology

The name "China" has its origins in the Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE) of ancient China. The term "China" is derived from the Chinese word "Qin" (秦), which was the name of a powerful state during that time. The Qin dynasty played a significant role in unifying various warring states and establishing the first centralized imperial government in China.

## History

### **Prehistory**

China is regarded as one of the world's oldest civilisations. Archaeological evidence suggests that early hominids inhabited the country 2.25 million years ago. The hominid fossils of Peking Man, a *Homo erectus* who used fire, were discovered in a cave at Zhoukoudian near Beijing; they have been dated to between 680,000 and 780,000 years ago. The fossilized teeth of *Homo sapiens* (dated to 125,000–80,000 years ago) have been discovered in Fuyan Cave in Dao County, Hunan. Chinese proto-writing existed in Jiahu around 6600 BCE, at Damaidi around 6000 BCE, Dadiwan from 5800 to 5400 BCE, and Banpo dating from the 5th millennium BCE. Some scholars have suggested that the Jiahu symbols (7th millennium BCE) constituted the earliest Chinese writing system.

### **Early dynastic rule**

According to Chinese tradition, the first dynasty was the Xia, which emerged around 2100 BCE. The Xia dynasty marked the beginning of China's political system based on hereditary monarchies, or dynasties, which lasted for a millennium. The Xia dynasty was considered mythical by historians until scientific excavations found early Bronze Age sites at Erlitou, Henan in 1959. It remains unclear whether these sites are the remains of the Xia dynasty or of another culture from the same period. The succeeding Shang dynasty is the earliest to be confirmed by contemporary records. The Shang ruled the plain of the Yellow River in eastern China from the 17th to the 11th century BCE. Their oracle bone script (from c. 1500 BCE) represents the oldest form of Chinese writing yet found and is a direct ancestor of modern Chinese characters.

The Shang was conquered by the Zhou, who ruled between the 11th and 5th centuries BCE, though centralized authority was slowly eroded by feudal warlords. Some principalities eventually emerged from the weakened Zhou, no longer fully obeyed the Zhou king, and continually waged war with each other during the 300-year Spring and Autumn period. By the time of the Warring States period of the 5th–3rd centuries BCE, there were only seven powerful states left.

### **Imperial China**

The Warring States period ended in 221 BCE after the state of Qin conquered the other six kingdoms, reunited China and established the dominant order of autocracy. King Zheng of Qin proclaimed himself the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty. He enacted Qin's legalist reforms throughout China, notably the forced standardization of Chinese characters, measurements, road widths (i.e., the cart axles' length), and currency. His dynasty also conquered the Yue tribes in Guangxi, Guangdong, and Vietnam. The Qin dynasty lasted only fifteen years, falling soon after the First Emperor's death, as his harsh authoritarian policies led to widespread rebellion.

Following a widespread civil war during which the imperial library at Xianyang was burned, the Han dynasty emerged to rule China between 206 BCE and CE 220, creating a cultural identity among its populace still remembered in the ethnonym of the Han Chinese. The Han expanded the empire's territory considerably, with military campaigns reaching Central Asia, Mongolia, South Korea, and Yunnan, and the recovery of Guangdong and northern Vietnam from Nanyue. Han involvement in Central Asia and Sogdia helped establish the land route of the Silk Road, replacing the earlier path over the Himalayas to India. Han China gradually became the largest economy of the ancient world. Despite the Han's initial decentralization and the official abandonment of the Qin philosophy of Legalism in favor of Confucianism, Qin's legalist institutions and policies continued to be employed by the Han government and its successors.

After the end of the Han dynasty, a period of strife known as Three Kingdoms followed, whose central figures were later immortalized in one of the Four Classics of Chinese literature. At its end, Wei was swiftly overthrown by the Jin dynasty. The Jin fell to civil war upon the ascension of a developmentally disabled emperor; the Five Barbarians then invaded and ruled northern China as the Sixteen States. The Xianbei unified them as the Northern Wei, whose Emperor Xiaowen reversed his predecessors' apartheid policies and enforced a drastic sinification on his subjects, largely integrating them into Chinese culture. In the south, the general Liu Yu secured the abdication of the Jin in favor of the Liu Song. The various successors of these states became known as the Northern and Southern dynasties, with the two areas finally reunited by the Sui in 581. The Sui restored the Han to power through China, reformed its agriculture, economy and imperial examination system, constructed the Grand Canal, and patronized Buddhism. However, they fell quickly when their conscription for public works and a failed war in northern Korea provoked widespread unrest.

Under the succeeding Tang and Song dynasties, Chinese economy, technology, and culture entered a golden age. The Tang dynasty retained control of the Western Regions and the Silk Road, which brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and the Horn of Africa, and made the capital Chang'an a cosmopolitan urban center. However, it was devastated and weakened by the An Lushan Rebellion in the 8th century. In 907, the Tang disintegrated completely when the local military governors became ungovernable. The Song dynasty ended the separatist situation in 960, leading to a balance of power between the Song and Khitan Liao. The Song was the first government in world history to issue paper money and the first Chinese polity to establish a permanent standing navy which was supported by the developed shipbuilding industry along with the sea trade.

