nation draft China
One of the world's oldest continuous civilisations, carrying a long memory of greatness, a sharp memory of humiliation, and a lifetime of change packed into every family.
Great Wall of China · Severin.stalder, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Understanding a Chinese person in 5 minutes
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A very long story, told as one
Many Chinese people speak of "five thousand years of history". Writing goes back at least to the Shang dynasty, over 3,000 years ago, and since the Qin unification in 221 BCE the ideal of one country under one centre has survived every collapse. Dynasties rose and fell, but the written language, the classics and a sense of belonging to one civilisation carried on. Division is remembered as chaos and unity as the natural order.
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press (1996)
- The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han — Mark Edward Lewis, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2007)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
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Family first
Confucian ideas of filial piety, respect for elders and duty to the family run deep, even in people who have never read Confucius. Grandparents often raise grandchildren while parents work; adult children are expected to support their parents; and decisions about study, careers and marriage are often family matters. Honouring ancestors, at Qingming and the New Year, ties the living to the dead.
- Confucius: Analects, with Selections from Traditional Commentaries — Edward Slingerland (trans.), Hackett (2003)
- Confucius — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press (1996)
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From humiliation to revival
Schoolchildren learn of the "century of humiliation" (1839–1949): the Opium Wars, unequal treaties, foreign concessions and, above all, the Japanese invasion. The lesson often drawn is "the backward will be beaten". China's rise is therefore felt by many not as a new ambition but as a return to its rightful place, and foreign criticism can sound like old condescension.
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press (2012)
- The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China — Julia Lovell, Picador (2011)
- Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-First Century — Orville Schell and John Delury, Random House (2013)
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A lifetime of upheaval in one family
A grandmother may remember famine under the Great Leap Forward, a father may have been sent to the countryside in the Cultural Revolution, and a granddaughter may work in tech in Shenzhen. Few societies have changed so fast. That history helps explain why many Chinese, especially older people, value stability and prosperity so highly, and why some painful chapters are spoken of only within families.
- Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962 — Yang Jisheng, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2012)
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
- Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China — Ezra F. Vogel, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2011)
- Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead — World Bank and Development Research Center of the State Council, World Bank (2022)
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Study, effort and getting ahead
For more than a thousand years, the imperial examinations made learning the route to status. Today the gaokao, the national university entrance exam, taken by more than 13 million students in 2024, plays a similar role. Families invest heavily in education, often at great sacrifice, and hard work (chiku, "eating bitterness") is admired. Young people now also debate whether the endless race is worth it.
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press (1996)
- National college entrance examination (gaokao) registration figures, 2024 — Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Ministry of Education of the PRC (2024)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
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Face, relationships and harmony
Social life runs on mianzi (face, or dignity in others' eyes) and guanxi (networks of trust and obligation). Openly embarrassing someone, even with good intentions, can do real damage, and disagreement is often expressed indirectly. Hospitality, generosity and insisting on paying the bill are ways of giving face and building ties.
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
- China — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
The story
Early dynasties & Warring States
1600 BCE – 222 BCE Confucius and the Confucian tradition
A teacher in the state of Lu develops a moral philosophy of family duty, learning and humane government that becomes the backbone of Chinese civilisation.
- Confucius — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Confucius: Analects, with Selections from Traditional Commentaries — Edward Slingerland (trans.), Hackett (2003)
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press (1996)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
Read more
- Confucius — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Confucius: Analects, with Selections from Traditional Commentaries — Edward Slingerland (trans.), Hackett (2003)
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press (1996)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
Even people who have never read the Analects live by ideas traced to Confucius: respect for parents and elders, the huge value placed on education and exams, and the expectation that rulers should be moral and look after the people. The Party, which once denounced him, now promotes him abroad through Confucius Institutes.
Kong Qiu, known in Chinese as Kongzi or Kong Fuzi ("Master Kong") and in the West as Confucius, lived in the small state of Lu in what is now Shandong province. He sought office with little success and spent much of his life teaching. His disciples recorded his sayings in what became the Analects.
Qin & Han: the first empires
221 BCE – 220 The Qin unification and the First Emperor
The state of Qin conquers its rivals and creates the first unified Chinese empire, setting a pattern of one country under one ruler that has lasted, on and off, for two thousand years.
- The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han — Mark Edward Lewis, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2007)
- Qin Shi Huang — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press (1996)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
Read more
- The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han — Mark Edward Lewis, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2007)
- Qin Shi Huang — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press (1996)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
The idea that China should be one country, and that division means chaos, goes back to 221 BCE. It shapes how many Chinese people feel about Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong, and why "unity" and "stability" carry such weight. The name "China" itself probably comes from Qin.
For more than two centuries before 221 BCE, the lands along the Yellow and Yangzi rivers were divided among rival kingdoms. Chinese historians call it the Warring States period (475–221 BCE).
The First Emperor ended centuries of war and built the template of a unified state: one script, one currency, one system of weights and measures, one bureaucracy.
For two thousand years Confucian scholars remembered Qin as a byword for cruelty: forced labour, collective punishment, the burning of books and, according to the historian Sima Qian, the killing of scholars.
Century of humiliation
1839 – 1948 The Opium Wars and the start of the 'century of humiliation'
Britain goes to war to force open China's markets, including to opium, beginning a long era of defeat, unequal treaties and internal collapse that Chinese remember as the "century of humiliation".
