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China or 中国 has undergone rapid change since the market reforms in 1978. This is the year when China began the process of socio-economic change.Picture from: 40 years after reform and opening-up: China's GDP 1978-2017Whoever visits China after a period as short as one or two years is likely to find many aspects of the country changed from buildings, roads, and other infrastructures appear and disappear. New technologies, social attitudes and cultural practices are constantly being reinvented. Some remain, others fade away.China occupies around 3.7 million square miles (nearly one-fourth of the Asian continent).Pictures from:History of Asia - WikipediaAsia Map with Countries, Clickable Map of Asian CountriesChinese people proudly proclaim 5,000 years of history and more than 3,000 years of literature, poetry, and philosophy etc. In short, it has a long history. Therefore, understanding what China is all about, requires much more in-depth research. During this extensive timescale, China has constantly been changing. Confucianism has been constantly evolving. Buddhism, although it was imported into China a long time ago from India, has been metamorphosed into something intrinsically ‘Chinese’. Taoism, a philosophy of change, has inspired a wide range of other popular religious practices that have differed throughout the land.Picture from: A Short Concept of Yin and Yang in the Doctrine of Taoism (道教)Own picture. A Taoist temple in my grandparents’ village in China.So, the question we have to ask ourselves is what part of Chinese history should we know? Well, the answer differs from person to person, but it would be impossible to condense Chinese history into one single Quora answer. Therefore, I am going to discuss the recent events in China from the late 19th century to the present day. Each event will be discussed chronologically and keep in mind that this answer does not provide a comprehensive history of China. The aim is to pinpoint some recent historical events that underpin a basic understanding of what China is today.The 19th and 20th centuries were major periods of upheaval and transformation for China. It experienced the collapse of the imperial rule, subsequent decades of civil war, the Japanese occupation, the anti-Japanese resistance, the emergence of new political thoughts from nationalism to communism, the socio-political revolution that established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Chinese history is accustomed to change. Even today, Chinese history is constantly being written.Now, let’s go back in time to the Opium Wars (1839 – 1860).Pictures from:The Opium Wars by Kyzer34Opium Wars | Definition, Summary, Facts, & CausesThe Opium War and the Humiliation of ChinaHow Britain Went to War With China Over OpiumThe British imported opium from India in exchange for Chinese tea and other goods. Opium addiction became a massive problem that the Chinese authorities at the time – Qing dynasty (1644 – 1911) outlawed the drug in 1836 and restricted foreign opium imports. Although opium was outlawed in Britain, the British continued to trade the drug in China despite the devastating socio-economic effects on the Chinese population. The attempt to stop the opium trade resulted in the Opium Wars. A Chinese official – Lin Zexu stood up against corruption amongst the British traders and other Chinese officials to enforce the ban on the opium trade. The imperial British navy humiliated the unprepared Chinese troops. Therefore, they were defeated and forced to concede trading access to several ports on the Eastern coast, amongst other things. This is how the British got Xianggang or better known as Hong Kong.Picture from: ZexuChina also conceded more trading ports to France, Russia and the United States.These defeats followed by the First Sino-Japanese war in 1895, which led Taiwan to become a Japanese territory were considered a period of humiliation by the Chinese.Picture from: First Sino-Japanese War | Facts, Definition, History, & CausesNow, Chinese intellectuals and government officials were pondering how did China with a rich history of cultural, scientific, technological innovation fall behind the rest of the world? 中国 needed to undergo drastic structural reforms from military, education, transport, and bureaucratic systems. Everything had to be changed. This leads us to the Self-Strengthening Movement – a campaign for reform in 中国.Key figures leading this campaign were Li Hongzhang (1823 – 1901) and Zuo Zongtang (1812 – 1885).Picture from: Li Hongzhang | Chinese statesmanPicture from: Governor-General of Shan’gan, Zuo Zongtang, in Civilian Dress with a Peacock Feather in His Hat. Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China, 1875The Wuxu or Hundred Days Reform focused on socio-political reforms after losing the Sino-Japanese war in 1895. Key figures were Liang Qichao (1873 – 1929), Kang Youwei (1858 – 1927).Picture from: Wikisource, the free online libraryPicture from: Kang Youwei | Chinese scholarOne could argue that without the Opium Wars, the First Sino-Japanese War in the 19th century, China would have been so different in the 20th century and today.Picture from: Historical Atlas of Asia Pacific (1 August 1894): First Sino-Japanese WarIn the 20th century, China underwent major political revolutions. The Xinhai Revolution or 1911. It began on the 10th of October in 1911 which culminated the inauguration of the Republic of China (ROC) on the 12th of February 1912.Pictures from:Xinhai Revolution | Facts, Summary, Uprising, Revolution & AftermathKuomintang (Xinhai) Revolution (1911–1912)X: Xinhai Revolution |The most prominent political groups involved were the Tongmenghui, which was the forerunner of the Kuomintang (KMT), the nationalist party founded by Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan) and later led by Chaing Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), whose nationalist government transferred to Taiwan after losing to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the civil war during the 1940s.Picture from: Sun Yat-sen - WikipediaPicture from: Chiang Kai-shek - WikiquotePicture from: File: Flag of the Republic of China.svg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China.svg)- (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China.svg) Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China.svg)Picture from: File: Flag of the Chinese Communist Party.svg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Chinese_Communist_Party.svg)- (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Chinese_Communist_Party.svg) Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Chinese_Communist_Party.svg)The 1911 Revolution saw the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. Indeed, Chinese dynasties have come and gone over the centuries, but this revolution did not install a new dynasty but saw the inauguration of ROC. Then, another major revolution was the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. So, the 1949 Revolution saw the victory of the CCP (communists) over KMT (nationalists). On a side note, both political parties were resisting against the Japanese occupation. When the CCP won against the KMT, Chairman Mao Zedong declared the founding of the PRC on the 1st of October 1949 in front of a massive crowd in Tiananmen Square.Picture from:The History Of October 1st, National Day Of ChinaLeft side of the roadMao Zedong orchestrated this revolution from the countryside. The CCP established its military and political headquarters in Yan’an, Shaanxi, China. Mao effected a strategy of winning over peasants in the countryside. The majority of citizens were poor. The 1949 Revolution had an enormous influence on the politicisation of literature, film, painting. Artistic production was centrally directed and was expected to follow key dogmatic principles about the superiority of this new dogma – communism, socialism whatever you want to call it. In other words, the role of art had to support the CCP and the need to serve the people. Traditional Chinese operas continued to be popular, but certain pieces in the classical repertoire were banned or rewritten to match with the political dogma of the day.Another important date in the 20th century for Chinese history is the 4th of May 1919 or better known as the May Fourth Movement was a series of patriotic protests led by students and intellectuals, mostly in large cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. The May Fourth Movement was about objecting the Treaty of Versailles.Picture from: Treaty of VersaillesIn the treaty, signed in Europe as a resolution to end the First World War, the victorious countries divided up German assets amongst themselves, including the Chinese Treaty Port of Qingdao in Shangdong Province. German concessions were to be handed over to the Japanese. This treaty came to be seen not only as a symbol of foreign imperialist disrespect for China, its territory and its people but also as a symbol for weakness and ineffectiveness of the government. This spurred anger amongst students, intellectuals which triggered a protest with around 3,000 demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.Picture from: The Beers - Tsingtao Beer UKAnyway, Qingdao is home to the world-famous formerly German brewery. You can visit the Tsingtao Brewery Museum in Qingdao, China.As the government interviewed and made dozens of arrests, it triggered further protests and garnered more support from other cities, notably Shanghai.Pictures from:The May Fourth MovementMay Fourth Movement (1919) in China Summary & FactsThe May Fourth Movement refers to the broad groups of students, activists, intellectuals. In some ways, the roots can be traced back to the 19th-century reformers who demanded the modernisation of the political system.Intellectuals were not only demanding fo political reform but also calling for cultural reform. Stories, essays, novels, plays and other artistic works were produced during this ear. Notable intellectuals were Hu Shi, Lu Xun, Chen Duxiu, Li Daming, Mao Dun, Lao She, Yu Dafu. They called for literature to be written in vernacular Chinese rather than the elite-oriented classical Chinese that had been the standard written form for centuries. This movement was left-leaning and its politics and advocated a strong cultural nationalism. Due to their left-wing associations, many May 4th writers were far less appreciated or were even banned by the KMT.More about the CCP. It was founded in 1921 by a small group of left-wing intellectuals in Shanghai. These intellectuals comprised of Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu. The first CCP congress was held on the 20th of July 1921 with 12 Chinese people in attendance and 2 Russians. Amongst the 12 Chinese, there was a young Mao Zedong. The Soviet influence also led to a fundamental split in the CCP, between those loyal to Moscow and those with a more pragmatic eye on