INTRODUCTION  
China (Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo), country in East Asia, the world’s third largest country by area (after Russia and Canada) and the largest by population. Officially the People’s Republic of China, it is bounded on the north by the Republic of Mongolia and Russia; on the northeast by Russia and North Korea; on the east by the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea; on the south by the South China Sea, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), India, Bhutan, and Nepal; on the west by Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan; and on the northwest by Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

China includes more than 3400 offshore islands. The total area of China is 9,571,300 sq km (3,695,500 sq mi), not including Hong Kong, Macau, and land under the control of the Republic of China on Taiwan, which mainland China considers a renegade province. In 1971 the United Nations (UN) admitted the People’s Republic of China (mainland China) and expelled the Republic of China (hereafter Taiwan) from its membership. Although most world governments do not recognize Taiwan, the island maintains a distinct government and economy. Information in this article, unless otherwise indicated, refers only to mainland China. Hong Kong, formerly a British territory, reverted to China in 1997. Unless otherwise specified, the statistics in this article do not include Hong Kong, which maintains a separate economy and has considerable political autonomy. The statistics also do not include Macau, located near Hong Kong on China’s southern coast, which is a Chinese territory administered by Portugal. Macau is scheduled to return to Chinese administration in 1999. The capital of China is Beijing; the country’s most populous urban center is Shanghai.

More than one-fifth of the world’s total population lives within China’s borders. China gave birth to one of the world’s earliest civilizations and has a recorded history that dates from some 3500 years ago. Zhongguo, the Chinese name for the country, means "central land," a reference to the Chinese belief that their country was the geographical center of the earth and the only true civilization. By the 19th century China had become a politically and economically weak nation, dominated by foreign powers.

China underwent many changes in the first half of the 20th century. The imperial government was overthrown and in the chaotic years that followed, two groups—the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Communists—struggled for control of the country. In 1949 the Communists won control of China. The government of the Republic of China, led by the KMT, fled to Taiwan.

The accession of the Communist government in 1949 stands as one of the most important events in Chinese history; in a remarkably short period of time radical changes were effected in both the Chinese economy and society. Since the 1970s China has cast off its self-imposed isolation from the international community and has sought to modernize its economic structure.

The Republic of China  The Chinese Republic maintained a uncertain existence from 1912 until 1949. Although a constitution was adopted and a parliament convened in 1912, Yüan Shih-k’ai never allowed these institutions to inhibit his personal control of the government. When the newly formed Kuomintang (Nationalist Party, or KMT), headed by Sun Yat-sen, attempted to limit Yüan’s power, first by parliamentary tactics and then by an unsuccessful revolution in 1913, Yüan responded by dismissing parliament, outlawing the Kuomintang (KMT), and ruling through his personal connections with provincial military leaders. Sun Yat-sen took refuge in Japan. Yüan, however, was forced by popular opposition to abandon his plans to restore the empire and install himself as emperor. He died in 1916, and political power passed to the provincial warlords for more than a decade. The central government retained a precarious and nearly fictional existence until 1927.

The Kuomintang and the Rise of the Communist Party  
After World War I, two clear objectives emerged: to rid China of imperialism and to reestablish national unity. The Chinese became more and more interested in the revolutionary changes in Russia and in Marxist-Leninist thought. The Chinese Communist Party was founded in Shanghai in 1921, numbering among its original members Mao Zedong. In 1923 Sun Yat-sen agreed to accept Soviet advice in reorganizing the crumbling Kuomintang and its feeble military forces. At the same time he agreed to admit Communists to Kuomintang membership. Sun’s basic ideology, the Three Principles of Nationalism, Democracy, and Socialism, were charged with the spirit of anti-imperialism and national unification. Despite Sun’s death in 1925, the rejuvenated Kuomintang, under the leadership of the young general Chiang Kai-shek, launched a military expedition from its base in Guangzhou in 1926. Chiang sought to reunify China under Kuomintang rule and rid the country of imperialists and warlords. Before the Kuomintang completed the nominal reunification of China early in 1928, however, Chiang conducted a bloody purge of the party’s Communist membership, and from then on he relied upon support from the propertied classes and the foreign treaty powers.

