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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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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1answer
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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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307 views
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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1answer
85 views
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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139 views
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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1answer
184 views
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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91 views
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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107 views
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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1answer
99 views
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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86 views
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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189 views
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 ...
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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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174 views
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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1answer
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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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1answer
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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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182 views
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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Where can I find the original “On the New Rules for Destroying Countries” (1901) by Liang Qichao?
From a Crash Course World History video:
In China, Liang Qichao came up with a different source of reform, the Strong State, after the failure of the Boxer Rebellion in 1901, he wrote his awesomely ...
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1answer
234 views
What have been the major milestones in the creation of state literacy policies?
There have been times as literacy was not obligatory. So, many people were not able to read/write in their mother tongue, but it was just normal.
Today, most people are literate, and this is a result ...
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What were the political beliefs of Sir Robert Hotung regarding socialism and communism?
Sir Robert Hotung Bosman, KBE JP (1862 – 1956) was a Hong Kong businessman and philanthropist in British Hong Kong known as "the grand old man of Hong Kong". He has a colorful history, being the ...
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Did any Western consulates remain open or re-open after WWII in the same buildings in which they had resided in Wuhan, Hebei, China?
The recent CNN article From one-time Chinese capital to coronavirus epicenter, Wuhan has a long history that the West had forgotten
Two generations ago, this city of 11 million people, on the ...
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Was there some deliberate significance to the number of divisions in the proposed post-WW2 joint communist-nationalist Chinese army being 108?
https://www.britannica.com/event/Chinese-Civil-War
(Search "108".)
It's a sacred number in the Dharmic religions, was the number of outlaws in The Water Margin, and (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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Did any Chinese revolutionaries being helped by the Japanese get suspicious of Japan's intentions?
From the way things went, it seems to me that Japan played Chinese nationalists into breaking up the Qing empire, in order to expand Japanese power in the region.
Were any Chinese revolutionaries ...
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How did Chinese triads with the slogan “oppose the Qing, restore the Ming” adapt ideologically to the fall of the Qing and the rise of republicanism?
Clearly triads didn't disappear, but how did they react to this part of their raison raison d'être slipping away?
Edit: I went through the first five links searching this on google and couldn't find ...
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There are two restaurants (one in Saigon, one in Hong Kong) called “全記”. Where does that name come from and what does it mean? [closed]
Name seen at 0:07
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kyqE2Nq3pc
Second restaurant comes up with a google search for "全記".
Have no idea how to proceed from here.
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Was there intermixing between Brits and Hong Kongers during Britain's control of the territory?
When Britain took control of Hong Kong at the end of the First Opium War did British Europeans stay and intermix (intermix=make new humans)?
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1answer
165 views
How could I determine the value of a a 1921 Yuan Shikai Chinese silver dollar? [closed]
I have a 1921 Yuan Shikai Chinese silver dollar. What is the history of this coin, and how could I determine the worth/value of my coin?
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Was it against protocol for the Emperor to pray inside the Forbidden City?
Background
An oft reproduced narrative about the Empress Dowager Cixi asserts that she held the Guangxu Emperor captive within the Forbidden City. Lately, I heard a version that disputes all of this ...
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How do we know that this decree was written by Cixi?
In another, extremely helpful answer we found the handwritten text underlying many claims about Empress Dowager Cixi’s illiteracy (see aforementioned answer for example of such claim). But how do we ...
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279 views
Did the US manage to eavesdrop on KMT communications during World War 2?
I was reading How frequently did the KMT use telegrams to communicate; from where (roughly) and to whom?, which contains a quote:
Following is a telegram code "dictionary" used by Japan military ...
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1answer
221 views
Why didn't the Chinese attack Hungnam during the evacuation?
The Hungnam evacuation was a notable event during the early years of the Korean War. Retreating to the port of Hungnam from the recent defeat at Chosin Reservoir, UN forces managed to evacuate about ...
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3answers
401 views
Which Nazi functionary is shown here?
Wikipedia says that the following image depicts the Chinese leader of a Japanese puppet state, Wang Jingwei, with Nazis. The full information on Wikipedia reads:
Wang Jingwei having a toast with ...