Between the 10th and 11th centuries, the population of China doubled in size to around 100 million people, mostly because of the expansion of rice cultivation in central and southern China, and the production of abundant food surpluses. The Song dynasty also saw a revival of Confucianism, in response to the growth of Buddhism during the Tang, and a flourishing of philosophy and the arts, as landscape art and porcelain were brought to new levels of maturity and complexity. However, the military weakness of the Song army was observed by the Jurchen Jin dynasty. In 1127, Emperor Huizong of Song and the capital Bianjing were captured during the Jin–Song Wars. The remnants of the Song retreated to southern China.

The Mongol conquest of China began in 1205 with the gradual conquest of Western Xia by Genghis Khan, who also invaded Jin territories. In 1271, the Mongol leader Kublai Khan established the Yuan dynasty, which conquered the last remnant of the Song dynasty in 1279. Before the Mongol invasion, the population of Song China was 120 million citizens; this was reduced to 60 million by the time of the census in 1300. A peasant named Zhu Yuanzhang led a rebellion that overthrew the Yuan in 1368 and founded the Ming dynasty as the Hongwu Emperor. Under the Ming dynasty, China enjoyed another golden age, developing one of the strongest navies in the world and a rich and prosperous economy amid a flourishing of art and culture. It was during this period that admiral Zheng He led the Ming treasure voyages throughout the Indian Ocean, reaching as far as East Africa.

In the early years of the Ming dynasty, China's capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing. With the budding of capitalism, philosophers such as Wang Yangming further critiqued and expanded Neo-Confucianism with concepts of individualism and equality of four occupations. The scholar-official stratum became a supporting force of industry and commerce in the tax boycott movements, which, together with the famines and defense against Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598) and Manchu invasions led to an exhausted treasury. In 1644, Beijing was captured by a coalition of peasant rebel forces led by Li Zicheng. The Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide when the city fell. The Manchu Qing dynasty, then allied with Ming dynasty general Wu Sangui, overthrew Li's short-lived Shun dynasty and subsequently seized control of Beijing, which became the new capital of the Qing dynasty.

The Qing dynasty, which lasted from 1644 until 1910, was the last imperial dynasty of China. Its conquest of the Ming (1618–1683) cost 25 million lives and the economy of China shrank drastically. After the Southern Ming ended, the further conquest of the Dzungar Khanate added Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang to the empire. The centralized autocracy was strengthened to suppress anti-Qing sentiment with the policy of valuing agriculture and restraining commerce, the *Haijin* ("sea ban"), and ideological control as represented by the literary inquisition, causing social and technological stagnation.

### **Fall of the Qing dynasty**

In the mid-19th century, the Qing dynasty experienced Western imperialism in the Opium Wars with Britain and France. China was forced to pay compensation, open treaty ports, allow extraterritoriality for foreign nationals, and cede Hong Kong to the British under the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, the first of the Unequal Treaties. The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) resulted in Qing China's loss of influence in the Korean Peninsula, as well as the cession of Taiwan to Japan. The Qing dynasty also began experiencing internal unrest in which tens of millions of people died, especially in the White Lotus Rebellion, the failed Taiping Rebellion that ravaged southern China in the 1850s and 1860s and the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) in the northwest. The initial success of the Self-Strengthening Movement of the 1860s was frustrated by a series of military defeats in the 1880s and 1890s.

In the 19th century, the great Chinese diaspora began. Losses due to emigration were added to by conflicts and catastrophes such as the Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879, in which between 9 and 13 million people died. The Guangxu Emperor drafted a reform plan in 1898 to establish a modern constitutional monarchy, but these plans were thwarted by the Empress Dowager Cixi. The ill-fated anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1901 further weakened the dynasty. Although Cixi sponsored a program of reforms, the Xinhai Revolution of 1890–1910 brought an end to the Qing dynasty and established the Republic of China. Puyi, the last Emperor of China, abdicated in 1910.

### Establishment of the Republic and the second Sino-Japanese war.

The new government based in Peking after the war needed to deal with many issues in China. The Yat-sen Administration would further democratize the nation, examples would be creating a new constitution, which dissolved the provisional government. Others are the establishment of the 5 branches, expansion of the legislative and executive branches, creating checks and balances, major influence from western democracy mixed with traditional Chinese administrative systems.

During the process, the government had to deal with a couple uprisings created by upper-class Chinese who didn't like the government taking power and influence from them and others by lower-class who were dissatisfied with the slow rate of the government creating reform to benefit them. Both would be crushed, further consolidating power in the central government. The new government would finally start doing work across China. Under the Principles of the Three, the government introduced many land reforms under the "Equalization of Land Rights". This with attempting to establish large welfare programs, Sun Yat-sen gained much support and love from the lower class. These land reforms were not liked by the upper class and conservatives. They attempted to change the land reforms and even some attempted a coup d'etat, which failed again.

