Questions tagged [china]
Generally refers to the country referred to as the People's Republic of China, a country in E Asia. With a surface area of 3,691,502 sq. mi. (9,560,990 sq. km). The current Capital is Beijing.
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After the First Opium war, Why didn't Britain demand large amounts of territory from China?
The first Opium war was a total British victory. With such a total British victory, and with the expansionist ideals that existed in Britain, forcing China into an unconditional surrender seemed to be ...
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Did Harry Dexter White obstruct a proposed $200 million loan to Nationalist China in 1943 as a U.S. Treasury department official?
Another example of White acting as an agent of influence for the
Soviet Union was his obstruction of a proposed $200 million loan to
Nationalist China in 1943, which he had been officially instructed ...
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What led Chiang Kai-shek to do a U-turn against the Japanese?
The Japanese feel that Western countries are unfair in imposing the status quo on Japan and calling it “peace.” Their whole conception
of diplomatic machinery and collective security is that it is ...
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How did the First Emperor of Qin "burn the books" prior to the invention of paper?
The first emperor of China, Qin Shihuang, is recorded as burning books (among other things). At the same time, the invention of paper is generally ascribed to the Han Dynasty, i.e., the dynasty after ...
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Did Deng Xiaoping really break his leg playing billiards?
I am reading the biography of Deng Xiaoping by Ezra Vogel. In the biography, it mentions that Deng Xiaoping once broke his leg playing billiards. I personally find that highly unlikely. Billiards is ...
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How fast and how far could one travel, by means of horse relay posts, in ancient China in 1500CE?
I'm trying to find out how people used to travel by horse, when they had to go to a very distant territory.
I have done research on horseback riding, horses and relay stations.
I found out that the ...
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Why is it said that the Qin dynasty was the first to unite China?
I have often heard that the Qin dynasty was the first to unite China. For example, Wikipedia says:
Qin Shi Huang, or Shihuangdi, was the founder of the Qin dynasty, and first emperor of a unified ...
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Why did Filipinos form the guards of the Ever victorious Army?
The Ever Victorious Army was formed under the Chinese imperial Authority and the commercial counters in Shanghai. It was formed by Frederick Ward, an American. During a time (I could not identify the ...
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Have sanctions ever stopped a nation from starting or continuing a war?
I am asking about nations that would be considered “Great Powers”. It is my understanding that the U.S. oil embargo on Imperial Japan did nothing to stop Japan’s war in China and actually caused them ...
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How exactly did the government work with very large empires? [closed]
In planning my fictional worlds, I have come to wonder how exactly large empires worked, the main question being, how did they manage to keep control over such a large space in a manner that allowed ...
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What did the US state department do in the Chinese Civil War from 1945–1949?
James J. Drummey writes in The Real McCarthy Record:
It was also during the mid-to-late Forties that communist sympathizers
in the State Department played a key role in the subjugation of
mainland ...
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Are Chinese and Iranian "blocky" writing styles related?
Both China and Iran have character styles that are characterized by being (at least approximately) based on a square raster and by "filling up the plane" in the sense that if you take any ...
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Did the Soviet Union or China participate in the light bulb cartel? If not, in what ways did they differ and how long did their bulbs last?
The Phoebus cartel was a well known scheme to fix the standard lifespan of incandescent lightbulbs that arose at the beginning of the 20th century.
See Spectrum.ieee.org.
Although not implemented for ...
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How do ancient Chinese "mirrors" such as these in the National Museum function?
In the National Museum of China we find "mirrors" from various Chinese dynasties:
A photo I took of "mirrors" at the National Museum of China in Beijing
Notably, these mirrors ...
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What engineers chose the locations and oversaw runway construction for the airfields that the Flying Tigers used?
The section of NPR's The Flying Tigers: How a group of Americans ended up fighting for China in WW II includes the following:
Burma was central to keeping China supplied
The AVG's base was in Kunming ...
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What were Lord Macartney's original words about Chinese under the Qianlong Emperor's brutal regime in 18th century?
This is a follow-up question of Where can I find modern account of Macartney Embassy to China (1792–1794)?
