"Eastern wisdom for Western audiences"

Sinophile:
Adjective - strongly attracted to or interested in Chinese history and culture.
Discovery of ancient China's cultural wisdom sparked my interest during my early teen years, shortly after my family moved from rural Ireland to San Francisco, where I discovered Alan Watts, (1915-1973) (self-styled "philosophical entertainer") the legendary interpreter of "Eastern wisdom for Western audiences". Enrolment in a YWCA Tai Chi Chuan summer class, at age 18, 'moved' me from strict Irish traditional dance and formal Ballroom dance to the bliss of "mindfulness" in free-form movement.

As a student of late 1800s US history at San Francisco State University, I was astonished to discover the impacts of British colonialism on "Indigenous" Irish, American, African, Indian, and Australian cultures. The fact that "Indigenous" Chinese 'out-smarted' all imperialists is a major cultural lesson.

Following my interest in Buddhist history ("expect change"), during my mid-20s year-long role as English language tutor within palace walls of the royal family of Thailand, I was especially impressed to learn that Thailand's royal family enjoyed their long lineage simply by moving their capital when challenged by invaders.

How did "Indigenous" Chinese 'out-smart' imperialists?
While China suffered over 400 years under varying degrees of 'foreign incursions' until the mid-1900s, China does not use the term "Indigenous"
to describe the 55 ethnic groups which form China's collective identity.

UK National Army Museum presents a well-illustrated review of 'incursions': "Second China War - Between 1856 and 1860, British-Indian forces joined the French in a military expedition against Imperial China. Their victory further opened up China to Western traders and greatly weakened the Qing dynasty's imperial regime. At the end of the First China War (1839-42), the Treaty of Nanking compelled the defeated Chinese to relax their control on foreign trade, including the trade in opium..."

In brief: From 1839, China had no choice but to endure the British-led 1st and 2nd Opium Wars (1839-1842 and 1856-1860), and the impositions of "Unequal Treaties" with imperialist powers, under France, Germany, United States, Russia, Japan, and Britain, which includes the 99-year lease of Hong Kong Island as Britain's last colonial trading post: "In 1997, Hong Kong stopped being a British colony after more than 150 years of British rule."

China's Self-Strengthening Movement, aka Westernization (1861-1895),
initiated during the last decades of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12), following the Opium Wars, is well illustrated by the AsiaSociety.org

Feng Guifen (1809-1874) spent his career studying how China could learn from the Western "barbarians," - his neighbors in 1860's Shanghai. Influenced by Qing Dynasty scholar Wei Yuan (1794-1857), Feng Guifen believed China's salvation would be achieved through a process of "self-strengthening" ... "He believed that these marauding foreign powers would have to be studied more deeply..." - AsiaSociety.org

The "Boxer Rebellion" (Nov.1899 - Sept.1901) was an attempt to drive out all foreigners- cultural and corporate imperialists- especially Christian missionaries, whose settlements were established during the 16th century (detailed under Economic History, Part 3). Ongoing turmoil led to world-wide mass migrations by southern China's "Cantonese".

The complexities of international relations during the transition to the People's Republic of China (PRC) are illuminated in "The Mother" (1933), by Pearl S. Buck, the daughter of missionaries, who told the story of a rural Chinese mother, whose son hid banned books under the floorboards during the Warlord Era uprising (1916-1928) of regional factions, warning farmers that "young radical revolutionaries" will steal their property, when, in fact, those "young radicals" (including Returned Students) intended to overcome the remnants of more than 2,000 years of dynastic rule in China.

For perspective, Mao Zedong (1893-1976) was age 23 in 1916 and 35 years old at the 1928 conclusion of the 'Warlord Era uprising'.

1919 - The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution
On May 4, 1919, a new cultural and anti-imperialist political movement emerged in Beijing when students, campaigning to uphold democracy and science, played a crucial role in what has came to be known as the "May Fourth Movement" advocating for modernization and progressive ideas.
China's New Culture Movement to 'modernise' the old Confucian system, was launched by the writers of XinQingnian "New Youth" journal, published between 1915 and 1926 (on the Internet Archive), one of the most important newspapers of China's Republican movement, beginning with language reform:

"The movement's leaders challenged traditional Confucian ideas and exalted Western ideas, particularly science and democracy, and criticized traditional Chinese ethics, philosophy, religion, and social and political institutions."
- Australian National University: Modern China Studies

"Speak in the language of the time in which you live"
- Hu Shih (1891-1962), literary scholar, philosopher, and politician.
'In October 1919, ...Hu Shih said, with emotion: "In the last ten years, only deceased personalities... have been able to maintain their great reputation. The true features of living personalities are soon detected. This is because the times change too quickly. If a living personality does not try his utmost, he falls behind and soon becomes 'against the time'''.[63] In Hu Shih's ideals, only dead people can hold their reputation; the world will soon know the real value and personality of a person if they do not follow the times. They will fall back in time soon if they are not trying to find changes that encourage writers in old China to follow the new revolution and start using the new vernacular style of writing. They cannot stay in the old style; otherwise, they will fall back in time. Furthermore, Hu Shih meant that China needed more new things...' Wikipedia

The 1953 completion of China's Land Reform Movement
ended "real estate investment" in land, when the Chinese government granted rights to 'lease' land for residential purposes - on 70-year cycles
- with no need for a bank mortgage to access land on which to build a home;
"Land lease' rules also applied to foreigners who worked or studied in China for at least a year: They, too, could pay the government land tax, and buy or build a home.

2023: Is China self-sufficient?
With less than 10 percent of the planet’s arable land, on an overall territorial expanse of almost 13 million square kilometers, China produces one-fourth of the world’s grain and feeds one-fifth of the world’s population.
"Driven by a growing city-dwelling middle class"
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, between 2000 and 2020, China’s food self-sufficiency ratio decreased from 93.6% to 65.8%:
To Increase Food Security, China Expands Farmland
Xi Jinping has returned to emphasizing the importance of food production with a new government policy that offers subsidized land reclaimed from manufacturing sites to farmers, many of whom have migrated to large cities to improve their prospects.
. . . he told the Central Rural Work Conference, “The rice bowls of the Chinese people must be firmly in our own hands. Our rice bowls should be filled mainly by Chinese crops.” The snag in the new policy appears to be the reluctance of people to embrace farming. - Lin Ganfeng, Aug. 23, 2023, China News

21 Century "Real Estate" Law
For the first time, 'multi-national' Chinese citizens have joined 'the West' in following "Boom-bust cycles" - banking, crypto currency, stock market, and with mega-speculation in housing real estate (which does not include sale of land).
More details under Part 12, LAND ownership in China today.

Democratic governance upholds individual sovereignty, which encourages citizen participation in defining rules of law, transparency, and accountability:

China's cultural and political values encourage soft power diplomacy:
"In a world witnessing the transformative rise of China, the intricate dynamics of its soft power diplomacy have become a focal point of global attention."
- Mohamad Zreik, 2024, Sun Yat-sen University, China

The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), (founded in 1927), has gradually transformed from a revolutionary organ to a peaceful government body responsible for nearly 3000 members of the National People's Congress (NPC), founded in 1954, and its Standing Committee (NPCSC) of over 200 Members, elected every five years, and convening at least once a year.
NPC Observer: "The NPCSC uses five-year legislative plans as a blueprint for its legislative agenda during each term, a practice that dates back to the 1990s." 
The CCP has the power to elect the General Secretary and the members of the Politburo, its Standing Committee, and the Central Military Commission, and can be called upon to make far-reaching decisions and to determine its dates, delegate selection, agenda for the National People's Congress.


The 2009 film, The Founding of a Republic marked the 60th anniversary of
The People's Republic of China

IMDB Summary: Inspired by true events,The Founding of a Republic weaves a rousing tale of one man who fought against the tyranny of a ruler and led his people in battle in the ultimate sacrifice for his country.

Membership in the Communist Party of China:
Who is Being Admitted and How?
The composition of the Communist Party of China has evolved considerably since the party was founded in 1921: "
In 2014, the Communist Party of China’s acceptance rate was on par with the Ivy League." - R.W. McMorrow, Dec. 2015, JSTOR Daily

While China's One-child policy sterilizations (1980-2015) were shocking,
there are no homeless people in China. The entire population enjoys state-of-the-art public infrastructure and public services, including food and goods availability, without personal debt across their whole lives.
We can be glad that China’s 1.4 billion population (2020 census) began shrinking again in 2022, and that extreme poverty in China is nearly eliminated;
"...the latest United Nations report indicates that it could slip to 1.3 billion in 2050 and then plummet to only 770 million in 2100..."
- China’s Population Could Shrink to Half by 2100

"The influence of the Chinese upon the physiocrats was probably more extensive and more significant than has generally been appreciated. If one will but look into the matter, he can readily discern similarities in thought on the part of Chinese sages and French économistes…
This similarity is more than mere coincidence; it is due to an actual borrowing on the part of the physiocrats."
- Zhang, 2000, p. 195

Complete Atlas of China
Cornell University, (Internet Archive)

China's 56 minority nationalities: UNC Library
China 547 ethnic religious groups: China | Joshua Project
List of rulers of China: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Animated Map: Territories of Chinese Dynasties
from 1,000 BC to the present day.
Attribution: Ponjanji

China - 3,000 Years of History in a Minute
Territories of Chinese Dynasties from 1,000 BC to the present day.
Animated Map.

The Spring and Autumn period (770 to 481 BCE), documented in the Spring and Autumn Annals, which chronicles the Eastern Zhou dynasty's feudal 'vassal' state of Lu, (1042-249BC) during the rise of Confucian advocacy for mass education. Confucius (551–479 BCE) is also credited with introduction of the term "Huaxia" to describe tribal cultural ancestral origins across the pivotal cultural centers, including development of the Martial Arts, Chinese mythology, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism.

"The Art of War" by Sun Tzu (544-496 BCE), one of the most widely read military treatises in the Warring States period (475–221BCE), a time of constant war to gain control of Eastern China's vast expanse of fertile territory, is key to understanding the mind-set (past and present), for "both East Asian and Western military theory and thinking".

"understanding the similarities and differences between the three concepts “Great Unification,” “China,” and “all-under-Heaven” should be a core task of current historical research. This paper proposes to use it as an entry point for preliminary analysis."
- Comparative Outline of the Terms “Great Unification" “China”,
and “All-under-Heaven” Journal of Chinese Humanities, Dec 2022
1. "China": A Concept That Is Difficult to Define
2. The Problem of “All-under-Heaven”
3. What Is the Importance of the Concept “Great Unification”?

On the extraordinary benefits of unity across China:
China had enjoyed stable prosperity across multiple Golden Ages.

Chinese philosophy and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)
Based on clinical diagnostics, herbal medicine and acupuncture progressed.
“The key to a long healthy life is to follow the Tao, the natural way of the universe” (Curren, 2008). The Chinese way of looking at the body, and the world, is focused on processes. The earliest surviving work on Chinese medicine, “Huangdi Neijing”, created between the Warring States period and the Qin-Han period, shows that acupuncture was widely used as a therapy from ancient times. Various kinds of acupuncture needles were discovered in the tomb of Prince Liu Sheng who died around 200BCE:
“The history of traditional Chinese medicine begins in the neolithic period (10,000-4,000 years ago).” (Cavalieri, et al, 1997)

The Great Wall of China
China's first emperor of a united China, and the emperor who initiated the building of the Great Wall of China, in 221BCE: "The boy King" Ying Zheng (259-210 BCE), born in the northwestern Qin state of the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BCE), ascended the throne in 246 BCE. After conquering the "Warring States" at the age of 38, in 221BCE, he proclaimed himself Qin Shihuangdi, First Emperor of the short-lived Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE), (pronounced 'chin') leading to the golden age of the Han Empire (202 BC-9AD, 25-220 AD), which included many different ethnic groups.

The names Chin, Chine, derived from the Qin dynasty, later evolved to become CHINA, the first name for 'united China' known to foreigners, while the Chinese still identify as Qin, Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei Chinese.

"To rule the vast territory, the Qin instituted a rigid, authoritarian government; they standardized the writing system, standardized the measurements of length and weight and the width of highways, abolished all feudal privileges, oversaw large-scale construction of what then became the first Great Wall, and in 213, to halt subversive thought, ordered all books burned, except those on such utilitarian subjects as medicine." – Britannica

Emperor Qin Shihuangdi ceased further expeditions and built the first Great Wall to protect his subjects from the Northern Tribes - nomadic horsemen,
led by Xiongnu people, who constantly raided their northern provinces.
Recent archaelogical discoveries shine light on bordering cross cultural movements (Russo, et al. 2008).

Multiple later additions to the Great Wall were constructed with brick, to "lengthen and strengthen" the Wall, beginning in the east, at Shanhaiguan in Hebei province, and ending in the west at Jiayuguan in Gansu province
- on the edge of the Gobi Desert. The full length of the Great Wall of China, 21,196 km (13,171 ml), which included horse tracks to thousands of watch towers, shelters, and fortresses, became a migration corridor with major trading posts controlling transportation along the Silk Road.

The Qin Dynasty collapsed after 15 years.
A brief period of chaos led to the establishment of the 400-year long Han Dynasty (206BCE - 220AD). The first part of the Han Dynasty is known as the Western Han period, which was briefly interrupted by the rebellious Xin Dynasty (9 to 23AD). The Eastern Han period began when the Han overthrew the Xin Dynasty (23/25 CE).

