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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Why did the Republic of China retract its simplified Chinese characters?
The image below shows part of the list of simplified Chinese characters introduced by the Republic of China Department of Education in 1935. They were retracted in 1936, so China continued to use ...
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1answer
222 views
Why were the Yellow River dyke repairs delayed?
In 1938, in a desperate bid to slow the Japanese advance, Chinese forces breached the Yellow River dykes at Huayuankou, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and displacing millions more. The ...
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1answer
97 views
What were Stilwell's plans had his coup succeeded?
Joseph Stilwell, the caustic American Chief of Staff assigned to Chiang Kai-Shek, famously clashed with his superior over the prosecution of war in the China-Burma-India theatre. Things came to a head ...
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112 views
What anti-Japanese guerrilla units were active in Manchuria from 1944-1945?
I am writing a historical fiction novel with a North Korean protagonist joining anti-Japanese guerrilla forces in Manchuria in 1944.
I understand that major anti-Japanese resistance in Manchuria was ...
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265 views
Why did China begin persecuting Falun Gong after tolerating the movement for nearly a decade?
My Question:
Why did China begin persecution of Falun Gong midway through 1999 following nearly a decade of tolerating the movement?
Freedom House - The Battle for China's Spirit ...
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114 views
During the Míng Dynasty could local authorities make laws?
I have been unable to find how much, if any, authority was had for the creation of local laws in Míng China. Was it allowed to create local laws at the town, city, or provincial level in Míng China? ...
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251 views
Where is an image of the oracle bone that describes the nova?
(Related to my previous question)
Does anyone have a link to an image of the oracle bone that has this specific inscription:
The inscriptions include the oldest observation of a nova (1300BCE) ‘A ...
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1answer
164 views
What are the best resources for studying oracle bone inscriptions?
Can someone please recommend the best resources for studying Chinese oracle bone inscriptions?
Rather than general or specific information about oracle bones, I'm looking for collections or catalogs ...
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4answers
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Were Russians in the cold war era USA discriminated against for their ethnicity?
As a Chinese living in the western world, I am a little bit concerned about the next decades where there might be a war or a series of conflicts between the rising Chinese power and the current world ...
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2answers
295 views
Did the United States taxpayer fund the development of China's backbone fighter plane?
I was reading this article which came out today..
China's J-10 Fighter Now Has Something In Common with the F-22, Su-57 and Su-35 which reports China has added advanced thrust vectoring to their J-10 ...
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1answer
351 views
Why did the British take Hong Kong instead of any other of the later treaty ports?
The aftermath of the first Opium War declared that Hong Kong and the island of Kowloon should be ceded to the UK as a port for refitting ships and storing cargo. It also meant there was easy access ...
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What did Zhang Zuolin say after his train blew up?
Zhang Zuolin was an early 20th century Chinese warlord of Manchuria. He was fatally wounded by the Japanese Army, using a bomb laid beneath tracks where his armoured train travelled over.
There is a ...
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3answers
218 views
Did China's life expectancy at birth rise 30.5 years from 1960 to 1980? If so, what were the particular changes made to their society's structure?
I have been reading The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy by Minqi Li. The author reads like a fan of Mao and is succeeding in convincing me I need to dig deeper in to the ...
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1answer
124 views
Was 'Jade Mirror of the Four Unknowns' published in 1303, and how do we know?
Wikipedia gives the date for Chinese mathematician Zhu Shijie's Jade Mirror of the Four Unknowns (四元玉鉴, Siyuan yujian) as 1303, citing
Elman, Benjamin A. (2005). On their own terms science in China, ...
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0answers
93 views
What literature explains life in Han dynasty tomb towns?
I've read in the book, The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han by Mark Edward Lewis, that ancient Chinese Emperors, upon their death, would have massive tomb hills/temples erected for their bodies to ...
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2answers
204 views
Besides the US in 1958, has there been a post-WWII show of force by any military in the Taiwan Strait (excluding Taiwan and China)?
CNN's article US Vice President Pence set to inflame China tensions: 'We will not be intimidated' describes an upcoming speech by US VP Pence and the existence of a proposed military exercise in ...
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1answer
137 views
How frequently did the KMT use telegrams to communicate; from where (roughly) and to whom?
This answer to the Chinese Language SE question Historical: How was Chinese written in telegrams and early computers? says (in part):
Following is a telegram code "dictionary" used by Japan ...
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2answers
436 views
Why is Russian far east less populated than Chinese north east regions?
