I.

Introduction

China, officially People’s Republic of China (in Chinese, Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo), country in East Asia, the world’s third-largest country by area (after Russia and Canada) and the largest by population. Officially the People’s Republic of China, it is bordered on the north by the Mongolian Republic and Russia; on the north-east by Russia and North Korea; on the east by the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea; on the south by the South China Sea, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), India, Bhutan, and Nepal; on the west by Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan; and on the north-west by Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. China includes more than 3,400 offshore islands, of which Hainan, in the South China Sea, is by far the largest. The total area of China is about 9,571,300 sq km (3,695,500 sq mi), not including Taiwan. The capital of China is Beijing; the country’s largest city is Shanghai.

More than a fifth of the world’s total population lives within China’s borders. China gave birth to one of the world’s earliest civilizations and has a recorded history that dates from some 3,500 years ago. Zhongguo, the Chinese name for the country, means “central land”, a reference to the Chinese belief that their country was the geographical centre of the Earth and the only true civilization.

II.

Land and Resources

China encompasses a great diversity of landscapes and a corresponding variety of natural resources. Generally speaking, China’s higher elevations are found in the west, where some of the world’s loftiest mountain ranges are located, including the Tian Mountains, the Kunlun Mountains, and the Himalaya. Devastating earthquakes tend to occur in a broad arc extending from the western edge of the Sichuan Basin north-east towards Bo Hai, the gulf on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea.

The country’s numerous mountain ranges enclose a series of plateaux and basins and furnish a notable wealth of water and mineral resources. A broad range of climatic types, from subarctic to tropical, and including large areas of alpine and desert habitats, supports a magnificent array of plant and animal life.

Mountains occupy about 43 per cent of China’s land surface; mountainous plateaux account for another 26 per cent; and basins, predominantly hilly and located mainly in arid regions, cover approximately 19 per cent of the area. Only 12 per cent of the total area may be classed as flatlands.

China may be divided into six major geographical regions, each of which contains considerable geomorphological and topographical diversity.

A.

The North-West

This region consists of two basins—the Junggar Pendi (Dzungarian Basin) on the north and the Tarim Basin on the south—and the lofty Tian Mountains. The Tarim Basin contains the vast sandy Takla Makan (Taklimakan Shamo), the driest desert in Asia. Dune ridges in its interior rise to elevations of about 100 m (330 ft). The Turfan Depression (Turpan Pendi), the largest area in China with elevations below sea level, commands the southern entrance of a major pass through the Tian Mountains. The Junggar Pendi (or Dzungarian Basin), although containing areas of sandy and stony desert, is primarily a region of fertile steppe soils and supports irrigated agriculture.

B.

The Mongolian Borderlands

Located in north-central China, this is a plateau region consisting mainly of sandy, stony, or gravelly deserts that grade eastwards into steppe lands with fertile soils. This is a region of flat-to-rolling plains, partitioned by several barren flat-topped mountain ranges. Along its eastern border is the higher, forested Greater Khingan Range (Da Hinggan Ling).

C.

The North-East

Comprising all of Dongbei east of the Greater Khingan Range, the north-east region incorporates the Dongbei Pingyuan (Manchurian Plain) and its bordering uplands. The plain has extensive tracts of productive soils. The uplands are hilly to mountainous, with numerous broad valleys and gentle slopes. The Liaodong Peninsula, extending to the south, is noteworthy for its good natural harbours.

D.

Northern China

This region lies between the Mongolian Borderlands on the north and the Yangzi River Basin on the south and consists of several distinct topographic units. The Loess Plateau on the north-west is formed by the accumulation of fine windblown silt (loess). The loosely packed loess is readily subject to erosion, and the plateau’s surface is transected by sunken roads, vertical-walled valleys, and numerous gullies. The region is extensively terraced and cultivated. The North China Plain, the largest flat lowland area in China, consists of fertile soils derived from loess. Most of the plain is under intense cultivation. Located to the east, the Shandong Highlands on the Shandong Peninsula consist of two distinct areas of mountains flanked by rolling hills. The rocky coast of the peninsula provides some good natural harbours. To the south-west are the Central Mountains, which constitute a formidable barrier to north-south movement.

E.

Southern China

This region embraces the Yangzi Valley and the topographically diverse regions to the south. The Yangzi Valley consists of a series of basins with fertile alluvial soils. These lowlands are crisscrossed with waterways, both natural and artificial, and dotted with lakes. The Sichuan Basin, located to the west, is enclosed by rugged mountain spurs of the Central Highlands and constitutes a relatively isolated area of hilly terrain. The area is known for its intensive terraced farming. The highlands of South China extend from the Tibetan Plateau east to the sea. In the west the deeply eroded Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau is bordered by a series of mountain ranges separated by deep, steep-walled gorges. One of the world’s most scenic landscapes is found in eastern Guizhou, where the terrain is dominated by tall limestone pinnacles and pillar-like peaks. To the east are the largely deforested and severely eroded Nan Ling hills, and along the coast are the rugged South-Eastern Highlands, where bays with numerous offshore islands provide good natural harbours. Lying south of the Nan Ling hills is the Xi Basin, predominantly a hilly area with infertile soils; the numerous streams of this region, however, are bordered by fertile, flat-floored alluvial valleys. The broad delta plain of the Zhu Jiang (Pearl River) is commonly called the Canton delta.

F.

The Tibetan Plateau

Occupying the remote south-western extremity of China is the high, mountain-rimmed plateau of Tibet; the world’s highest plateau region, it has an average elevation of about 4,510 m (14,800 ft) above sea level. Bordering ranges include the Himalaya on the south, the Pamirs and Karakorum Range on the west, and the Kunlun Shan and Qilian Mountains on the north. The surface of the plateau is dotted with salt lakes and marshes, is crossed by several mountain ranges, and also contains the headwaters of many major southern and eastern Asian rivers, including those of the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Mekong, Yangzi (Chang Jiang), and Huang He (Hwang Ho or Yellow River). The landscape is bleak, barren, and stony.

G.

Rivers and Lakes

All the major river systems of China, including the three longest—the Yangzi, Huang He, and Xi—flow in a generally west to east direction to the Pacific Ocean. In all, about 50 per cent of the total land area drains to the Pacific. Only about 10 per cent of the country’s area drains to the Indian and Arctic oceans. The remaining 40 per cent has no outlet to the sea and drains to the arid basins of the west and north, where the streams evaporate or percolate to form deep underground water reserves; principal among these streams is the Tarim.

The most northerly major Chinese river is the Amur River (Heilong Jiang), which forms most of the north-eastern boundary with Russia. The Songhua (Sungari) and Liao rivers and their tributaries drain most of the Dongbei Pingyuan and its surrounding highlands.

The major river of North China is the Huang He. It is traditionally referred to as “China’s Sorrow” because, throughout Chinese history, it has periodically devastated large areas by flooding. The river is dyked in its lower course, and its bed is elevated above the surrounding plain as a result of the accumulation of silt. The river rises in the marginal highlands of the Tibetan Plateau and follows a circuitous course to the Bo Hai (Po Hai, an arm of the Yellow Sea), draining an area more than twice the size of France. The Yangzi River of central China has a discharge more than ten times that of the Huang He. The longest river in Asia, it has a vast drainage basin. The Yangzi rises near the source of the Huang He and enters the sea at Shanghai. It is a major transport artery. It is the subject of a controversial project to dam it at its famous Three Gorges.

Serving the major port of Guangzhou are the estuarine lower reaches and tributary complex of the Xi, the most important river system of southern China. The river, which has numerous tributaries and distributaries, has a discharge three times as great as that of the Huang He.

Most of the important lakes of China lie along the middle and lower Yangzi Valley. The two largest in the middle portion are the Dongting and Poyang. In summer these lakes increase their areas by two to three times and serve as reservoirs for excess water. Lake Tai is the largest of several lakes in the Yangzi delta, and Hongze Lake and Gaoyou Lake lie just to the north of the delta.

Saline lakes, many of considerable size, abound in the Tibetan Plateau. The largest is the marshy Qinghai Lake (also known as Koko Nur) in the less elevated north-east, but several others nearly as large occur on the high plateau. In the arid north-west and in the Mongolian Borderlands are a number of large lakes, most of which are also saline; principal among these are Lop and Bosten lakes east of the Tarim Basin. Ulansuhai Lake, which is fed by the Huang He, is in Nei Monggol Autonomous Region; Hulun Nur lies west of the Greater Khingan Range in Dongbei.

More than 2,000 reservoirs have been constructed throughout the nation, primarily for irrigation and flood control. Most are small, but the largest, the Long Men reservoir on the Huang He, has a capacity of 35.4 billion cu m (1,250 billion cu ft).

H.

Climate

The climates of China are similar, in their range and distribution, to those of the continental United States; temperate climates prevail, with desert and semi-arid regions in the western interior and a small area of tropical climate in the extreme south-east. China’s climates, however, tend to be pronouncedly continental and thus extreme, and regional contrasts are generally great.

The Asian monsoon winds exert the primary control on China’s climate. In winter, cold dry winds blow out of the high-pressure system of central Siberia, bringing low temperatures to all regions north of the Yangzi River and drought to most of the country. In summer, warm moist air flows inland from the Pacific Ocean, producing rainfall in the form of cyclonic storms. Amounts of precipitation decline rapidly with distance from the sea and on leeward sides of mountains. The remote basins of the north-west receive little precipitation. Summer temperatures are remarkably uniform throughout most of the country, but extreme temperature differences between north and south characterize the winters.

South-eastern China, from the Yangzi Valley southward, has a subtropical climate with a distinctly tropical climate in the extreme south. Summer temperatures in this region average 26° C (79° F). Average winter temperatures decline from 17.8° C (64° F) in the tropical south to about 3.9° C (39° F) along the Yangzi River. An average of eight typhoons a year, mainly between July and November, bring high winds and heavy rains to the coastal areas. The mountainous plateaux and basins to the south-west also have subtropical climates, with considerable local variation. As a result of higher elevations, summers are cooler, and as a consequence of protection from northerly winds, winters are mild. The Sichuan Basin, which has an 11-month growing season, is noted for high humidity and cloudiness. Rainfall, especially abundant in summer, exceeds 990 mm (39 in) annually in nearly all parts of southern China.