- The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China — Julia Lovell, Picador (2011)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press (2012)
- Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War — Stephen R. Platt, Alfred A. Knopf (2012)
Read more
- The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China — Julia Lovell, Picador (2011)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press (2012)
- Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War — Stephen R. Platt, Alfred A. Knopf (2012)
The "century of humiliation" (1839–1949) is taught in every Chinese school and anchors the national story: China was weak, so foreigners carved it up; the lesson is never to be weak again. It explains much of the sensitivity to foreign criticism, and why the return of Hong Kong in 1997 felt like closing a wound.
In the eighteenth century China under the Qing dynasty was the largest and one of the richest states in the world. It sold Europe tea, silk and porcelain and wanted little in return, so silver flowed into China.
An unprovoked aggression by a drug-dealing empire against a country trying to protect its people from addiction, followed by a century of invasion, looting and unequal treaties.
Many British officials and merchants framed the war as about free trade, diplomatic equality and protecting British subjects, not opium as such.
The opium trade and British gunboat diplomacy were central, but the Qing's decline also had internal causes: population pressure, corruption, rebellion and a court slow to adapt.
The First Sino-Japanese War
Japan's modernised army and navy crush Qing China in a war over Korea, taking Taiwan and announcing Japan as Asia's new power.
- The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy — S. C. M. Paine, Cambridge University Press (2003)
- The Making of Modern Japan — Marius B. Jansen, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2000)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910 — Peter Duus, University of California Press (1995)
Read more
- The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy — S. C. M. Paine, Cambridge University Press (2003)
- The Making of Modern Japan — Marius B. Jansen, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2000)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910 — Peter Duus, University of California Press (1995)
Defeat by Japan, a country China had long seen as a cultural pupil, was a deeper shock than defeat by the West. The loss of Taiwan in 1895 is the starting point for the modern Taiwan question, and the war is remembered as part of the century of humiliation.
The war began over Korea, a Qing tributary that both China and Japan wanted to control. When a rebellion broke out there in 1894, both sent troops, and fighting started in July.
A war of aggression that stripped China of Taiwan and its influence in Korea and imposed a crushing indemnity, and a humiliating sign of how far the Qing had fallen behind.
Many Japanese, including Fukuzawa Yukichi, hailed it as a war of "civilisation against barbarism" that freed Korea from Chinese dominance and showed that Japan stood with the modern powers.
A war between two outside powers over Korea's fate, fought after the Joseon court asked for Qing help against its own rebelling peasants.
The 1911 Revolution and the end of the empire
An uprising in Wuchang topples the Qing dynasty and ends more than two thousand years of imperial rule; the Republic of China is proclaimed.
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Sun Yat-sen — Marie-Claire Bergère, Stanford University Press (1998)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
Read more
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Sun Yat-sen — Marie-Claire Bergère, Stanford University Press (1998)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
1911 is honoured on both sides of the Taiwan Strait: the People's Republic calls it a bourgeois democratic revolution and Sun Yat-sen a forerunner, while Taiwan, still officially the Republic of China, celebrates its National Day on 10 October. The young republic's collapse into warlordism convinced many Chinese that the country needed a strong centre.
By 1900 many educated Chinese believed the Qing, a dynasty of Manchu origin, could not save China. Reformers wanted a constitutional monarchy; revolutionaries, led above all by Sun Yat-sen and funded largely by overseas Chinese, wanted a republic. Late Qing reforms, including the abolition of the examination system in 1905, came too late.
The War of Resistance against Japan and the Nanjing Massacre
Japan seizes Manchuria and in 1937 launches full-scale war on China; in Nanjing its troops carry out weeks of mass killing and rape, and by 1945 the war has killed some 14 million or more Chinese.
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography — Joshua A. Fogel (ed.), University of California Press (2000)
- The Making of the "Rape of Nanking": History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States — Takashi Yoshida, Oxford University Press (2006)
- A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present — Andrew Gordon, Oxford University Press (2003)
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
Read more
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography — Joshua A. Fogel (ed.), University of California Press (2000)
- The Making of the "Rape of Nanking": History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States — Takashi Yoshida, Oxford University Press (2006)
- A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present — Andrew Gordon, Oxford University Press (2003)
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
The war is the deepest wound in modern Chinese memory and a living issue: in films, TV dramas, school trips, the national memorial day for Nanjing every 13 December, and in outrage when Japanese politicians visit Yasukuni Shrine or textbooks soften the story. Many families have their own stories of loss, flight or occupation.
Japan's war in China began with the Mukden Incident of 18 September 1931, when Japanese officers blew up a stretch of railway near Shenyang and blamed Chinese saboteurs. Japan's Kwantung Army then seized all of Manchuria and set up the puppet state of Manchukuo, with the last Qing emperor, Puyi, as its figurehead.
A war of aggression and atrocity: Nanjing, the "comfort women", the biological warfare of Unit 731, the "Three Alls" campaign.
Successive governments have acknowledged "aggression" and expressed "deep remorse" and apology, notably in the 1995 Murayama statement, and most Japanese historians accept that a massacre took place at Nanjing.
A vocal minority of politicians and writers minimise or deny the massacre, call the war one of self-defence or of liberating Asia from Western colonialism, and reject the Tokyo trials as victors' justice.
There is no serious doubt about mass killing and rape.
Civil war and the founding of the People's Republic
The Communists defeat the Nationalists; Mao proclaims the People's Republic in Beijing, and Chiang Kai-shek's government retreats to Taiwan.
