World geo 2 China

• China's history


  • Powerful transformations
  • Profound political and cultural changes
  • Ruled by nomadic warriors and long-ruling dynasties
• China's culture


  Spans more than 5,000 years
• Shang dynasty arose on the North China Plain


  Around 1766 B.C.
• Shang dynasty


  • Faced attacks by nomads from Central Asia
  • Rebellions by local nobles
  • Natural disasters
• Mandate of heaven


  Approval of the gods and goddesses for a dynasty to rule
• Shang dynasty came to an end

  1046 B.C.
• Zhou dynasty took control

  Next 800 years
• Zhou dynasty


  • Trade grew
  • Chinese culture spread
  • Making of iron tools began
  • Crossbows, ox-drawn plows, and horseback riding introduced
  • Widespread irrigation and efforts to control water
• Confucianism


  System of thought founded by Confucius, based on discipline and proper moral conduct
• Daoism


  Philosophy founded by Laozi, emphasizing harmony with nature and simple living
• Qin dynasty, first to unify China


  221–206 B.C.
• Qin Shihuangdi


  • Joined together and added sections to existing defensive walls, establishing the Great Wall of China
• Han dynasty


  206 B.C.–A.D. 220
• Tang dynasty


  A.D. 618–907
• Han and Tang dynasties


  • Traders and missionaries spread Chinese culture throughout East Asia
• Explorer Zheng He sailed as far as the coast of East Africa under the Ming dynasty


  Early 1400s
• Qing dynasty ruled China


  Mid-1600s to early 1900s
• By the 1600s, Europeans had set up trade routes to China and other parts of East Asia to gain access to the region's silk and tea trade
• China rejected European efforts to open more ports in the 1800s
• In the 1800s, frustration prompted some European countries to force China to open more ports
• Later, European governments and Japan divided large areas of China into spheres of influences, or areas over which they had exclusive trading rights
• Chinese dynasties ended after a revolution led by Sun Yat-sen


  1911
• A tumultuous period followed in which warlords competed for control
• Chiang Kai-shek came to power and formed the Nationalist government of the Republic of China


  1925
• Chiang's rival, a Communist named Mao Zedong, won the support of China's farmers
• Civil war erupted, and the Communists eventually took power in 1949
• They set up the People's Republic of China on the mainland, while the Republic of China was on Taiwan, where Nationalists had fled after the war
• Great Leap Forward


  1. Small-scale farms replaced by large government farms

  2. Economy faltered and new farms failed to produce enough food, causing millions to die of starvation
• Mao still dreamed of a classless society and believed that only an atmosphere of constant revolutionary fervor could enable the Chinese to achieve the final stage of communism
• Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

  1. Urban and educated Chinese sent to work on rural farms

  2. Goal was to cleanse Chinese society of elements thought to be guilty of embracing capitalist ideas
• Deng Xiaoping and other new government leaders encouraged modernization and limited capitalism


  Late 1970s
• Modernization and limited capitalism


  • Some businesses and farms made available for private ownership
  • Foreign businesses and technology allowed into the country
  • Free-market influences and modernization gradually opened China's economy and society further
• Tensions have remained high between the Republic of China on Taiwan and the People's Republic of China on the mainland
• Both have desired to reunite since the 1950s, but they cannot agree on how this might occur
• Taiwan has embraced democracy and industry, but China has not reached the same levels of change
• In recent years, Taiwan has invested billions of dollars in factories located on the mainland, and China receives key computer and electronics parts from Taiwan, creating an intermingling of the Chinese and Taiwanese economies
• Early inhabitants of Mongolia

  • Xiongnu, a contemporary rival empire of the Qin and Han dynasties in China
• Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan


  • Took over much of China, Russia, and Central Asia
• After the Mongol Empire fell, the Qing claimed Mongolia as the Chinese province of Outer Mongolia
• When China's Qing dynasty was overthrown, the modern country of Mongolia was created


  1911