North China, which has no mountain ranges to form a protective barrier against the flow of air from Siberia, experiences a cold, dry winter. January temperatures range from 3.9° C (39° F) in the extreme south to about -10° C (14° F) north of Beijing and in the higher elevations to the west. July temperatures generally exceed 26.1° C (79° F) and, in the North China Plain, approach 30° C (86° F). Almost all the annual rainfall occurs in summer. Annual precipitation totals are less than 760 mm (30 in) and decrease to the north-west, which has a drier, steppe climate. Year-to-year variability of precipitation in these areas is great; this factor, combined with the possibility of dust storms or hailstorms, makes agriculture precarious. Fog occurs on more than 40 days a year in the east and on more than 80 days along the coast.

The climate of Dongbei is similar to, but colder than, that of North China. January temperatures average -17.8° C (0° F) over much of the Dongbei Pingyuan, and July temperatures generally exceed 22.2° C (72° F). Rainfall, concentrated in summer, averages between about 510 and 760 mm (20 and 30 in) in the east but declines to about 300 mm (12 in) west of the Greater Khingan Range.

Desert and steppe climates prevail in the Mongolian Borderlands and the north-west. January temperatures average below -10° C (14° F) everywhere except in the Tarim Basin. July temperatures generally exceed 20° C (68° F). Annual rainfall totals less than 250 mm (10 in), and most of the area receives less than 100 mm (4 in).

Because of its high elevation, the Tibetan Plateau has an arctic climate; July temperatures remain below 15° C (59° F). The air is clear and dry throughout the year with annual precipitation totals of less than 100 mm (4 in) everywhere except in the extreme south-east.

I.

Natural Resources

Because of its geologic diversity, China possesses an extremely wide array of mineral resources. The only minerals in which the country appears to be deficient are vanadium, chromium, and cobalt. Mineral deposits are distributed widely throughout the country; the principal mining regions are southern Dongbei, especially the Liaodong Peninsula, and the uplands of South China. Only in the Tibetan Plateau and the surrounding high mountains have significant mineral deposits not yet been discovered.

China is particularly well endowed with energy resources. Coal reserves of over 10 trillion tonnes are claimed, most of it in Dongbei and adjacent areas of North China. Petroleum reserves are estimated at more than 20 billion tonnes, the bulk of which has been discovered offshore. China now claims to be second only to Saudi Arabia in oil reserves; inland deposits are located in Dongbei and in the north-western provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, and Qinghai, and in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Oil-shale deposits are located primarily in Liaoning and Guangdong.

Among metallic mineral ores, iron-ore reserves are estimated to be nearly 50 billion tonnes. The largest deposits, mainly in southern Dongbei, northern Hebei, and Nei Monggol, are mostly of low quality. Some high-grade deposits of haematite occur in Liaoning and Hubei in the Yangzi Valley. Extensive deposits have also been discovered on Hainan. Reserves of aluminium ores, occurring mainly in Liaoning and Shandong, are estimated at more than 1 billion tonnes. Tin reserves, found primarily in Yunnan and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, are perhaps as much as 2 million tonnes; China’s production of refined tin amounts to about 8 per cent of the world’s output. China holds the world’s largest reserves of both antimony and tungsten. Tungsten is found mainly in the highlands north of the Xi, and the largest antimony deposits are in Hunan.

China also holds abundant reserves of magnesite, molybdenum, mercury, and manganese. Reserves of lead, zinc, and copper, however, are modest. Uranium has been discovered in several localities, principally in Dongbei and the north-west. Other resources occurring in considerable quantities are phosphate rock, salt, talc, mica, quartz, silica, and fluorspar.

J.

Plants and Animals

As a result of the wide range of climates and topography, China is rich in plant species. Most of the original vegetation has been removed, however, during centuries of settlement and intensive cultivation. Natural forests are generally preserved only in the more remote mountain areas.

Dense tropical rainforests are found in the region south of the Xi valley. These forests consist of broadleaf evergreens, some more than 50 m (160 ft) tall, intermixed with palms. An extensive region of subtropical vegetation extends north to the Yangzi Valley and west to the Tibetan Plateau. This zone is especially rich in species, including evergreen oak, ginkgo, bamboo, pine, azalea, and camellia. Also found are forests with laurel and magnolia and a dense undergrowth of smaller shrubs and bamboo thickets. Conifers and mountain grasses dominate at higher elevations.

To the north of the Yangzi Valley a broadleaf deciduous forest originally prevailed. The principal species remaining here are various oaks, ash, elm, and maple; lime and birch flourish to the north in Dongbei. China’s most important timber reserves are found in the mountains of northern Dongbei, where extensive tracts of a larch-dominated coniferous forest remain. The Dongbei Pingyuan, now under cultivation, was once dominated by a forest steppe—grasses interspersed with trees.

Steppes covered with drought-resistant grasses, are found in the eastern portion of the Mongolian Borderlands. The vegetation of this region has, however, been depleted by overgrazing and soil erosion. The more arid regions of the north-west are characterized by clumps of herbaceous plants and grasses separated by extensive barren areas; salt-tolerant species dominate here. A somewhat lusher tundra vegetation, consisting of grasses and flowers, is found on most of the high plateau of Tibet. In more favoured locations throughout the arid regions, larger shrubs and even trees may occur, and in many mountain areas, spruce and fir forests are found.

The diverse habitats in China support a wide range of fauna, from arctic species in Dongbei to many tropical species in southern China. Some species, extinct elsewhere, survive in China. Among these are the great paddlefish of the Yangzi River, species of alligator and salamander, the giant panda (found only in south-western China), and the Chinese water deer (found only in China and Korea).

Several types of primates, including gibbon and macaque as well as several other species of apes and monkeys, are abundant in the tropical south. Large carnivores, such as bear, tiger, and leopard, are few in number and confined to remote areas. Members of the leopard family, for instance, are distributed at the peripheries of the heavily populated areas; leopards are found in northern Dongbei, the snow leopard in Tibet, and the mainland clouded leopard in the extreme south. Smaller carnivores, such as fox, wolf, raccoon dog, and civet cat, are widespread and locally numerous. Antelope, gazelle, chamois, wild horses, deer, and other hoofed animals inhabit the uplands and basins of the west, and the Alaskan moose is found in northern Dongbei. Birdlife is diverse and includes pheasant, peacock, parrot, heron, and crane.

Along with the common domesticated animals are found the water buffalo, an important draught animal in the south; the camel, which is utilized in the arid north and west; and the yak, a semi-domesticated ox-like animal, which is used in the highlands of Tibet.

Marine life is abundant, especially along the south-eastern coast, and includes flounder, cod, yellow croaker, pomfret, tuna, cuttlefish, sea crabs, prawns, and dolphins. The rivers of China contain a variety of carp species, as well as salmon, trout, sturgeon, catfish, and the Chinese river dolphin. Much of China’s inland water is devoted to fish farming.

K.

Environmental Concerns

The Chinese constitution of 1978 was the first to provide for some measure of environmental protection in a country that hitherto had held an uncompromising dedication to increased national productivity, and a full Environmental Protection Law was passed in 1989. These reflect both a heritage of natural catastrophes and severe present-day environmental degradation, which may have cost up to a third of China’s cropland in the past 40 years. An Environmental Protection Office established under the State Council, although endowed with no regulatory powers, coordinates solutions for environmental problems. A National Institute of Environmental Protection monitors the use of chemicals, herbicides, and insecticides. The main thrust of environmental protection, however, has been in afforestation, erosion control, and water conservancy. Large-scale multi-purpose water conservation projects are planned for all the country’s major river systems. An important component of environmental protection in China is terracing. Combined with tree planting and the construction of small reservoir ponds, terracing, a method of cultivation that has been practised successfully for centuries, provides significant erosion control and is a major local water-conservation measure. However, poor education, especially in rural areas, political handicaps, and an at best patchy record of previous environmental protection yield a generally poor prognosis given the vast environmental problems facing China.

III.

Population

The Chinese population is approximately 93 per cent ethnic, or Han, Chinese. The Chinese are primarily of Mongolian stock and are differentiated within China not so much by ethnic as by linguistic variation. The 7 per cent minority population is settled over nearly 60 per cent of China’s area. This gives the non-Han peoples of China a significance that looms larger than their percentage of the population might suggest.

A.

Ethnic Groups

More than 70 million people belong to 56 national minorities. Most of these groups are distinguished from the Chinese by language or religion rather than by racial characteristics. The principal minorities (1990 figures) are the Thai-related Zhuang, about 15.6 million, largely in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region; the Hui, or Chinese Muslims, about 8.6 million, in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Gansu, and Qinghai; the Turkic-speaking Uygur, about 7.2 million, in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region; the aboriginal (but largely assimilated) Yi, about 6.6 million, in Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guangxi; the aboriginal Miao, about 7.4 million, in Guizhou, Hunan, and Yunnan; the Tibetans, about 4.6 million, in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and Qinghai; and the Mongols, about 4.8 million, in Nei Monggol, Gansu, and Xinjiang. Other groups include Koreans, Bonyei, and Manchus. The Manchus are descendants of the group which conquered China in the 17th century and established the Qing, or Manchu, dynasty. They are almost indistinguishable from the Han Chinese.

B.

Population Characteristics

China has a population of 1,330,044,600 (2008 estimate). The population density is about 143 people per sq km (369 per sq mi); this figure represents an average of a very uneven geographic distribution. The great bulk of the population is found in the 19 eastern provinces that have formed the historical heartland of China. This reflects the dissimilar historical land-use and settlement patterns of the Chinese (in the east) and the non-Han (in the west). Since the 1960s the Chinese government has promoted settlement of the lands of the western provinces and autonomous regions.

Despite industrialization, China continues to be a predominantly rural, agricultural nation. Although major cities arose very early in Chinese history, the country as a whole has only slowly come to be urbanized. Approximately 59 per cent of the population is classified as rural.