Chiang’s Problems  The new national government that the Kuomintang established at Nanjing in 1928 was faced with three large problems. First, Chiang had actually brought only five provinces under his control. The remainder of the country was still governed by local warlords. Second, by the early 1930s he was confronted with an internal Communist rebellion. The Chinese Communists, after being purged from the Kuomintang in 1927, split into two factions and went underground. One faction attempted to start urban uprisings; the other, headed by Mao Zedong, took to the countryside of central China, where it mobilized peasant support, formed a peasant army, and set up several soviet governments. The first faction eventually joined Mao in central China. Third, Chiang’s new government was faced with Japanese aggression in North and Northeast China.

World War II  In 1937 Japan and China went to. By 1938 Japan had seized control of most of northeast China, the Yangtze Valley as far inland as Hankou, and the area around Guangzhou on the southeast coast. The Kuomintang moved its capital and most of its military force inland to Chongqing in the southwestern province of Sichuan. During World War II (1939-1945), the Kuomintang government in Chongqing suffered serious military and financial losses while the Communists, with their headquarters at Yan’an, significantly expanded their territorial bases, military forces, and party membership.

The Communists fanned out from Yan’an, occupying much of North China and infiltrating many of the rural areas behind Japanese lines. There they skillfully organized the peasantry in their support and built up the ranks of the Communist Party and the Red Army. Unity and organizational discipline were maintained through a vigorous campaign of propaganda and thought reform. Large stockpiles of captured Japanese weapons and ammunition were turned over to the Communists by the Soviet forces that occupied Manchuria after the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945. As a result, the Communists emerged from World War II a far larger, stronger, better-disciplined, and better-equipped force than before.

The Kuomintang-Communist Fight for Supremacy  
In 1945, shortly after Japan surrendered, fighting broke out between Communist and Kuomintang troops over the reoccupation of Manchuria. In 1948 military initiative passed to the Communists, and in the summer of 1949, Nationalist resistance collapsed. The Nationalist government, with the forces it could save, sought refuge on the island of Taiwan.

In September 1949 the Communists convened the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a body of 662 members, which adopted a set of guiding principles and an organic law for governing the country. The conference elected the Central People’s Government Council, which was to serve as the supreme policymaking organ of the state while the conference was not in session. Mao Zedong, who served as chairman of this body, was, in fact, head of state. In accordance with the powers delegated to it by the conference, the Central People’s Government Council set up the various organs of the central and local governments. At the national level, the Government Administrative Council headed by Zhou Enlai performed both the legislative and executive functions of government. Subordinate to the council were more than 30 ministries and commissions charged with the conduct of various aspects of state affairs. The new regime, called the People’s Republic of China, was officially proclaimed on October 1, 1949.

The People’s Republic  In 1953, after Communist control had been firmly established in most localities, the Central People’s Government Council initiated the election of people’s congresses at the local level. These, in turn, elected congresses at the next highest administrative level. A series of (hierarchy) elected congresses was completed in 1954 with the election of the National People’s Congress, which approved the draft constitution submitted by the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

The 1954 constitution, which replaced the Organic Law of 1949 as the basic law of the land, confirmed the hegemony of the Chinese Communist Party and introduced limited change designed to centralize government control. This charter was later superseded by others.

The Transformation of Society  The basic policy of the Communist government was to transform China into a socialist society. To this end Marxist-Leninist education and propaganda were employed extensively. Youths were directed to look to the party and the state rather than to their families for leadership and security. Women were assured a position of equality by new marriage laws that banned concubinage, polygamy, sale of children, and interference with the remarriage of widows and ensured equal rights with respect to employment, ownership of property, and divorce. Religion was strictly controlled; foreign missionaries were forced to leave; and Chinese clerics, who cooperated with the Communists, were placed over the Christian churches. Intellectuals were subjected to a specialized program of thought reform directed toward eradicating anti-Communist ideas.