After Lord Macartney returned from his mission to the Qianlong Emperor, he made a poignant ...
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Where can I find modern account of Macartney Embassy to China (1792–1794)?
Macartney Embassy was the first British diplomatic mission to China. It was such an important but little-known event. I read quite some Chinese materials but not many English materials. The wiki ...
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How was the term "Mandate of Heaven" used during the rise and fall of Chinese dynasties?
The Mandate of Heaven (Chinese: 天命; pinyin: Tiānmìng; Wade–Giles: T'ien-ming; lit. 'Heaven's will') is a Chinese political philosophy that was used in ancient and imperial China to justify the rule of ...
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When and how did the Han ethnic group become by far the biggest ethnic group in China?
China is a very ethnic homogenous country, one ethnic group, the Han make up 92 % of China's population.
Huaxia refers to a confederation of tribes—living along the Yellow
River—who were the ...
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What in Confucianism reduced the importance of the clan structure and made these societies more secular?
Looking at the Inglehart–Welzel cultural map of the world we note that the west in general, and protestant countries in particular, are individualistic and secular, and that these are the values most ...
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Why didn't the eunuch faction improve stability in Imperial China?
A lot of the instability in hereditary monarchies occurred when the ruler was mentally deficient, reclusive, or otherwise unwilling or incapable of governing.
On the hand, the powerful eunuchs in ...
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Why did China decide to support Poland in 1956, but not Hungary?
In 1956, the fate of the Eastern Block was pretty uncertain: The Khrushchev Thaw was causing the satellite countries to rethink their place in the world, as de-Stalinization was bringing the promise ...
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Why were Chinese and Soviet five year plans shorter than five years? [closed]
In the Chinese and Soviet systems of economic planning, they famously used "five year plans". However, most if not all of these plans apparently lasted shorter than five years. For example, ...
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Why wasn't awareness of Australia more widespread in pre-colonial Asia?
It has been rather well-established that (some) Asians were in contact with Australia before European colonialism, possibly even centuries before. Yet the awareness of Australia didn't seem to spread ...
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Why was the US so pro-China and so anti-Japan before WW2?
There is little doubt that the US embargoes on Japan pushed an already aggressive Japan towards Pearl Harbor. Japanese Navy doctrine had already been contemplating a conflict with the US and this ...
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Why didn’t the USSR and CCP reinstate ties after Mao’s death?
With Hua Guofeng and especially Deng Xiapoing’s rise to power, why wasn’t there a thaw and rapprochement in their ties, as the main divide was the rift in ideology between the USSR and Mao’s Stalinist ...
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On what basis did Mao denounce Confucianism?
I have had three view points already about the organization named Revolutionary Rebel Liaison Station to Annihilate the Kong Family Business and Establish the Absolute Authority of Mao Zedong Thought ...
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Why didn't Chiang mention technological self-reliance?
In China's Destiny & Chinese Economic Theory, Chiang Kai-Shek wrote that:
The two most important ways to understand and utilize man's nature are: First, to preserve the inherited ethics of the ...
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What size was the most widely distributed version of Mao Zedong's "Little Red Book"?
Quotations From Chairman Mao, known in the West as "the Little Red Book", was printed in China in several different sizes, of which the most popular was a small size that according to many ...
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Was there and if so what was a northern silk road route from Khazaria to China?
From the reading I had done in various sources through the years, I understood that possible silk road routes from Khazaria to China were:
Northern: Atil - Tashkent - Dunhuang - Chang'an
Central: ...
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Why wasn't Mao purged after the failure of the Great Leap Forward?
In 1958, Mao Zedong launched the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to forcibly collectivise Chinese agriculture and industrialise the country within just a few years. This involved the use of ...
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Did drawbacks of egalitarianism or mismanagement cause the rural famine in the Great Leap Forward?
In China "大锅饭" (communal dining in English) implies egalitarianism and slack of people, which is the premise of the statement that the famine is partly due to the laziness of the people. As ...
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What are some inventions from the Chinese Han Dynasty? [closed]
I am researching about the Chinese Han Dynasty, and I was looking at some inventions they made. I have a list of them right now that include the kite, endless chain for irrigation, the iron plow, ...