Spontaneous migration from the countryside to the city was prohibited from the mid-1950s because of the lack of productive employment for additional city dwellers. This prohibition was the outgrowth of the belief of Mao Zedong that the class distinction between urban and rural people was a major cause of social inequality in China. During the Cultural Revolution, considerable energy was expended on a campaign of sending educated urban youth to the countryside for several years or even permanent settlement. This movement was intended to provide urban skills in rural areas, thereby reducing peasant interest in the city. The rustication programme was reduced after the death of Mao in 1976 and virtually eliminated by the end of 1978, at which time migration to the cities began to increase. Controls have now effectively broken down, with peasants flooding in from stagnant areas of the Chinese interior. Long-term Chinese policy envisages relocating 440 million peasants, 37 per cent of the population, into existing and new towns by 2040.

Residential mobility within cities is also restricted by the government. A person must have government approval and guarantee of a residence and employment before moving. Some residential movement within the major cities has resulted, however, from the large-scale destruction of old housing and its replacement by four- and five-storey apartment buildings. Breakneck commercial development in Shanghai and other high-growth cities has led to summary relocation of many urban dwellers.

C.

Population Control

The first national census since the Communist takeover was compiled in 1953, in an effort to assess the human resources available for the first five-year plan. At that time, the population of China was found to be 582,600,000. A second census, taken in 1964, showed an increase to 694,580,000; the third, in 1982, revealed a population (excluding Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) of 1,008,180,000, making China the first nation ever to pass the billion mark. Between 1953 and 2008, the death rate dropped from 22.5 to about 7 per 1,000 population, while the birth rate declined from about 45 per 1,000 to 14. Life expectancy at birth in 2008 was 71 years for men and 75 years for women. The net natural increase declined from about 22.5 per 1,000 in 1953 to 13 per 1,000 in 1991. Nevertheless, at that rate China would still show an annual population growth of nearly 18 million, leading to a projected 1.3 billion Chinese by the year 2000.

The decrease in fertility recorded between the 1950s and 1990s was largely effected by government efforts to promote late marriages and, more recently, to induce the Chinese family to have only one child. This programme has been coupled with the continual expansion of public health facilities that provide birth-control information and contraceptive devices at little or no cost. It was officially estimated in 1984 that 70 per cent of all married couples of childbearing age were using contraception, and that 24 million couples had formally pledged to have no more than one child. Abortion is legal, and social pressures, or more drastic official action, are applied to terminate a pregnancy with women who already have one child or more. Since 1988 a second child has been allowed, four years after the first, to peasant couples whose first child was a girl. The national minorities have generally been excluded from the government’s birth-control programme, in keeping with a policy of allowing the non-Han peoples a maximum of cultural independence.

In 1980 the government reported that 65 per cent of the population was under 30 years of age. Thus, a substantial proportion of the Chinese population will be of childbearing age for at least the next several decades. In September 1982, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party declared that the nation must limit the population to 1.2 billion by the end of the century, a goal requiring an intensification of population control efforts, but already exceeded by 1995. The measures adopted, including forcible abortion late in pregnancy, have led both to widespread worldwide condemnation and to problems such as female infanticide and kidnapping of women, as the Chinese attempt to reconcile population control with traditional pressures for large families and male heirs.

D.

Political Divisions

The administrative divisions of China amount to 22 provinces (Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guizhou, Hainan, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Zhejiang), 5 autonomous regions (Guangxi Zhuang, Nei Monggol, Ningxia Hui, Tibet or Xizang, and Xinjiang Uygur), and 4 special municipalities (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing). Hong Kong S. A. R. and Macao S. A. R. were designated special administrative regions of China in 1997 and 1999 respectively. The autonomous regions were established in areas originally with non-Chinese majority populations. Tibet, one of China’s autonomous regions, has a government-in-exile and is regarded by many as a sovereign state under occupation. China counts Taiwan as its 23rd province, although since 1949 Taiwan has been controlled by a separate government that fled to the island when it lost the civil war on mainland China. The Aksai Chin region, under Chinese administration since the Sino-Indian War of 1962, and the north-eastern border of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh are disputed with India.

E.

Principal Cities

China’s earliest cities evolved in the 15th century bc under the Shang dynasty. Cities were long important to the ceremonial (administrative and quasi-religious) functions and material support of the Chinese court, many originating as administrative or government centres, and also were important market centres. In the 20th century, and especially since the 1950s, Chinese cities have gained great importance as industrial centres.

According to 1993 estimates, China has 40 cities with populations exceeding 1 million. China’s largest cities, with their population figures, include Shanghai, 13,680,800 (2006 estimate), the country’s largest city and a major port; Beijing, 11,807,000 (2005 estimate), the capital and cultural centre of China; Tianjin, 9,393,100 (2007 estimate), a port city at the juncture of the Hai River and the Grand Canal; Shenyang, 6,800,000 (2002 estimate); Wuhan, 7,811,900 (2003 estimate), a port city at the confluence of the Han and Yangzi rivers, and Guangzhou, 7,607,220 (2006 estimate), a port city on the Zhu Jiang (Pearl River). All of these cities have developed large industrial bases.

F.

Religion

One of the early acts of the Chinese Communist Party after it gained control in 1949 was to officially eliminate organized religion. Previously the dominant creeds in China had been Confucianism, Daoism (Taoism), and Buddhism. Because of the quasi-secular nature of Confucianism, and because most Chinese were affected by all three major faiths and thus lacked strong allegiance to a single religion, the population offered little resistance to the party’s move.

Chief among the true religions of China, in addition to Buddhism and the form of Chinese religion based around Daoism, were Christianity and Islam. Most temples and schools of these four religions were converted to secular purposes. Only with the constitution of 1978 was official support again given for the promulgation of formal religion in China. The constitution also stated, however, that the Chinese population had the right to hold no religious beliefs and “to propagate atheism”.

Since religious rights were guaranteed, Christian groups in the cities and Buddhist sects in both the cities and countryside have been extremely active. The ethnic Chinese Muslims, or Hui, as well as the Muslim minority peoples such as the Uygur, Kazakhs, and Kirgiz, have held their faith in Islam continually but now practise their religion more openly. Tibetan Buddhism remains persecuted because of its association with the Tibetan pro-independence movement; over 2,700 Tibetan monasteries are estimated to have been destroyed since the Chinese occupation in 1950.

G.

Language

The Chinese have had a written language for more than 3,000 years. Although the Chinese language comprises more than a dozen major spoken languages, most of which are mutually unintelligible and in effect separate tongues with their own dialects, all writing is done with the same script, or characters. This literary unity has been significant to the historical unity of the Chinese people since the Shang dynasty.

One of the most ambitious efforts of the Chinese Communist government since 1949 has been the modification of the Chinese language. The official spoken language of the Chinese is the Putonghua (“standard speech”) dialect of Mandarin, the dialect of North China. This dialect was declared the common language at the National Conference on Reform of the Chinese Written Language in 1955. Major efforts have also been directed towards modifying the written language. The use of simplified characters—traditional characters written with fewer strokes, or in a type of shorthand—has steadily increased. This has been done to facilitate the government’s goal of broader literacy.

In 1977 the Chinese made a formal request to the UN to have Pinyin (“phonetic spelling”) romanization used for the spelling of place-names in China. This method of transliteration was created by the Chinese in the late 1950s and has been undergoing steady modification. Some Chinese officials claim that Pinyin will ultimately replace Chinese characters as the written Chinese language; this is not expected to become a reality in the near future, however. The Wade-Giles system remains a common alternative method of romanization. Throughout this article, Wade-Giles equivalents are given where appropriate in brackets after a Pinyin name.

While Mandarin is a mother tongue for around 70 per cent of the population, China’s more than 70 million minority citizens have their own spoken languages, which include Zhuang, Buyi, Mongolian, Tibetan, Miao, Uygur, and Kazakh. Formerly, many of the minority languages did not have a written form; the Chinese government has encouraged the development of written scripts for these languages, using Pinyin. These groups are also now encouraged to continue traditions that will promote knowledge of their ethnolinguistic heritage, though they suffered discrimination during the Cultural Revolution. The Mandarin-based dialect is taught in schools, usually as a second language, and knowledge of it is requisite throughout China. Cantonese is the favoured language of Chinese outside China, owing to the predominance of emigrants originally from Guangdong (Canton) in the overseas Chinese communities and the importance of the Guangdong region in international trade. (See also Tai-Kadai Languages; Sino-Tibetan Languages.)

H.

Education

China has a long and rich cultural tradition in which education has played a major role. Throughout the imperial period (221 bc- ad 1912), only the educated held positions of social and political leadership. In 124 bc the first university was established for training prospective bureaucrats in Confucian learning and the Chinese classics. Historically, however, few Chinese have been able to take the time to learn the complex language and its associated literature. It is estimated that as late as 1949 only 20 per cent of China’s population was literate. To the Chinese Communists, this illiteracy was a stumbling block for the promotion of their political programmes. Therefore, the Communists combined political propaganda with educational development. However, in 1990 27 per cent of adults were still illiterate; but by 2005 the level of literacy among adults was estimated to be 87.3 per cent. In 1999–2000, 2.1 per cent of gross national product was spent on education.

One of the most ambitious programmes of the Communist Party has been the establishment of universal public education for such a large population. In the first two years of the new government (1949-1951) more than 60 million peasants enrolled in “winter schools”, or sessions, established to take advantage of the slack season for agricultural workers. Mao declared that a dominant goal of education was to reduce the sense of class distinction. This was to be accomplished by reducing the social gaps between manual and mental labour; between the city and countryside; and between the worker in the factory and the peasant on the land.

The most radical developments in education in China, however, took place between 1966 and 1978. During the Cultural Revolution, virtually all classrooms in China were closed. The 131 million youths who had been enrolled in primary and secondary school remained out of school; many became involved in Mao’s efforts to shake up the new elite of China by the presence of youthful critics reviewing governmental programmes and policies. Primary and secondary schools began to reopen in 1968 and 1969, but all institutions of higher education remained closed until the early 1970s. Government policies towards education changed dramatically during this period. The traditional 13 years of kindergarten to 12th grade were reduced to a nine- or ten-year plan for primary and secondary (or middle) school. Colleges that had traditionally had a four- or five-year curriculum adopted a three-year programme, and part of this time was mandated as productive labour in support of the school or the course of study being pursued. A two-year period of manual labour also became essential for most secondary school graduates who wished to go on to college.