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
Read more
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
1 October is National Day, and 1949 is the founding moment of the state Chinese people live in today: in the official story, the year China "stood up". It also created the division with Taiwan that is still unresolved, and split millions of families between the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and abroad.
The Nationalists and Communists had been enemies since 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek turned on his Communist allies in Shanghai. Driven out of their southern bases, the Communists made the Long March of 1934–35 to Yan'an in the northwest, an ordeal that became the founding legend of the Party and of Mao Zedong's leadership.
The Communist Party, backed by the peasantry, liberated China from imperialism, feudalism and a corrupt Nationalist regime, ending the century of humiliation.
The Communists won by exploiting a war against Japan that the Nationalists had fought at enormous cost, with Soviet help.
The Communists won through superior organisation, land reform that won rural support, and the Nationalists' exhaustion after eight years of war, hyperinflation and corruption.
Mao's China
1949 – 1977 The Taiwan question
Since 1949 the People's Republic has claimed Taiwan, governed by the Republic of China, as part of its territory; Taiwan has since become a democracy where most people now see themselves as Taiwanese.
- Taiwan — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Taiwanese/Chinese Identity (1992/06–2024/12) — Election Study Center, National Chengchi University, National Chengchi University (2025)
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
Read more
- Taiwan — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Taiwanese/Chinese Identity (1992/06–2024/12) — Election Study Center, National Chengchi University, National Chengchi University (2025)
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
"Reunification" is, for many mainland Chinese, a matter of national completion and unfinished history; Beijing has never renounced the use of force. For most people in Taiwan, the island is already a self-governing home. The question is one of the most dangerous flashpoints in the world.
Taiwan was settled for millennia by Austronesian Indigenous peoples. Han Chinese migration grew from the seventeenth century, and the Qing annexed the island in 1683. Japan ruled it from 1895 to 1945.
Taiwan has been part of China since ancient times; separation is a leftover of civil war and foreign interference.
The Republic of China (Taiwan) has never been ruled by the People's Republic. Its future should be decided by its 23 million people.
The Korean War
North Korea invades the South; American-led UN forces and then Chinese armies join a war that kills millions, devastates the peninsula and ends in an armistice but no peace.
- The Korean War: A History — Bruce Cumings, Modern Library (2010)
- Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History — William Stueck, Princeton University Press (2002)
- China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation — Chen Jian, Columbia University Press (1994)
- Korean War — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History — Don Oberdorfer and Robert Carlin, Basic Books (2014)
Read more
- The Korean War: A History — Bruce Cumings, Modern Library (2010)
- Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History — William Stueck, Princeton University Press (2002)
- China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation — Chen Jian, Columbia University Press (1994)
- Korean War — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History — Don Oberdorfer and Robert Carlin, Basic Books (2014)
China calls it the "War to Resist America and Aid Korea". Fighting the US to a standstill is remembered as proof that the new People's Republic had "stood up", and the alliance with North Korea, "close as lips and teeth", dates from it. Mao's eldest son Mao Anying was among the Chinese dead.
Before dawn on 25 June 1950, North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel in strength. Kim Il-sung had pressed Stalin for months for permission to unify the country by force, and Stalin agreed, on condition that Mao would back him. Seoul fell in three days.
25", the day the North launched an unprovoked invasion.
The "Fatherland Liberation War", which the regime says began with an American and South Korean attack and ended in victory under Kim Il-sung.
A necessary stand against communist aggression and the first test of the UN, which saved South Korea at great cost.
A defensive intervention to protect China's border and an ally after UN forces crossed the 38th parallel and approached the Yalu River, fought by "people's volunteers" who stopped the world's strongest army.
The Great Leap Forward and the Great Famine
Mao's campaign to overtake Britain in industry through mass mobilisation and communes causes the deadliest famine in recorded history, with tens of millions of excess deaths.
- Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962 — Yang Jisheng, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2012)
- Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962 — Frank Dikötter, Bloomsbury (2010)
- Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China — Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (1981)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
Read more
- Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962 — Yang Jisheng, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2012)
- Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962 — Frank Dikötter, Bloomsbury (2010)
- Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China — Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (1981)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
Almost every rural family over a certain age has a memory of hunger from these years, but the famine is rarely discussed publicly in China and is still officially called the "three years of difficulty". The memory helps explain older Chinese people's attitude to food, waste and saving, and why stability and full rice bowls matter so much.
In 1958 Mao Zedong launched the Great Leap Forward, a campaign to make China an industrial power in a few years and, as slogans put it, to overtake Britain within fifteen years. Peasants were organised into vast people's communes, with communal kitchens, and private plots were abolished.
The Party's 1981 resolution calls the Great Leap a serious error caused by "left" mistakes, boastfulness and the "communist wind", worsened by natural disasters and the Soviet withdrawal of aid.
The famine was man-made: grain was requisitioned on the basis of false harvest reports and exported while villagers starved, and those who spoke up were purged.
The Cultural Revolution
Mao mobilises young Red Guards against "bourgeois" enemies in the Party and society, unleashing a decade of persecution, violence and chaos that ends only with his death.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
- Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China — Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (1981)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
- The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 — Tsering Shakya, Columbia University Press (1999)
Read more
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
- Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China — Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (1981)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
- The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 — Tsering Shakya, Columbia University Press (1999)
Today's leaders, including Xi Jinping, whose father was purged and who was sent to the countryside as a teenager, belong to the generation shaped by these years. The memory of chaos feeds a deep preference for order, but public discussion is tightly limited, and many families still carry unspoken stories of betrayal, violence or loss.