The Eastern Han Dynasty:

• A new Han emperor, Emperor Guangwu, took control and ruled from Luoyang, in eastern China; thus began the Eastern Han period, which lasted from 25-220 CE. He defeated the "Red Eyebrow" Chimei rebels,
  as well as rival warlords, to reunify China again under the Han Dynasty.
  Under Emperor Guangwu, the empire was strengthened considerably. Areas that had fallen away from Chinese control, such as Korea and Vietnam, were reconquered. The Hun Confederation, which had grown strong during China’s period of instability, was pacified. >>>more

The golden age of the Eastern Han Empire (25-220 CE):
Following the successful rule of Emperor Guangwu (5BCE-57AD),
Emperor Ming of Han, the second emperor of China's Eastern Han dynasty,
and his son Emperor Zhang, continued to lead an era of prosperity;
taxes were reduced, Daoism and Confucian ideals were encouraged, Buddhists were welcomed in China, and the processes of creating paper
and porcelain were perfected.

Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 AD)
The period following the Han Dynasty 221–618 AD was a period of civil war with short-lived dynasties.

Order was restored with the establishment of the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD) - considered to have been the best dynasty.

"There was a re-distribution on a basis of equal shares for all. In return annual rents were charged which were a combination of produce, personal service and commodities such as silk. However, everyone was taxed the same regardless of the actual situation on the basis that the land had been distributed equally. The system ran down: there was a loss of revenue, avoidance of tax by the rich and a market in land sprang up.
In 780 Yang Yan Chancellor of Emperor Dezong took steps to put things on a more just footing by enacting tax reforms. The central idea was a single tax on land relating to the amount of land held and its fertility. The system was know as liangshui - the summer and Autumn levy - since there were two times and type of payment: The summer payment was in produce or commodities and the Autumn payment on copper coin. These reforms established a system that was followed for the next thousand years." - Dr Peter Bowman, 2013, School of Economic Science lecture: Part 1, above.

As told by Marco Polo (1254-1324)
Vast territories, from the Caspian Sea to China and the Pacific Ocean, unknown to European geographers, were referred to as “Tartary” until Venetian explorer Marco Polo reported details of his family's exotic sojourns, lasting over 23-years: “Concerning the Old Man of the Mountain” (Travels of Marco Polo, Book 1, Chapter 23): “Mulehet is a country in which the Old Man of the Mountain dwelt in former days; and the name means 'Place of the Aram'". Polo shared reports of the hypnotic power used over ‘captives’ under the influence of hashish and recounts a story of the "Old Man of the Mountain" (Sabbah) who led his young captives to a "paradise" - under the influence of hashish. His disciples, believing that only he could return them to 'paradise' - a life of great riches, harems, and glory - fully committed to his cause, they were willing to carry out his every request as his trusted "assassins".
See The Assassins (Hashshashin): Their History, Victims and Hashish Training.

The "Silk Road" opened trade routes between the Far East and Europe from 206 B.C. to 220 A.D, and became the conduit for teachings of the Confucian and Buddhist philosophers, and all branches of the Abrahamic religions.

According to Finland-based Mandarin-speaker, specialising on the history and cultures of China and Japan, Dr Jonathan Clements, visiting Professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University, China from 2013-19, author of "A History of the Silk Road" (2017), (Mandarin edition published July 2021), “The Silk Road is not a place, but a journey, a route from the edges of the Mediterranean to the central plains of China, through high mountains and inhospitable deserts. For thousands of years its history has been a traveler's history, of brief encounters in desert towns, snowbound passes and nameless forts. ..."
Dr Jonathan Clements, who was a Visiting Professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University, China from 2013-19, describes geographic timeline impacts on settlement of Proto-Celtic “Caucasian” cultures: Mummies, including Chinese, Mongul, and Caucasian, found around the Talkamakan Desert, are now showcased at the Xinjiang Regional Museum, in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang,

“These long-dead locals were interred in dry, salty ground that was never flooded... but the ones that foreign tourists want to see are Caucasian … between India and the Black Sea. These red-haired, long-limbed explorers were the easternmost outliers of the ancient Tocharian culture - shepherds and horsemen who once lived at the edge of a great lake. … covered 10,000 square kilometres. … beneath the Tianshan and the Kunlun mountain ranges. As the glacial ice finally melted, the water poured in torrents down the steep hillsides and filled much of the eastern end of the great valley. …
The region was one of the last places on earth to find human habitation. Perhaps they wandered in from the north, from the great grasslands and through the wind swept valley where Urumqi now stands. Perhaps they struggled through the passes from the southwest. But when they reached the great water, they settled at its edge.
The lakeside was thick with trees. They used them to build their houses and to make the canoes they paddled on the fast river waters, and the upright hinges - circular constructions with an internal ditch - that surrounded their graveyards. When they died, they used the wood to make the canoe-like cowlings that covered their graves. Their horses grazed on the grasslands, and their children picked through the reeds on the waters edge, looking for fish. They raised sheep on the hillsides, mixed pigments with dark wool to make purple cloth. … The waters of the mountains gradually dwindled. It would not have been obvious on the ground. … in geological time it was the merest blink. The great inland sea came and went in barely 1,000 years. – Clements, J. "A History of the Silk Road" (2017), pp.31-33

How Was The Great Wall Of China Built?
Blowing-Up History: Seven Wonders, Discovery UK, 5 May 2021
(9:54)
Partial transcript:
William Lindesay, Historian: (3:12) "In 1550, the Mongols stormed through the walls and the vulnerability of Beijing's position came into perspective."
The Mongol army surges through the wall and sieges Beijing.
It devastates the surrounding population and countryside.
"The court and the 'corridors of power' were absolutely shaking in fear. The question was, how could the Great Wall of China fail?... To protect China and the Silk Road, the Chinese build a vast structure using billions of tons of solid stone and bricks, sitting on a sturdy foundation of huge granite blocks. Smooth bricks make the sheer walls almost impossible to scale ..." (4:15)

Following the collapse of the Yuan dynasty, (1271-1368), an its extremely oppressive Mongol-led caste system, the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644) was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, the majority ethnic group in China.

By the mid-1500s, China had withdrawn from world trade in order to focus on internal border protection. In 1557, Portugal was given permission to ‘rent’ land on Macau in return for help in safeguarding China's coastline against "wokou" pirates. (The History of Ming states: thirty percent of the 16th century wokou were Japanese, seventy percent were ethnic Chinese.)

Excerpt from A Short History of Economics, Part 3:

Theatrum Orbis Terrarum atlas, 1570, “the first true modern atlas”, consisted of “53 bundled maps of other masters” complied and written by Antwerp-born historian Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598).
See Library of Congress' Ortelius Atlas

Carrying a copy of Ortelius' map, in 1582, at the age of 30, the Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) travelled to the Portuguese settlement in Macau, China, to join the small Jesuit mission there. Following instructions to establish trust amongst the Chinese establishment, Ricci mastered the Chinese language, became a prolific writer, and was renowned as a mapmaker whose services were sought by the court. On the command of the Wanli Emperor, Zhu Yijun, (1572-1620), the fourteenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Matteo Ricci drew a world map, Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, 1602, depicting in great detail the entire Northern Hemisphere and placing China at the center of the world. The map measured 5.5 feet tall by 12.5 feet wide and was designed to be mounted in six panels on a folding screen.
(See an interactive version HERE)
. . .
Jesuit Missionary Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) introduced the works of Confucius to Europe with his Italian translation of the ‘Four Books’. Shortly after Ricci's death, his Jesuit colleague Nicolas Trigault published a Latin translation, De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas (1615)

Leading to The European Triumph of Reason -1600 - 1800s "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."  – Isaac Newton (1643-1727)

Back to top

CEM: Chinese Educational Mission to the United States:
In 1872, 120 students arrived in America, to an overwhelming welcome; went on to great diplomatic achievements around the world; and are referred to as "Returned Students" in China's reports.
See references under Part 5

Selected reports:

1. The Self Strengthening Movement

"In the late 1800s China was ravaged by poverty, population growth, and aggressive European armies. Driven by a desire for progress and reform, called the Self Strengthening Movement, the Chinese Imperial Court agreed to send students under the direction of Yung Wing to American to study at New England’s finest schools. " – (Lamb, 2014, Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller. Fortunate Sons:
The 120 Chinese Boys Who Came to America, Went to School, and
Revolutionized an Ancient Civilization (PDF)

2. Details on progress for each student:

Historical Context
The Chinese Educational Mission (1872-1881)
From 1872 to 1881, 120 Chinese young boys at different ages arrived in the U.S. on government sponsorship. Chinese Educational Mission was a pioneering but frustrated attempt of China to modernize Chinese education and industry. At that time, the U.S. was scarcely a world leader in education. Although the United States was industrializing and urbanizing quickly, it was in turmoil during Reconstruction (following the American Civil War), and its educational institutions were not as advanced as European ones. Yet, China chose the U.S. to train its first groups of students abroad because of two people. >>>more

Catastrophe
The 1920 8.5 magnitude Haiyuan earthquake that struck the Gansu province in northwest China was the largest quake recorded in China in the 20th Century, killing "about 273,400 people, over 40,000 more than previously estimated" (CHEN Na 2010). But it was drought and floods that were the most deadly. China endured a number of large floods and droughts through the 1920s and 30s, which often led to widespread famine and killed millions at a time.

The First and Second National Congresses of the Chinese Soviet republic, 1931 and 1934 (PDF)
by Derek John Waller, B.Sc.(Econ.), M.A.(Indiana) (Obituary)
Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the University of London, September 1968.
Excerpt: Page 206/207

On a theoretical plane, the Returned Student leader Lo Fu explained the significance of the campaign:
"The revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants above all relies on force for the seizure and maintenance of its power. It relies on force to carry out the cruel and protracted civil war with external enemies, imperialism and the armed forces of the KMT. It also relies upon force to suppress landlord remnants within the soviet areas, and capitalist and rich peasant counter-revolutionary activity. But when it comes down to it, what are the prerequisites this force is dependent on? Lenin clearly answered this question thus: 'Rely on the masses.1" …
Reliance on the masses implied, winning the support of the people by bringing them into the political life of society, and making them feel that they played their part, however little, in the decision making process, a concept that was quite absent from the traditional life of the Chinese peasant. >>>more

Mao Zedong (1893-1976):
Speech before the Second National Congress,
in January 1934, addressing the significance of land reform:

Excerpt: "If we only mobilize the people to carry on the war and do nothing else, can we succeed in defeating the enemy? Of course not. If we want to win, we must do a great deal more. We must lead the peasants' struggle for land and distribute the land to them, heighten their labour enthusiasm and increase agricultural production, safeguard the interests of the workers, establish co-operatives, develop trade with outside areas, and solve the problems facing the masses-- food, shelter and clothing, fuel, rice, cooking oil and salt, sickness and hygiene, and marriage. In short, all the practical problems in the masses' everyday life should claim our attention. If we attend to these problems, solve them and satisfy the needs of the masses, we shall really become organizers of the well-being of the masses, and they will truly rally round us and give us their warm support. Comrades, will we then be able to arouse them to take part in the revolutionary war? Yes, indeed we will." >>>more

The Long March (1934-1936)
In 1934, the Communists began their "Long March" - over two years -
from southeast China, over 6,000 miles to the north.

"The Long March" - A Poem by Mao Zedong, 1935
The Red Army fears not the trials of the Long March
And thinks nothing of a thousand mountains and rivers.
The Wuling Ridges spread out like ripples;
The Wumeng Ranges roll like balls of clay.
Warmly are the cliffs wrapped in clouds washed by the Gold Sand;
Chilly are the iron chains lying across the width of the Great Ferry.
A thousand acres of snow on the Min Mountain delight
My troops who have just left them behind.

Edgar Snow's Account of "The Long March"
Excerpt:
All movements — political, religious, social — have their foundation myths and stories about their beginnings that reach heroic proportions over time and that are used to inspire and unify followers. For the Chinese Communist Party, it is the story of the Long March. In 1934, the Communists left their base in southeast China, where they had been more easily attacked by the Nationalists, and wound their way over 6,000 miles to the north on their Long March. The journey took two years... >>>more

Translating Mao's poetry
From “Boundless Wood” to “How Are You”:
Translating Chinese Writing and American Greetings (2013) By Runcheng Xie
Besides his world-known roles as revolutionary and Chairman of the People Republic of China, Mao Zedong was also a romantic poet.

In 1938, Mao married his fourth and last wife, 21 years older, Jiang Qing / Madam Mao (1914-1991), famed as a 24 year old actress in patriotic stage plays.
China's "First Lady" Madam Mao became a controversial revolutionary, criticised for advancing ultra-leftist policies.

Recommended reading:
Becoming Madame Mao (2000) by Anchee Min.
Available on the Internet Archive
Wikipedia summary

Excerpt: Madame Mao, as she is now called, organizes festivals for revolutionary plays and begins to work closely with the student movements which have always been so important in China. She organizes and speaks to rallies of thousands of people to help launch the Cultural Revolution. Finally, Mao and Jiang decide to launch a student-led army called the Red Guards that she would be in charge of. The Red Guards end up having more power than the official military for a number of years and wreak havoc throughout the country. Her relationship with Mao is no longer romantic in the least but is mutually beneficial: 'For him, it is the security of his empire that she aids and for her, the role of a heroine. In retrospect she not only has broken the Party's restriction, she runs the nation's psyche. She is gripped by the vision that she might eventually carry on Mao's business and rule China after his death. ...

Abolishing feudal kingdoms:
"the World upside-down at last!...Mankind has turned a page." - Mao

The Republic of China referred to all of China until the move to Taiwan following the Chinese Civil War, (1927-1949), between the Nationalists (Kuomintang) under Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) and the Communists under Mao Zedong (1893-1976).
"During the Chongqing negotiations, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek met a total of 14 times..." - CaiLei, August 6, 2023, Quora:
"Did Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek really talk to one another when they met or was it only for show?"

The final stage of the Chinese Civil War (1927-1949).
The Yangtze River Crossing campaign (20 April to 2 June 1949), along a 400-mile stretch of the Yangtze river on both sides of Nanking.

