World Literature Mr. Nurenberg CHINA. China is the largest country in the world by population (about...

World LiteratureMr. Nurenberg

CHINA

China is the largest country in the world by population (about 1.5 billion people!) and is one of the five largest countries in the world by land.

The Chinese government recognizes at least 54 ethnic groups. The majority group, Han Chinese (92%), speak one of seven major language dialects (further divided into many sub-dialects)

Mandarin, the official Chinese language, is the most spoken language in the world (almost 900 million speakers, compared to 340 million English speakers worldwide). Mandarin is spoken in 16 countries.

Two other Chinese dialects, Wu Chinese and Yue Chinese, are the 12th and 14th most spoken languages in the world, respectively.

Written Chinese is a pictographic language - characters represent concepts as well as just sounds.

Written Chinese is a pictographic language - characters represent concepts as well as just sounds.

The Chinese invented the printing press hundreds of years before Europeans did. In fact, the oldest surviving printed book in the world is Chinese - a Buddhist text printed in 868 AD.

Chinese civilization dates back, by some estimates, 5000 years, making it one of the oldest in the World.

The religions of China include Taoism, Dualism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and dozens of animistic religions.

Officially, China is atheist, due to its Communist government (Communism believes that religion is an obstacle to having an equal, just society).

China is the largest Communist state in the world.

Today China has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.

Some expect it to outperform the United States in the next few years.

China was old when Rome was new. It traded, communicated, and made war with nations all over Asia, Africa, Europe, and even, according to some historians, North and South America.

Since it would be impossible to include all major events in Chinese history from ancient times until the present day, I’ve selected a handful of major figures and events that helped shape Chinese culture into what it is today.

Life for the first inhabitants of China was difficult, full of natural disasters and food shortages. Historical records and narratives suggest that the early Chinese formed a meritocracy, a “Society of Great Harmony”, in which everyone did their part and those who contributed the most were recognized as leaders.

When the people developed agriculture and other technological and societal structures that allowed for surpluses of food, wars began to arise over who could control those surpluses.

According to narratives, around 2000 BC a figure named Huangdi emerges who, through a combination of force and diplomacy, settles the wars and unites the Chinese people as the first emperor (also known as the Yellow Emperor, yellow being the color of farming and plenty)

Huangdi established moral and civil codes that would be the cornerstones of Chinese civilization from then on in.

According to legend, when Huangdi turned 110, a dragon took him up into heaven, where he became one of the 5 most important gods in Ancient Chinese mythology.

By the 2000s BC, leadership in China had become based on heredity, not merit. The sons of Emperors would become the new Emperors…until and unless, of course, a revolution overthrew them, which happened from time to time.

The rule of certain families or groups are referred to as dynasties. The longest, Chou (or Zhou), lasted 800 years.

Dynasties would rise and fall over the next thousand years. As China expanded it fragmented into hundreds of separate states.

The seven largest and most powerful, which eventually went to war with one another, were:

Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei and Qin.

The “Warring States Period” lasted for over 200 years.

Confucius (551-479 BC)

Probably the most highly regarded Chinese philosopher of all time.

He developed a code of ethics that dominated Chinese thought and culture for 2000 years.

His rise to prominence heralds the tradition scholarly officials as the highest class in China, next to the Emperor and his family.

Lao Tzu (500s BC)

Another extremely important Chinese philosopher.

He developed the ideas of Taoism, a complex (yet simple!) philosophy of balance, of “doing but not doing”, of refusing power in order that one attains it.

Confucianism believesthat humans need to follow a definite and intricate social structure, to “know their place” in the scheme of things, in order to prosper.

Confucianism believesthat humans need to follow a definite and intricate social structure, to “know their place” in the scheme of things, in order to prosper.

Taoism believes in avoiding structure…not to break down in anarchy, but to instead align oneself with the “natural” structure of the universe.

