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History |
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History
China boasts one of the world’s
oldest continuous civilisations. Shang
Dynasty ‘oracle bone’
inscriptions, dating back to the 12th century BC, are easily recognized
as early examples of the ideograms, some of which are still in use
today in Chinese calligraphy. During much of China’s history,
the fall of a dynasty or the accession of a weak ruler would result
in the country’s break up into smaller kingdoms, until reunited
under a new more powerful dynasty. In the time of disunion after
the Han Dynasty, Buddhism arrived
in China along the Silk Road from Central
Asia. During the Tang Dynasty
(AD618–907), the Chinese civilisation spread to Japan, Korea,
and South East Asia.
During the 13th century, the Mongols under Genghis
Khan overtook Asia and Genghis’ grandson, Kublai
Khan, founded the Yuan Dynasty in 1271.
It was during this time that Marco Polo visited
China. In 1368, the Ming Dynasty re-established
Chinese rule, which erected the Great Wall to prevent
any further invasions from the north. Despite this, the Manchus
invaded China and in 1644 founded their own Qing
(Ch’ing) Dynasty.
In 1840 modern Chinese history begins with the Opium Wars,
when Britain and other Europe imposed their will upon the weakened
Qing Dynasty, forcing Chinese ports to receive
opium consignments manufactured in India by the British East
India Company. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain until 1997
for this reason. In 1856, Canton, one of the ports
forced to receive the opium during the First Opium War,
put up considerable resistance. The Chinese experienced another
defeat, this time by an Anglo-French alliance and
additional trading concessions were removed from them at the 1858
treaty of Tientsin.
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, Sun Yat-sen
founded the Republic of China however
the country was embattled by civil war and warlords. The Japanese
invaded China in 1937, during its campaign to establish an empire
throughout eastern Asia, the Chinese armed forces were not organized
enough to put up much resistance. Eight years of ruthless occupation
followed, which to this day has soured relations between the two
countries. Following the 1945 defeat of the Japanese, civil war
broke out between the Nationalists under Chiang
Kai-shek and the Communists under Mao
Zedong.
What remained of the defeated Nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1945,
while the victorious communists founded
the People’s Republic of China. During the early
days of the People’s Republic, a tight alliance was forged
with the Soviet Union, however policy disagreements and personal
antipathies resulted in a break down in relations in 1960. Internally,
the China of the 1960s was controlled by the convulsions of the
Cultural Revolution – an attempt by the national
leadership to re-energize the party and the country by campaigning
to reassert its principles.
In 1976, the two powering figures of post-revolutionary China, Premier
Zhou Enlai and Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong,
both died within a few months of each other. Hua Guofeng
first took over from Zhou as Premier, then consequently
went on to replace Mao as Party Chairman,
and Zhao Ziyang became Premier. Hua departed the
Politburo after further changes in the leadership in September 1982.
The two prominent men in the government were now Zhao and the Chairman
of the Communist Party Central Military Commission Deng
Xiaoping. Under these two, China began its major reformations.
They differed from those that have now been adopted by other socialist
economies, especially in Eastern Europe, in allowing less political
‘liberalisation’ in concert with the
economic measures. This was typical of the east Asian style of development
since the 1970s, where economic progress has been afforded priority
while political pluralism – particularly, significant organized
opposition to the ruling party – has been for the most part
suppressed.
By the end of the 1980s, widespread agitation prevailed –
particularly among students but with wide support from the community
as a whole – for political reform and action against the corruption
that had become rampant since economic reform had begun. This situation
came to a head in May 1989, when a group of thousands of students
and workers took over Tiananmen Square in central
Beijing during the visit to the capital by the Soviet leader,
Mikhail Gorbachev. Initially the
Communist Party was split on how to act but, after the departure
of Gorbachev, they sent in the army and the square cleared with
great loss of life. Following that, the government took decisive
actions to reassert political control. The moderate Zhao
Ziyang was replaced as
Premier by hard-liner Li Peng
who worked with Deng Xiaoping on the government’s
internal disorder resolution.
Throughout the 1990s, the octo- and nonagenarians on top of Chinese
politics were gradually replaced. Jiang Zemin,
who was appointed president in 1993, was typical of the new generation
of leaders. Vice-President Hu Jintao was chosen
to take over from Jiang, and did so in 2003, at
the time announcements were made at the Communist Party
Congress the previous October. The nature of Chinese politics
dictates that Jiang will probably retain significant influence over
policy-making through his chairmanship of the powerful Central
Military Commission. Also appointed were a new vice-president,
Zeng Qinghong and a new premier,
Wen Jiabao. The new government suddenly faced a
major crisis in the form of an epidemic of SARS,
a pneumonia-type virus with an extremely high fatality rate. The
initial reaction – denial followed by a refusal to admit the
seriousness of the problem – was typical of the old regime
however, pressured by the international community, the authorities
have now come clean.
Hu Jintao was initially
a protégé of Deng Xiaoping and came
to prominence as the leader of the Chinese administration in Tibet
in the 1980s, where he successfully knocked down a political uprising
of Tibetans by declaring martial law. This far-western province
was put under control by the Chinese military, as the Mao
government tried to remove what they believed as
a reactionary, quasi-feudal regime dominated by a priestly class.
During their heavy-handed occupation, they have driven the highly
respected leaders of Tibetan Bhuddism, including the Dalai Lama,
into exile and subsequently destroyed most of the Tibetan cultural
and social infrastructure.
Chinese policy
in Tibet and particularly Tiananmen Square caused
problems for China’s relations with the West, both in general
and for its major foreign policy objectives. These are three-fold
– better relations with the United States of America, membership
in the World Trade Organisation, and reunification
of the national territory, meaning – since the recovery of
Hong Kong and Macau – Taiwan.
Following the ground-breaking 1971–72 Nixon-Kissinger
visit, relations with the USA developed at a glacial pace. The US's
support for Taiwan is a constant irritant, as well as incidents
such as the 2001 US spy plane row (in which an American electronic
eavesdropping aircraft was forced to land by Chinese fighter planes).
inside East Asia, the situation is complicated further by China’s
involvement in one of the region’s more intractable territorial
battles, concerning the status of the Spratly Islands,
a tiny uninhabited archipelago located in the South China Sea, which
is claimed by no less than six nations and is believed to sit on
top of substantial oil fields. The Chinese have on occasion occupied
some of the islands for a short time; their future is the subject
of complicated multilateral negotiation.
Elsewhere in the region, Beijing is still concerned
with the ongoing tension between Pakistan and India (see India and
Pakistan). China has consistently supported Pakistan militarily
and considers India a rival and political foe. One reason is a major
irritant to Beijing, the Tibetan religious leader, the Dalai
Lama, operates from exile inside northeast India. Additional
foreign policy preoccupations are Russia and Vietnam.
Despite historic enmities, relations with both have improved on
a considerable scale since the early 1990s. As for Japan, the main
issues are economic, however the historical legacy of Japan’s
horrific occupation of China during the 1930s and 1940s continues
to cast a shadow. |
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