Mao Tse-tung issued orders to prepare to cross the Yangtze
(The Guardian, archives)
Excerpt ... His manifesto said:
I. Strike forward bravely with determination and completely wipe out all anti-democratic, reactionary Kuomintang forces on Chinese territory.
2. Advance with courage and arrest all notorious war criminals, and try them according to law. Special attention must be paid to ‘gangsterissimo’ Chiang Kia-shek.
3. Proclaim finally the draft of the peace programme before all Kuomintang provincial and local governments and local military organs, and sign local agreements with those willing to stop the war and settle things by peaceful methods.
4. After the people’s liberation array has surrounded Nanking, and if the Li Tsung-jen Government has not yet escaped, we are willing to take a step back and offer him a last chance to sign the programme. >>>more

Following the Yangtze river crossing, Mao wrote a poem that has since been set to music and remains popular throughout Mainland China.

A poem
by Chairman Mao Zedong
Wind howls and rain falls upon the Bell Hills in twilight,
A million gallant warriors shall cross the river tonight.
Like a Tiger Crouched and a Dragon Coiled we outshine our glorious past!
As Heaven Turns and the Earth Churns, the World upside-down at last!
Hark! We cross, we chase our foe who flee to our advance,
We shall not be the crowned monkey, not a single chance.
If the Heavens above had Heart and Soul then Heaven itself shall age!
In the Azure Seas and the Mulberry Fields, Mankind has turned a page.

Chairman Mao was both criticised and praised
for policies contrary to USSR/US expectations.

Post-WWII catastrophes, China was acting to keep all of those who caused WWII out of their territory, while dismantling their own dynastic hierarchies.

McCarthyism / The Red Scare

The Chinese Revolution of 1949
U.S. Department of State, office of the Historian
On October 1, 1949, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The announcement ended the costly full-scale civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), which broke out immediately following World War II and had been preceded by on and off conflict between the two sides since the 1920’s. The creation of the PRC also completed the long process of governmental upheaval in China begun by the Chinese Revolution of 1911. The “fall” of mainland China to communism in 1949 led the United States to suspend diplomatic ties with the PRC for decades. >>>more

From early 1950, under US Republican Senator (1947-1957) Joseph R. McCarthy, the term "McCarthyism" aka "the Red Scare" referred to obsessive anti-communist propaganda.

Mao's biggest mistake: "Man Must Conquer Nature"
In December 1958, Chairman Mao released the "Eight Elements Constitution," (Chen,Y, 2009, Cold War Competition & Food Production in China, 1957-1962) introducing new agricultural practices to achieve higher output goals throughout the country. One proposed solution was labeled "pest control," with sparrows identified by Mao as pests:
"His slogan Ren Ding Shen Tian (Man Must Conquer Nature) became a rallying cry, and in 1958 he famously declared: 'Make the high mountain bow its head; make the river yield the way.'” (Steinfeld, J. 2018, China’s deadly science lesson:).

The Four Pests Campaign (1958) planned to rid the country of Eurasian tree sparrows, rats, mosquitoes and flies, because they ate grain and spread disease. NOT realising that the sparrows"which ate grain seed and fruit"
also hunted the pests that devoured their grain harvests, everyone, adults and children, joined in the 'communal spirit' - enthusiastically hunting sparrows - destroying their nests - banging on pans to prevent them from landing, until millions of exhausted sparrows fell from the sky.

Unintended consequences: Ecological disaster and famine
In the absence of sparrows, locust swarmed freely, devouring agricultural harvests. According to varying reports, 15 to 45 million people died during the Great Chinese Famine (1959–62) that followed.
When Sparrows Fall: China's Great Famine | Asian Century
YouTube 3min. video:

Excerpt:
...Frank Dikotter, Chair Professor of Humanities, University of Hong Kong (1:21) “Around about the year 2003 or four I noticed that increasingly archives from the Communist era were being declassified and they really allow me to put together what I would refer to as 'a self-portrait by the Communist Party of China' (1:39)… in Sichuan province … (2:07) a quarter million of kilos of mud have been dug up and eaten…white porcelain coloured mud referred to as 'quan yin' soil. It’s a vision of hell. I want you to know what happens when people ingest mud. Once the moisture is taken out, it acts like concrete. The digestive system is just blocked. People are dying of pain, excruciating pain. Awful!"

"The Little Red Book" was published in 1964,
and translated into English in 1966 by American scholar Sidney Rittenberg (1921-2019), from South Carolina (Obituary) who settled in China in 1944, became a senior member of the Chinese Communist party, an adviser to Mao Zedong, married Wang Yulin in 1956, translated Mao’s Complete Works and the Little Red Book into English in 1966, and became a leader during the Cultural Revolution - until Madam Mao "had him thrown into jail for a 10-year term. The convulsions of a China constantly reinventing itself led to Rittenberg twice falling foul of the leadership. Of his 35 years in China, he served a total of 16 imprisoned in solitary confinement, accused of being an American spy. Disillusioned with communism, he returned to the US in 1980 ..." (Margolis, 2019)
Sydney Rittenberg returned to the US in 1980 with his wife and their four children, and were well received by the Carter administration [1977-1981]. "Today, my politics are - well, I think one day there will be a better system. We have to wait for capitalism to be properly cooked. We need an abundance of the basic means of living and better understanding. The point is how to make the capitalist system work.” - Jonathan Margolis, The man who made friends with Mao, January 12, 2013, Financial Times.

Comparing notes on Chairman Mao's Little Red Book (pdf)
LaTrobe University, Melbourne: Asia Rising podcast discussion
Listen: Podcast #60, Duration 22:47, with Matt Smith and Dr. James Leibold
"In 1964 the Communist Party of China released a collection of Mao's speeches and statements, titled "Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong" (download here). Small easily carried and bound in bright red it became commonly known as The Little Red Book, and went on to become the most important tool of propaganda during the cultural revolution. Associate Professor James Leibold (Politics and Philosophy, La Trobe University) talks to Matt Smith about the power of Mao's book and how to spot a real one."

The "Five Man Group" (1965-1966)
An informal committee established in early 1965 to explore the potential for a "cultural revolution" based on popular trends in the arts and cultural realms.

Chairman Mao challenged what he perceived as new forms of domination
(in his words, "revisionism," or "capitalist restoration").
Mao's efforts led to energetic multi-focused campaigns:
Dismantling dynastic feudal hierarchies, and institutionalised forms of slavery, which included vassal status and concubinage;
The rural land reform movement against landlords;
The Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries.

The Red Guards (1966-1968)
"Thought Police" - a national student-led movement -
(Detailed on Wikipedia).

The era's 'atmosphere' is well documented in Yao Nien-Yuan's autobiography, "Life and Death in Shanghai" (1987), written under the pen name Nien Cheng, after she moved to Washington DC in 1980, detailing the Red Guards' "Four Olds" impacts on "Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Customs, and Old Habits" - seizing power, looting homes, confiscating and destroying symbols and artefacts of the old tradition in order to 'begin again' without links to ancient cultural heritage - now being restored by Master craftsmanship in the Forbidden City.

New York Times review - archived: "Life and Death in Shanghai" (1987)
Excerpt:

"A Prisoner of the Thought Police" New York Times 1987
ONE night in August of 1966 the home of Mrs. Nien Cheng in Shanghai was broken into by some 40 young people wearing Red Guard armbands. Mrs. Cheng barred their way and asked for their search warrant. ''The Constitution is abolished,'' they replied. ''We recognize only the teachings of our Great Leader Chairman Mao.'' They then proceeded to vandalize the house, breaking furniture and porcelain, slashing paintings, burning books. Mrs. Cheng tried to save the more irreplaceable of her possessions by pleading that they were part of the great Chinese cultural heritage. ''Shut up!'' she was told. ''They are the useless toys of the feudal emperors and the modern capitalist class and have no significance to us, the proletarian class.'' The destruction went on. ... >>>more

The "Gang of Four" (1966-1976)
Led by Madam Mao, whose vision was extreme in that she wanted to 'remove' all symbols of the old hierarchal culture - the "Four Olds". As leader of the Gang of Four, Madam Mao helped Mao develop the concepts behind the Cultural Revolution, which increased her influence and power.
Mao's death in September 1976, age 82, dealt a significant blow to Jiang's ambitions to become his successor. Madam Mao was charged with treason and blamed for the excesses and failures of the Cultural Revolution. She was arrested in October 1976, condemned by party authorities, and sentenced to death. Her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1983.
Jiang died by suicide in May 1991, age 77.

Tales from Tartary
Vast territories, from the Caspian Sea to China and the Pacific Ocean, unknown to European geographers, were referred to as “Tartary” until Venetian explorer Marco Polo (1254-1324) reported details of his family's exotic sojourns, lasting over 23-years: Travels of Marco Polo, (1285) is available on Gutenberg.org
“Concerning the Old Man of the Mountain” (Travels of Marco Polo, Book 1, Chapter 23): “Mulehet is a country in which the Old Man of the Mountain dwelt in former days; and the name means 'Place of the Aram'."

In Tales from Tartary, (1979), available on archive.org, James Riordan (1936-2012/Obit), shared folk tales told around his Russian wife's family fireside and follows each story with an examination of the historical origins.

Marco Polo and James Riordan recount the story of a Muslim "Old Man of the Mountain" (Sabbah) who captured young men - all carefully chosen individuals: Leading his captives to his mountain "paradise" - of great riches, harems, and glory; under the influence of the hypnotic power of hashish, they became his fully committed disciples - his trusted Hashshashin "assassins" willing to carry out his every request, believing that only he could return them to 'paradise'. "The Assassins were masters of disguise and stealth. They often masqueraded as soldiers or servants and worked themselves into a position of trust, sometimes taking months to achieve this, so they could easily kill their victim—a vizier, a prince, a religious leader, warrior or king." - (Eventually, they were 'put down' by Genghis Khan.)
See The Assassins (Hashshashin): Their History, Victims and Hashish Training, for a detailed overview.

“The Silk Road is not a place, but a journey "
- a conduit for new philosophical teachings

The "Silk Road" opened trade routes between the Far East and Europe from 206 B.C. to 220 A.D, and became the conduit for teachings of the Confucian and Buddhist philosophers, and all branches of the Abrahamic religions.

According to Finland-based Mandarin-speaker, specialising on the history and cultures of China and Japan, Dr Jonathan Clements, author of "A History of the Silk Road" (2017), (Mandarin edition published July 2021), “The Silk Road is not a place, but a journey, a route from the edges of the Mediterranean to the central plains of China, through high mountains and inhospitable deserts. For thousands of years its history has been a traveler's history, of brief encounters in desert towns, snowbound passes and nameless forts. ..." Dr Jonathan Clements, who was a Visiting Professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University, China from 2013-19, describes geographic timeline impacts on settlement of Proto-Celtic “Caucasian” cultures: Mummies, including Chinese, Mongul, and Caucasian, found around the Talkamakan Desert, are now showcased at the Xinjiang Regional Museum, in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang,

“These long-dead locals were interred in dry, salty ground that was never flooded... but the ones that foreign tourists want to see are Caucasian … between India and the Black Sea. These red-haired, long-limbed explorers were the easternmost outliers of the ancient Tocharian culture - shepherds and horsemen who once lived at the edge of a great lake. … covered 10,000 square kilometres. … beneath the Tianshan and the Kunlun mountain ranges. As the glacial ice finally melted, the water poured in torrents down the steep hillsides and filled much of the eastern end of the great valley. … The region was one of the last places on earth to find human habitation. Perhaps they wandered in from the north, from the great grasslands and through the wind swept valley where Urumqi now stands. Perhaps they struggled through the passes from the southwest. But when they reached the great water, they settled at its edge.
The lakeside was thick with trees. They used them to build their houses and to make the canoes they paddled on the fast river waters, and the upright hinges - circular constructions with an internal ditch - that surrounded their graveyards. When they died, they used the wood to make the canoe-like cowlings that covered their graves. Their horses grazed on the grasslands, and their children picked through the reeds on the waters edge, looking for fish. They raised sheep on the hillsides, mixed pigments with dark to make purple cloth. … The waters of the mountains gradually dwindled. It would not have been obvious on the ground. … in geological time it was the merest blink. The great inland sea came and went in barely 1,000 years.
– Clements, J. "A History of the Silk Road" (2017), pp.31-32

In 1944, the US produced a propaganda film identifying territories
of Tibet, Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Manchuria within China's borders.
"Why We Fight #6: The Battle of China"
YouTube (Image: Screen capture 3:03)

Drawing The Line - a sweeping claim:
The line on a 75-year-old map that threatens to set off a war in East Asia
(Click on map for larger version)

The dashed line was first shown in 1947 on a map entitled “Map of South China Sea Islands” published by the government of the Republic of China. With 11 dashes at the time, it encompassed most of the South China Sea. The Chinese communist party adopted the map in 1949, but removed two dashes to give the Gulf of Tonkin to communist Vietnam as a courtesy. Within the dashes were key archipelagos -including the disputed Spratly and the Paracel islands -and various other features, including the Scarborough Shoal, a set of coral reefs near the Philippines.

Over the next six decades, little happened with the map.
“The nine-dash line was not controversial between 1949 and 2009 because no one ever spent time talking or thinking about it,”... “China rarely asserted it publicly.” - Julian Ku, a professor at the law school of Hofstra University in New York. >>>more 

Indigenous Taiwan
The first known settlers in Taiwan were Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian people, with origins in southern China, Oceania, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Micronesia, Polynesia, etc.