In May 1966 Mao Zedong launched a "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" to purge the Party of what he called capitalist roaders and to keep revolution alive. He turned to the young. Students formed Red Guard units, waved the Little Red Book of his quotations and, at huge rallies in Tiananmen Square in 1966, saw Mao as a living god.
An assault on Tibetan civilisation itself: monasteries razed, monks and nuns forced to marry or labour, lamas paraded in struggle sessions and even private prayer forbidden.
The 1981 resolution calls it a "catastrophe" that was "initiated and led" by Mao and exploited by the counter-revolutionary cliques of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four.
Mao's own role was central. 5 million in rural China alone. Many perpetrators were also victims, and accountability was limited.
A time when being Muslim and Uyghur was itself treated as backward and suspect.
Reform & rise
1978 – today Reform and opening up
Under Deng Xiaoping, China turns from Maoist campaigns to markets, foreign investment and growth, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty in four decades.
- Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China — Ezra F. Vogel, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2011)
- Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead — World Bank and Development Research Center of the State Council, World Bank (2022)
- Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-First Century — Orville Schell and John Delury, Random House (2013)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
Read more
- Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China — Ezra F. Vogel, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2011)
- Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead — World Bank and Development Research Center of the State Council, World Bank (2022)
- Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-First Century — Orville Schell and John Delury, Random House (2013)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
Most Chinese alive today grew up in the reform era, and the change in living standards is the basis of much of the Party's legitimacy and of ordinary people's optimism. It also created new inequalities, migrant workers, pollution and fierce competition that shape daily life.
When Mao died in 1976, China was poor and exhausted. Deng Xiaoping, rehabilitated in 1977, emerged as paramount leader, and the Third Plenum of the Party's Central Committee in December 1978 is taken as the start of "reform and opening".
The most successful development story in history, under Party leadership: "socialism with Chinese characteristics" brought ordinary families from hunger to cars and apartments in a single lifetime.
Much of the change came from below, from farmers and entrepreneurs, with the state following.
War memory, apologies and Yasukuni
Textbook disputes, apology statements and prime ministers' visits to Yasukuni Shrine keep the Second World War a live and painful issue between Japan and its neighbours.
- War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945–2005 — Franziska Seraphim, Harvard University Asia Center (2006)
- Statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama: On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the war's end — Tomiichi Murayama, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (1995)
- Statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono on the result of the study on the issue of comfort women — Yohei Kono, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (1993)
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press (2012)
- The 20th Japan–China Joint Opinion Poll — The Genron NPO and China International Communications Group, The Genron NPO (2024)
Read more
- War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945–2005 — Franziska Seraphim, Harvard University Asia Center (2006)
- Statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama: On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the war's end — Tomiichi Murayama, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (1995)
- Statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono on the result of the study on the issue of comfort women — Yohei Kono, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (1993)
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press (2012)
- The 20th Japan–China Joint Opinion Poll — The Genron NPO and China International Communications Group, The Genron NPO (2024)
For many Chinese, Yasukuni visits and textbook revisions are proof that Japan has not truly repented. Disputes over memory can spill into street protests and boycotts, as in 2005 and 2012, and colour everyday attitudes toward Japan.
5 million people who died fighting for Japan's emperor. In 1978 its priests secretly enshrined fourteen men convicted or charged as Class-A war criminals by the Tokyo tribunal, including wartime prime minister Tōjō Hideki. Emperor Hirohito stopped visiting after that, and no emperor has visited since.
Japan expressed "deep remorse and heartfelt apology" in the 1995 Murayama statement, reaffirmed by later governments, and has been a peaceful country for eighty years.
Apologies ring hollow when leaders worship at a shrine that enshrines convicted Class-A war criminals, when textbooks downplay atrocities, and when politicians question the comfort women issue or the Nanjing Massacre.
Tiananmen Square, 1989
Weeks of student-led protest for reform and against corruption end when the army clears central Beijing on the night of 3–4 June, killing hundreds or more; the event is still censored in China.
- The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited — Louisa Lim, Oxford University Press (2014)
- Tiananmen Square incident — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China — Ezra F. Vogel, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2011)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
Read more
- The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited — Louisa Lim, Oxford University Press (2014)
- Tiananmen Square incident — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China — Ezra F. Vogel, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2011)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
"June Fourth" is the great unmentionable of modern China, scrubbed from textbooks and the internet, so many young mainland Chinese know little about it. The Party says its decision brought the stability that made growth possible; for others it is the moment political reform died. For Hong Kongers it was, for thirty years, the occasion of a huge annual vigil, banned since 2020.
On 15 April 1989 Hu Yaobang, a former Party leader seen as a reformer, died. Students gathered in Tiananmen Square to mourn him and soon to demand more: freedom of the press, dialogue with leaders, an end to official corruption and profiteering. Inflation was high and many workers, too, were angry.
A "counter-revolutionary turmoil" (later called a "political disturbance") that threatened to plunge China into chaos like the collapsing Soviet bloc.
A peaceful, broad-based movement of students and workers calling for dialogue, press freedom and an end to corruption, crushed by troops firing on unarmed citizens.
Hong Kong: handover, protest and the National Security Law
Britain hands Hong Kong back to China under "one country, two systems"; two decades later, mass protests are followed by a national security law that remakes the city.