Welfare programs would prove too large for the government to handle, so instead they moved onto a balanced approach, allowing for the local governments to deal with welfare programs and encouraging some sort of capitalism to help develop these areas, but still providing essentials for many of the lower class. The new 5 Yuan system also kept the government from succumbing to corruption easily, unlike the old imperial court of the Qing. Sun Yat-sen with the government secured and much of the branches under his party's control early on, he would pass many laws that would help unify Chinese ethnic groups into a single nationality. Meaning which some traditions of the 5 races were removed or banned to create some sort of unity. This aspect was difficult, as many of these groups had no central core that related them together, but they all hated Imperialists who basically pillaged China's wealth. Sun Yat-sen was able to create unity through anti-imperialism and anti-Japanism, as Japan grew to be a large threat against China. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, the Republic of China would continue to stabilize and centralize, except for Tibet.

Tibet declared independence from china after the revolution and was unable to be kept under Chinese control for a few years. Mongolia would fall under Chinese control, abolishing the Bogd Khanate. This would reawaken Mongolian national spirit and they would revolt against them. Chinese Military would keep control of Mongolia proper.

With guidance of Sun Yat-sen who was still alive, support from the U.S and the France, China started to industrialize.

Learning from the mistakes of the west when it came to industrialization and taking some notes from Japan's industrialization, the nation began their industrialization in the early 20s and completed in the 30s. It would be slowed with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1924. After the fabricated Makuden incident occurred, the Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria. The Kwantung thought that Chinese forces in Manchuria would fold easily, thinking of their assumed superiority. They were wrong, very wrong, as Chinese Northern Armies had been preparing for Japanese invasion. The Kwantung Army was surprised by the amount of Chinese resistance and were pushed back into Korea. The Japanese government was forced to sue for peace, but this highly embarrassed the military, and they created a vendetta against China.

The Republic of China remained in an era of peace until 1936, when the Japanese invaded them again, but with larger forces. The Japanese military swept across coastal china, invading their eastern cities and waging a brutal campaign in Manchuria. The conflict consumed much of Asia, until the U.S joined China and Russia. Forcing Japanese forces to divert their attention, allowing for the Chinese to beat back the Japanese and even invade Korea. China is the dominant power of the east, replacing Japan. since 1941 china has been a rising power. and in 1951-1953 the nation annexed tibet.

## Politics

List of political parties in China

China is a unitary parliamentary constitutional republic a form of government that combines a parliamentary system, a head of state with mostly symbolic power, and a written constitution that defines the rights of its citizens and the structure of its government. Chinas government works in 3 ways.

Chinas Parliamentary system is known as the Legislative Yuan, This system relies on representatives elected by citizens, known as MPs (Members of Parliament), to make decisions on behalf of the population. Power is vested in the democratically elected parliament, which is usually made up like a national parliament and has the authority to make laws and appoint the prime minister.

The head of state of china is the president is a largely ceremonial figure who represents the country and its citizens. They hold some powers, but their role is typically to ensure that the country's constitution and the government's actions are consistent and in line with the national interest.

The constitution of China sets the rules for the government and the relationship between the government and the citizens. It defines the structure of the government, the powers of the parliament, the head of state, and the judiciary, as well as the rights and responsibilities of the citizens. It is the supreme law of the country and all other laws and regulations must be in line with it.

In summary, china’s government which is a unitary parliamentary constitutional republic is a system of government that is based on the principles of democracy, the rule of law, and constitutionalism. It combines a parliamentary system, a head of state, and a clear constitutional framework to ensure that the country is governed in a stable, fair, and effective manner.

## Economy

The Chinese economy is the 3rd largest economy in the world in terms of nominal GDP, with a size of $675 billion as of 2002. The economy is based primarily on the manufacturing of advanced electronics, including semiconductors and related products, which account for about 60% of the country's exports.China is a major exporter of electronics, and it has a strong trade partnership with the United States, as well as with other major economies such as Japan, Korea, and members of the European Union. The country's economy is characterized by high levels of investment in research and development, as well as a focus on innovation and technology.

## Demographics

The national census of 2000 recorded the population of the Republic of China as approximately 2,411,778,724. According to the 2000 census, about 20.95% of the population were 14 years old or younger, 63.35% were between 15 and 59 years old, and 18.7% were over 60 years old. Between 1995 and 2000, the average population growth rate was 5.53%.

## Culture and society

Since ancient times, Chinese culture has been heavily influenced by Confucianism. Chinese culture, in turn, has heavily influenced East Asia and Southeast Asia. For much of the country's dynastic era, opportunities for social advancement could be provided by high performance in the prestigious imperial examinations, which have their origins in the Han dynasty. The literary emphasis of the exams affected the general perception of cultural refinement in China, such as the belief that calligraphy, poetry and painting were higher forms of art than dancing or drama. Chinese culture has long emphasized a sense of deep history and a largely inward-looking national perspective. Examinations and a culture of merit remain greatly valued in China today.