Taiwan government: Historical timeline
FACT FOCUS
• Dutch and Spanish settlers established bases in Taiwan in the early 17th century.
• Around 1.2 million people relocated from China to Taiwan along with the Republic of China (Taiwan) government in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Excerpt:
The ROC was founded in 1912 in China. At that time, Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule as a result of the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, by which the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan. The ROC government began exercising jurisdiction over Taiwan in 1945 after Japan surrendered at the end of World War II.
The ROC government relocated to Taiwan in 1949 while fighting a civil war with the Chinese Communist Party. Since then, the ROC has continued to exercise effective jurisdiction over the main island of Taiwan and a number of outlying islands, leaving Taiwan and China each under the rule of a different government. The authorities in Beijing have never exercised sovereignty over Taiwan or other islands administered by the ROC.
The following timeline focuses on Taiwan’s recorded history dating from about 400 years ago, although it has been home to Malayo-Polynesian peoples for many millenniums.
>>> Historical timeline

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's inauguration speech,
May 20th 2000
"... let's always remember this moment; let's always remember to value and feel gratitude for it, because the fruits of democracy did not come out of the blue."

China's official response to Chen Shui-bian's inauguration speech  
May 21st 2000, Beijing:
One-China Principle Allows for No Evasion or Ambiguity

Excerpt: The guiding principle of "peaceful reunification" and "one country, two systems", which is in the interests of all, is the best way for resolving the Taiwan issue, as has been proved in Hong Kong and Macao.
Taiwan's new leader must recognize absolutely the one-China principle and the fact that Taiwan is part of China... >>>more

China's Rehabilitation of Chiang Kai-shek
by Cristian Segura, Asia Times: 23 Dec. 2009
History News Network, The George Washington University

Excerpt: Chiang was a good influence because he fought for the unification of China. ... An editorial in the English-language newspaper Taipei Times said the reason for restoring the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall’s name was "to honor a symbol of one China" now that on the mainland Chiang's role "has gradually been rehabilitated ...
Chinese people don't want to remember the disputes that divided us in the past."
It is historical irony that Chiang has become a symbolic link for the two sides across the Taiwan Strait...

MIT MAPS: Concise Atlas of World History
From the Silk Road to the Great Game:
China, Russia, and Central Eurasia

The naval history of China dates back thousands of years, with archives from the late Spring and Autumn period (722 BC – 481 BC) documenting the various shapes and materials used, including teak and bamboo "Junks" said to be the size of today's aircraft carriers.

China became a great maritime power in the years 1405–1433, under the legendary leadership of Admiral Zheng He (1371-1433).

"1421, the Year China Discovered The World" (2002), by British submarine lieutenant-commander and author, Gavin Menzies (1937-2020), traces the history of China's circumnavigation of the globe a century before Magellan and Columbus - and China's 'discovery' of Australia almost 350 years before Captain James Cook's first landing.

Abstract
“…On the 8th of March, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen sailed from its base in China. The ships, huge junks nearly five hundred feet long and built from the finest teak, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Di’s loyal eunuch admirals. Their mission was ‘to proceed all the way to the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas’ and unite the whole world in Confucian harmony. The journey would last over two years and circle the globe.
When they returned Zhu Di lost control and China was beginning its long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently embraced. The great ships rotted at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America seventy years before Columbus and circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. They had also discovered Antarctica, reached Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook and solved the problem of longitude three hundred years before the Europeans…” 
>>> more

Excerpt from Q&A
Why should we believe anything the book says?
In total, some 34 different lines of evidence have been found to support the theory that the Chinese circumnavigated and charted the globe, a century before the Europeans staked claim to having done so. The evidence is overwhelming, and encompasses both physical entities, (such as shipwrecks of Chinese junks in America, Australasia and Indonesia,) and examples such as the carved stones of Africa, the remains of Chinese peoples in South America, and artefacts scattered all over the world, inscribed with Chinese characters, in Chinese styles, and some successfully dated back to before the arrival of the Europeans. There also exists more circumstantial evidence such as the linguistic, ceremonial and spiritual similarities between the Chinese culture and those of other parts of the world in the fifteenth century. The linguistic similarities found between place names in Peru and Chile are heavily supportive of the notion that the Chinese exerted a huge influence there, in pre-Columbian times. >>>more

China's Forgotten Treasure Fleet | When China Ruled The Waves
YouTube Channel: Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries
July 31, 2021 (47:44)

Six hundred years ago, during a time of turmoil in the west, China held a vast unstoppable fleet, led by a forgotten admiral. One of the world's most accomplished voyagers, Zheng He remains a mystery outside of his home country. This is the story of how one explorer assembled the greatest armada the oceans had ever witnessed. In the age of discovery, could this naval superpower have conquered the world?

Xinjiang, Nth West China, along the historic Silk Road:
Home to many ethnic groups, including the Chinese Tajiks (Pamiris), Han Chinese, Hui people, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Manchu people, Mongols, Russians, Sibe people, Tibetan people, Uyghurs, and more.

While the Islamization of Xinjiang began around 1000 AD, Islam originated in western Saudi Arabia, in early 7th century CE, with prophet Muhammad "calling for submission to the one God, preparation for the imminent Last Judgement."
In the early 20th Century, Muslim Uyghurs declared independence for the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). In 1949, Xinjiang came under control of the Republic of China.

Uyghur Internment camps
"The Xinjiang internment camps, officially called vocational education and training centers by the government of China, are internment camps operated by the government of Xinjiang and the Chinese Communist Party Provincial Standing Committee." - Wikipedia

Islam in China: Wikipedia
Excerpt: Islam has been practiced in China since the 7th century CE.[1] There are an estimated 17–25 million Muslims in China, less than 2 percent of the total population.[2] Though Hui Muslims are the most numerous group,[3][4] the greatest concentration of Muslims reside in northwestern China's Xinjiang autonomous region, which contains a significant Uyghur population. Lesser yet significant populations reside in the regions of Ningxia, Gansu and Qinghai.[5] Of China's 55 officially recognized minority peoples, ten of these groups are predominantly Sunni Muslim.[5]

Who are the Uyghurs and why is China being accused of genocide?
BBC, 24 May 2022
Excerpt: Since 2017, when President Xi Jinping issued an order saying all religions in China should be Chinese in orientation, there have been further crackdowns. Campaigners say China is trying to eradicate Uyghur culture. ...

What are the allegations against China?

Several countries, including the US, UK, Canada and the Netherlands, have accused China of committing genocide - defined by international convention, external as the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". ...

What does China say?

China denies all allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang. In response to the Xinjiang Police Files, China's foreign ministry spokesman told the BBC that the documents were "the latest example of anti-China voices trying to smear China". He said Xinjiang enjoyed stability and prosperity and residents were living happy, fulfilled lives.

China says the crackdown in Xinjiang is necessary to prevent terrorism and root out Islamist extremism and the camps are an effective tool for re-educating inmates in its fight against terrorism.

It insists that Uyghur militants are waging a violent campaign for an independent state by plotting bombings, sabotage and civic unrest, but it is accused of exaggerating the threat in order to justify repression of the Uyghurs.

China has dismissed claims it is trying to reduce the Uyghur population through mass sterilisations as "baseless", and says allegations of forced labour are "completely fabricated" ...

In 1557, Portugal was given permission to 'rent' land on Macau in return for help in safeguarding China's coastline against "wokou" pirates.
- Dillon, Michael, (2017), Encyclopedia of Chinese History, Routledge, p.418.

"The role played by Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) of Mazzarino in Italy was historically important" – Wei-Bin Zhang, 2000

Excerpts from Part 3 and 4: A Short History of Economics:

In 1582, at the age of 30, the Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci travelled to the Portuguese settlement in Macau, China, to join the small Jesuit mission there. Following instructions to establish trust amongst the Chinese establishment, Ricci mastered the Chinese language, became a prolific writer, and was renowned as a mapmaker whose services were sought by the court. Matteo Ricci's Italian translation of ‘The Four Books’, China's classical education curriculum texts, introduced the works of Confucius to Europe. Shortly after Ricci's death, his Jesuit colleague Nicolas Trigault published a Latin translation, in 1615, De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas. In 1953, Ricci's writings were first translated into English by Louis J. Gallagher, who informs us that Ricci saw the teaching of Confucius as "moral, rather than religious, in nature and perfectly compatible with or even complementary to Christianity".

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1664-1716) - "truth polymath".
Born in Leipzig, Germany, Leibniz is ranked amongst the foremost philosophers of his time and chiefly remembered for his contributions to the Jesuit mission in China: "Novissima Sinica", published in Latin in 1697, was a testament to his interpretation of Confucian "humanistic or rationalistic" doctrines of political philosophy linking the history of mathematics with philosophy, cosmology, theology, and metaphysics using the Chinese Yijing, or Book of Changes, aka the I Ching, as a teaching tool -
"a prophetic book containing the mysteries of Christianity" (David E. Mungello, 1989, Curious Land, p. 309), supporting the Figurist movement and the accommodationist strategies by which the Jesuits hoped to convert the Chinese people to Christianity. Mathematician and historian, Professor Frank J. Swetz remembers Leibniz as “a synthesiser of ideas” and as a “truth polymath- a universal genius and intellectual leader of the European Enlightenment” (Frank J. Swetz, (2003), Leibniz, the Yijing, and the Religious Conversion of the Chinese, pp. 276-291).

"I consider it a singular plan of the fates that human cultivation and refinement should today be concentrated, as it were, in the two extremes of our continent, in Europe and in China, which adorns the Orient as Europe does the opposite edge of the earth. Perhaps Supreme Providence has ordained such an arrangement, so that, as the most cultivated and distant peoples stretch out their arms to each other, those in between may gradually be brought to a better way of life." 
– G.W. Leibniz, Novissima Sinica, 1697

Leibniz sings his praise of Chinese civil life
in his Preface to the "Novissima Sinica":
"But who would have believed that there is on earth a people who, though we in our view so very advanced in every branch of behaviour, still surpass us in comprehending the precepts of civil life? Yet now we find this to be so among the Chinese, as we learn to know them better. And so if we are there equals in the industrial arts, and ahead of them in contemplative sciences, certainly they surpass us (though it is almost shameful to confess this) in practical philosophy, that is in the precepts of ethics and politics adapted to the present life and use of mortals." – Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1664-1716)
Source: Zhang, Wei-Bin, (2000), On Adam Smith and Confucius: The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Analects (GoogleBooks scan)

Flourishing of high culture "using Tibetan Buddhism"

Founders of the Qing dynasty, the Jurchen Jin Dynasty (meaning “Golden”), hunter-gatherers, pastoralist semi-nomads, or sedentary agriculturists, were renamed Manchus in 1635 by Hong Taiji:"...who was part Mongol, followed in his father’s footsteps and continued the patronage of Tibetan Buddhism and set about the precedent for the consolidation of relationship among the Manchus, Tibetans and Mongols through the policy of using Tibetan Buddhism" - Columbia Tibetan Studies (2018)

"The Jurchen originated from Manchuria, but in conquering the neighbouring Liao empire of the Khitan and parts of Song China, they came to rule the Great Plain of Asia from 1127 CE until their fall at the hands of the Mongols."
- WorldHistory.org

Han officials of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) classified them into three groups, reflecting relative proximity to the Ming: ..." >>>more

The 3rd emperor of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty (1636-1912), considered one of China's greatest emperors, the Kang Xi Emperor, Shengzu of Qing, reigned for 61 years (1654-1722): The longest-reigning emperor in Chinese history brought about long-term stability leading to a flourishing high culture.
Two major Qing Dynasty achievements:
- The Russian invasion was blocked on the Amur River, retaining Outer Manchuria
- Mongol rebels in the North and Northwest were forced to submit to Qing rule.

British invasions: 19th - 20th centuries

The "Opium Wars" between Britain and China 1839-1860:
The British, under Queen Victoria, brokered a 99-year lease agreement for the use of Hong Kong after China lost a series of wars fought over the British trade in tea and opium. By the Convention of Peking,1898, the New Territories together with 235 islands were leased to Britain for 99 years from July 1, 1898.

"If you want to pick an event that marked the change of the Chinese Imperial attitude towards the rest of the world you could well pick the episode of the Opium Wars. It marked the beginning of what is regarded as China's ‘century of humiliation’..." 
- Chinasage: All About China

Opium’s History in China
Opium has been used as a medicinal and recreational substance in China for centuries, its shifting meanings tied to class and national identity.
by Livia Gershon, January 9, 2023, JSTOR

Excerpt:
Opium has a complicated global history as a remarkably effective medicine and an instigator of moral panics. As historians Frank Dikötter, Lars Laamann, and Zhou Xun write, in China, this intersected with complex international and class politics.

Starting as early as the Tang period (618–907 CE), opium arrived in China by sea and caravan. Over centuries, it became a common medical treatment. But, the authors write, recreational smoking of opium only became a thing after Europeans introduced tobacco from the Americas to China in the late sixteenth century. Tobacco smoking and cultivation spread rapidly. Some doctors credited it with medicinal properties, including fighting malaria. Officials smoked and drank tea during meetings to stimulate their minds.

Like brewing and drinking tea, preparing and smoking opium involved a complex ritual.

Smoking opium, a far more expensive pastime that built on the smoking culture, was introduced to China by Dutch merchants in the seventeenth century. It became a luxury for the wealthy, usually smoked together with tobacco. But, by the nineteenth century, Chinese doctors were becoming concerned about the health risks of tobacco smoking, so people became more likely to smoke pure opium. Over these centuries, many people valued opium for its exotic association with Europe and as a status symbol perfect for social climbers. Like brewing and drinking tea, preparing and smoking opium involved a complex ritual. Wealthy families hired specialists to prepare pipes for their gatherings. ... >>> more

Devastation caused by Western powers (1839-1842) & (1856-1860)
Wikipedia excerpt:

The First Opium War, fought in 1839-1842 between the Qing and Great Britain, was triggered by the dynasty's campaign against the opium trade; the Second Opium War was fought between the Qing and Britain and France, 1856-1860. In each war, the European forces used recently developed warfare technology to defeat the Qing forces and compelled the government to grant favorable tariffs, trade concessions, and territory.
The wars and the subsequently-imposed treaties weakened the Qing dynasty and Chinese governments, and forced China to open specified treaty ports (especially Shanghai & Guangzhou/ Canton) that handled all trade with imperial powers.[1][2] The resulting concession of Hong Kong after the wars compromised China's territorial sovereignty. Around this time China's economy also contracted slightly, but the sizable Taiping Rebellion and Dungan Revolt had a much larger effect.[3] >>>more

Why did the British launch the Opium Wars?
James W. Hoover, Professor Emeritus at Columbia University

Excerpt: ... When the East India Company’s China trade monopoly ended in 1833, the opium trade was taken over by several smaller firms. Some of these operated out of Bombay, where the Government didn’t have a monopoly on opium production, while others operated out of Calcutta, where production was controlled by the colonial state. In both ports, however, the opium production of the previous year went to auction at the beginning of the year, and began to be shipped out in small quantities.