- A Concise History of Hong Kong — John M. Carroll, Rowman & Littlefield (2007)
- Joint Declaration of the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the People's Republic of China on the Question of Hong Kong — Governments of the United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China (1984)
- China — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
Read more
- A Concise History of Hong Kong — John M. Carroll, Rowman & Littlefield (2007)
- Joint Declaration of the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the People's Republic of China on the Question of Hong Kong — Governments of the United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China (1984)
- China — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
For many mainland Chinese the 1997 return erased a symbol of the century of humiliation, and the 2019 protests looked like foreign-backed separatism. Many Hong Kongers felt promised freedoms were taken away, and hundreds of thousands have since emigrated. The topic divides Chinese people along regional and generational lines.
Britain took Hong Kong Island in 1842, Kowloon in 1860 and leased the much larger New Territories for 99 years in 1898.
Hong Kong was taken by force in an unjust war and rightly returned.
Beijing broke its promise of a "high degree of autonomy" for fifty years.
China's rise to superpower
After joining the WTO, hosting the 2008 Olympics and overtaking Japan as the world's second-largest economy in 2010, China under Xi Jinping becomes a confident and assertive global power.
- Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-First Century — Orville Schell and John Delury, Random House (2013)
- The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State — Elizabeth C. Economy, Oxford University Press (2018)
- Communiqué of the Seventh National Population Census — National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Bureau of Statistics of China (2021)
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2022)
Read more
- Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-First Century — Orville Schell and John Delury, Random House (2013)
- The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State — Elizabeth C. Economy, Oxford University Press (2018)
- Communiqué of the Seventh National Population Census — National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Bureau of Statistics of China (2021)
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2022)
Many Chinese feel pride that their country is respected again and see the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" as the natural end of the century of humiliation. They also face a slowing economy, youth unemployment, an ageing population and tighter political control, and some resent being seen abroad only through the lens of rivalry.
China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, and exports surged. The 2008 Beijing Olympics, opened with a spectacular ceremony, were a national coming-out party, and in 2010 China overtook Japan as the world's second-largest economy. High-speed rail, megacities, mobile payments and, more recently, electric vehicles and space missions became symbols of a modern nation.
China is returning to its rightful place after an aberrant century of weakness, peacefully and through hard work. Western criticism often reflects a wish to contain China's rise.
Under Xi Jinping, power has been concentrated, civil society and the internet tightly controlled, and repression in Xinjiang and Hong Kong intensified, while assertiveness in the South China Sea and toward Taiwan has alarmed neighbours.
Core values & worldview
If you want to understand a Chinese person, it helps to know that they were raised on a very long story. China’s textbooks, TV dramas and grandparents tell of a civilisation that goes back thousands of years, that invented paper, printing, the compass and gunpowder, and that for most of history was the centre of its own world. Since the Qin unification of 221 BCE the country has fallen apart several times, and each time the ideal of reunification returned.
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press (1996)
- The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han — Mark Edward Lewis, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2007)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
Several themes run through how many Chinese people see the world.
Family and obligation. Confucian ethics put relationships at the centre: children owe their parents respect and care, the young defer to the old, and each person has duties to the family as a whole. Many young Chinese push back against parental pressure about marriage or careers, but the bond itself is rarely questioned.
- Confucius: Analects, with Selections from Traditional Commentaries — Edward Slingerland (trans.), Hackett (2003)
- Confucius — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
Education and effort. The imperial examinations made scholarship the path to honour for more than a millennium, and the modern gaokao keeps that tradition alive. Many families spend a large share of their income on tutoring and move house for good schools.
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press (1996)
- National college entrance examination (gaokao) registration figures, 2024 — Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Ministry of Education of the PRC (2024)
Memory of weakness. The “century of humiliation” that began with the Opium Wars is a core part of national identity, deliberately emphasised in patriotic education since the 1990s. Many Chinese feel pride in how far the country has come, and react strongly when outsiders seem to deny China respect.
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press (2012)
- The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China — Julia Lovell, Picador (2011)
Pragmatism. Deng Xiaoping’s line that the colour of the cat matters less than whether it catches mice captures a practical, results-oriented streak, and a scepticism of grand ideology that many people developed after the Mao era.
- Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China — Ezra F. Vogel, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2011)
Daily life & customs
Food is at the centre of social life. A common greeting among older people is “Have you eaten?” (chi le ma?). Meals are shared from dishes in the middle of the table, the host orders more than can be eaten, and people often argue over who pays. China’s regional cuisines, from fiery Sichuan to delicate Cantonese and wheat-based northern food, are a constant source of local pride and friendly rivalry.
- China — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
The biggest moment of the year is the Spring Festival, or Lunar New Year, when hundreds of millions travel home in the world’s largest annual migration. Families eat together, set off fireworks where allowed, and give children red envelopes (hongbao) of money, now often sent digitally on WeChat. Qingming in spring is for sweeping ancestors’ tombs, and the Mid-Autumn Festival is for mooncakes and family reunion. Most people are not formally religious: only about one in ten identify with a religion in Chinese surveys, but many more take part in folk practices like honouring ancestors, burning incense or consulting feng shui.
- Measuring Religion in China — Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center (2023)
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press (1996)
City life is intensely digital. Payments, taxis, food delivery and chat all run through apps like WeChat and Alipay, and cash is rare. Many young professionals work long hours, sometimes the “996” schedule (9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week), and housing, especially for a married couple, is often bought with help from both sets of parents.
- Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-First Century — Orville Schell and John Delury, Random House (2013)
- Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead — World Bank and Development Research Center of the State Council, World Bank (2022)
There are many small customs. The number 8 is lucky because it sounds like “prosper”; 4 is avoided because it sounds like “death”. Giving a clock as a present is a faux pas because “giving a clock” sounds like attending a deathbed.
- China — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
Wounds & sensitivities
The Japanese invasion. The war of 1937–45 killed perhaps 14 million or more Chinese, and the Nanjing Massacre is the most potent symbol of it. Denial or minimisation by Japanese politicians causes genuine anger, and almost every family has a story.
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography — Joshua A. Fogel (ed.), University of California Press (2000)
The century of humiliation. The burning of the Summer Palace in 1860, the unequal treaties and the colonial enclaves remain raw. Jokes or lectures that sound like Western superiority land badly.
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press (2012)
- The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China — Julia Lovell, Picador (2011)
Mao-era suffering. The Great Famine of 1959–61, in which most scholars estimate between 15 and 45 million people died, and the Cultural Revolution touched almost every family. They are rarely discussed in public and are often painful in private; let people choose whether to talk about them.
- Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962 — Yang Jisheng, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2012)
- Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962 — Frank Dikötter, Bloomsbury (2010)
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
Territory. Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and the South China Sea are all framed in China as questions of sovereignty and national dignity. Many Chinese people genuinely see criticism on these issues as interference, even when they have their own private doubts.
- Taiwan — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- A Concise History of Hong Kong — John M. Carroll, Rowman & Littlefield (2007)
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2022)
Being treated as a government. Many Chinese people abroad are tired of being asked to answer for their government, or being viewed with suspicion. Anti-Asian hostility during the Covid-19 pandemic left a mark on Chinese communities overseas.
- The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas — Lynn Pan (ed.), Harvard University Press (1999)
Modern attitudes
Trust in the system, quietly qualified. Long-running surveys by Harvard’s Ash Center found satisfaction with the central government rising to about 95 percent by 2016, driven largely by better living standards, while satisfaction with local officials was lower. Researchers caution that surveys in an authoritarian system have limits, but the broad picture of support for the state’s economic record is widely accepted.
- Understanding CCP Resilience: Surveying Chinese Public Opinion Through Time — Edward Cunningham, Tony Saich and Jesse Turiel, Ash Center, Harvard Kennedy School (2020)
Pride and nationalism. Online nationalism is loud, and boycotts of foreign brands over perceived slights are common. Many people are also curious about the world, travel abroad in large numbers and consume foreign culture.
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press (2012)
- The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State — Elizabeth C. Economy, Oxford University Press (2018)
A tougher time for the young. Youth unemployment for 16–24-year-olds in cities climbed above 20 percent in 2023. Slogans like tangping (“lying flat”) and neijuan (“involution”, exhausting competition for little gain) capture a mood of fatigue among some young people.
- Urban surveyed unemployment rate by age group (monthly release, June 2023) — National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Bureau of Statistics of China (2023)
- The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State — Elizabeth C. Economy, Oxford University Press (2018)
Ageing and fewer children. Decades of the one-child policy and rising costs mean China’s population started to shrink in 2022. Many young people delay or skip marriage, despite heavy parental pressure.
- Communiqué of the Seventh National Population Census — National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Bureau of Statistics of China (2021)
- China — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
Not all Chinese people are the same
Han and minorities. The 2020 census found about 91 percent of people were Han Chinese; the rest belong to 55 officially recognised minorities, including Zhuang, Uyghurs, Hui, Manchus, Tibetans and Mongols. For Uyghurs and Tibetans in particular, relations with the state are fraught, and their experience of “China” is very different.
- Communiqué of the Seventh National Population Census — National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Bureau of Statistics of China (2021)
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2022)
Many languages. Mandarin (Putonghua) is the national language, but Cantonese, Shanghainese, Hokkien, Hakka and many others are as different from Mandarin as Spanish is from Italian. A shared written language holds them together.
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press (1996)
City and countryside. Around 64 percent of people lived in cities by 2020. Hundreds of millions of rural migrants built those cities, often without full residency rights, while “left-behind” children grew up with grandparents in the villages.
- Communiqué of the Seventh National Population Census — National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Bureau of Statistics of China (2021)
- Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead — World Bank and Development Research Center of the State Council, World Bank (2022)
Regions. Northerners and southerners tease each other about food, height and temperament; Beijingers, Shanghainese and Cantonese each have strong local identities. Hong Kong and Macau have their own systems and much of their own culture.
- A Concise History of Hong Kong — John M. Carroll, Rowman & Littlefield (2007)
Taiwan and the diaspora. People in Taiwan share Chinese language and heritage, but most now identify as Taiwanese rather than Chinese. Tens of millions of ethnic Chinese live abroad, especially in Southeast Asia, many for generations; a Chinese Malaysian or Chinese American may feel deeply attached to Chinese culture without any tie to the People’s Republic.
- Taiwanese/Chinese Identity (1992/06–2024/12) — Election Study Center, National Chengchi University, National Chengchi University (2025)
- The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas — Lynn Pan (ed.), Harvard University Press (1999)
Generations. Grandparents who lived through famine and the Cultural Revolution, parents who rode the reform boom, and young people raised as only children in a wealthy, connected China can have very different instincts about risk, saving, politics and the West.
- Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China — Ezra F. Vogel, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2011)
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
Meeting someone
Conversation starters
- Their hometown. Ask where they are from and what the local food is like. Regional pride is huge, and people love explaining their hometown dish.