In the first years of the Communist republic the government also resorted to terror in its efforts to eliminate all opposition and potential enemies. In 1951 Beijing authorities stated that between October 1949 and October 1950, more than 1 million so-called counterrevolutionaries were executed. Some foreign authorities estimated that the figure came close to 2 million at the end of 1951.

Economic Policy  The first task of the Communists was to reconstruct the economy, which had been disrupted by decades of domestic warfare. They immediately instituted severe measures to stop inflation, restore communications, and reestablish the domestic order necessary for economic development. Their basic economic policy was the step-by-step organization of the farmers into agricultural collectives in order to promote efficiency and create the savings necessary for the establishment of heavy industry. Private industry was gradually brought under joint state-private ownership and state control through a series of programs involving state seizure of a controlling interest, through reform and intimidation of some owners, and through fixed compensatory payment to others whose expertise the state was anxious to enlist. Land reform was started in 1950 and was followed by the formation of mutual-aid teams, cooperatives, and collective farms. The first five-year plan was initiated in 1953 and carried out with Soviet assistance.

Foreign Policy  Chinese foreign policy reflected the unity of the Communist movement in the 1950s. China and the USSR signed a treaty of friendship and alliance in 1950. During the Korean War (1950-1953) Chinese troops aided the Communist regime of North Korea against UN forces. Zhou Enlai played an important role in negotiating the Geneva Agreements of 1954 that ended the hostilities.

On coming to power, the Communist regime also attempted to regain areas it considered to be within the historic boundaries of China. In 1950 Chinese troops invaded Tibet and forced the mountain country to accept Chinese rule. In August 1954, Zhou Enlai officially declared that the liberation of Taiwan was one of his principal objectives, and Chiang Kai-shek also refused to accept the status quo, asserting from time to time his intention of reconquering the mainland.

The Great Leap Forward  The caution and planning that went into the first five-year plan were to a large extent abandoned in the second, which began in 1958. More rigid controls were imposed on the economy in order to increase agricultural production, restrict consumption, and speed up industrialization. The slogan of the plan was to effect a Great Leap Forward. Largely because of poor direction and inadequate planning, the program failed. The economy became badly disorganized, and industrial production dropped by as much as 50 percent between 1959 and 1962.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution  As the Communists struggled to remake Chinese society, differences appeared between Mao, who favored a pure Communist ideology, and intellectuals, professional people, and bureaucrats, who wanted a more rational, moderate approach encouraging efficiency and productivity. In May 1956, party leaders concerned over their inability to command the unquestioning loyalty of the influential intellectual class launched a campaign advising the Chinese to "let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend." Educated Chinese were urged to air their complaints so that problems might be identified and resolved. In early 1957 Mao himself broadened the campaign, inviting free criticism of all government policies. It was assumed, of course, that such criticism would still be within the Communist framework. Such an unexpected torrent of dissatisfaction fell on party leaders, however, that in June 1957 strict controls on freedom of expression were reimposed.

Widening Division  Thereafter the division between Mao and the moderates widened. In 1959 he retired as head of state and was succeeded by the moderate Liu Shaoqi; he retained the party chairmanship, however. Mao’s influence was further diminished by the economic failures of the Great Leap Forward. The division became a public struggle in 1966, when Mao and his supporters launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to eradicate the remains of so-called bourgeois ideas and customs and to recapture the revolutionary zeal of early Chinese communism. Mao also wanted to weaken the party bureaucracy, now entrenched in privilege, and modernize the educational system to benefit rural and manual laborers.

Students calling themselves Red Guards, joined by groups of workers, peasants, and demobilized soldiers, took to the streets in pro-Maoist, sometimes violent, demonstrations. They made intellectuals, bureaucrats, party officials, and urban workers their chief targets. The central party structure was destroyed as many high officials, including head of state Liu, were deprived of their positions and expelled from the party. Schools were closed and the economy disrupted.