For the shippers, the real money in the opium trade was actually made in insuring shipments rather than in shipping or selling cargo.

The Qing Dynasty tried to smash the opium trade in the late 1830s, having become aware of the huge drain it represented in terms of money, labor, trade losses, etc. When the seizure and destruction of opium imports escalated to the seizure of ships, complaints were made to the British Government, and interested MPs pushed Parliament to approve military action. For many people, it was a “bottom line” argument; the opium trade was worth about 4 million pounds to Britain every year, at least, and that was an enormous sum in the 1830s. Meanwhile, the prevailing attitude, at the time, was that there was no moral stigma to purveying drugs; the onus was on the consumer, not the capitalist.

A series of opium wars, ending in 1860, succeeded in forcing China to legalize opium sales, cede Hong Kong and other territories, and create the Treaty Ports, which enabled the foreign powers to penetrate the entire Chinese economy and establish what became known as “gunboat diplomacy” in East Asia. Perhaps inadvertently, the legalization of opium imports also gave rise to indigenous opium production, as the Chinese state decided to profit from what it could not stop.

'The Opium Wars between Britain and China 1839-1860' -
"If you want to pick an event that marked the change of the Chinese Imperial attitude towards the rest of the world you could well pick the episode of the Opium Wars. It marked the beginning of what is regarded as China's ‘century of humiliation’ 1842-1949..." - Chinasage: All About China, provides a well illustrated overview: Headed by Rob Stallard, director for the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding, who first came across Chinese culture and civilization at Cambridge University, with "one of the most outstanding intellectuals of the 20th century,” Sinologist Dr. Joseph Needham (1900-1995).

Failed British Missions
The British felt that they had done everything they could reasonably have done to introduce free trade with China during the period of pre-1700 and 18 century contacts. In 1793 Lord Macartney went as far he could to negotiate a trade agreement with Qing Emperor Qianlongat Chengde. His refusal to show due deference to the Emperor with a kowtow proved a diplomatic stumbling block and also neatly symbolized Britain's self-estimation as an equal not a subordinate nation. There had been earlier unsuccessful missions dating back as far as 1553, a trend was continued. China had a stranglehold on the tea trade that had grown from 6 million to 16 million taels of silver in 20 years. Britain was by then buying 15% of all tea grown in China producing a very useful income in silver for the struggling Qing regime. Yet access to the Emperor was minimal and the Macartney mission was unsuccessful, although it is said that they came away with tea plants that helped found the Indian tea industry which eventually cost China dearly in lost revenue. The Emperor viewed the British as yet another barbarian state of little consequence trying to inveigle higher prestige from China. The modern industrial and technical gifts Macartney gave the Emperor were not seen as having any particular purpose, just interesting toys. China had all it needed and had been run much the same for centuries, there was no need to change. In return the Emperor gave his visitors a priceless jade Ruyi ornament which was not perceived by them to be of much value...

World Drug Report 2008 (pdf):
The United Nations office of Drugs and Crime provides a detailed overview
Excerpt:
A Century of International Drug Control
2.1 Origins: The development of the opium problem in China.

Chinese addiction did not reach epidemic proportions, however, until the end of the 18th century, when the lion’s share of the trade fell into the hands of the British East India Company. Founded in 1600, the British East India Company was given monopoly privileges by the Crown on trade with the East Indies. The British first arrived in China in 1637 and in 1715 were allowed to open a trading station in Canton. But they only began to aggressively market opium after they took control of the main opium producing areas of India in the mid18th century. >>>more

With the fall of the last long dynasty in China - the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), from 1850, the Taiping Rebellion, (illustrated overview) which lasted fifteen years and devastated the Qing empire, came to be known as the bloodiest civil war in human history.

~ Visit Oxford University historian, Professor Rana Mitter's website for wide ranging reports on China's re-evaluation of their history.

“The century of humiliation, also known as the hundred years of national humiliation, is the term used in China to describe the period of intervention and subjugation of the Qing dynasty and the Republic of China by Western powers and by Japan from 1839 to 1949.” - Alison Adcock Kaufman, (2010),
The "Century of Humiliation," Then and Now: Chinese Perceptions of the International Order, Pacific Focus. Vol. 25, Issue 1, Pages 1–33.

Abstract
Chinese elites today draw on the “Century of Humiliation” (1839–1949) as a starting point for their views on how China should interact with other nations. Arguments about the nature of international competition, about the reasons that nations succeed or fail in the international arena, and about the prospects for long-term global peace and cooperation draw not just on China's experiences during that period, but on the vocabulary and debates that Qing- and republican-era intellectuals developed to understand the modern international system.

Today there are at least three views among Chinese elites of the international system and China's role in it. All three start from the implicit premise that today's international system has not changed in its essence from the 19th century: the world is composed of strong and weak nation-states that vie for dominance on the global stage. They differ, however, on whether this state of affairs is permanent and on what global role China should seek. Some assert that the international system still revolves around Western interests that aim to subjugate and humiliate weaker nations, and that China's bitter experiences during the Century of Humiliation should provide a cautionary tale about the dangers of this system.
A second viewpoint suggests that the current system is acceptable now that China can play a prominent role in it. They assert that China's period of humiliation has ended, and that China should now seek to ensure the stability of the system and to assure other nations of its commitment to doing so. This view suggests that the potential dangers of a competitive international system can be mitigated by adapting existing institutions and practices.
A third line of reasoning suggests that China is in a unique position to fundamentally remake the international system because its experiences of shame and subjugation have given the Chinese people an alternative vision of how international relations can and should be conducted. >>>more

Trouble with Japan
~ Chiang Kai-shek’s “secret deal” at Xian & the start of the Sino-Japanese War by Steve Tang, 2015, Palgrave Communications (pdf)

Japanese invasions of Manchuria, China
Before and during World War II:
"The Mukden Incident" of 1931 "is seen as a crucial event on the path to the outbreak of World War II".
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, from 1937 through 1945, the Japanese captured China's capital city (1912-1949), Nanjing, and slaughtered over 300,000 civilians - the "Nanjing Massacre":
THIS TIME, the Chinese government outsmarted the Japanese by relocating their headquarters south-west - to Chongqing.

Quick overview:
"A Look Back at China's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression" by You Yang, Shi Uchen, 2020.
In addition, there are many Films depicting the history of the Nanjing Massacre: The Chinese film Red Sorghum (1988), based on the novel by Nobel Laureate Mo Yan, gives a visceral depiction of life in a rural village during those times.

Japan’s position as an imperial power ended with World War II:
United Nations Treaty of Peace with Japan, Treaty of San Francisco (pdf), signed by 48 nations, on September 8, 1951, which came into effect in April 1952, "provided compensation to those who had suffered ... terminated the Allied post-war occupation of Japan."

The end of the Great Game

British diplomat Sir Charles Alfred Bell (1870-1945) said at the time:
"The Tibetans were abandoned to Chinese aggression, an aggression for which the British Military Expedition to Lhasa and subsequent retreat were primarily responsible.” - Robert Twigger, 2017

In the footsteps of Sir Francis Younghusband's 1903 invasion of Tibet
By Robert Twigger, February 2017, History Extra

Excerpt:
By 1903 the viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, had determined that only an armed invasion would make Tibet bow to British imperialism. The euphemistically named Tibet Frontier Commission was formed with the aim of forcing the Tibetans to sign an accord.
. . .
In 1903, a British military expedition crossed into the long-isolated and inhospitable land of Tibet - but the pseudo-diplomatic mission became a bloody assault.
. . .
For decades Britain and Russia had been involved in the political tussle in central Asia known as the Great Game. Tibet acted as a buffer between India and Russia, but Britain had become concerned that the Chinese – who had considerable influence in Tibet, and considered it part of their empire – might allow Russia to gain control there. Despite British requests, it had become clear that China was unable to make Tibet comply with demands for negotiations.
. . .
Massacre at Guru pass
. . . It was a massacre. Of the Tibetan army – around 1,500 men – possibly 700 lay dead. The British, in contrast, suffered no fatalities and just 12 casualties in total. That pattern was repeated during further skirmishes as the expedition marched towards Lhasa; hundreds of Tibetans were killed in encounters, with few British losses. . . The road was now open to the heart of Tibet.
. . .
When the expedition arrived in Lhasa on 3 August, they discovered that Tibet’s leader, the 13th Dalai Lama, had fled to Mongolia.
. . .
In fact, no real evidence of a Tibetan-Russian pact was uncovered. After the British left Lhasa, Chinese influence soared, planting the seeds of the 1950 invasion. The diplomat Sir Charles Bell said at the time: “The Tibetans were abandoned to Chinese aggression, an aggression for which the British Military Expedition to Lhasa and subsequent retreat were primarily responsible."
. . .
The last forbidden country had been stormed and found to be… still a mystery, but not quite the kind they had been expecting. >>> more

"The only thing that will bring happiness is affection and warmheartedness. This really brings inner strength and self- confidence, reduces fear, develops trust, and trust brings friendship. We are social animals, and cooperation is necessary for our survival, but cooperation is entirely based on trust. When there is trust, people are brought together—whole nations are brought together. When you have a more compassionate mind and cultivate warmheartedness, the whole atmosphere around you becomes more positive and friendlier. You see friends everywhere." - The 14th Dalai Lama, Gyalwa Rinpoche - The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, since 1940, Gyalwa Rinpoche (b.1935) is from central China, while the 13th Dalai Lama is from southern India.

Sinology
“Certain it is that no people or group of peoples has had a monopoly in contributing to the development of Science. Their achievements should be mutually recognised and freely celebrated with the joined hands of universal brotherhood" - Joseph Needham, 1954, Science and Civilization in China Vol 1, Preface.
Excerpt:
Dr. Joseph Needham FRS, FBA (1900-1995) ... it is in the field of Sinology, in particular the history of science, technology and medicine in China, that his greatest contributions were made. A visit of three young Chinese biochemists to Cambridge in 1937 sparked his interest in China, and he set to learning the language, especially Classical Chinese. He spent the years 1943 to 1946 in China, setting up the Sino-British Science Cooperation Office (SBSCO), travelling the length and breadth of Free China visiting laboratories and factories to assess the needs of scientists working in extraordinary conditions, and arranging for research materials and equipment to be supplied to them. After a further two years serving as the first Director of the Science Section of UNESCO in Paris, he returned to Cambridge in 1948, intending to write a single volume history of China's contributions to the scientific, technological and medical heritage of human civilisation. With the assistance of his research collaborators, this was to grow into his monumental series Science and Civilisation in China. Described as 'perhaps the greatest single act of historical synthesis and intercultural communication ever attempted by one man', the first volume was published by Cambridge University Press in 1954, and to date a further 25 volumes have appeared of a projected 27. >>>more

2008:
Chinese Peasants Explore New Path to Development
Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the UN

"When Yan Jinchang stamped his fingerprint on a secret agreement 30 years ago for a piece of farmland to cultivate on his own, as he had been longing for, he didn’t expect that he would lease the land one day."

2011: Chongqing, China officially linked to Duisburg, Germany by road.
2015: China's "One Belt, One Road" (yidai yilu) initiative promises infrastructure and investment across Central Asia, creating a "new Silk Road"

2017:
China's economy is more resilient than people think. Here's why
by Stephen S. Roach, Yale University Senior Fellow, Jackson Institute of Global Affairs, 3 August 2017
Excerpt:

Once again, the Chinese economy has defied the hand wringing of the nattering nabobs of negativism. After decelerating for six consecutive years, real GDP growth appears to be inching up in 2017. The 6.9% annualized increase just reported for the second quarter exceeds the 6.7% rise in 2016 and is well above the consensus of international forecasters who, just a few months ago, expected growth to be closer to 6.5% this year, and to slow further, to 6%, in 2018.
. . .
An October 1998 cover story in The Economist, vividly illustrated by a Chinese junk getting sucked into a powerful whirlpool, said it all.

Yet nothing could have been further from the truth. When the dust settled on the virulent pan-regional contagion, the Chinese economy had barely skipped a beat. Real GDP growth slowed temporarily, to 7.7% in 1998-1999, before reaccelerating to 10.3% in the subsequent decade.

China’s resilience during the Great Financial Crisis was equally telling. In the midst of the worst global contraction since the 1930s, the Chinese economy still expanded at a 9.4% average annual rate in 2008-2009. While down from the blistering, unsustainable 12.7% pace recorded during the three years prior to the crisis, this represented only a modest shortfall from the 30-year post-1980 trend of 10%. Indeed, were it not for China’s resilience in the depths of the recent crisis, world GDP would not have contracted by 0.1% in 2009, but would have plunged by 1.3% – the sharpest decline in global activity of the post-World War II era. >>>more

Industrial Rise

China's rise to industrial power, by importing and developing manufacturing technologies supporting international corporatons seeking high profits by the use of Chinese cheap labor(i, ii), includes military defenses and China's "space program".

Sources:
i A Brief History of Outsourcing: Introduction to Professor Robert Handfield’s research on Current Trends in Production Labor Sourcing, 2006, North Carolina State University
ii. Emeritus professor of economics at University of Massachusetts, William Lazonick describes the results of outsourcing production in his 2013 paper, "The Financialization of the US Corporation: What Has Been Lost, and How Can It Be Regained."