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3answers
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Which 'evidence' is there for a claim that 'Chinese discovered America in 636'?
The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics is a branch of the Ministry of Planning, Budget, and Management. On its own website it has a history timeline with a few curious dates:
catálogo ...
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44 views
Book (and/or podcast) recommendations for providing a historical & cultural context for Sichuan?
A couple friends and I plan on taking a tour in the southwestern region of China, specifically Sichuan & Yunan, around spring of next year. I find that it always makes the trip more engaging and ...
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How much (area) territory did Chinese dynasties control?
I am looking for the area of the territories controlled by the different Chinese dynasties since Zhou all the way to the Qing. There are maps available of the different territories but I haven't found ...
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Were Soviet Union's best trained and equipped forces deployed on the Chinese border and not against NATO?
I heard a scholarly gentleman make this claim (without giving any details of his sources) that after the Sino-Soviet split the most capable forces were not aligned for a war with the West but were ...
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1answer
107 views
Has China ever sent officials to collect tribute under the tributary system, instead of receiving missions, besides Zheng He's voyages?
The usual picture I have of tribute to the Chinese emperor, is that tributaries were dispatched to present their tribute to the court, that is in China.
But it seems there were exceptions to this ...
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533 views
What was the de facto rule by which the imperial title was transmitted in various Chinese dynasties?
I seek to find information about which rules or trends - if any - applied in Chinese imperial succession during different dynasties.
I found this source, but I can’t get access and what I see in the ...
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What does Deng Xiaoping mean by "Hide your capacities, bide your time '?
I came across this interesting quote by Deng Xiaoping:
Hide your capacities and bide your time
however I didn't find much about this quote on the Internet explaining the exact context and meaning ...
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Had there been instances of national states banning harmful imports before the mid-19th C Opium Wars?
Background
To my current understanding, James Matheson in his »The British trade with China« argued that China might have originally had the right to refuse trading with Britain, but that they lost ...
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1answer
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Why did the Soviet Union not “grant” Inner Mongolia to Mongolia after World War Two?
In the brief Soviet anti-Japanese campaign of 1945, Soviet and Mongol troops entered Inner Mongolia. Mongolia itself had been essentially a client state of the Soviet Union since 1921. Also the ...
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1answer
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What taxes were legally required to be paid in silver in Qing China?
Background
It is often argued that the following mechanism heavily contributed to the commencement of the opium trade between the Qing and British Empires (you are welcome to correct my understanding):...
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Were there violence before July 3 and July 4 during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests?
Were there violence before July 3 and July 4 during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests? I heard the protests were peaceful, but I learned recently that there were a lot of soldiers who got injured, so ...
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1answer
204 views
How did the the Soviet-China near-war in 1969 affect the supply of arms to North Vietnam?
This is a bit of what I am looking for:vietnamwar/chinese-and-soviet-involvement/, but it seems incomplete.
Specifically, as the Soviets increased their aid to North Vietnam, where did Soviet weapons ...
asked Aug 6 '19 at 2:54
Italian Philosophers 4 Monica
5,4962 gold badges19 silver badges34 bronze badges
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1answer
628 views
Why did sailing ships so often employ Chinese cooks?
During the age of sail, it was common for Western ships to employ Chinese cooks. I don't have any numbers except that there are pages and pages of relevant results from search queries including "...
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Why do all my history books divide Chinese history after the Han dynasty?
I will be teaching middle school World History this year. I surveyed seven different textbooks from different publishers and notice, unlike all other histories of other regions in the world, Chinese ...
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2answers
659 views
Did the Portuguese get anything in return when they handed back Macau?
In 1999, Portugal fully returned Macau to China. However, did they get something for giving Macau back to China, or was it just a sign of good faith and decolonization in general?
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What was China's claim line in the Aksai Chin before the 1962 war?
The original mutually agreeable boundary seems to have been the McCartney-MacDonald line since the late 1890s. In the 1910s and 1920s China seems to have accepted even the Johnson line, by publishing ...
