CHAPTER 1 PEOPLE NATION A LONG HISTORY AN ANCIENT EMPIRE China became a single empire in 221 BC and remained under the strict rule of emperors until the 1900s China was often isolated and locked in tradition At other times it engaged with the rest of the world For many centuries goods such as tea and silk were traded overland to western Asia and PAST TO PRESENT Europe The rapid changes taking place China in today are not happening in a new country By the 1700s and 1800s China was being The changes are rooted in one of the oldest surpassed by the new industrial nations of civilizations on Earth China has a long Europe Weak emperors gave away control history of innovation Chinese inventors of key Chinese cities and ports to foreigners gave the world paper gunpowder printing In 1912 the last emperor Puyi was and compasses overthrown and China became a republic Qin Shi Huangdi was the first emperor of a united China He died in 210 BC
YEARS OF TURMOIL Troubled years lay ahead Warlords leaders and gave it to he peasan its who had to take with private armies seized control in some part in shared farming projects The changes known as the Great Leap Forward regions Communists seeking to give power were radical and often resulted in violence to poor peasants and workers battled with the Nationalists In the neighboring 1930s Communist and great hardship Some Party Japan invaded many areas By 1949 the members called for a change of direction They were accused of betrayal by more Communists controlled all of China The Nationalists fled to the island of Taiwan radical members who idolized Mao In the 1960s this led to a period of chaos and formed a rival government The new and strife Communist state faced hostility from the United States and its allies NEW ORDER THE PEOPLE S REPUBLIC Mao died in 1976 A new leader Deng Grounded in centuries of poverty and social Xiaoping changed China s economic injustice the People s Republic of China policy and brought in foreign investment faced many problems in ts early years Relations with the West improved This new Communist leader Mao Zedong 1893 China became very different from what 1976 nationalized industry so it was run by Mao had envisaged It was the start of the the state He took farmland from landlords China we know today A portrait of Mao dong still erlook the gateway to Beijing s Imperial Palace LONPOAGO A TE R TO 7 9 t l t 1R R Anyone
MEET THE PEOPLE POPULATION PRESSURE In the large Chinese cities people enjoy crowding around a table to chat argue and China s population is expected to peak at about 1 5 billion in 2033 A large population creates a large and active workforce However joke People in China s cities always have lived at close quarters with their neighbors all those people need food and use precious resources such as water and shared space The Special Administrative Careful planning is necessary Censuses have been held in China for more than 2 000 years but surveying today s vast population is Region of Macau is the most densely packed territory in the world With 19 610 people a difficult task In 2010 it took 65 million temporary officials to check approximately 400 million households The census confirmed to 4 square miles 1 km China is four times as crowded as London that the rate at which the population was growing had slowed down 7 ONE CHILD POLICY Since 1979 most couples living in cities have only been allowed to have one baby This rule may have prevented 400 million births but it caused much unhappiness and social problems The one child rule has already been relaxed in Shanghai and other cities may follow People shop in avoured downtown Macau a Special Administrative Region of China 10
CHAPTER 1 PEOPLE NATION BOYS OR GIRLS A preference for boys is traditional in a land that relies on manual labor for income Since the scanning of pregnancies became common the number of abortions of girl babies has increased Approximately 119 boys are born for every 100 girls in some regions This is a humanitarian tragedy that could lead to a generation of Chinese men being unable to find wives in the future PEOPLE AND LANGUAGES A new baby faces a new More than 9 out of 10 Chinese belong to people oppose Chinese rule and settlement China What will the the Han ethnic group The rest belong to 55 by Han Chinese future hold smaller groups Each has different custo The main language of China is Putonghua beliefs and languages These minorities at or Standard Chinese and also is known as called nationalities While they make up a Mandarin Many other variants and dialects small proportion of the total they occupy of Chinese are spoken across China Some over half of the land area Tensions between very different languages such as Mongolian ethnic groups are often high especially in Tibetan and Uyghur are also spoken the far northwest and in Tibet where many 11