Following Mao’s death in 1976, a major review of these policies began. As a result, and because of the increased interest in the development of science in Chinese education, curricula again came to resemble those of the pre-Cultural Revolution years. Programmes for primary and secondary schooling were gradually readjusted to encompass 12 years of study, and high school graduates were no longer required to go to the countryside for two years of labour before competing for college positions.

A significant change in the educational system has been the reinstitution of standardized college-entrance exams. These exams were a regular part of the mechanism for upward mobility in China prior to the Cultural Revolution. During the experimentation of those years, anti-traditionalists were able to eliminate the entrance exams by arguing that they favoured an elite who had an intellectual tradition in their families. When colleges reopened from 1970 to 1972, admission was granted to many candidates because of their political leanings, party activities, and peer-group support. This method of selection ceased in 1977, as the Chinese launched their new campaign for the Four Modernizations. The government’s stated goals for rapid modernization in agriculture, industry, defence, and science and technology required high levels of training. Such educational programmes by necessity had to be based on theoretical and formal skills more than on political attitudes and the spirit of revolution.

By 1998–1999 about 145 million pupils were enrolled in primary schools, and about 90.7 million students were enrolled in secondary schools; enrolments in 1949 had been about 24 million in primary schools and 1,250,000 in secondary schools, though this figure represented only 2 per cent of the corresponding age group. State education incurs a small fee. An estimated 12.1 million students were enrolled in China’s more than 1,000 institutions of higher learning in 2001–2002.

Chinese higher education is now characterized by the “key-point system”. Under this system the most promising students are placed in selected key-point schools, which specialize in training an academic elite. Students finishing secondary schools may also attend junior colleges and a variety of technical and vocational schools. Among the most prominent of the 270 or so universities in China are Beijing University (1898); Hangzhou University (1952); Fudan University (1905), in Shanghai; and the University of Science and Technology of China (1958), in Hefei. All higher education in China is free.

I.

Research

China’s space programme was founded in 1956, and the country now ranks among the most advanced nations in the world in many important technological fields. The Dongfanghong-I, China's first man-made satellite, was successfully developed and launched on April 24, 1970, making China the fifth country in the world with such capability. The country’s first unmanned spacecraft, Shenzhou I (Chinese for “God Ship”), was launched on November 20, 1999, from the Jiuquan launch centre in north-western China, and recovered the following day.

A second unmanned space capsule, Shenzhou II, launched by China on January 10, 2001, successfully completed its mission on January 16 after having circled the Earth over a hundred times. China’s official news agency reported that experiments had been carried out on 'life forms' onboard the craft, although details of the animal species were not revealed. This attempt was seen as a preparatory step towards a flight carrying human beings, which may take place as early as mid-2002. This would make China the third country—joining Russia and the United States—capable of sending manned craft into space.

J.

Culture

The educational goals of the Chinese Communist government have been promoted by means other than formal education. During the 1960s and 1970s, plays, opera, popular literature, and music were seen to have the capacity to educate. Chinese literature, Chinese art, Chinese theatre, and Chinese music were all adapted to political ends. For example, in 1964 the Peking Opera, which has a history of 200 years of active performance in China, presented the Festival of Peking Opera in Contemporary Themes, under the organization of Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife. New works combining drama and ideology, such as The Taking of Tiger Mountain by Strategy, were written for the opera. Similar cultural modifications were introduced into Chinese ballet; elements of traditional folk dance, martial arts, gymnastics, and classical ballet were integrated into a popular production. These shows were performed not only in the major cities but also in the smaller cities and the countryside.

With the increase in foreign cultural exchanges since the mid-1970s, the official attitude towards the propaganda aspects of the arts has been relaxed. Foreign literature, which had been banned in the 1960s, began to reappear in China. In 1978 and 1979 some 200 translations of foreign works, including popular novels from the West, were completed in the People’s Literature Publishing House.

In popular music the change was officially noted in a government report, which stated that new songs were emerging in the early 1980s because the Chinese were “tired of the old political songs and slogans they grew up with”. The Chinese government also recognizes that the arts afford a useful social outlet. Cinemas are usually filled to capacity, and travelling troupes of acrobats, circus performers, and jugglers, as well as ballet and opera shows, play to full houses in small cities and commune centres.

During the 1980s and 1990s, China showed increased openness to classical and popular musicians from the outside world. Through satellite television and other media, China is developing a popular culture heavily influenced by Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan, as well as the West.

The climate for cultural expression in China is delicate because of the speed with which government attitudes can change. In 1957, during the Hundred Flowers campaign, writers and intellectuals were encouraged to speak up and provide perspectives on the government’s progress in meeting the needs of the people. The criticisms that were prompted by this call for candour were so strong that the government suddenly reversed itself, and many intellectuals found themselves persecuted for the opinions they had expressed. Similar “changes of sky” led China’s artists, writers, composers, and film-makers to respond cautiously to governmental encouragement of independent cultural expression after the late 1970s.

K.

Cultural Institutions

Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou play leading cultural roles in China; most of the renowned museums, theatres, and cultural displays are in these cities.

Beijing remains the cultural heart of the nation. Located in the vicinity of the famous Tiananmen Square are the Forbidden City, formerly the residence of the emperor and now a museum open to the public; the Mao Zedong Memorial Hall; and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution. Beijing was also the location of the famous “Democracy Wall” and its so-called big-character posters that were significant (until officially banned in the late 1970s) in the expression of public opinion about governmental policy shifts after Mao’s death in 1976. The Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, the Ming dynasty tombs, and the Great Wall are all near Beijing; these great monuments of the Ming and Qing dynasties provide a cultural focus for the increasingly mobile Chinese population.

In Shanghai are the Museum of Art and History, which houses one of China’s finest art collections, and the Museum of Natural Sciences. Also here is the Garden of the Mandarin Yu, which exemplifies a significant programme of government support of the arts; after 1949 the Communist government opened many formerly private homes, gardens, and parks of the wealthy, making them into public museums. They have become popular in all cities as places to stroll, meet for tea, and chat with friends and foreigners, and as places to be educated about the class differences between the wealthy and the poor before 1949.

Guangzhou is the home of one of China’s major zoos; the Guangzhou Museum; Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall; Yuexiu Park, with its Ming dynasty Zhenhai Pagoda; the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees; and the Huaisheng Mosque, which was founded in ad 627. Near Xi’an (Sian) is one of the most impressive works of Chinese antiquity—a terracotta army of more than 6,000 life-size figures that were found in the tomb of the Qin emperor Shi Huangdi, who died in 210 bc.

The promotion of national self-awareness since the 1949 revolution has led virtually every city to establish some sort of cultural monument to its role in the development of China. In cities where no formal museums exist, usually a former estate has been turned into an open garden or tearoom, giving the cities an increasingly urbane character. Many national monuments were destroyed during the iconoclasm of the Cultural Revolution; more recently, the Communist Party has turned to promotion of Chinese culture and national character in an attempt to shore up its own legitimacy.

IV.

Economy

For more than 2,000 years the Chinese economy operated under a type of feudal system; land was concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group of landowners whose livelihood depended on rents from their peasant tenants. Further adding to the peasant farmers’ burden were agricultural taxes levied by the imperial government and crop yields subject to drought and floods. Early industry and commerce were dominated by government monopolies and other forms of state control. By the 11th century ad under the Song dynasty, China had developed a sophisticated commercial economy, with paper money and emerging forms of banking. However, under the Ming dynasty innovation lapsed. Under the Qing dynasty, China enjoyed another age of great prosperity and expanding population, but this was followed by economic stagnation and internal strife.

The conclusion of the Opium Wars in 1860 formally initiated a period of Western penetration of China from the coastal treaty ports. Railways were constructed, and some Western-style industrial development was begun. Such activity had little impact, however, on the overall Chinese economy. In effect, China was carved up into a number of competing colonial spheres of influence. Japan, which tried to attach China to its East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in the 1930s and 1940s, was able to create only isolated nodes of a modern industrialized economy.

The Chinese Communist Party emerged in the 1920s in the midst of a mounting economic crisis caused by foreign intervention and increased landlord influence in the countryside. For more than two decades, it expanded its control over large rural areas by introducing an agrarian programme based on the control of rent and usury, and by giving power to peasant associations. On October 1, 1949, the Communist Party successfully established a unified national government and economy on the mainland for the first time since the end of the imperial period in 1912. From 1949 to 1952 the emphasis was on halting inflation and ending food shortages and unemployment. The new government initiated a land reform programme that redistributed land to 300 million poor peasants. Under the first five-year plan (1953-1957), 92 per cent of the agricultural population was organized into cooperative farms. In 1958 the rural people’s communes were established, and these dominated agriculture in China until the early 1980s. The commune was based on the collective ownership of all land and major tools by its members, who produced mainly to meet state planning targets and who were rewarded according to the work they performed, although basic necessities were guaranteed to all members.

In the urban-industrial sector, state ownership of property and of industrial and commercial enterprises was gradually extended. Industry grew steadily from heavy investment under the first five-year plan, and the state-owned sector achieved an overwhelming importance. The second five-year plan was introduced in 1958, and in the summer of that year the regime embarked on its much-publicized Great Leap Forward. This programme was characterized by large investments in heavy industry and the establishment of small-scale versions of such industries as steel refining. The programme, however, caused great disruptions in economic management and in rational economic growth, to say nothing of mass starvation leading to an estimated 20 million deaths, and in 1960 the Great Leap Forward had to be abandoned. The Chinese economy then entered a period of readjustment, but by 1965 production in many fields again approached the level of the late 1950s. The third five-year plan began in 1966, but both agricultural and industrial production were severely curtailed by the effects of the Cultural Revolution; a fourth five-year plan was introduced in 1971 as the economy began its recovery.