China celebrated “Opening up” with a gala celebration on 14 December 2018
When one group of Chinese farmers made a secret deal to end collective land ownership 40 years ago, in 1978, they didn’t expect that one day they would be celebrated for leading China into a market-based economy.
>>>more

2018 marked the 40th anniversary
of the Third Plenum’s decisions on opening-up and reform (1978).
Institute of East Asian Studies

Excerpt:
Institutional Change and Reconfigurations of China’s Political Economy. The experimental integration of market elements into China’s centrally planned economy, sometimes classified as “Chinese variety of capitalism” or “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”, is still an ongoing and dynamically evolving process. To cope with the negative externalities and unexpected socio-ecological side-effects of the 1978 decisions, the 19th Party Congress held in 2017 redefined the guidelines of China’s official development path in the “New era”. This refined developmental strategy reflects domestic challenges as well as changing constellations at the global level and China’s role in international institutions. >>>more

2021:

Journal of Chinese Tax and Policy
Peer Review Process
Journal of Chinese tax and policy is a double-blind peer-review journal.
Issue archive

The importance of China on the global economic stage cannot be ignored, and its unique legal and tax systems are of great interest to international scholars and business people alike.
China’s tax system is acquiring western features while remaining entrenched in its rich cultural and historical roots. This makes for interesting study, analysis and comparison as its laws are becoming more accessible.
The Journal of Chinese Tax & Policy focuses on the policy, administrative and compliance aspects of the Chinese tax system.
It also welcomes comparative studies between China and other countries. The Journal is an internationally peer reviewed scholarly publication. >>> more

The Origins of Psychological Testing
“we begin at the beginning by reviewing rudimentary forms of testing that existed over four thousand years ago in imperial China.” 
– Robert J. Gregory, (2007) Psychological Testing: History, Principles, and Applications
Excerpt:

Rudimentary forms of testing in China - from 2200 B.C.
Although the widespread use of psychological testing is largely a phenomenon of the twentieth century, historians note that rudimentary forms of testing date back to at least 2200 B.C. when the Chinese emperor had his officials examined every third year to determine their fitness for office (Bowman, 1989; Chaffee, 1985; DuBois, 1970; Frankie, 1963; Lai, 1970; Teng, 1942-43). Such testing was modified and refined over the centuries until written exams were introduced in the Han dynasty (202 B.C.-A.D. 200). Five topics were tested: civil law, military affairs, agriculture, revenue, and geography.

The Chinese examination system took its final form about 1370 when proficiency in the Confucian classics was emphasized. In the preliminary examination, candidates were required to spend a day and a night in a small isolated booth, composing essays on assigned topics and writing a poem. The 1 to 7 percent who passed moved up to the district examinations. Perhaps 3 percent of this final group passed and became mandarins, eligible for public office.

Although the Chinese developed the external trappings of a comprehensive civil service examination program, the similarities between their traditions and current testing practices are, in the main, superficial. Not only were their testing practices unnecessarily gruelling, but the Chinese also failed to validate their selection procedures. Nonetheless, it does appear that the examination program incorporated relevant selection criteria. For example, in the written exams beauty of penmanship was weighted very heavily. Given the highly stylistic features of Chinese writing forms, good penmanship was no doubt essential for clear, exact communication. Thus, penmanship was probably a relevant predictor of suitability for civil service employment. In response to widespread discontent, the examination systems was abolished by royal decree in 1906 (Franke, 1963). – Gregory, 2007, CH. 2, p. 47

imperial examination

Wikipedia: The imperial examination was a civil service examination
system in Imperial China administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the state bureaucracy. The concept of choosing bureaucrats by merit rather than by birth started early in Chinese history, but using written examinations as a tool of selection started in earnest during the Sui dynasty[1] (581–618), then into the Tang dynasty (618–907). The system became dominant during the Song dynasty (960–1279) and lasted for almost a millennium until its abolition during the late Qing dynasty reforms in 1905. Aspects of the imperial examination still exist for entry into the civil service of both China and Taiwan.
The exams served to ensure a common knowledge of writing, Chinese classics, and literary style among state officials. This common culture helped to unify the empire, and the ideal of achievement by merit gave legitimacy to imperial rule.
The examination system played a significant role in tempering the power of hereditary aristocracy and military authority, and in the rise of a gentry class of scholar-bureaucrats. >>>more

Pre-history and mythology
Further information: Imperial examination in Chinese mythology

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The Music Bureau
aka "Imperial Music Bureau" served in the capacity of an organ of various imperial government bureaucracies of China... to perform various tasks related to music, poetry, entertainment, or religious worship. These tasks included both musical and lyrical research and development, and also directing performances.
See also Music of China:
"... many distinct traditions, often specifically originating with one of the country's various ethnic groups. ... music and dance were considered integral part of the whole, and its meaning can also be further extended to poetry as well as other art forms and rituals.[4]"

Emperor Shun is said to have founded a Ministry of Music, a legendary leader of ancient China, regarded by some sources as one of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors being the last of the Five Emperors. Tradition holds that he lived sometime between 2294 and 2184 BC.
According to tradition, the Hu people are believed to be descendants of Emperor Shun.
... The documentary evidence is contradictory and unclear for when and by whom the Music Bureau was founded; however it is known to have existed during the Qin dynasty (221–205 BCE), if not earlier.[4] … also came to be applied to a category of Classical Chinese poetry which was based upon the standard forms and themes documented or promoted by the Music Bureau staff during the Han dynasty. Known as yuefu (meaning "in the style of the Music Bureau poetry"), this type of poetry made major contributions to Han poetry, as well as the Jian'an poetry of the late Han and early Six Dynasties. There was also an important later Tang poetry literary revival of the yuefu poetic forms. ...

The Ethical Power of Music: Ancient Greek and Chinese Thoughts (pdf)
by National Taiwan University Associate Professor Yuh-wen Wang, who obtained her Ph.D. in music theory in 1998 from Columbia University,
The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Spring, 2004), University of Illinois Press

Excerpt
Both the ancient Chinese and Greeks from around the fifth century B.C. to around third century A.D. recognized the immense impact that music has on the development of one’s personality, and both regarded it as crucial in cultivation for the proper disposition in youth. Music’s power over one’s ethos1 — that is, human disposition — was emphasized by Plato and by Chinese authors of various documents.2 As will become clear, music in both cultures was considered an important means for a proper education and a powerful tool for cultivating and controlling the people of a nation-state. In both cases, the power of music was further connected to the way the universe works. Yet despite their similar views about music, the reasoning strategies used in the two cultures differ enormously. Observing how the two remote cultures conceived the relationship between music and the ethos may give us some insight to music’s role in aesthetic education among us modern listeners.
In this essay, I investigate how the power of music was understood and explained in these two ancient cultures, and the similarities and differences in their explanations and reasoning strategies. What mechanisms were thought to be at work behind this musical power? How close are ancient Greeks and Chinese in their conceptions of musical power upon the ethos? In particular, the Yue Ji (Record of Music, from the Li Ji) and the Yue Shu (Book of Music, from the Shi Ji) from ancient China, and Plato’s writings from ancient Greece will be taken as the foci of the comparison.

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CEM: The Chinese Educational Mission Abroad (1872–1881)

"In the late 1800s China was ravaged by poverty, population growth, and aggressive European armies. Driven by a desire for progress and reform, called the Self Strengthening Movement, the Chinese Imperial Court agreed to send students under the direction of Yung Wing to America to study at New England’s finest schools."
– Lamb, Connie (2014)

Historical Context
The Chinese Educational Mission (1872-1881)
From 1872 to 1881, 120 Chinese young boys at different ages arrived in the U.S. on government sponsorship. Chinese Educational Mission was a pioneering but frustrated attempt of China to modernize Chinese education and industry. At that time, the U.S. was scarcely a world leader in education. Although the United States was industrializing and urbanizing quickly, it was in turmoil during Reconstruction (following the American Civil War), and its educational institutions were not as advanced as European ones. Yet, China chose the U.S. to train its first groups of students abroad because of two people. >>>more

For better understanding of China in the 19th Century and China in the 21st Century read "Fortunate Sons: The 120 Chinese Boys Who Came to America, Went to School, and Revolutionized an Ancient Civilization,"
by Liel Leibovitz & Matthew I. Miller, (New York: Norton, 2011)
See GoogleBooks scan
Reviewed by Connie Lamb (2014), Comparative Civilizations Review.

See also:
1. "Termination and Recall"
In the summer of 1881, only nine years into the career of the CEM, the Chinese Government disbanded the Educational Mission and recalled all the students. The causes of this premature closure were complicated, but they had nothing to do with the academic performance of the students themselves.

2. Exeter Academy, New Hampshire hosted seven students, 1879 to 1881: documented by Barbara Rimkunas, (2014), Hidden History of Exeter, Arcadia Publishing, available on GoogleBooks scan

The Chinese Educational Mission (1872–1881)

Wikipedia: ... the pioneering but frustrated attempt by reform-minded officials of the Qing dynasty to educate a group of 120 Chinese students in the United States.
In 1871, Yung Wing, himself the first Chinese graduate of Yale University, persuaded the Chinese government to send supervised groups of young Chinese to the United States to study Western science and engineering. With the government's eventual approval, he organized what came to be known as the Chinese Educational Mission, which included 120 students, some under the age of ten, to study in the New England region of the United States beginning in 1872. The boys arrived in several detachments, lived with American families in Hartford, Connecticut, and other New England towns; and after graduating high school, went on to college, especially at Yale. When a new supervisory official arrived, he found that they had adopted many American customs, such as playing baseball, and felt they were neglecting their Chinese heritage and becoming "denationalized." In addition, external pressures such as the US government's refusal in 1878 to permit students to attend the Military Academy at West Point and the Naval Academy at Annapolis [1] in contravention of the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 called the whole purpose of the mission, the acquisition of Western military expertise, into question. Due to internal and external pressures, the mission was ended in 1881. When the boys returned to China, they were confined and interrogated.[2]
. . .
Many of the students later returned to China and made significant contributions to China's civil services, engineering, and the sciences. Prominent students on the mission included Liang Cheng, Tang Shaoyi, Cai Tinggan, and Zhan Tianyou. >>>more

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OECD: PISA
Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) was first conducted in 2000: 250,000 students from 32 countries took part in PISA 2000

A survey of the knowledge and skills of 15-year olds, mainly in industrial countries.
PISA in Brief, from Australia’s perspective(pdf)

PISA RESULTS - 2018
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

1.
OECD iLibrary
PISA 2018 Results (Volume I): What Students Know and Can Do
Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General, 03 Dec 2019
Excerpt from Preface:

...given the fact that expenditure per primary and secondary student rose by more than 15 % across OECD countries over the past decade, it is disappointing that most OECD countries saw virtually no improvement in the performance of their students since PISA was first conducted in 2000. In fact, only seven of the 79 education systems analysed saw significant improvements in the reading, mathematics and science performance of their students throughout their participation in PISA, and only one of these, Portugal, is a member of the OECD.
During the same period, the demands placed on the reading skills of 15-year-olds have fundamentally changed. The smartphone has transformed the ways in which people read and exchange information; and digitalisation has resulted in the emergence of new forms of text, ranging from the concise, to the lengthy and unwieldy. In the past, students could find clear and singular answers to their questions in carefully curated and government-approved textbooks, and they could trust those answers to be true. Today, they will find hundreds of thousands of answers to their questions on line, and it is up to them to figure out what is true and what is false, what is right and what is wrong. Reading is no longer mainly about extracting information; it is about constructing knowledge, thinking critically and making well-founded judgements. Against this backdrop, the findings from this latest PISA round show that fewer than 1 in 10 students in OECD countries was able to distinguish between fact and opinion, based on implicit cues pertaining to the content or source of the information. In fact, only in the four provinces/municipalities of China, as well as in Canada, Estonia, Finland, Singapore and the United States, did more than one in seven students demonstrate this level of reading proficiency. >>>more

2.
OECD: Final Report
Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)
PISA 2018: Insights and Interpretations FINAL (pdf)
By Andreas Schleicher
Excerpt:

About PISA
Up to the end of the 1990s, the OECD’s comparisons of education outcomes were mainly based on measures of years of schooling, which are not reliable indicators of what people actually know and can do. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) changed this. The idea behind PISA lay in testing the knowledge and skills of students directly, through a metric that was internationally agreed upon; linking that with data from students, teachers, schools and systems to understand performance differences; and then harnessing the power of collaboration to act on the data, both by creating shared points of reference and by leveraging peer pressure. The aim with PISA was not to create another layer of top-down accountability, but to help schools and policy makers shift from looking upward within the education system towards looking outward to the next teacher, the next school, the next country. In essence, PISA counts what counts, and makes that information available to educators and policy makers so they can make more informed decisions. …

15-year-old students in four provinces/municipalities of China – Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang – outperformed their peers in all of the other 78 participating education systems ... What makes their achievement even more remarkable is that the level of income of these four Chinese regions is well below the OECD average. … >>> more (pdf)

3.
2019 PISA: Assessment
American students in all academic categories
The academic performance of American schoolchildren hasn't budged in two decades, despite billions of dollars in increased funding.
Summary of a review by Stephen Johnson, 5 Dec. 2019
Editor of BigThink.com
Excerpt:

Chinese students far outperformed their international peers in a test of reading, math, and science skills, according to the Results of Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 Report (pdf).
...
The PISA results showed that 20 percent of American 15-year-olds don’t read as well as they should by age 10. Also, the results showed American performance in reading and math has been flat since 2000. That suggests that federal initiatives like No Child Left Behind and Common Core — which have cost billions of federal and private dollars — haven’t improved education quality in the U.S.
One of the most surprising findings was that only 14 percent of American students were able to reliably distinguish fact from opinion in reading tests. . . .
>>>more

Sen Yet Young: "Father of Chinese aviation"

Sen Yet Young aka Young Sen Yat, (1891-1923), born in the Kingdom of Hawaii, was named "the father of Chinese aviation" by Sun Yat-sen, and posthumously awarded the rank of lieutenant general and named the leader of China's air force. >>>more

A certificate issued in China commemorating Sen Yet Young's death reveals his activities:

“Following the death of Yuan Shih-K’ai, the Kuomintang had established itself as the controlling party of China with Dr. Sun Yat-Sen as its president. With the nationalist government under democratic principles, the party’s new push was for national unity which could only be brought about by the abolishment of warlordism. This, however, was a slow and enduring process since the Kuomintang had only light and limited armaments with which to fight the warlords as they had previously done against Yuan Shih-K’ai. Seeing the lack of effective weapons, one of the Kuomintang members stood out as a national patriot by devoting his life to the establishment of larger, more effective and more powerful military armaments, Young Sen Yet.” Source: Hawaii Aviation archive

"Human nature is good" -
"By using force and pretending to benevolence the hegemon will certainly have a large state. By using virtue and practicing benevolence the wise ruler will achieve humane authority."
- Confucian philosopher, Mencius (372-289 BC)

2024

Hong Kong: Overturning of Chow Hang-tung Tiananmen acquittal another blow to rule of law
January 25, 2024, Amnesty International

Excerpt:
Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal today reinstated Chow Hang-tung’s conviction for “inciting others to take part in an unauthorised assembly” during the city’s 2021 Tiananmen vigil, after the prosecution had appealed.
Chow had previously been acquitted of the charge in December 2022.
Lawyer Chow Hang-tung is a former leader of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which disbanded after authorities used the annual Tiananmen candlelight vigil it had organized for 30 years as evidence of the group “endangering national security”.
Along with other members of the group, Chow Hang-tung was charged with “inciting subversion” under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, for which she faces a potential life prison sentence.