International Tension  During 1967 and 1968 bloody fighting between Maoists and anti-Maoists, and among various Red Guard factions, took thousands of lives. In some areas rebellion deteriorated into anarchy. Finally the army, led by Mao’s close associate Lin Biao, was called in to restore order. The Red Guards were sent back to school or to labor in remote areas.

The Cultural Revolution had an adverse effect on foreign relations. The Red Guard inspired riots in Hong Kong that caused economic and social chaos. Pro-Red Guard propaganda and agitation by overseas Chinese strained relations with many states, especially the USSR, and a successful Chinese hydrogen-bomb test in 1967 did nothing to allay Soviet fear.

The Last Years Under Mao  Mao emerged victorious during the Cultural Revolution and was greatly honored. More diversity was allowed, however, and real power was held by others. The Ninth Party Congress in April 1969 attempted to reestablish the party’s central organization. Mao was reelected party chairman with much fanfare, and Defense Minister Lin Biao, Mao’s personal choice, was named his eventual successor. The most influential figures, however, were not Maoists but moderates—high military officials, followers of Lin Biao, or men of pragmatic policies such as Premier Zhou Enlai.

A power struggle in 1971 resulted in the disappearance from public life of Lin, who was later accused of plotting to assassinate Mao and was said to have died in an airplane crash. Zhou rose in prominence. The Tenth Party Congress, held in August 1973, deleted from the constitution the name of Lin as Mao’s successor. The positions of Mao and Zhou remained unchallenged. Mao’s commitment to mobilization of the masses and his deep-seated distrust of bureaucracy were expressed in 1973 and 1974 in a new thought-reform campaign attacking both Confucianism and Lin Biao. Mao’s radical thought was reflected in a new, greatly simplified national constitution adopted by the Fourth National People’s Congress in January 1975; but the moderate Deng Xiaoping, a rehabilitated victim of the Cultural Revolution, was named deputy to Premier Zhou.

During this period China’s foreign relations improved dramatically. In 1971 it was admitted to the United Nations, replacing the Republic of China (Taiwan). In 1972 U.S. President Richard M. Nixon made an official visit to China, during which he agreed to the need for Sino-United States contacts and the eventual withdrawal of United States troops from Taiwan. As a step toward full diplomatic relations, liaison offices were set up in Beijing and Washington in 1973. Diplomatic relations with Japan were established in 1972.

Mao’s Successors  Premier Zhou and Chairman Mao both died in 1976, leaving a power vacuum. Zhou’s death precipitated a struggle for power between moderate and radical leaders. The radicals scored an early victory by preventing the moderate first deputy premier, Deng Xiaoping, from being chosen premier and then having him ousted from his government and party posts. As a compromise, Hua Guofeng, an administrator without close ties to either faction, became premier. Under Hua, moderate policies prevailed. Consolidating his position, he had the Gang of Four—as moderates called Mao’s widow Jiang Qing, and three other leading radicals—arrested and charged with assorted crimes. About the same time he was named to succeed Mao as party chairman.

Hua then concentrated on stabilizing politics, aiding recovery from earthquakes that had devastated Tangshan and other parts of the north in July 1976, and fostering economic development. To carry out his program he appointed moderate officials to high positions. In 1977 Deng was reinstated as first deputy premier and also in his other posts. The Gang of Four was expelled from the party.

The emphasis on moderation in politics and modernization in government was reflected in the Fifth National People’s Congress, which met in February and March 1978. Hua was reelected premier, with Deng as first deputy premier.

Foreign Relations  As these internal adjustments were being made, relations with Vietnam began to show strain. To China’s chagrin, Soviet influence in Vietnam was growing, and the policy of closing down private businesses in the newly won South was most acutely felt by the Chinese minority. The result was an exodus of ethnic Chinese who streamed into southern China, clogging its welfare facilities; by July 1978 China felt compelled to close its borders. When Vietnam further invaded Cambodia and toppled that country’s Chinese-backed government in January 1979, China retaliated; in February it sent troops into Vietnam. Although the forces were withdrawn in early March, the Vietnamese now regarded their remaining Chinese minority as unwelcome and put pressure on them to leave. Hundreds of thousands set off by sea, often in overloaded, rickety boats, and although many reached safety in other countries, as many are thought to have perished. The plight of the boat people became an international concern.