After eliminating the vestiges of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, China’s leaders decided to move at a faster pace on all economic fronts to make up for the loss suffered in the preceding ten years. A fifth five-year programme was begun in 1976 but was interrupted in 1978, when the Four Modernizations programme was launched. It called for the “all-round modernization of agriculture, industry, national defence, and science and technology by the end of the century so that the economy can take its place in the front ranks of the world”. A ten-year plan for 1976 to 1985 stressed improvement in economic management and a larger role for private and collectively owned (as opposed to state-owned) enterprises. This programme was superseded by a more modest ten-year plan for 1981 to 1990, but efforts to attract Western technology and investment continued, as did a programme of incentives to increase agricultural production. Policies introduced in October 1984 called for further decentralization of economic planning and for increased reliance on market forces to determine the prices of consumer goods. The five-year plan for 1986 to 1990 anticipated an annual economic growth rate of 7 per cent, but the economy slowed after the political crackdown in 1989. The slowdown, however, was temporary, and the Chinese economy expanded rapidly during the early 1990s as the government continued to ease controls; in 1992 the economy grew by about 13 per cent and in 1994 by 12 per cent. Foreign investment capital became a major factor in growth, with US$30 million of investment in 1994. This rapid growth has caused some problems, such as high inflation rates in urban areas and increasing economic inequalities between regions and social groups.

The gross national product (GNP) of China in 2004 was some US$1,938 billion (World Bank figure), or about US$2,000 per capita, though these figures are regarded as more unreliable than for most developed countries. Agricultural output (which also includes some small-scale industries in rural areas, forestry, and fishing) accounts for about 11.7 per cent of national income, and industrial output (which includes manufacturing, mining, electricity generation, and building and construction) accounts for 48.4 per cent. Between 1965 and 1979 the gross domestic product grew at a rate of 6.4 per cent a year, and between 1980 and 1988 the increase was 10.3 per cent annually. The growth rate dipped below 4 per cent in 1989, but returned to well above 10 per cent annually in the early and mid-1990s.

A.

Agricultural Activity

Traditionally the economic mainstay of China, agriculture remains the most important sector of the national economy, supporting the majority of the population, though its importance is decreasing. Only about 10 per cent of China’s total area is arable (mostly located in eastern China), and nearly all this land is under cultivation. Almost half the cultivated land is irrigated; indeed, China has more irrigated land than any other country. Despite great gains in annual output since 1949, rapid population increases have made per capita increases much less significant. For example, between 1952 and 1979, the annual grain output expanded by 103 per cent, but per capita grain production increased by only 20 per cent. By 1979, although new areas were brought under cultivation (especially in Dongbei and north-western China), the loss of cultivated land to non-agricultural uses was even more rapid, and with the great increase in population, the per capita average was reduced from 0.18 hectares (0.45 acres) in 1949 to only 0.11 hectares (0.26 acres).

The consistent rise in output and yield in China can be attributed in part to increased efficiency. By 1979 China’s rural population of approximately 838 million had been organized into about 52,000 people’s communes. As a socio-economic unit the commune received production targets from the state and ensured that these targets were met. The commune was divided into several production brigades, each of which was subdivided into production teams. Each of these levels could hold land, tools, and other production materials under communal ownership, and each carried out a range of activities. Some six million production teams represented the basic accounting units of the system.

Under the commune system it was possible to organize large-scale agricultural experimentation for scientific farming, to plant crops in areas where soil and other natural conditions are most favourable, and to develop irrigation and drainage on an efficient scale. Although land was collectively owned, each rural household usually had access to a small private plot, which it was free to use as it pleased. Autonomy was also granted to production teams and individual households to market products after official targets were met.

In the early 1980s, in an effort to erase China’s perennial food deficit while allowing an increase in average per capita food consumption, the Chinese government once again restructured the agricultural sector. The system of communes and production brigades was largely dismantled, and the household became the principal unit of agricultural production. Under this “responsibility system”, each household, after contracting with local authorities to produce its quota of specified crops, was free to sell any additional output on the free market. Such sales represented about 60 per cent of Chinese agricultural output in the late 1980s.

B.

Crops and Livestock

About 80 per cent of the sown area of China is devoted to food crops. The most important is rice, which occupies about one third of the total cultivated area. It is grown for the most part south of the Huai River, notably in the middle and lower valley of the Yangzi River, in the Pearl River delta in the Guangzhou region, and in the Red Basin of Sichuan. In 2006 the annual production of rice was about 184 million tonnes.

The second most important food crop is wheat, which is grown mainly north of the Huai River. The chief wheat-growing areas are the North China Plain and the valleys of the Wei and Fen rivers in the loess region. Although the area of wheat cultivated is nearly as large as that of rice, the yield is lower. The wheat crop in 2006 was about 104 million tonnes. Kaoliang (a sorghum) and millet are important food crops in North China and Dongbei. Kaoliang is also used as an animal feed and converted into alcohol for a beverage; the stalks are utilized to make paper and as a roofing material. Maize occupies about 20 per cent of the cultivated area. Oats are important chiefly in Nei Monggol and in the west, notably in Tibet. Production in 2006 included (in tonnes): maize, 146 million; kaoliang, 2 million; millet, 1.82 million; barley, 3 million; and oats (1995 estimate), 600,000.

Other food crops include sweet potatoes, white potatoes, and various fruits and vegetables. Sweet potatoes predominate in the south and white potatoes in the north. Fruit ranges from such tropical varieties as pineapples and bananas, grown on the island of Hainan, to apples and pears, grown in the northern provinces of Liaoning and Shandong. Citrus fruits, particularly oranges and tangerines, are major products of South China.

Oil seeds play a major role in Chinese agriculture, supplying edible and industrial oils and an important share of exports. The most important oil crop is the soya bean, which occupies about 8 per cent of the total cultivated area; it is grown mainly in North China and Dongbei. Soya bean production was 16 million tonnes in 2006. China is also one of the world’s leading producers of peanuts, with production in 2006 of about 15 million tonnes. Peanuts are grown in Shandong and Hebei. Other important oil crops are sesame and sunflower seeds and rapeseed. A valuable oil is supplied also by the tung tree. More than half the tung oil produced in China originates in Sichuan.

Tea is a traditional export crop of China. Still one of the major tea producers, China produces more than 20 per cent of the world supply; its output was 1,049,500 tonnes in 2006. The principal tea plantations are on the hillsides of the middle Yangzi River valley and in the south-eastern provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang.

China obtains sugar both from sugar cane and from sugar beet. Sugar cane is grown mainly in the provinces of Guangdong and Sichuan. Sugar beet, a relatively new crop for the country, is raised in the Dongbei province of Heilongjiang and on irrigated land in Nei Monggol: the crop in 2006 was about 11 million tonnes.

The Communist government of China has given increasing attention to the expansion of industrial crops for the textile industry. The most important of these crops is cotton; about 6.73 million tonnes of cotton lint were produced in 2006, making China one of the world’s leading cotton producers. Cotton, which can be grown in almost all parts of China, is raised principally in the North China Plain, the loess region, the Yangzi River delta, and the middle Yangzi plain. The North China Plain yields about half the country’s total cotton output.

Other fibres are ramie and flax, which are used for linen and other fine cloths; and jute and hemp, which are made into sacks and rope. Ramie, a native Chinese herb similar to hemp, is grown chiefly in the Yangzi River valley; flax is a northern crop. The main jute-growing areas are Zhejiang and Guangdong. Another traditional Chinese product is raw silk. Sericulture (silkworm-raising) is common in the central and southern areas, notably in the Yangzi delta.

China maintains a large livestock population. Pigs are numerous; they numbered about 511 million in 2006. The country is the leading exporter of hog bristles. In the western areas, livestock raising by nomadic herders often constitutes the principal rural occupation. Most of the herds are made up of sheep, goats, and camels. In the highlands of Tibet the yak is a source of food and fuel (the dung is burned), and its hair and skin provide materials for shelter and clothing. The estimated livestock population in 2006 included about 174 million sheep, 199 million goats, 118 million cattle, 22.8 million water buffalo, and 7.40 million horses.

C.

Agricultural Planning

Given the tremendous pressure on agricultural land in China, rational planning of land use is of prime importance. An overemphasis on grain growing during the 1960s and 1970s led to elimination of some crops, orchards, and trees, neglect of animal husbandry, and environmental damage. The government has since promoted a mixed-farming economy that is in accord with local environmental conditions and that also provides cash income. Grain price controls were lifted in 1992-1993, but reinstated in 1994 after rapid rises.

Agricultural mechanization is actively pursued, although it remains in the early stages of development and is considered impractical in many places because of the relatively small size of the cultivated areas. Flood control and irrigation projects, which include the construction of dams, canals, and reservoirs, have been accomplished on a large scale since the 1950s. In the same period important changes have also occurred in cropping patterns in China. With the development of water resources and a more intensive use of fertilizer, a second crop could be planted along the three river valleys on the North China Plain. The middle and lower reaches of the Yangzi Valley, already a double-cropped paddy area, were made to yield three crops of paddy each year. More recently, however, the possibility of returning to the two-crop pattern of cultivation has been discussed, because a third crop involves high fertilizer expenditure and a tight farming schedule.

To supplement agricultural production, the various levels of government operate more than 2,000 state farms. There are large-scale units run for the purpose of agricultural experimentation and for commercial production of certain economic crops and foodstuffs for urban markets or export. They are usually located in virgin lands or in newly reclaimed areas where the rural population density is not great and modern machinery may be used effectively.

D.

Fishing

The total catch of fish, shellfish, and molluscs in China in 2005 was estimated at about 60.6 million tonnes. The culture of freshwater fish is important, and the government has encouraged fish culture in ponds or reservoirs alongside other agricultural pursuits. The principal producing regions are those close to urban markets in the middle and lower Yangzi Valley and the Pearl River (Zhu Jiang) delta. Carp ponds, a traditional Chinese food source for thousands of years, yield a significant share of the total.

Unlike inland freshwater fishing, which is an important activity, marine fishing is relatively undeveloped. Most fishermen were resettled in coastal fishing communes in the 1960s, and many were encouraged to pursue agricultural activities as well as fishing. These communes also practised marine fish farming. Using small craft and operating in China’s territorial waters, marine fishers caught seven million tonnes of fish annually in the early 1990s.