the local Chinese context. Mao Zedong emerged as a prominent personality. He ran a successful recruitment in rural areas of Hunan and Jiangxi in the late 1920s.Mao Zedong is a polarising figure. He is often referred to as a revolutionary hero or vilified as an evil, authoritarian dictator. Until the 1970s, Mao was ‘irreproachable’. After his death in 1976 and the beginning of market reforms (open-door policy), and the gradual political liberalisation introduced by Deng Xiaoping, Mao’s position was publicly revised. For the first time, his major mistakes were being criticised such as the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s, the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. These events brought massive social disruption and suffering to millions of Chinese people around the country.Picture from: Deng Xiaoping - WikipediaThe Great Leap Forward was an attempt to mobilise the Chinese people to impossible levels of production to make a massive economic leap forward. The campaign resulted in failed harvests, massive waste, and the death by famine of millions of peasants in the early 1960s.Picture from: Great Leap Forward (1958-1961)Picture from: The Great Leap ForwardThe Cultural Revolution threw the country into complete chaos as Mao was removing his political enemies from the scene. This revolution saw many aspects of China’s cultural tradition reviled, criticised and destroyed. To this day, Mao holds the status of a national hero, admired by hundreds of millions of Chinese people.Anyway, although there were damages to buildings and artefacts, the real damage was on the Chinese people. Mao manipulated young people or Red Guards throughout the country to target his enemies, in particular the intellectuals. These Red Guards were schoolchildren and students who were loosely mobilised to implement the objectives of the Cultural Revolution.Pictures from:Fifty years on, one of Mao’s ‘little generals’ exposes horror of the Cultural Revolution1966-1967: The Red GuardsThese Red Guards damaged buildings and subjected their peers and elders to public humiliation. Millions of people were beaten, imprisoned, killed or driven to suicide as the country slipped into years of chaos. Schools, universities, factors, offices and other public institutions were forced to close for years.In 1968, Mao launched the campaign to send urban young people to the countryside in order to bring Red Guards who no longer served his political purposes under some degree of control. The reason was that privileged urban young people needed to understand the lives of working peasants. Millions of young people were forced to live and work in rural villages distant from their homes and families. Most of them remained in the countryside until the late 1970s when they were allowed to return home. This campaign had a profound effect on future cultural production in China, because most of the artists, filmmakers etc. who came to the future in the 1980s shared experiences of nearly a decade working with peasants in the countryside while having missed out on years of education. The revolution came to an end in 1976.One of the high-profile victims of the Cultural Revolution was Deng Xiaoping, who had been criticised, removed from power and sent to work in a factory. He was then brought back into government. That is how the open-door policy emerged in 1978. Deng Xiaoping was a pragmatist with a grand vision for China.Picture from: Deng Xiaoping QuotePicture from: Reflecting on Deng Xiaoping's 'Cat Theory' of Economic ReformThere are different variations of this quote, but that is the concept. This pragmatic approach was to change the fundamentals of the Chinese economy with a focus on economic development and not on class, as it had been under Mao. In the early 1980s, these reforms transformed the countryside and saw massive increases in agricultural output and growth in household income. Economic reforms in the cities came a little later in the 1980s. The fundamental principle that changed was that private capital and enterprise become not only legal but increasingly encouraged as the reforms went from strength to strength. Private business began with individual market traders in the 1980s and developed from there. A few decades later, there are millions of multi-millionaires business people in China.Picture from: China: number of millionaires 2019 | StatistaChina has re-established capitalism after decades of socialism, but it is capitalism with Chinese characteristics. This open-door policy brought considerable wealth and a much higher standard of living to hundreds of millions of Chinese. This reform decentralised the role of the work unit in people’s lives. It encouraged greater individual and family independence and has fostered new forms of consumerisms, individualism and independence completely unimaginable before 1978. Personal areas of people’s lives were being regulated with the one-child policy. This continued for decades to come, which will be discussed later.The open-door policy basically allowed foreign companies and business people to invest in China. As the country opened up to the outside world, there were still restrictions on foreign media to be involved with Chinese media. 