Both ideas remain a part of Chinese thought to this very day. Look for each of these ideas in the literature we will be reading.

Emperor Qin Shi Huang united all seven warring Chinese states through skillful warfare and diplomacy, and led China to become the first centralized, multinational empire the world had ever seen.

Although his dynasty did not last long, Qin Shi Huang’s rule created:

•The centralized Chinese bureaucracy

•A mandatory, widespread educational system

•The Great Wall of China (the only man-made object visible from space)

•The terracotta warriors

He also tried to burn all copies of Confucius’ writings and killed many scholars.

Although the next dynasty, the Han Dynasty, un-banned Confucius’ works again, this “Burning of the Books” remains an infamous chapter of Chinese history, a time of political censorship and persecution.

The Han Dynasty led China into a “golden age” of art, literature, sculpture, exploration, and science. Chinese civilization was the first known culture to invent printing, magnetic-aided navigation, gunpowder, and more.

The Chinese were so proud were the Han Dynasty’s accomplishments that the ethnic term for Chinese people is Han.

By the 900s, all of Chinese government becomes aligned with the principles of Confucius. Scholar/officials become the highest rank in society (beneath the Emperor), in the following hierarchy:

Scholars

Farmers

Craftspeople

Merchants

Theoretically, anyone could become a scholar through intensive study and passing strenuous exams, kind of the equivalent of the “SATs”, which then “placed” you in the ranks of the ruling bureaucracy. There were only a limited number of high-ranked “slots”, making competition intense.

Throughout Chinese history, an idea develops, and persists, of China as the Middle Kingdom, the civilized world in the center of lesser, uncivilized, “barbarian” tribes.

Much like in the West, this ethnocentric view of superiority sometimes led to China pursuing its own policies of “colonization”…

…but sometimes colonization happened in reverse. Other cultures, like the Mongols or the Huns, would invade China and take it over…only to get “assimilated” by Chinese culture and essentially become just like the Chinese!

China enters a period in the 1500s and 1600s when it withdraws from world affairs. Other cultures are inferior, the government feels, so why should the Chinese bother to interact with them?

This proves to be a mistake. The handful of European missionaries and merchants who enter China in the 1500s start spreading word of the spices, teas, drugs, etc that China offers…and soon every country wants its own “piece of the action.” China is very reluctant to enter trade agreements, viewing Europeans as irrelevant and inferior…until it’s too late.

When the British grew tired of the heavy taxes the Chinese government placed on trade with them…and when the Chinese tried to halt the sale of opium, which was very profitable for British merchants, the British made war on China.

A combination of bureaucratic corruption that weakened the Chinese government, and British technological superiority, made The Opium Wars disastrous for China. England defeated China and forced it to accept its trade terms.

From there on in, China starts to fall apart. Rival factions within Chinese society start vying for power…and outside, Britain, the United States, and Japan all start using military force to take Chinese resources.

The Chinese fight back, but the colonizing powers easily play different Chinese factions against one another.

One of the most famous uprisings occurred in 1900, The Boxer Rebellion, when the Empress of China attempted to oust all foreign occupiers. An international force of Japanese, Russian, German, American, British, Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops assemble to defeat and “keep China in its place.”

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In 1911, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen rises to prominence in a revolution that unseats the corrupt, pro-Western Qing Dynasty and establishes China as a Republic.


In 1911, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen rises to prominence in a revolution that unseats the corrupt, pro-Western Qing Dynasty and establishes China as a Republic.

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However, infighting between revolutionary and military factions, combined with an invasion and partial conquest by Japan, and the devastation of World War I, keep China in chaos for the next decade.



Sun-Yat Sen’s faction, the Guomindang, starts to come out on top, but China on the world scene becomes victimized by Japanese and Europeans alike.

Sun-Yat Sen enters into negotiations with the Soviet Union, whose pro-worker, anti-Western philosophies appeal to him.




After Sun Yat-Sen dies of cancer in 1925, one of his lieutenants, Chiang Kai-shek, takes over.