E.

Forestry

China’s forest resources are limited due to centuries of overfelling for fuel and building materials. The area of forested land was 13 per cent in the early 1990s, against a world average of 31 per cent. Extensive afforestation programmes have been only partially successful. Timber remains in very short supply; the output of roundwood was 298 million cu m (10.5 billion cu ft) in 2006.

The distribution of forests in China is very uneven. The north-east and south-west have half the forest area and three quarters of the forest resources. Principal species cut are various pines, spruce, larch, oak, and, in the extreme south, teak and mahogany. Other commercial species include the tung tree, lacquer tree, camphor, and bamboo. Nationwide tree-planting campaigns have involved both state-run projects and collectively organized efforts; rural communes have been responsible for planting 70 per cent of the total reforested area. Trees are planted around settlements, along roads, on the edge of bodies of water, and by the sides of peasant homes. A major project is to establish a continuous forest belt along the north-western border of the semi-arid regions, on the North China Plain, and in western Dongbei.

F.

Mining

China has rich mineral resources, including large deposits of some industrially important minerals.

China’s coal-mining industry is the world’s largest, with an annual output of 1.48 billion tonnes in 2003. Many small local coal mines are found throughout the country, but the major centres are located north of the Yangzi River, especially in Shaanxi. Coal is the leading industrial and domestic fuel and accounts for a large portion of the railway freight.

Rapid development of the petroleum industry since the 1950s has made China one of the world’s major producers; production stood at about 146 million tonnes in 1994. China became self-sufficient in petroleum products in 1963, and by 1973 it was able to export both crude oil and refined petroleum products. Daqing oil field, in the province of Heilongjiang, was discovered and developed in the late 1950s and is now the most productive oil field in the country. The nation’s largest petroleum reserves, estimated at approximately 10 billion barrels, are found in the arid Tarim Basin, in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Yet demand for energy has risen so fast that by 1993 China was again a net oil importer.

Production of iron ore grew rapidly in the 1970s and early 1980s, and output was estimated at 102 million tonnes in 2004. China is the world’s largest producer of natural graphite, with an output of 320,000 tonnes in 1994. Other minerals produced in the country in significant quantities include salt (29.6 million tonnes), magnesite (1.5 million), phosphate rock (7.65 million; 2004), bauxite (15 million; 2004), sulphur (330,000), zinc (2.26 million; 2004), copper (620,000; 2004), lead (950,000; 2004), antimony ore (91,000), tin (110,000; 2004), tungsten (16,500), and mercury (500).

G.

Manufacturing Activity

The industrial sector in China is, for purposes of government planning, composed of manufacturing, mining, electrical power generation, and building and construction. Between 1965 and 2006 industry’s share of the gross domestic product rose from 39 per cent to 48 per cent, with heavy industry accounting for most of the growth. By the mid-1990s there were more than 300,000 industrial enterprises scattered throughout the country and forming independent, but integrated, regional systems. The large and medium-sized cities, and even many small cities and towns, have built up substantial industrial bases.

The iron and steel industry has received priority in China since 1949. The country now produces a great variety of steel products, including tungsten steels, stainless steels, heavy steel plate, and seamless pipe. Dongbei, North China, and the Yangzi Valley are the main producing areas.

Major iron and steel mills are located at Anshan, Benxi, Beijing, Baotou, Taiyuan, Wuhan, Ma’anshan, Panzhihua, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Tianjin. In 1995 China produced about 105 million tonnes of pig iron and 95.4 million tonnes of crude steel.

Among China’s heavy industries are shipbuilding and the manufacture of locomotives, rolling stock, tractors, mining machinery, power-generating equipment, and petroleum-drilling and refining machinery.

The petrochemical industry has plants in most of the provinces and autonomous regions; the major plants are located at Beijing, Shanghai, Lanzhou, Shengli, Yueyang, Anqing, and Guangzhou. Products include synthetic fibres, plastics, and pharmaceuticals. A unique feature of the Chinese petrochemical industry is the widespread presence of small nitrogenous fertilizer factories that use a production technique developed in China, essential to maintain agricultural productivity and food supplies. In 2004 Chinese factories produced 32 million tonnes of fertilizers.

The Chinese textile industry is the largest in the world, employing more than four million workers. Cotton yarn production stood at over 5 million tonnes in 1995. Most of the new cotton-textile mills have been constructed in the cotton-growing areas of Hubei (Hupeh), Hunan, Hebei, and Shaanxi provinces.

Other important manufactures, and their production rates in 1995 include cement (476 million tonnes), paper and paperboard (28.1 million tonnes), bicycles (44.7 million units), motor vehicles (1.45 million units), and television receivers (34.9 million units).

H.

Manufacturing Planning

In the late 1970s the government reassessed its industrial goals in an attempt to remedy a number of problems caused by poor planning. In many cities, self-sufficiency had been allowed to grow at the expense of specialization, and industrial enterprises were often found to be duplicating functions. The rapid growth of heavy industry had damaged some urban environments and drawn away funds that could have been better devoted to agriculture, light industry, and improvement of urban facilities. Technology had been allowed to stagnate.

The programme for readjustment called for a slowing of heavy industrial growth; light industries were given priority for industrial development funds, for they were considered able to return the investments within a short time, facilitating their own rapid expansion. Funds were also directed into the building and construction industry to improve the living conditions of urban residents and to create job opportunities for the urban unemployed.

Another recent reform is the granting of autonomy to state-owned enterprises to determine—after meeting state targets—how to handle production, sales, and profits. China has also sent large numbers of scholars, factory managers, and technicians abroad to acquire advanced management and technical expertise. Foreign technology has also been imported in the form of new and complete plants. By 1994 there were over 8 million privately owned industrial firms and a further 1.8 million organized as autonomous collectives.

China’s 100,000-plus state-owned firms, mostly very large, remain a major handicap on economic development, as few have been subjected to major market-oriented reforms. In the mid-1990s they were using over 60 per cent of fixed-asset investment and holding unpaid debts amounting to 30 per cent of industrial output, while their share of industrial output had fallen to 40 per cent from over 65 per cent in 1985, and at least 40 per cent of them were estimated to be running at a loss. The state-owned banking sector is essentially geared to supporting them through continual loans; private companies are forced to seek capital from other sources. Government macroeconomics policy is geared to preserving the state firms, creating inflation, and diverting capital into unproductive uses. Reforms, including privatization, are avoided for fear of the unemployment and consequent unrest created if these unprofitable companies collapse. Most importantly, the political changes of the past decades have left them as the principal institutional support of the Communist Party (even more so than the army, whose power makes it a potential threat), and the party therefore is reluctant to change policies and endanger its own survival.

I.

Tourism

Since the early 1970s the tight restrictions on travel to China have been gradually lifted. In 1979 the Chinese government established a five-year plan for the purpose of developing tourism; the plan called for constructing new hotels and restaurants across the country and training personnel to receive a rapidly increasing number of visitors. In 1995 some 46.4 million tourists visited China, over 36 million of them overseas Chinese, bringing in some US$4.6 billion.

J.

Energy

China is one of the world’s leading producers of electricity, with an estimated output of 1,807 billion kWh in 2003. Yet, electricity production is not sufficient to meet needs, especially in the cities, and development has been given high priority by the government.

Hydroelectric power accounts for around 15 per cent of China’s annual electrical output; most of the remaining power is thermally generated in coal- and oil-burning installations. The country’s main hydroelectric stations are at Liujia Xia on the Huang He in Gansu, Danjiangkou on the Han River in Hubei, Gongchu on the Dadu River in Sichuan, and one on the Xin’an Jiang in Zhejiang. Numerous other large-scale generating stations under construction include one on the Yangzi River, just below the Yangzi Gorges. New coal-fired stations include several built adjacent to the large coalfields of North China. A nuclear energy plant exists in Shanghai.

China’s water power resources are more plentiful than those of any other country. A notable feature of the Chinese power industry has been the construction of small, local power-generating plants. Local governments and rural communes have harnessed hydroelectric potential as an integral part of their water conservation programmes, especially in the south, where precipitation is great and rivers are swift and often have steep gradients. A number of small methane-fired plants, using rubbish as fuel, came on line in the 1980s.

K.

Currency and Banking

The monetary unit of China is the yuan of 100 fen (7.38 yuan equalled US$1; early 2008). The banking system is completely under government control: recent proposals to increase its independence are unlikely to make headway in the face of the Communist Party’s intolerance of alternative centres of power. The People’s Bank of China is the central financial institution and the sole source of currency issue. China’s international accounts and foreign currency arrangements, however, are primarily the concern of the Bank of China, which has nearly 50 foreign branches, including offices in Hong Kong S. A. R., Singapore, and London. In addition, China has three other major banks: the China International Trust and Investment Corporation, which raises funds for investment in China and arranges joint ventures in China and overseas; the People’s Construction Bank of China, which deals with funds for basic construction; and the Agricultural Bank of China, which is responsible for making loans to the rural sector of the economy.

L.

Commerce and Trade

The circulation of commodities in China, formerly determined by central planning, is now to a large extent determined by market forces. Between 1978 and 1984 the share of retail sales controlled by the state sector declined from 90.5 per cent to 45.8 per cent; during the same period, collectives increased their share from 7.4 per cent to 39.6 per cent, and private enterprises from 2.1 per cent to 14.6 per cent.

Until the late 1970s the raw materials and equipment needed by state-owned enterprises were generally not purchased as commodities but were provided to these enterprises by the government. After production was completed, the products were submitted to the government for distribution. The consumer goods needed by the rural population were distributed by the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, a state-run operation. Such essential items as food grains, oil, meat, sugar, and cotton fabric were rationed because they were relatively scarce and because low fixed prices had to be ensured for everyone. Food grains were distributed to rural households by production teams as the major part of remuneration for work performed.

Since 1979, state-owned enterprises have been free to obtain some of their supplies and dispose of a part of their product on the market; wider use of advertisement as a source of information has also been evident. In urban centres, this reorganization of commerce has brought about a rapid growth of collectively and individually owned businesses, such as restaurants, teahouses, inns, hairdressing establishments, photography studios, tailor shops, and all types of repair and maintenance services. Rural markets have been reopened where individual households are allowed to dispose of their surplus products or to purchase supplies.