中国’s entry to the World Trade Organisation in 2001 opened up closed areas of the economy to some foreign participation. However, there are still many grey areas publicly unknown. Thanks to the open-door policy, Chinese people were able to afford overseas vacations, studying abroad, and interacting with the rest of the world. One cannot deny the greater freedoms and new opportunities that millions of Chinese people enjoy today that they could not even have dreamed before the open-door policy.Today, there are still many grey areas. The internet could be a decent example. It has enabled Chinese people to interact amongst themselves and the rest of the world. Yet, the PRC has one of the most rigorous and effective internet filtering systems in the world. There is still no absolute freedom of speech or expression but is there really freedom of speech or expression around the world? That’s a debate for another day. Anyway, anybody found posting online content considered politically sensitive is likely to face some troubles. It would be difficult to say there is a public sphere emerging in the PRC.Picture from: Popular Websites Blocked in China by the Firewall - SinostepMany people are aware of China’s one-party political system, but as long as the CCP looks after its citizens, then the PRC should be fine – Harmonious Society. Look it up.Many media outlets are financially independent, but it does not mean there is a free press. They have to abide by the “Party Principle”. This principle lays the foundation for the relationship between the CCP and the media. Since the founding of the CCP, the Party has historically defined the role of the media as its agent. This means that all media should accept the leading role of the Paty both in society and in media production. They should promote Party policies, campaign. After the victory of the civil war in 1949, all media organisations at that time newspapers, radio stations, film studios, and cinema came under the control of the CCP and became subject to the expectations and obligations of the Party Principle. If there were reports to be deemed inappropriate by senior members of the Party, the offending organisation would be contacted and warned not to repeat the mistake. In more serious cases, the media organisation could face a range of penalties from enforced personnel changes to outright closure. Equally important, journalists cannot openly attack or criticise senior leaders of the Party. Though, many limits have become more flexible in recent times. Things are always changing in China. Therefore, one cannot give a ‘fixed’ answer. Studying China is a never-ending endeavour. That’s what makes it so fascinating.However, understanding Chinese mass media requires resisting the temptation to stereotype or think of things in terms of black and white. It is inadequate to think solely in terms of a totalitarian state controlling every aspect of media production. Nor it is possible to think of Chinese media in terms of Western-style liberal democracy. It is open to interpretation.On a side note, media organisations such as CCTV, the People’s Daily, and China’s People Radio seem to be closely monitored and are the national and international agents for the Party.Now, let’s discuss the one-child policy, which was introduced in the late 1970s. This policy has been differently implemented in the cities compared to the countryside. In the former, it has been rigidly enforced, to the point where abortions were common. In the latter, some peasants were allowed to have a second or third child depending on the rural areas. At the time, there was a strong cultural preference for boys. The preference arises from the fact that girls are married out from their biological families and go to live with the become a member of the husband’s family. The husband’s family gains an extra ‘worker’ plus children. This ancient worship is a fundamental aspect of Chinese practices. Sons were to continue the family line and ensure future generations of the family to care for the elders. The consequence of this preference led to millions of abortions if the fetus was female. The long-term consequence led to an imbalance of male to female ratio, where young men were unable to get married because there weren’t enough women available. It seems very logical, doesn’t it?Picture from: The Dark Legacy of China’s One-Child PolicyTiananmen Square 1989The 4th of June 1989 was the day that Chinese authorities sent in troops to clear student protests at Tiananmen Square. Students went on a hunger strike and set up makeshifts camps in the square. The entire place was filled with tents, blankets, sleeping bags and thousands of protestors.Pictures from:Tiananmen Square massacre: How Beijing turned on its own peopleNew photos emerge of Tiananmen Square just after 1989 massacreChina still gets annoyed with images showing the famous Tiananmen Square 'Tank Man,' 30 years after he became a symbol of the government's brutalityThe 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in photos1989 Tiananmen Square protestsAn approximate figure of around 3,000 people was killed with thousands more injured. However, the official figures released at the end of June that year said only 200 people were killed with 3,000 and 6,000 soldiers injured. It seems that the Chinese government rejected higher estimates of casualties. A key event was the national manhunt for the student leaders and others involved in the protests. Thousands of people were arrested across the country and many were given lengthy prison sentences or even executed for their involvement in the protest. Some of the most prominent student leaders managed to escape overseas. Since then, it has become taboo to discuss the Tiananmen Square events. They are