Chiang turns his back on the Communists, however, and takes the Guomindang in a different direction.





Those who are still loyal to the Communist cause rally behind Mao Zedong.

At this point, China is now divided between three factions (the Guomindang, the Communists, and the warlords, who opposed Sun Yat-Sen’s revolution to begin with), with three different capitals!



From the late 1920s into the 1930s, although these three forces fought one another many times, Chiang’s Guomindang were coming out on top.



But the Japanese invasion in World War II severely weakened Chiang’s power. Even though the Chinese factions all (sort of) teamed up to fight the Japanese, the Guomindang, as the ruling power, suffered immense losses of resources and of public faith.







During and after the war, Mao and the Communists gained immense popularity with the people, particularly the peasants who had been suffering at the hands of the warlords, the Japanese, the West…Communism seemed to offer them a philosophy that spoke of the underclasses rising up to cast off oppression and create a just society.




The United States and the West backs Chiang’s Guomintang (or Nationalist) government, but despite this, Chiang’s forces fall to Mao’s revolution.

In 1948-49, Mao’s forces take power, and the Nationalists flee to Taiwan, which remains Nationalist to this day.





Mao’s Communist government begins implementing policies designed to help China raise its standard of living, become a world power and compete with the West.





Some of these plans, like achieving universal literacy, are largely successful.





Others, like the Great Leap Forward, prove disastrous. This plan to increase agricultural production backfires, and hundreds of thousands starve due to farm and production mismanagement. Mao actually resigns (sort of … he’s still Party chairman, just not officially Premier) in embarrassment.


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The years that follow see China break its ties with the Soviet Union, aid the North Koreans in the Korean war, and invade and annex Tibet (the Chinese claim Tibet was always a part of them, and needed “liberation” from corrupt religious rulers).



Although the economy recovers from the Great Leap forward, personal freedoms become curtailed, particularly during the Cultural Revolution.



The Cultural Revolution occurred when Mao determined that his successors were improperly running China, and were too influenced by Western, capitalist notions.





In response, he orders a massive, sweeping destruction and rewriting of all texts and artwork that didn’t meet his standards as fitting with the ideals of Communism. Furthermore, people who he determines to be Bourgeois - those with money, status, education - are publicly humiliated and then “sent down” to live as farmers and peasants (“re-education”)



Part of what makes the Cultural Revolution a frightening time is the Red Guard, mainly composed of young people who passionately believe in Mao’s policies. They could, on their own, name anyone as “Bourgeois” and have them arrested and/or sent-down.

They often used this power to settle personal grudges or attain power for themselves.



Although the Cultural Revolution eventually subsided, and many of those who were disgraced were brought back to their old lives, this era caused intense division in the Chinese government. A series of attempted coups, counter-coups, public trials, etc persisted for the next few decades.







The 1980s saw a series of reforms and critical looks at history. Some factions denounced Mao as misguided, while others sought to uphold his legacy. The leaders of the time, including Deng Xiaoping, also pursued policies that incorporated some Western-style economic reforms. China also opened up and improved its relations with the Western World.

Such reforms have come slowly, however. When a large nonviolent student protest rose up in 1989 to accelerate moves towards Democracy, the government sent in the army to forcibly disperse them.







“Hot” issues in China today include reintegrating Hong Kong (which was still run by the British until 1997), relating to Taiwan (still Nationalist and still supported by the USA), fighting an AIDS epidemic and pursing a space program.

China is a nuclear nation and holds a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.



Today, China continues to make slow economic and political reforms, but maintains a strong identity as a Communist nation, informed by 5000 years of history.


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China is the only country in the world with a literature written in one language for more than 3000 years. More people live their lives informed by Chinese stories and authors than any other literary canon.

The past twenty years have seen the beginnings of a translation of many of these works into English.

World LiteratureMr. Nurenberg

CHINA

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