In 1979 China relaxed certain trade restrictions, paving the way for increases in the relatively small foreign investment and trade activity. By 2004 exports totalled about US$593 billion and imports about US$561 billion. By 1994 over US$39 billion of foreign investment had entered China, and foreign-funded firms were responsible for over 27 per cent of its exports. The principal Chinese exports included crude and refined petroleum, cotton fabric, silk, clothing, rice, pork, frozen shrimps, and tea. Among the major imports were machinery, steel products, other metals, cars, synthetics, agricultural chemicals, rubber, wheat, and ships. Japan is China’s chief trading partner, followed by the United States. China also has extensive trade relations with countries such as Germany and Singapore, and the island of Taiwan. Trade relations with the United States were imperiled in 1993 when the United States threatened not to renew China’s “most favoured nation” (MFN) trading status unless human rights conditions in China improved. However, in May 1994 the United States renewed China’s MFN designation, even though the Chinese government had made little progress towards improving its human rights record.

M.

Labour

The Chinese labour force is estimated at more than 781 million people. Unemployment and underemployment have caused labour productivity and income to be depressed, problems directly linked to the large size and rapid growth rate of the population. In the early 1980s about one-third of the population was 15 years of age or younger; this guarantees that a large number of young people will enter the labour force each year. Although about 60 per cent of the labour force consists of agricultural workers, the government’s job allocation programme does not include rural areas, and here new labour has to be absorbed by the collective and the individual household economy, in areas where recent economic growth has been well behind the rich coastal regions. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions counts almost 104 million members.

N.

Transport

The railway is the most important mode of transport in China, moving some two thirds of the passenger traffic and half the freight traffic. Since 1949 the total length of railways has doubled, and it now exceeds 62,200 km (38,649 mi). Most of the network uses diesel or steam locomotives. Newly constructed lines have extended the two major north-south routes (Guangzhou-Beijing and Shanghai-Beijing) into the north-east, Mongolia and Russia, and the south-east. The major east-west line, from Lianyungang to Lanzhou, has been linked to Ürümqi in the far north-west. The new lines have provided a dense network in the heavily populated and economically important regions of north-eastern, central, and south-western China. The Lanzhou-Lhasa (Tibet) line, the world’s highest railway, has made all provinces and autonomous regions of China accessible by rail. In October 2000 the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) approved plans for the Trans-Asia Railway Project, a 5,513-km (3,420-mi) rail link, costing US$2.5 billion. The link, which is scheduled for completion in 2006, will connect six ASEAN countries (Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) with Kunming, in Yunnan Province.

Chinese roads and highways have grown from a pre-1949 length of about 80,000 km (49,710 mi), which only provided connections between the coastal treaty ports and the immediate hinterlands, to a system of about 1,930,543 km (1,199,584 mi). Roads now connect Beijing to the capitals of all provinces and autonomous regions, as well as to major ports and railway centres. The network also extends into rural areas, making most localities accessible by roads. Motorized public transport is well developed in urban centres, and the bicycle is widely used for travelling short distances. The 1.5 million motor vehicles produced annually in China, however, do not meet the needs of an increasingly mobile population, and in 1994 the government announced plans to raise production to 3 million units annually by the year 2000. There were in 1995 around 3.5 million cars and 5.6 million larger vehicles in China, or 1 vehicle per 131 people.

China has more than 110,000 km (68,350 mi) of navigable inland waterways. Inland navigation accounts for one-fifth of the goods shipped within China, and its potential for increased development is great. The major inland waterway is the Yangzi River, the fourth-largest river in the world. Some 18,000 km (11,000 mi) of the Yangzi River and its tributaries can be travelled by steamers; Chongqing, Yichang, and Wuhan are its major ports. The busiest inland waterway, however, is the Grand Canal, which extends from Beijing to Hangzhou. The southern portion of the canal is integrated into the local systems of canals and lakes, making such cities as Suzhou, Wuxi, and Changzhou important inland ports. In parts of rural China irrigation and drainage canals are used by peasants as inland waterways.

China’s long coastline and the location of some of the most important industrial cities on the coast have long made coastal shipping an important mode of transport. The increased scale of international shipping is a more recent phenomenon, peaking before World War II and again becoming important in the 1970s. China has a merchant fleet of about 1,800 larger ships that visit ports in more than 100 countries. Most of these ships were built in China.

Air transport in China received a boost with the purchase of three jumbo airliners in 1979 and the opening of a new international airport in Beijing in 1980; since then, air travel between China and the rest of the world has intensified. The national airline is Air China, and there are numerous smaller carriers, mostly regional. Internal flights now link more than 90 cities, many of which are in western China.

O.

Communications

China’s Communist government placed great emphasis on radio when it began gathering support for its new policies in the early 1950s. Loudspeakers were placed in commune fields and workplaces from the 1950s to the 1970s, and the people gradually became accustomed to continual media presence in their lives; by 1997 more than 417 million radio receivers were in use. Between 1977 and 1981 the number of privately owned television sets in China grew from 630,000 to 7 million; overall, an estimated 380 million television receivers were in use in 2000. In Beijing, two sets for every three households is the urban average. A symbol of the freer economic climate of the 1980s was the inauguration of commercial radio broadcasting in 1986, in southern China. Though officially banned in 1993, satellite television receivers are widespread, serving to disseminate outside news and popular culture.

The Central People’s Television Station was established in Beijing in 1958; in the same year the first Chinese television sets were manufactured in the Tianjin State Radio Plant. Beijing has augmented the standard programming of the Central People’s Television Station with two additional channels, and many cities or provinces have their own local stations. The average composition of programming is 20 per cent news; 25 per cent sports, service, science, and programmes for children and specialized audiences; and 55 per cent entertainment.

China’s earliest international broadcasting station was established in 1950 with programmes in seven languages and was named Radio Beijing. In 1978 the name was changed to the International Radio of the People’s Republic of China, and its broadcast schedule was expanded to 38 foreign languages. More than 200 daily newspapers have a combined circulation exceeding 50 million. The most significant newspaper is the Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), published in Beijing. It is under the direct control of the Communist Party’s Central Committee. Its daily circulation is about five million. Most of the news comes from Xinhua (New China News Agency). Foreign observers consider this a primary source for news of China. Other major newspapers and periodicals include Guangming Ribao (Kuangming Daily), Jiefang Ribao (Liberation Daily), Renmin Huabao (People’s Pictorial), and Tiyu Kexue (Sports Science), and China Daily, an English-language newspaper with a circulation of around 370,000.

China has an active publishing industry. The government’s drive for universal education has resulted in heightened public interest in both fiction and non-fiction, as well as in the translated works of foreign authors. Publishing is controlled through fixed allocations of ISBN numbers for approved titles; though in practice the allocations are often sold by state-approved publishers to black-market houses for less approved and more popular works, such as pornography.

In September 2000 China had 16.9 million Internet users, and the availability and accessibility of the Internet is increasing rapidly. In November 2000 the China Internet Network Information Centre announced the introduction of a facility that enabled Chinese characters to be used in Web site addresses. Previously Web site addresses had only been written in Roman letters and numbers, which had restricted access for users who were not familiar with the Roman alphabet. Analysts predicted that the change would mean that China would have more Internet subscribers than any other country by 2004. The Internet and content of Web sites in China is subject to strict government regulations. Companies operating Web sites are required to obtain government approval before news bulletins are posted, and to only use news reports generated by state controlled newspapers such as the People's Daily.

Postal and telecommunications services are controlled by the government. Telephone service extends to virtually all localities, but few households have their own telephones. In 1995 about 58 million telephones were in use.

V.

Government

China has had an organized government since the establishment of the Shang dynasty about 1726 bc, making it one of the oldest nations on Earth. Historically, the political control of the large Chinese population was administered by a series of strong local governments and by a central capital and court of varying political significance. Since the Chinese Communists came to power on October 1, 1949, a steady shift towards a centralized national government, based in Beijing, took place. This unity was achieved in large part through the personal authority and leadership of Mao and the governmental structure established by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This modern structure was initially given shape in China’s first constitution, promulgated in 1954, and revised in the constitution of 1975. A third constitution was issued in 1978 (becoming effective January 1, 1980); this constitution reflected the changes in government policies following Mao’s death. A new constitution was adopted in 1982.

This constitutional structure, however, is combined with a Communist Party apparatus effectively beyond constitutional or legal control, and a leadership style which operates through informal and hidden contacts and clientage rather than open and accountable channels. The bloody suppression of the Tiananmen Square protest in 1989 was in breach of the Chinese constitution, while Deng Xiaoping was for long the most powerful figure in the Chinese government without holding any official post.

A.

Executive and Legislature

By the 1982 constitution, the president is elected to a five-year term by the National People’s Congress. The office of the president is largely ceremonial, though the current General Secretary of the CCP is also the president. Executive powers rest with the State Council, which is headed by the premier and is charged with administering various areas of state business. The command of the national military belongs to the Central Military Commission. Generally, the positions of greatest authority in the Chinese government are those of premier and general secretary of the Communist Party; authority relates very much to the individual personalities in such positions. However, Deng Xiaoping, who latterly did not hold any official post, was long the most powerful figure in the Chinese government.

The National People’s Congress is the highest organ of state power in China. Its members are chosen for five-year terms by a series of indirect elections; each province elects one representative (or deputy) to the congress for each 400,000 people, with at least ten deputies representing each province. All candidates are either members of the Chinese Communist Party or approved by it. The Fifth National People’s Congress, elected in 1978, consisted of 3,497 deputies, with workers and peasants accounting for nearly half the membership. The Sixth National People’s Congress, which convened in June 1983, had 2,978 delegates. The seventh Congress convened in March 1988, the eighth in March 1993, the ninth in March 1998, and the tenth in March 2003. In 2003, the Congress had 2,946 delegates.

The National People’s Congress is empowered to pass laws, amend the constitution, and to approve the national budget and economic plans. It also has the power to appoint and remove members of the State Council (Cabinet), which is the highest component in the structure of the Chinese government.