rarely mentioned publicly. These events have become a feature for Chinese popular culture outside of mainland China such as in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other territories.The role of the media became far more sensitive about political issues wary of overstepping political boundaries and cautious about not upsetting the political leaders after 1989. It is also important to note that for most Chinese people of the 2000s, the event of 1989 is a long way in the past. Many rural Chinese people are very remote from the 1989 protests.On a side note, the Tankman is one of the most influential images of all time.Picture from: How a Photo of a Man in Front of Military Tanks Became a Symbol of Defiance Against the Chinese GovernmentNow, a little bit about the ROC, the PRC, Taiwan, Hong KongAs we know by now, China has a complicated history. The word “China” often used to refer to the main PRC, also refers to the island of Taiwan even though it has its own elected government. Hong Kong was a British colony for a century and a half until 1997. Macau was a Portuguese colony for hundreds of years up until 1999. The ROC is a political entity founded after the Xinhai Revolution. In the late 1940s, the nationalist forces of the KMT were losing the civil war against Mao’s CCP troops, Chiang Kai-shek ordered a retreat from mainland China to the island of Taiwan and retained the name of the ROC to the present day.Thanks to the open-door policy, tensions between mainland China and Taiwan have gradually eased, but the tensions always come and go. The point here is that in the late 1980s, Taiwanese people were allowed for the first time since 1949 to go to the mainland to visit relatives. Moreover, since Taiwan lifted the Martial Law in 1987 that had been in effect since 1948, the island has undergone a political transformation. After decades of one-party, new political parties sprang up, eventually leading to the first open election of the president of the ROC in 1996. The 1996 elections saw the KMT retain power, but in 2000 the elections were won by Chen Shui-bian of the pro-Taiwan Independence Democratic Progressive Party. Chen Shui-bian won again in 2004.Picture from: Chen Shui-bian | Biography & FactsThe island of Hong Kong was originally handed over to the British under what the Chinese called “the unequal treaties” signed after the First Opium War. The island was largely uninhabited and of negligible economic importance to the Chinese; however, it turned out to have fundamental importance for the expansion of foreign trade. In 1860, a second treaty ceded the Kowloon Peninsula – the territory on the mainland opposite the Hong Kong island – and Stonecutters’ Island to the British, while the New Territories – a larger swath of land beyond Kowloon and including more than 200 other islands – was leased in 1898 for 99 years. It was this lease that ultimately ensured the return of the whole of the territory of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, since Hong Kong would not have been a viable entity on its own, dependent as it was on the New Territories and mainland China, for much of its electricity and water supply.Chinese LanguagePutonghua (普通话) is the official language of both the PRC and ROC. Although there are standard pronunciation differences between the two regions, it is the national language referred to as 国语 (national language). At the same time, there are more than 2,500 dialects throughout China. These vary enormously in pronunciation and mutual intelligibility. Many have different pronunciation from Putonghua. For example, Cantonese and Shanghai dialect are so different from Putonghua. Cantonese has nine tones instead of four in Putonghua.What is China and what is Chinese are two difficult questions to answer. It is difficult to find political consensus as to what constitutes China amongst Chinese people themselves. What counts as Chinese has different answers depending on whether one is considering political definitions, linguistic definitions, cultural definitions, or social definitions. A Tibetan is internationally recognised as a citizen of the PRC – even if he or she may protest cultural, linguistic, and social differences form the majority of the other PRC citizens. In fact, China has 56 official recognised nationalities or ethnicities, of which the Han Chinese majority is just one.Taiwanese people are internationally recognised as citizens of the ROC and not the PRC – they travel on ROC passports, for example – even if the PRC insists the island is still one of its provinces and only the PRC is recognised by the United Nations. Yet most people in Taiwan are also Han Chinese, giving them considerable cultural and linguistic overlap with many of their mainland neighbours. These issues define an area of intense debate about how best to understand China and notions of Chineseness.If you would like to read more about China, you can read my thesis on LinkedIn about media narratives on China as a development partner, an economic competitor and a neo-coloniser in Zambia.https://www.linkedin.com/in/francescowang/Feel free to criticise and provide me with specific feedback.Last, but not least, here’s an interesting academic article about the role of gaming in contemporary China. If you are still in academia, you can download it for free via your university.Own pictures.DisclaimerThe answer provided on this website is for general information only. 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