Apprehensive of Soviet-Vietnamese encirclement, China enhanced its foreign contacts. Full diplomatic relations were established with the United States in January 1979 and a trade agreement was made in July. Closer ties were also forged with Japan and Western Europe.

A Education  
One of the most ambitious programs of the Communist Party has been the establishment of universal public education for such a large population. In the first two years of the new government (1949-1951) more than 60 million peasants enrolled in "winter schools," or sessions, established to take advantage of the slack season for agricultural workers. Mao declared that a dominant goal of education was to reduce the sense of class distinction. This was to be accomplished by reducing the social gaps between manual and mental labor; between the city and countryside resident; and between the worker in the factory and the peasant on the land.

The most radical developments in education in China, however, took place between 1966 and 1978. During the Cultural Revolution, virtually all classrooms in China were closed from 1966 to 1969. The 131 million youths who had been enrolled in primary and secondary school remained out of school; many became involved in Mao’s efforts to shake up the new elite of China by the presence of youthful critics reviewing governmental programs and policies. Primary and secondary schools began to reopen in 1968 and 1969, but all institutions of higher education remained closed until the 1970 to 1972 period.

Government policies toward education changed dramatically during this period. The traditional 13 years of kindergarten to 12th grade were reduced to a 9- or 10-year plan for primary and secondary (or middle) school. Colleges that had traditionally had a four- or five-year curriculum adopted a three-year program, and part of this time was mandated as productive labor in support of the school or the course of study being pursued. A two-year period of manual labor also became essential for most secondary school graduates who wished to go on to college.

Following Mao’s death in 1976, a major review of these policies began. As a result, and because of the increased interest in the development of science in Chinese education, curricula again came to resemble those of the pre-Cultural Revolution years. Programs for primary and secondary schooling were gradually readjusted to encompass 12 years of study (although only nine years are compulsory), and high school graduates were no longer required to go to the countryside for two years of labor before competing for college positions.

A significant change in the educational system has been the reinstitution of standardized college-entrance exams. These exams were a regular part of the mechanism for upward mobility in China prior to the Cultural Revolution. During the experimentation of those years, antitraditionalists were able to eliminate the entrance exams by arguing that they favored an elite who had an intellectual tradition in their families. When colleges reopened from 1970 to 1972, admission was granted to many candidates because of their political leanings, party activities, and peer-group support. This method of selection ceased in 1977, as the Chinese launched their new campaign for the Four Modernizations. The government’s stated goals for rapid modernization in agriculture, industry, defense, and science and technology required high levels of training. Such educational programs by necessity had to be based on theoretical and formal skills more than on political attitudes and the spirit of revolution.

By the 1996-1997 academic year 136.2 million pupils were enrolled in primary schools, and 68.2 million students were enrolled in secondary schools; enrollments in 1949 had been about 24 million in primary schools and 1.25 million in secondary schools. About 3.2 million students enrolled in China’s institutions of higher learning.

Chinese higher education is now characterized by the "key-point system." Under this system the most promising students are placed in selected key-point schools, which specialize in training an academic elite. University education remains difficult to attain; as many as 2 million students compete each year through entrance examinations for 500,000 university openings. Students finishing secondary schools may also attend junior colleges and a variety of technical and vocational schools. Among the most prominent universities in China are Beijing University (1898); Hangzhou University (1952); Fudan University (1905), in Shanghai; and the University of Science and Technology of China (1958), in Hefei. An innovation in China’s educational system is the Television University (see Communications below). In the past, students received free university education but upon graduation were required to accept jobs in state-owned industries. The government instituted a pilot program in 1994, whereby the state allowed university students the option to pay their own tuition in exchange for the freedom to find their own jobs after graduation. This enabled graduates who paid their way to choose better paying jobs with foreign companies in China, or to demand better pay from state-owned enterprises. By the late 1990s, all incoming university students were required to pay their own tuition, although loans and scholarships were available.