- China — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Food in general. Asking for recommendations, or showing real interest in a cuisine beyond takeaway favourites, is a fast way to friendship.
- New Year and family. How their family celebrates Spring Festival, or the journey home, usually brings out stories.
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press (1996)
- Culture old and new. Classic novels, Chinese sci-fi like The Three-Body Problem, films, games and travel inside China are all easy openings.
Topics to approach carefully
- Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. People hold strong and varied views, and those in mainland China may face real risks in discussing them openly. Listen more than you argue.
- Taiwan — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- A Concise History of Hong Kong — John M. Carroll, Rowman & Littlefield (2007)
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2022)
- Tiananmen 1989. Some people know a great deal, some very little, and some accept the official view. Raising it as a “gotcha” achieves nothing.
- The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited — Louisa Lim, Oxford University Press (2014)
- Mao and family history. The famine and the Cultural Revolution may be personal tragedies. Let them bring it up.
- Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962 — Yang Jisheng, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2012)
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
- Japan and the war. Feelings run deep; avoid treating it as distant history.
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- The 20th Japan–China Joint Opinion Poll — The Genron NPO and China International Communications Group, The Genron NPO (2024)
- Comparing China with the West. Comments that sound like “you’ll be like us when you’re ready” can feel patronising.
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press (2012)
Common misconceptions
- “All Chinese people are Communists.” The Communist Party has about 100 million members, a large number, but a small share of 1.4 billion people. Many people are simply apolitical.
- The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State — Elizabeth C. Economy, Oxford University Press (2018)
- Communiqué of the Seventh National Population Census — National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Bureau of Statistics of China (2021)
- “Chinese is one language.” It is a family of languages sharing one writing system; Cantonese and Mandarin speakers often cannot understand each other’s speech.
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press (1996)
- “Chinese people don’t know their own history.” Many know their history very well, sometimes better than outsiders; what is censored is specific episodes, and people often know more than they say.
- The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited — Louisa Lim, Oxford University Press (2014)
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press (2012)
- “China was always closed and unchanging.” Chinese history is full of revolution, trade, foreign religions and constant reinvention, from the Silk Road to the reform era.
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
- “Overseas Chinese speak for Beijing.” Chinese communities abroad are diverse, often generations old, and hold every kind of view about the People’s Republic.
- The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas — Lynn Pan (ed.), Harvard University Press (1999)
People everyone knows
Confucius (Kong Fuzi)
A teacher from the small state of Lu, in today's Shandong, who never held high office but gathered students around him in an age of war. The sayings collected by his followers, the Analects, put family duty, learning, ritual courtesy and humane government at the centre of life. Adopted as state orthodoxy under the Han and tested in the imperial examinations for centuries, his ideas still shape how many Chinese people think about parents, teachers, education and a good ruler.
- Confucius — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Confucius: Analects, with Selections from Traditional Commentaries — Edward Slingerland (trans.), Hackett (2003)
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press (1996)
Qin Shi Huang (Ying Zheng)
King of Qin who conquered the last rival states in 221 BCE and named himself the "First Emperor". He standardised writing, weights, coins and axle widths, and linked frontier walls in the north. He is also remembered for harsh Legalist rule, forced labour and the burning of books. His tomb near Xi'an, guarded by the Terracotta Army, is one of the world's great archaeological finds. Chinese people argue about him still: tyrant, or the man who made China one.
- Qin Shi Huang — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han — Mark Edward Lewis, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2007)
Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan)
A doctor from Guangdong, educated in Hawaii and Hong Kong, who spent years in exile raising money from overseas Chinese for revolution against the Qing. He became provisional president of the new Republic in 1912 and founded the Nationalist Party (Guomindang). His "Three Principles of the People" (nationalism, democracy, people's livelihood) made him the rare figure honoured as "father of the nation" in Taiwan and as a "forerunner of the revolution" in the People's Republic.
- Sun Yat-sen — Marie-Claire Bergère, Stanford University Press (1998)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi)
Military heir to Sun Yat-sen who unified much of China under the Nationalists in 1928, led the resistance to Japan from 1937 and lost the civil war to the Communists, retreating to Taiwan in 1949. There he ruled under martial law until his death. In the People's Republic he was long cast as a villain; in Taiwan, views are divided between those who credit him with saving the Republic of China and those who remember the "White Terror" repression.
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- Taiwan — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
Mao Zedong
Son of a prosperous Hunan peasant who rose to lead the Chinese Communist Party, won the civil war and proclaimed the People's Republic on 1 October 1949. To many Chinese he ended a century of foreign humiliation, but his Great Leap Forward caused a famine that killed tens of millions and his Cultural Revolution tore society apart. The Party's official verdict, in 1981, was that he was a great revolutionary whose achievements outweighed his "mistakes", which were grave in his later years. His portrait still hangs over Tiananmen.
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
- Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China — Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (1981)
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
Deng Xiaoping
A Sichuanese veteran revolutionary, purged twice under Mao, who became China's paramount leader from 1978. He launched "reform and opening": farmers could sell surplus crops, special economic zones welcomed foreign investment, and markets came back. The result was decades of extraordinary growth. He also approved the military crackdown in Beijing on 4 June 1989 and insisted on Communist Party rule, a double legacy that still defines China.
- Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China — Ezra F. Vogel, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2011)
- The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited — Louisa Lim, Oxford University Press (2014)
- Tiananmen Square incident — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
Try it yourself
The quickest way into a culture: a song, a film, a book and a dish.
“Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.”
“Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up.”
Listen
- The Moon Represents My Heart Teresa Teng's 1977 ballad.▶ Listen
Watch
- Farewell My Concubine Chen Kaige's 1993 film about two Peking opera performers across fifty years of upheaval; it shared the Palme d'Or at Cannes.▶ Watch
Read
- Journey to the West The sixteenth-century novel of the monk Xuanzang's pilgrimage to India, escorted by the irrepressible Monkey King, Sun Wukong.Find it
- To Live (Huozhe) Yu Hua's 1993 novel follows one man and his family through civil war, the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution; Zhang Yimou's 1994 film version was banned in China.Find it
- The Three-Body Problem Liu Cixin's science-fiction epic, which opens in the Cultural Revolution, won the Hugo Award in 2015 in Ken Liu's translation and made Chinese sci-fi global.Find it
Taste
See & do
- The Spring Festival Gala State television's New Year's Eve variety show, broadcast since 1983 and watched by hundreds of millions, often while making dumplings; mocking it is also a tradition.Look it up
- Calligraphy and ink painting Writing with a brush has long been regarded as the highest art, and many Chinese parents still send children to calligraphy class.Look it up
Where
Homeland Diaspora Significant place
Related
Japan · United States · Russia
Sources & further reading
- The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia — Andrei Lankov, Oxford University Press, 2013
- A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present — Andrew Gordon, Oxford University Press, 2003
- The Korean War: A History — Bruce Cumings, Modern Library, 2010
- Korea Old and New: A History — Carter J. Eckert, Ki-baik Lee, Young Ick Lew, Michael Robinson and Edward W. Wagner, Ilchokak / Korea Institute, Harvard University, 1990
- Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China — Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, 1981
- China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation — Chen Jian, Columbia University Press, 1994
- The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History — Don Oberdorfer and Robert Carlin, Basic Books, 2014
- Understanding CCP Resilience: Surveying Chinese Public Opinion Through Time — Edward Cunningham, Tony Saich and Jesse Turiel, Ash Center, Harvard Kennedy School, 2020
- Confucius: Analects, with Selections from Traditional Commentaries — Edward Slingerland (trans.), Hackett, 2003
- Taiwanese/Chinese Identity (1992/06–2024/12) — Election Study Center, National Chengchi University, National Chengchi University, 2025
- The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State — Elizabeth C. Economy, Oxford University Press, 2018
- Confucius — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- China — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Taiwan — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Qin Shi Huang — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Korean War — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Tiananmen Square incident — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China — Ezra F. Vogel, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011
- Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962 — Frank Dikötter, Bloomsbury, 2010
- War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945–2005 — Franziska Seraphim, Harvard University Asia Center, 2006
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press, 2010
- Joint Declaration of the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the People's Republic of China on the Question of Hong Kong — Governments of the United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China, 1984
- Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan — Herbert P. Bix, HarperCollins, 2000
- The Massacres at Mt. Halla: Sixty Years of Truth Seeking in South Korea — Hun Joon Kim, Cornell University Press, 2014
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press, 2007
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006
- A Concise History of Hong Kong — John M. Carroll, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton, 1990
- The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography — Joshua A. Fogel (ed.), University of California Press, 2000
- The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China — Julia Lovell, Picador, 2011
- The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited — Louisa Lim, Oxford University Press, 2014
- The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas — Lynn Pan (ed.), Harvard University Press, 1999
- The Chinese People Have Stood Up! (Opening address at the First Plenary Session of the CPPCC, 21 September 1949) — Mao Zedong, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. V, Foreign Languages Press, 1977
- Sun Yat-sen — Marie-Claire Bergère, Stanford University Press, 1998
- The Making of Modern Japan — Marius B. Jansen, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000
- The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han — Mark Edward Lewis, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007
- The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama — Melvyn C. Goldstein, University of California Press, 1997
- A Concise History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present — Michael J. Seth, Rowman & Littlefield, 2016
- National college entrance examination (gaokao) registration figures, 2024 — Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Ministry of Education of the PRC, 2024
- Separated families statistics (Integrated Information System for Separated Families) — Ministry of Unification, Republic of Korea, Ministry of Unification
- Urban surveyed unemployment rate by age group (monthly release, June 2023) — National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2023
- Communiqué of the Seventh National Population Census — National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2021
- OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations, 2022
- Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-First Century — Orville Schell and John Delury, Random House, 2013
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of China — Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press, 1996
- The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910 — Peter Duus, University of California Press, 1995
- Measuring Religion in China — Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2023
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt, 1999
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006
- The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy — S. C. M. Paine, Cambridge University Press, 2003
- Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War — Stephen R. Platt, Alfred A. Knopf, 2012
- The Making of the "Rape of Nanking": History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States — Takashi Yoshida, Oxford University Press, 2006
- The 20th Japan–China Joint Opinion Poll — The Genron NPO and China International Communications Group, The Genron NPO, 2024
- Statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama: On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the war's end — Tomiichi Murayama, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 1995
- The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 — Tsering Shakya, Columbia University Press, 1999
- Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History — William Stueck, Princeton University Press, 2002
- Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead — World Bank and Development Research Center of the State Council, World Bank, 2022
- Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962 — Yang Jisheng, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012
- Statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono on the result of the study on the issue of comfort women — Yohei Kono, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 1993
- Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II — Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Columbia University Press, 2000
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press, 2012