2023

2023

Personal observations: Will Minson C.
October 5, 2023, Quora
American born Chinese. BS Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Lives in Los Angeles.

Just finished a 2-week trip in China (Shanghai, Beijing, Xi’an, Yen’An). Hadn’t been since Dec 2019, previously visited multiple times/year for 20+ years. Had to see for myself how things are vs. media reports within the US. For the record, I am neither Pro or Anti China, I am Pro-Business. Here are my summary observations/opinions:

• Economy is definitely slowing down and most people feel or see the impact. However, the loudest complainers are from the ‘elite’ segment (well educated, experience with MNCs, live in Shanghai, etc.). Noticed people in Beijing, Xian, and smaller cities weren’t as concerned.

• Despite downturn, most people aren’t severely impacted for now. They have plenty of savings, almost no debt, and can live with their parents. Chinese are notoriously frugal and save for a rainy day - guess what? It’s raining now. Also, for perspective, economy still going to grow 4–5%, just not 8–10% as hoped/expected. So people aren’t buying as many luxury goods, the 10+ Uber/Lyft rideshare companies aren’t getting as much traffic, and not every engineer will get their dream job.

• Foreign population visibly lower, the smallest number I’ve seen in 20+ years even in Shanghai. Took a flight from BJ to Shanghai, saw less than 20 foreigners at airport and plane, most appear to be from Europe. Shouldn’t have been surprised given the situation but eye opening nonetheless.

• Technology progress in China is for real. ~35–40% of cars in Shanghai are EVs. And they are much nicer than expected, even from brands I’ve never heard of. BYD has a version that can do 900 KM on full charge (vs. 450 for a Tesla). Huawei 6G pro is impressive. Bullet train system is easy, convenient, and fast (some routes didn’t exist just a few years ago). Subways are upgraded. Robotic companies everywhere. This was my area of expertise, a bit disturbed to see how quickly they copy-catted, highly likely they got some IP improperly IMO. One executive told me they don’t need any tech know-how from America today. This is where things are at whether the US admits to it or not.

• 80–90% of all money transactions for me was electronic. I linked my ATM card to Alipay and it was pretty easy most of the time. I got a bunch of added charges though, some expected, some not. Kind of annoying.

• My US cell phone was blocked in China, meaning I couldn’t iMessage or call Chinese numbers (not the case before). My WeChat messages to locals came with warnings. Just some minor retaliation from China.

• Downloaded 2 VPNs, between the two I was able to get most of what I needed from US though they would crash 1/day or work very slowly sometimes. People still use WhatsApp a lot in Shanghai. One bonus: Spotify worked great even within the firewall!

• In Shanghai I saw signs of small groups of “youts”, meaning younger generation Chinese dressed more hip or alternative (baggy pants, blond hair, etc.). Hadn’t seen much of this before, we’ll see if it evolves like Japan in the 80s.

• Most Chinese are aware of the Sino vs. US tension. The more educated are privately quite critical of the current CCP government. But they are also confused with US positions. For example, why are Huawei and BYD banned in the US but Apple and Tesla are allowed in China? They don’t see all the negative coverage on China from the US, but do get amplified coverage of US deficiencies (gun violence, Trump, Biden gaffes, gov’t shutdown talk, etc.). They all hope things get better. And nearly all Chinese I talked to aren’t big fans of Russia.

• In summary, my takeaway is China is going through a pretty big correction. For some, it’s hurting but for now, the country is fine. I do see the impact of lesser foreign investment but IMO, there is still significant opportunity. China still covets global products and services, and believe established quality is paramount - especially in Shanghai. The rules are just tighter and some sectors are more complicated than before. I believe if things don’t get better in 1–2 years, there could be some serious trouble. I’m guessing many Chinese nationals outside of the country are also paying attention to this as well.

2019
When China Leads the World:
Hegemony vs. Humane Authority
by Godfree Roberts, author, Why China Leads the World: Talent at the Top, Data in the Middle, Democracy at the Bottom (2020)

About Godfree Roberts Ph.D.
I've been visiting China since 1967 and following its rising fortunes ever since. After receiving my doctorate from UMass, Amherst, I moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand, an hour from the Chinese border, and began trying to understand the country's phenomenal success.

The result is a book, "Why China Leads the World: Talent at the Top, Data in the Middle, Democracy at the Bottom," the only book in English that explains why China works so well, and why 95% of Chinese think it's heading in the right direction.

'Talent at the Top' means that only the brightest, most honest and idealistic people are admitted to politics–a policy they have not changed in 2200 years.

'Data in the Middle' means that every policy is tested, implemented, tracked, and optimized based on terabytes of data. The PRC is the world's largest consumer of public surveys.

'Democracy at the Bottom' means that ordinary people have the last say on everything. 3,000 honest amateurs from across the country assemble twice a year to check the stats and sign off on new legislation. Policies need a minimum of 66% popular support to become law. That's why 95% of Chinese say the country is on the right track.

'Why China Leads the World' shows how the epidemic accelerated the change of global leadership from America to China and examines China’s bigger, steadier economy, its leadership in science, stronger military, more powerful allies, and wider international support.

Crammed with charts, footnotes, and lengthy quotes, 'Why China Leads the World' is a profoundly disturbing book that helps you understand the tectonic shift and adapt to this new era–and even thrive in it.

Why does this matter? Because, by the end of 2021, there will be more hungry children, more poor, homeless, drug addicted, and imprisoned people in America than in China.

2019
Why will China’s economy crash soon?
Answered by Godfree Roberts,
Blog: Here Comes China -
China’s economy will crash soon because we want it to crash soon, that’s why!
All authorities agree that China’s economy will crash soon:

1990. China's economy has come to a halt. The Economist
1996. China's economy will face a hard landing. The Economist
1998. China's economy’s dangerous period of sluggish growth. The Economist
1999. Likelihood of a hard landing for the Chinese economy. Bank of Canada
2000. China currency move nails hard landing risk coffin. Chicago Tribune
2001. A hard landing in China. Wilbanks, Smith & Thomas
2002. China Seeks a Soft Economic Landing. Westchester University
2003. Banking crisis imperils China. New York Times
2004. The great fall of China? The Economist
2005. The Risk of a Hard Landing in China. Nouriel Roubini
2006. Can China Achieve a Soft Landing? International Economy
2007. Can China avoid a hard landing? TIME
2008. Hard Landing In China? Forbes
2009. China's hard landing. China must find a way to recover. Fortune
2010: Hard landing coming in China. Nouriel Roubini
2011: Chinese Hard Landing Closer Than You Think. Business Insider
2012: Economic News from China: Hard Landing. American Interest
2013: A Hard Landing In China. Zero Hedge
2014. A hard landing in China. CNBC
2015. Congratulations, You Got Yourself A Chinese Hard Landing. Forbes
2016. Hard landing looms for China. The Economist
2017. Is China's Economy Going To Crash? National Interest
2018. China's Coming Financial Meltdown. The Daily Reckoning.
Any day now…

2019
Nature: China’s science silk road: Part 1

“Bai Chunli, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has been the architect of the science component of the Belt and Road Initiative.”

How China is redrawing the map of world science
The Belt and Road Initiative, China’s mega-plan for global infrastructure, will transform the lives and work of tens of thousands of researchers.
By Ehsan Masood, 1 May 2019

Excerpt:
Xi and other Chinese leaders see science as a central element in building bridges with other countries and Bai Chunli, president of CAS, emphasized that point last year in the Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS Bulletin). “Science, technology and innovation are the core driving force for the BRI development,” he wrote.
For the past six months, Nature has been travelling to countries participating in the BRI. From Beijing to Islamabad, Colombo to Nairobi to Lima, we are exploring in a series of five articles over the next two weeks how China is transforming the world of science. China’s universities — along with a vast network of CAS institutes — are fanning out across the globe. They are offering scientific assistance and signing collaborative agreements on a scale not seen since the United States and the former Soviet Union vied with each other to fund researchers in allied nations during the cold war. On 19 April, Bai announced that CAS has invested more than 1.8 billion yuan (almost US$268 million) in science and technology projects as part of the BRI. ...

"the China Study uncovered information on the links between what we eat and how we die."

The China Study SUMMARY (pdf)
Parliament of NSW, Australia
What is the China Study?
The project, begun in 1983, is a collaborative effort between Cornell University, the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and Oxford University, England, as well as scientists from the United States, China, Britain, France, and other countries...

The China Project: A History of the China Study
(includes courses, reports and chapters)
Excerpt: In the early 1980’s, nutritional biochemist T. Colin Campbell, PhD of Cornell University, in partnership with researchers at Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, embarked upon one of the most comprehensive nutritional studies ever undertaken known as the China Project. China at that time presented researchers with a unique opportunity. The Chinese population tended to live in the same area all their lives and to consume the same diets unique to each region. Their diets (low in fat and high in dietary fiber and plant material) also were in stark contrast to the rich diets of the Western countries. The truly plant-based nature of the rural Chinese diet gave researchers a chance to compare plant-based diets with animal-based diets...

 
Funding:
The US National Cancer Institute (of NIH), along with the American Institute for Cancer Research (Washington, DC), provided the initial funds. The Imperial Cancer Research Fund in England also provided significant support for the Oxford University activity. However, the majority of the support for this study came from the Chinese people and their government. This support was 'in kind', resulting in the provision of approximately 800+ years of professional and technical labor.

1983-1984 survey: Sixty five counties in rural China were selected for the study and dietary, lifestyle and disease characteristics were studied. Within each of the 65 counties, 2 villages were selected and 50 families in each were randomly chosen. One adult from each household (half men and half women), 6,500 for the entire survey, participated. Blood, urine and food samples were obtained for later analysis, while questionnaire and 3-day diet information was recorded. The data was published in the following monograph: Chen, J., Campbell, T.C., Li, J., Peto, R. Diet, Lifestyle and Mortality in China. A Study of the Characteristics of 65 Chinese Counties.
A joint publication of: Oxford University Press, Cornell University Press and The People's Medical Publishing House, 1990.

1989-1990 survey: The same counties and individuals surveyed in 1983-84 were re-surveyed in 1989-90, with the addition of 20 new counties in mainland China and Taiwan, and 20 additional families per county, for a total of 10,200 adults and their families. Socioeconomic information was also collected for this second survey. The data was published in the following monograph: Chen, J., Peto, R. Pan, W., Liu, B., Campbell, T.C. Mortality, Biochemistry, Diet and Lifestyle in Rural China. Geographic study of 69 counties in Mainland China and 16 areas in Taiwan. Oxford University Press, 2006.

What Happened to Riley?
Chinese Australian History:
A Selection of Short Stories by China’s Modern Writers

Series No.1
The United China Publishing Syndicate, Shanghai, China, 1933
Inside the blue covers of this intriguingly titled volume is probably the first piece of Chinese-Australian literature written in English. ... Why is this short story almost unknown, despite this distinction and its remarkable tale of a confrontation between a Chinese Australian and a European Australian in warlord China? The answer reflects the narrowness of perceptions about what is “Australian” coupled with the breadth of experiences that embodies the term “Chinese Australian”. >>> more

Australian Treasury Department
By Wilson Au-Yeung, Alison Keys and Paul Fischer, 12 December 2012
This article looks back at the relationship between Australia and China, particularly following the normalisation of relations in 1972.

Introduction
On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Australia and the People's Republic of China (PRC), this article looks back at the evolution of the relationship between our two countries, particularly following the normalisation of relations in 1972.

Chapters

Diplomatic Relations
Cultural relations and people-to-people links
Economic Relations
Australia's early trade relationship with China
Reform and opening drives China's economic and trade growth
Australia's rapidly growing trade relationship with China
- Importing manufactures
- Exporting resources
Trade in Services with China
Inbound travellers
Education
Financial services
Other services
Investment
Looking ahead

2024

September 2024

China Focus: China to gradually raise retirement age
Sept. 13, 2024, Xinhua.net

Excerpt:
BEIJING, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese lawmakers on Friday voted to adopt a decision on gradually raising the statutory retirement age in the country, marking the first adjustment in the arrangement since 1950s.