B Cultural Life  
The educational goals of the Chinese Communist government have been promoted by means other than formal education. During the 1960s and 1970s, plays, opera, popular literature, and music were seen to have the capacity to educate. For example, in 1964 the Festival of Peking Opera in Contemporary Themes was organized by Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife. New works combining drama and ideology, such as Taking of Tiger Mountain by Strategy, were written for the opera. Similar cultural modifications were introduced into Chinese ballet; elements of traditional folk dance, martial arts, gymnastics, and classical ballet were integrated into a popular production. These shows were performed not only in the major cities but also in the smaller cities and the countryside.

With the increase in foreign cultural exchanges since the mid-1970s, the official attitude toward the propaganda aspects of the arts has been relaxed. Foreign literature, which had been banned in the 1960s, began to reappear in China. In 1978 and 1979 some 200 translations of foreign works, including popular novels from the West, were completed in the People’s Literature Publishing House.

In popular music the change was officially noted in a government report, which stated that new songs were emerging in the early 1980s because the Chinese were "tired of the old political songs and slogans they grew up with." The Chinese government also recognizes that the arts afford a useful social outlet. Movie theaters are usually filled to capacity, and traveling troupes of acrobats, circus performers, and jugglers, as well as ballet and opera shows, play to full houses in small cities and commune centers. During the 1980s, China showed increased openness to classical and popular musicians from the West.

The climate for cultural expression in China is delicate because of the speed with which government attitudes can change. In 1957, during the Hundred Flowers campaign, writers and intellectuals were encouraged to speak up and provide perspectives on the government’s progress in meeting the needs of the people. The criticisms that were prompted by this call for candor were so strong that the government suddenly reversed itself, and many intellectuals found themselves persecuted for the opinions they had expressed. Similar "changes of sky" led China’s artists, writers, composers, and filmmakers to respond cautiously to governmental encouragement of independent cultural expression in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

C Cultural Institutions  
Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou play leading cultural roles in China; most of the renowned museums, theaters, and cultural displays are in these cities.

Beijing remains the cultural heart of the nation. Located in the vicinity of the famous Tian’an Men Square are the Forbidden City, formerly the residence of the emperor and now a museum open to the public; the Mao Zedong Memorial Hall; and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution (1950). Beijing was also the location of the famous "Democracy Wall" and its so-called big-character posters that were significant (until officially banned in the late 1970s) in the expression of public opinion about governmental policy shifts after Mao’s death in 1976. The Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, the Ming dynasty tombs, and the Great Wall are all near Beijing; these great monuments of the Ming and Qing dynasties provide a cultural focus for the increasingly mobile Chinese population.

In Shanghai are the Museum of Art and History, which houses one of China’s finest art collections, and the Museum of Natural Sciences. Also here is the Garden of the Mandarin Yu, which exemplifies a significant program of government support of the arts; after 1949 the Communist government opened many formerly private homes, gardens, and parks of the wealthy, making them into public museums. They have become popular in all cities as places to stroll, meet for tea, and chat with friends and foreigners, and as places to be educated about the class differences between the wealthy and the poor before 1949.

Guangzhou is the home of one of China’s major zoos; the Guangzhou Museum; Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (1931); Yuexiu Park, with its Ming dynasty Zhenhai Pagoda; the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees; and the Huaisheng Mosque, which was founded in AD 627. Near Xi’an (Sian) is one of the most impressive works of Chinese antiquity—a terra-cotta army of more than 6000 life-size figures that were found in the tomb of the Qin (Ch’in) emperor Shihuangdi (Shih-huang-ti), who died in 210 BC.

The promotion of national self-awareness since the 1949 revolution has led virtually every city to establish some sort of cultural monument to its role in the development of China. In cities where no formal museums exist, usually a former estate has been turned into an open garden or tearoom, giving the cities an increasingly urbane character.