China

The oldest continuously existing political tradition on earth, and the only ancient civilisation whose writing system is still in use. Dynasties from the Shang through the Zhou, Qin, Han, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing governed by a mandate that could be lost, and the examination system recruited officials on written tests over a thousand years before Europe tried anything comparable. Chinese invention gave the world paper, printing, gunpowder and the compass. The Qing doubled the empire's territory and then met European gunboats: the Opium Wars from 1839 forced trade and extraterritoriality, and the Taiping rebellion killed perhaps twenty million. The republic of 1912 fell into warlordism, Japanese invasion and civil war, and the communists won in 1949. The Great Leap Forward produced a famine that killed tens of millions and the Cultural Revolution attacked the country's own institutions and past. Deng Xiaoping's reforms from 1978 moved several hundred million people out of poverty in a generation, the largest such shift ever recorded, without political liberalisation - which Tiananmen in 1989 settled. China is now the largest manufacturer and second largest economy. Beijing is the capital and Shanghai the largest city. The country has about 1.4 billion people and borders fourteen states, more than any other except Russia. Mandarin is the official spoken standard among many mutually unintelligible varieties that share a written form. Fifty-nine of its sites are World Heritage listed. The Grand Canal, begun in the fifth century BCE, is the longest artificial waterway in the world. China has one time zone despite spanning five geographic ones.

MyHistorian
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