In practice, however, the National People’s Congress has little real power. Because of its unwieldy size, the congress meets only irregularly to conduct required business. While the congress is not in session, a Standing Committee, elected from its membership, acts in its place. The Standing Committee also represents the congress in a variety of government functions, including receiving foreign envoys and ratifying or nullifying treaties with foreign governments.

The State Council is the central governmental body of the National People’s Congress. It is led by the Chinese premier and vice-premiers. Various ministries, commissions, and agencies are responsible to the Council.

B.

Political Parties

According to the constitution of 1982, China is a socialist dictatorship of the proletariat led by the Communist Party and based on a united front that includes other democratic parties. In practice, the Communist Party fully orchestrates national political activity. The vast majority of significant governmental offices are filled by party members.

The Chinese Communist Party has more than 40 million members (1995, although this represents only about 4.5 per cent of the total population) and is the world’s largest Communist Party. The Party held its first National Party Congress in 1921, when it had only 57 members; its membership had grown to 10 million by 1956. The organization and functions of the Communist Party are set forth in the party constitution; the sixth party constitution was approved in 1982 at the 12th Congress. It is notable for de-emphasizing the authority of the party leader, whose title was changed from chairman to general secretary. The National Party Congress is the highest party organ. The Central Committee, elected by the National Party Congress, elects the Politburo and its Standing Committee, as well as the party general secretary. Functional authority over the party machinery resides with the Politburo and the Standing Committee.

Several minor political parties and mass organizations are active in China. Among these are the China Democratic League, the All-China Athletic Federation, and the All-China Woman’s Federation, but the only one with any potential for political influence is the Communist Youth League, with about 50 million members in the early 1990s. This organization plays a major role in recruiting youth who wish to prepare for membership in the Communist Party after the age of 18.

C.

Judiciary

The Chinese have had a tradition of judicial process that differs considerably from that of Western nations. Civil order has historically been the responsibility of the family, the neighbourhood, or the local government. Generally speaking, the Chinese judicial process has been more concerned with understanding the context of an individual crime in an effort to redress its causes than with creating a highly formal judicial system. Since the promulgation of the 1978 constitution, however, China has made a considerable effort to align its judicial and legal systems with Western models; the 1982 constitution guarantees the right of legal defence. The Chinese legal system has three components: a court system; a public security administration, or police component; and an office of the procurator, or the public prosecutor. The highest organ is the Supreme People’s Court, which ensures observance of the constitution and of regulations of the State Council. Offices of all three judicial branches are found at the provincial, county, and municipal levels in higher, intermediate, and low courts, and the public security offices function at the local neighbourhood level.

One reason for China’s reluctance to develop a more formal legal framework is that the Communist Party has acted as an informal mediator between the aggrieved parties in cases of civil wrongdoing. This role has given the party an important function in the day-to-day workings of Chinese society. Resolution of neighbourhood disputes, divorces, family arguments, and minor thefts have been particularly influenced by this type of paralegal mediation, which has supplemented the traditional role of clan or local worthies; the local party secretary is usually the mediator in such cases.

Occasional public trials are highly publicized; among the most prominent of these was the trial of the Gang of Four in 1980 and 1981. The government intends such trials to be instructive to the Chinese public. As the Chinese move towards closer relations with Western nations, pressure to institute a more formal body of legal statutes is increasing, not least because of enforcement of standards of international trade regarding contract, copyright, and so on, is so haphazard and unreliable. This may in turn generate an associated network of lawyers, courtrooms, and more formal legal procedures, though these may be seen as a threat to the power of the Communist Party.

Chinese penology is internationally controversial. Its widespread implementation of the death penalty differs in scale if not in principle from that of other countries, like the United States, where the death sentence is used. China persistently treats as capital crimes certain offences, such as pimping or “hooliganism”, far more lightly punished elsewhere. Also, Chinese use of prisoners’ labour in laogai, or working prisons, has attracted censure from many human rights monitors.

D.

Local Government

Local government in China is organized into three major administrative tiers: provinces, counties, and administrative towns and villages. At the first level, directly below the central government, are the 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, and 4 directly governed municipalities—Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing. Hong Kong S. A. R. and Macau S. A. R. are self-governing special administrative regions with their own constitutions. At the second level are prefectures, counties, and municipalities; at the third are municipal subdivisions, administrative towns, and villages. At each of these levels are found special autonomous entities in areas inhabited primarily by non-Chinese minorities.

From the late 1950s to the 1970s, in most areas administrative towns and villages were replaced by communes as the basic administrative units and the communes were further divided into production brigades. In 1985 a five-year campaign to dismantle 56,000 rural communes was completed. After 1984 a continuing reform programme began to transfer administration of counties from prefectures to cities given similar rank and people’s congresses, in order to generate rural economic growth under urban leadership.

Although each layer of governmental structure is responsible to the layer above it, much authority has generally been vested in small local units. The promise of such an arrangement was important in the success of the Chinese Communists in 1949. The government has expended considerable energy to continue to have such local government provide a forum for discussion of and input into the governing process in China. Government at village level is now handled by a highly successful system of free local elections.

The thrust of government policy in the 1980s was to delegate authority to promote growth. In 1983 seven cities (Chongqing, Wuhan, Shenyang, Dalian, Guangzhou, Harbin, and Xi’an) were freed from provincial jurisdiction and left answering directly to central authority; Shanghai gained similar status in 1990. The provinces, with their own people’s congresses since 1980, likewise have considerable autonomy, and have increasingly been able to dilute or disregard any central dictates as they choose. The economic reforms of the 1980s and the slackening of central control have left many local authorities at lower levels far more concerned with pursuing wealth, even by peddling influence, than political action, and have loosened curbs on arbitrary rule by local blocs.

E.

Health and Welfare

The Communist Party’s social services goals were a major element in the party’s rise to power. Major public welfare programmes have involved housing, vocational opportunities, health care, retirement benefits, and the assurance of a paid funeral.

Among the most impressive gains have been those in the area of health care. In 1949 the life expectancy in China was 45 years; by 2008 the figure had risen to about 71 years for men and 75 years for women. Infant mortality in 2008 was 21 deaths per 1,000 live births. During the same period the number of medical doctors increased greatly: despite an overall rapid population increase, China in 2005 had 1 doctor for every 662 inhabitants, as opposed to a ratio of 1 to 27,000 in 1949, and 2.83 million hospital beds. Clinics are found at the village and district level, and hospitals, in most cases, at the city and county level. For a year’s coverage at the local clinic level, the cost per individual is equal to approximately two and a half days’ labour; when a patient visits the clinic, a nominal fee is levied. For more comprehensive treatment at municipal or provincial medical facilities, the cost is usually borne by the work unit or the government. In 1994, 3.5 per cent of national output was spent on health care.

One of the most profound recent changes in health services has involved the renewed interest in traditional Chinese medicine—local herbal medications, folk medicine, and acupuncture, for example. Such treatment is now more common in China than is Western-style medicine. In rural areas, as much as four-fifths of the medication utilized may be herbal. A paramedical corps of so-called barefoot doctors plays an important role in bringing health services to the people. These personnel are trained in hygiene, preventive medicine, acupuncture, and routine treatment of common diseases. They operate in rural areas where both Chinese and Western-style doctors are scarce. For millions of peasants the barefoot doctor is their first encounter with anyone trained in health services.

China has promoted mass campaigns in the health-care field. Efforts to promote child immunizations, eradicate schistosomiasis, and diminish venereal disease have all been given widespread governmental promotion. Highly successful campaigns have been waged against tuberculosis, malaria, filariasis, and other diseases that were formerly widespread. The government has vacillated in its support of family planning through birth-control programmes. Since the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s, however, the government has strengthened its encouragement of birth control. A one-child family policy is specifically advocated by the constitution. The government also provides benefits for disability, maternity, injury, and old age.

F.

Defence

The 1982 Chinese constitution vests supreme command of the armed forces in the Central Military Commission. The country’s military force is the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), so named in 1946; the army, navy, and air force are all components of the PLA. In 2004 the PLA was 2 million strong and as such was the world’s largest military force. It is, however, more a conscript army than a highly sophisticated armed force, with almost 1.3 million of its troops being conscripts. Conscription is compulsory, but only around 10 per cent of those eligible are called up. Included in the PLA’s strength are the navy with 255,000 members, including about 27,000 in the naval air force and another 5,000 in the marines; and the air force with 400,000 members. The army is supported by a national militia of some 12 million and by a security force of some 800,000.

The navy has more than 1,700 vessels, including more than 60 submarines, one of them armed with nuclear missiles. The air force has an estimated 3,740 combat aircraft. China has made significant progress in the development of nuclear weapons, but in comparison with those of the United States or Russia, its arsenal is small. The PLA also plays a significant economic role, especially through investment in new industrial and commercial ventures, production and in major construction efforts such as dams, irrigation projects, and land reclamation schemes. The PLA virtually ran the nation during the most chaotic years of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and units suppressed the Tiananmen Square protest in June 1989.

G.

International Organizations

China is a member of the United Nations (UN), and holds a seat on the UN Security Council. In November 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO).

VI.

History

According to Chinese tradition, the Chinese people originated in the Huang He (Hwang Ho or Yellow River) valley. The legends tell of a creator, Pan Gu (P’an Ku), who was succeeded by a series of heavenly, terrestrial, and human sovereigns. Archaeological evidence is scant, although remains of Homo erectus, found near Beijing, have been dated back 460,000 years. Rice was grown in eastern China around 5500 bc, and about five centuries later an agricultural society developed in the Huang He valley. There is strong evidence of two so-called pottery cultures, the Yangshao culture (c. 3950-c. 1700 bc), and the Longshan culture (c. 2000-c. 1850 bc).

A.

The Earliest Dynasties

Tradition names the Xia (c. 1994-c. 1766 bc) as the first hereditary Chinese dynasty, which ended only when a Xia ruler fell into debauchery, mistreated his people, and was subsequently overthrown. However, there is no archaeological record to confirm this story; the Shang is the earliest dynasty for which reliable historical evidence exists.