According to the decision adopted at the 11th session of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress, the statutory retirement age for men will be gradually raised from 60 to 63 in the course of 15 years starting 2025, while that for women cadres and women blue-collar workers will be raised from 55 to 58 and from 50 to 55, respectively.

Starting 2030, the minimum year of basic pension contributions required to receive monthly benefits will be gradually raised from 15 years to 20 years at the pace of an increase of six months annually.

Meanwhile, people will be allowed to voluntarily retire by no more than three years in advance after reaching the minimum year of pension contributions. But it is not allowed to retire earlier than the previous statutory age.

The new policies will also allow individuals to postpone retirement to an even later date if they reach an agreement with employers, but such a delay should be no more than three years. >>>more

August 2024

CHINA ECONOMY
U.S., China sign agreement to cooperate on financial stability
By Evelyn Cheng
Aug. 19 2024, CNBC

Excerpt

KEY POINTS
- The U.S. and China have signed agreements for cooperating on financial stability, according to a People’s Bank of China readout Monday.
- The agreement was part of a meeting of the U.S.-China Financial Working Group in Shanghai Thursday and Friday.
- The readout described the conversation as “professional, pragmatic, candid and constructive,” according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese.

BEIJING — The U.S. and China last week signed agreements for cooperating on financial stability, according to a People’s Bank of China readout Monday.

A Treasury readout described the two sides as “exchanging letters in support of coordination.”
The agreement was part of a meeting of the U.S.-China Financial Working Group in Shanghai on Thursday and Friday. Brent Neiman, deputy under secretary for international finance at the Treasury Department, and Xuan Changneng, deputy PBOC governor, co-lead the working group.

The two sides also exchanged a list of people to contact in the event of financial stress or risk events, the PBOC readout said.

Representatives from the Federal Reserve, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, National Financial Regulatory Administration and China Securities Regulatory Commission also attended, the PBOC said.

The readout described the conversation as “professional, pragmatic, candid and constructive,” according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese statement. Topics discussed included capital markets, cross-border payments and the two countries’ monetary policy, especially in the context of China’s recently concluded Third Plenum meeting, the PBOC readout said. ... >>> more

G20 2024 - Brazil

CHINA / DIPLOMACY
Xi, Lula exchange congratulations on 50th anniversary of China-Brazil ties
By Li Yawei
Aug 15, 2024, Global Times

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday exchanged congratulatory messages on the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Brazil, with experts saying that the two sides are expected to continue promoting exchanges in all areas underpinned by economic and trade cooperation.

China is ready to work with Brazil to take the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties as a new starting point to jointly promote the building of a China-Brazil community with a shared future, Xi said in his congratulatory message to Lula, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Thursday.

China and Brazil, both major developing countries and key emerging markets, are like-minded good friends and partners that join hands and move forward together, Xi said.

For his part, Lula said over the past half century, the friendship between Brazil and China has been strengthened, and cooperation has become increasingly diversified, according to Xinhua.

Brazil-China ties are becoming increasingly important for building the multipolar order, as well as  a more just and effective global governance, Lula said, adding that bilateral ties play an underpinning role in the stability and predictability of the two countries and the world. He said that for the next 50 years of bilateral relations, the two countries will chart a new course together and create a bright shared future.

Lula said at an event on Wednesday that he will discuss a "long-term strategic partnership" with China later this year, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The close ties between China and Brazil span many years, and Lula's remarks indicate that Brazil is looking to extend and advance the relationship with China, Dong Jingsheng, deputy director of Peking University's Latin America Research Center, told the Global Times on Thursday.

"The economies of the two sides enjoy considerable complementarity, making it possible to provide favorable conditions to advance the cooperation in other fields of the two countries." Dong noted.

Dong also believed that trade and economic relations serve as the foundation of the relationship between China and Brazil, as well as China's cooperation with other countries in Latin America, which in turn encourages political trust and people-to-people exchanges.

The rapid development of China-Brazil ties contributes not only to the economic and social development of the two countries, but also facilitates the engagement of Global South countries, analysts said, noting that this injects momentum into the transformation of the international system and the reform of the global governance system.

July 2024

"Learning to Love - Intimacy and the Discourse of Development in China"
July 2024, University of Michigan Press, by Sonya E. Pritzker - "linguistic and medical anthropologist with an emphasis in psychological and biocultural medical anthropology, as well as a licensed practitioner of Chinese medicine."
Interview with the author:
Tim Brinkhof, "Inside China’s Psychoboom" July 17, 2024, JSTOR

Book description
Learning to Love offers a range of perspectives on the embodied, relational, affective, and sociopolitical project of “learning to love” at the New Life Center for Holistic Growth, a popular “mind-body-spirit” bookstore and practice space in northeast China, in the early part of the 21st century. This intimate form of self-care exists alongside the fast-moving, growing capitalist society of contemporary China and has emerged as an understandable response to the pressures of Chinese industrialized life in the early 21st century. Opening with an investigation of the complex ways newcomers to the center suffered a sense of being “off,” both in and with the world at multiple scales, Learning to Love then examines how new horizons of possibility are opened as people interact with one another as well as with a range of aesthetic objects at New Life.

Author Sonya Pritzker draws upon the core concepts of scalar intimacy—a participatory, discursive process in which people position themselves in relation to others as well as dominant ideologies, concepts, and ideals—and scalar inquiry—the process through which speakers interrogate these forms, their relationship with them, and their participation in reproducing them. In demonstrating the collaborative interrogation of culture, history, and memory, she examines how these exercises in physical, mental, and spiritual self-care allow participants to grapple with past social harms and forms of injustice, how historical systems of power—including both patriarchal and governance structures—continue in the present, and how they might be transformed in the future. By examining the interactions and relational experiences from New Life, Learning to Love offers a range of novel theoretical interventions into political subjectivity, temporality, and intergenerational trauma/healing.

2023
March 2023

President Xi Jinping visits President Putin
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin’s Press Conference
March 21, 2023
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China

Excerpt:
…On the afternoon of March 20 local time, President Xi Jinping arrived in Moscow on a special plane to pay a state visit to Russia....
President Xi Jinping delivered a written statement. He stressed that China and Russia are friendly neighbors connected by shared mountains and rivers. The two countries have consolidated and grown the bilateral relationship on the basis of no-alliance, no-confrontation and not targeting any third party, and set a fine example for developing a new model of major-country relations. The growth of China-Russia relations has not only brought tangible benefits to the people of the two countries, but also made important contributions to the development and progress of the world.

On the afternoon of 20 March local time, President Xi Jinping, upon invitation, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. The two Presidents had an in-depth and candid exchange on China-Russia relations and issues of mutual interest. President Xi expressed his appreciation to President Putin for immediately sending him congratulatory messages on his reelection as General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee by the 20th CPC National Congress and on his reelection not long ago as Chinese President. He noted that Russia will hold the presidential election next year, and under President Putin’s strong leadership, Russia has made good progress in development and rejuvenation. President Xi said he is confident that the Russian people will continue to give firm support to President Putin.

President Xi stressed that there is a profound historical logic for China-Russia relationship to reach where it is today. China and Russia are each other’s biggest neighbor and comprehensive strategic partner of coordination. Both countries see their relationship as a high priority in their overall diplomacy and policy on external affairs. China always upholds an independent foreign policy. To consolidate and develop well China-Russia relations is a strategic choice China has made on the basis of its own fundamental interests and the prevailing trends of the world. China is firm in keeping to the general direction of strengthening strategic coordination with Russia. Both China and Russia are committed to realizing national development and rejuvenation, support world multi-polarity and work for greater democracy in international relations. The two countries should further deepen practical cooperation in various fields and strengthen coordination and collaboration on multilateral platforms such as the UN to boost their respective national development and rejuvenation, and be a bulwark for world peace and stability. 

President Putin said that in the past ten years, China made impressive and great achievements in all areas of development. This is attributable to the outstanding leadership of President Xi and proves the strength of China’s national political system and governance system. . . >>>more

2022
January 2022

The Central Commission for Cybersecurity and Informatization 
on Dec. 28, 2021, issued the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Informatization. ...

Translation:
14th Five-Year Plan for National Informatization -
Dec. 2021 - Translation January 24, 2022
DIGICHINA: A project of the Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center

Excerpt:
Translation:
During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, informatization is entering a new phase of accelerated digitized development and building a digital China. General Secretary Xi Jinping has stressed that without informatization, there is no modernization. Informatization brings opportunities for the Chinese nation to scale difficult peaks, and the historical opportunity of informatization development must be acutely grasped. Accelerating digitized development and building a digital China are inherent requirements for meeting the changed circumstances of a new development phase, grasping the opportunities of the information revolution, building new advantages for national competition, and accelerating the creation of a modern Socialist country; they are strategic steps in implementing new development ideas and promoting high-quality development; and they are a necessary road to promote building a new development structure and building a modern economic system. Directly facing the profound changes in industrial chains and supply chains in the “post-pandemic era” as well as the profound changes in global governance systems, responding to the change in the main contradiction of our country’s society, accelerating digitized development, and building a digital China are necessary choices to foster new development drivers, stimulate new development vitality, bridge the digital divide, accelerate the advance of the modernization of the national governance system and governance capability, and stimulate the people’s comprehensive development and society’s comprehensive progress.

This Plan has been formulated on the basis of the “14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China and 2035 Long-Term Objective Planning,” the “National Informatization Development Strategy Outline,” etc.; it is an important component of the national planning system for the “14th Five-Year Plan” period and a guideline for action for informatization work in all localities and all departments during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period.

I. Current status and circumstances ... >>>more

2021
September 2021

Larger role in int'l affairs expected for China
9 September 2021, China Daily
By Zhang Yunbi, "a high-level seminar marking the upcoming 50th anniversary of China regaining its lawful seat at the United Nations."

Excerpts:
Prominent political figures and scholars from across the globe have voiced hopes about China playing a bigger role in the future in advancing multilateralism, improving global governance and helping developing countries to thrive.

They stated their expectations for Beijing on a range of issues, including climate change and poverty relief, at a high-level seminar marking the upcoming 50th anniversary of China regaining its lawful seat at the United Nations.

To restore all rights to the People's Republic of China, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758 by an overwhelming majority in October 1971.

At the event on Wednesday, hosted by the UN Association of China and the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs, guests hailed the remarkable progress that China has made during its engagement with the international organization over the past five decades.

… China is now the second-largest contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget and the top contributor of peacekeeping troops among the five UN Security Council permanent members.

China's role has shifted from the world's biggest recipient of aid to "a contributor to global development" over the past five decades, and it has implemented thousands of projects and programs of in-kind assistance to benefit more than 160 other developing countries, …
…
Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum and its executive chairman, said the restoration of China's seat at the UN 50 years ago "was a remarkable moment", and "it has changed the history of global cooperation".

"China has been playing an increasingly important role in global peace and security, poverty alleviation and helping the least-developed countries and the people," he said.

"China's continued poverty alleviation efforts helped over 800 million people out of poverty in the past 40 years. It's the biggest contribution to the UN Millennium Goal on poverty of any nation," he added.

Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, who is now president and CEO of the think tank Asia Society, noted that China began calling for building a Green Belt and Road years ago.

He also noted that at the general debate of the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly nearly a year ago, President Xi Jinping outlined China's ambition to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

As China promoted the dual goals on carbon to the level of a national strategy, all these efforts "are a manifestation of China's position and (sense of) responsibility in addressing climate change and climate crisis", Rudd said in a video speech, which he delivered in Chinese.

'New vigor'
. . .
"China has not drifted away from its original aspirations, and it has always kept in mind that it was the developing countries that helped bring China back into the UN," he said.

China "will always vote for developing countries and for those standing with justice", he added. >>>more

2021
August 2021

LaTrobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Public Lecture | Webinar
10 August 2021

Discussants :
The Hon. Kevin Rudd AC
Mandarin speaker, Kevin Rudd AC graduated from the ANU with honours in Chinese studies, and served as Australia's 26th Prime Minister (2007-10, 2013), and Foreign Minister (2010-12), and was President of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York from 2015 to 2023.

The Hon. Malcolm Turnbull AC began his career with Goldman Sachs as director of Australasian investments and became a Partner in 1996, and served as Australia’s 29th Prime Minister (2015-2018)

Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull - The Challenge of China
La Trobe University is honoured and delighted that Kevin Rudd AC and Malcolm Turnbull AC, two respected and perceptive former Australian Prime Ministers, have agreed to come together online with Dr Bec Strating, Executive Director of La Trobe Asia, to discuss some of the most critical questions posed for Australia and the world by China’s rapid rise.

The recent emergence of China as an economic and military super-power, rivalling the United States, is one of the most significant and challenging developments of the present era.
La Trobe University is honoured and delighted that Kevin Rudd AC and Malcolm Turnbull AC, two respected and perceptive former Australian Prime Ministers, have agreed to come together online with Dr Bec Strating, Executive Director of La Trobe Asia, to discuss some of the most critical questions posed for Australia and the world by China’s rapid rise.

• Why have relations between China and Australia deteriorated so comprehensively in recent years?

• Has the threat China poses to Australia been exaggerated by conservative politicians and the Murdoch media?

• Has Beijing decided to isolate and punish Canberra as a warning to other nations not to challenge Chinese interests and ambitions?

• What, if anything, can Australia do to restore more amicable relations with China?

• Should Canberra encourage Washington to attempt to maintain its supremacy in Asia?

• Is the sharing of power between the United States and China in the Asian region a realistic possibility and an acceptable outcome?

• Should Canberra encourage Washington to follow a policy of containment with regard to China, the kind of policy that succeeded with the former Soviet Union?

• To what extent should the China policies of Washington and Canberra be determined by human rights considerations, like Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang?

• How might the United States and China find a way of cooperating on international issues, including the existential question facing humankind, catastrophic climate change?

• Or is a new Cold War, or something even worse, already inevitable?