China

The earliest documented civilisation in the territory of present-day China emerged along the Yellow River, where Neolithic cultures such as Yangshao and Longshan gave way to the semi-legendary Xia and the historically attested Shang dynasty (roughly the sixteenth to eleventh centuries BCE), known for oracle-bone writing and bronze ritual vessels. The succeeding Zhou dynasty introduced the political doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven and presided over the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, during which Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism took shape. In 221 BCE the state of Qin unified the warring kingdoms under Qin Shi Huang, standardising script, currency, and weights, and beginning the long imperial tradition that would define Chinese statecraft for more than two millennia.

The Han dynasty (202 BCE to 220 CE) consolidated this imperial model, expanded westward along what became the Silk Road, and adopted Confucianism as state orthodoxy. After centuries of division, the Sui and Tang dynasties reunified the realm, with the Tang (618 to 907) presiding over a cosmopolitan high point in poetry, Buddhism, and trade. The Song dynasty advanced commerce, printing, and gunpowder technology before falling to the Mongol Yuan in 1279. The native Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644) restored Han rule, sponsored the Zheng He maritime voyages, and rebuilt the Great Wall, while the Manchu-led Qing dynasty (1644 to 1912) brought the empire to its greatest territorial extent, incorporating Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang.

The nineteenth century saw the Qing weakened by internal rebellions, including the Taiping, and by foreign pressure during the Opium Wars, which forced a series of unequal treaties and the cession of Hong Kong to Britain. Reform efforts proved insufficient, and the 1911 Xinhai Revolution ended imperial rule. The Republic of China was proclaimed in 1912 under Sun Yat-sen, but central authority quickly fragmented into warlord rule. The Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek nominally reunified the country in 1928, only to face Japanese invasion from 1931 and full-scale war from 1937, fought as part of the wider Second World War.

After Japan's defeat in 1945, civil war between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party resumed and ended with Communist victory in 1949. Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, while the Republic of China government withdrew to Taiwan. The early decades of the People's Republic were marked by land reform, the Great Leap Forward (1958 to 1962), and the Cultural Revolution (1966 to 1976). Following Mao's death, Deng Xiaoping launched the Reform and Opening policy from 1978, dismantling collective agriculture, permitting private enterprise, and integrating the country into global markets, a course that produced sustained rapid economic growth.

In the post-Cold War period China resumed sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997 and Macau in 1999 under "one country, two systems" arrangements, joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, and emerged as the world's second-largest economy. Successive leaderships under Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and from 2012 Xi Jinping have emphasised Communist Party primacy, anti-corruption campaigns, and a more assertive foreign policy. The present-day state is a unitary single-party socialist republic governed by the Chinese Communist Party under the 1982 constitution, with the National People's Congress as its highest legislative organ and the State Council as its central government.