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What are the flags in this Yellow Peril Cartoon from Italy?
Can somebody help me to identify the different flags in this Italian Cartoon from 1900?
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Had the Chinese leadership considered the famine in Soviet Union in 1930s before starting the Great Leap Forward?
It was strange that the collectivization in the Soviet Union led to the Soviet famine of 1932-33 and the history repeated itself in 1959-61 in China.
So far as I know the Soviet Union helped the ...
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Why did Mao use political mobilization to prevent inefficiency and slack? [closed]
China just followed the Soviet Union model and inevitably encountered the same problems that socialist countries all suffered in the 1950s and 1960s. That is the lack of incentives of people and the ...
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Why did China not become a democracy to cure involution? [closed]
I am new to politics-related questions, then please be kind if I am not asking a good question here(from your perspective). To get rid of being caught and involved in trouble I cannot not post this ...
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Why did United States choose conflict with Japan over China? [closed]
Why did United States choose conflict with Japan over China ?
Especially from 1937 (2nd Sino-Japan war) compared with 1894 (1st Sino-Japan war which basically were an conflict about influence and ...
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Why was the Tea Horse Route through Tibet less prevalent than the Silk Road route through Tarim Basin, for contact between China and India?
The two major travellers to India, Faxian and Xuanzang visited India from the circuitous western route, while the third one Yijing travelled by sea. Xuanzang described hardships in his journey, and ...
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How should a Westerner visualise Chinese civilisation under the various dynasties? [closed]
I have a decent knowledge of European history (if I say so myself!) but, like many Englishmen, my grasp of Chinese history is very poor, and, over the past few months, I've taken some modest steps ...
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How did Taiwan participate in the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58?
Wikipedia's International Geophysical Year begins:
The International Geophysical Year (IGY; French: Année géophysique internationale) was an international scientific project that lasted from 1 July ...
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Were Korea and Tibet's relationship with Qing China similar?
Korea (Joseon) and Tibet both paid tribute to the Qing Empire, while maintaining internal autonomy. However, Chinese Nationalists were happy to support the independence of Korea, but not that of Tibet....
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Did China repay Soviet grain aid?
The Sino-Soviet rift/split is a complicated issue. But there can be little doubt that it was complete by mid 1963, when the «Polemics on the General Line» were released by the Chinese Communist Party.
...
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Why did the USSR support the PRC entry into the UN?
In 1971, the USSR (and satellites) voted in favor of UN Resolution 2758, which recognized the People's Republic of China (PRC) as "the only legitimate representative of China to the United ...
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What incentives were there for Soviet and Chinese politicians to try climb to the top when there was so much history of deposing their own? [closed]
USSR had 1936-1938 Great Purge, 1941 Red Army purges, Leningrad affair. Beria was executed. Nikita Khrushchev, Zhukov, Podgorny were ousted.
In China, Hua Goufeng was ousted, Zhao Ziyang house ...
user8309
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How did China deal with the Black Death during the second plague pandemic?
As far as I know, Europeans quarantined people. Sometimes neighbors sent food, and some people checked and marked houses infected by the Black Death. Sometimes corpses were burned in a mass pit, and ...
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Why did the Spanish government award a decoration to Chiang Kai-Shek?
In 1936 the republican government granted Chiang the Order of Isabella the Catholic.1 Why did they do that?
The Wikipedia article on Chiang is where I got this from.
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Were the commentaries and subcommentaries part of the Tang Code?
Are the commentaries and subcommentaries in Wallace Johnson's translation of the Tang Code (Princeton University Press) written by Wallace Johnson or are they part of the original text of the Code?
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Where was Mao Zedong during the Japanese surrender in Zhijiang (芷江) at the end of WWII in 1945?
Timeline for context:
9 August, 1945: atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
15 August: the Japanese announced their acceptance of the unconditional surrender (Potsdam Proclamation).
21-23 August: the Japanese ...
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Which ranks of concubine resided in the gong and yuan respectively?
Background/ TLDR
Having at long last gained access to this source by a certain Mr. Woo and with the support of the answers to my previous question I can finally gather some statistics on successions ...
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