I was comparing the Russia's Far Eastern zone with the equivalent Northeast China. Anyway the two regions have many difference but by comparing regions at the same latitude I found vast difference to ...
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2answers
470 views
Why didn't Japan attack communist China in WW2?
We can see after the fact that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) nourished through the Sino-Japanese War while the Nationalist Army arguably depleted their resources.
The CCP had a strategy of not ...
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1answer
259 views
What really happen to 100k people in Changban? [closed]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changban
The story is filled with so many things that do not make sense.
Liu Bei is on the run from Cao Cao.
Somehow, he managed to persuade 100k civilians ...
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0answers
113 views
Why was Wang Zhiming apparently pardoned, unlike other Christian victims of the Cultural Revolution?
Wang Zhiming is a particularly famous Christian martyr of the Cultural Revolution in China – he is one of ten martyrs of the 20th century to have a statue above the Great West Door of Westminster ...
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1answer
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Did Chinese emperors wear a rectangular hat with suspended gems?
The mythical Jade Emperor is sometimes depicted as wearing a mortarboard hat with strings of jewels suspended from its edges:
According to Shen Yun's post:
Hanging from the front and back of the ...
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1answer
194 views
Could someone become Empress in China more than once?
I read a fictional story before where an empress was wrongly accused of black magic. The emperor loved her so much but the investigation didn't go deeper because the ministers were trying convince the ...
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1answer
354 views
Why did the Chinese not use military power to force out early Dutch/English and Portuguese trade encroachments
From what I understand, during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the Chinese were much advanced in trade and warfare than the Dutch and the Portuguese that tried to (and eventually) succeeded in ...
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Why didn't China vote in UNSC Resolution 344?
According to this Wikipedia article, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 344 in 1973 with 10 votes from non-permanent members and 4 abstentions from the permanent members France, ...
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1answer
234 views
What were the American-equipped armies of Nationalist China equipped with?
During the latter years of WWII, the US equipped and trained a number of Chinese (Kuomintang) armies to fight the Japanese. Initially the Chinese armies were greatly inferior, armed with bolt-action ...
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5answers
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Did China ever consider a phonetic writing system?
I was surprised to learn the following about the Japanese and Korean languages:
Japanese used a lot of Chinese characters in their language and had no phonetic system, until around the year 800 when ...
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1answer
350 views
Did any Chinese scholars propose a heliocentric model?
After this related question, I now want to ask about the heliocentric model. Did any Chinese scholars propose a heliocentric model of the universe? The time period I'm interested is any time before ...
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3answers
646 views
Before European influence circa 1600, did any Chinese believe the Earth was spherical, and did they ever try to measure it?
The Pythagorans, Aristotle, and Eratosthenese believed the Earth was spherical. Eratosthenes made a measure based on shadows at two cities on the same meridian. An Indian mathematician, Aryabhata, ...
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1answer
209 views
After the Mongol Empire fell, did China really turn away from math and physics?
I came across this from the Wiki article on Chinese Mathematics:
After the overthrow of the Yuan Dynasty, China became suspicious of knowledge it used. The Ming Dynasty turned away from math and ...
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0answers
115 views
Are there any archeological finds or primary source drawings of the Chinese bamboo-copter or rotary fans?
Bamboo-copter was a toy in China, dated to 400 BC. A Rotary Fan also existed in China around 180 AD. I'm interested in both of those things, as they work on the exact same principle.
Do we have any ...
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1answer
542 views
Did the first emperor of China die of mercury poisoning?
Did the first emperor Qin Shi Huang die of mercury poisoning? If so, how do we know? I've seen lots of claims that he did (and claims that he didn't), but no citation explaining what primary source ...
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100 views
How has China changed since 1989 politically and economically? [closed]
Did China liberalize its government in any way? it's still Communist, but it has adopted some aspects of capitalism.
I know many thought that Democracy would prevail and the CCP would step down, but ...
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1answer
201 views
Why was China so underdeveloped until not so long ago? [closed]
A few decades ago, China was at most considered a country starting to develop itself, but usually even a third world country. If a person 30 years ago would have heard that China nowadays would be a ...
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0answers
100 views
What were the incentives for war during the Warring States Period?
I've been reading about the Warring States Period in Li Feng's 'Early China', and I don't know if I missed a passage but I can't seem to figure out why the period was so violent.
I've been searching ...
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1answer
191 views
What is this symbol in red box?
Excerpted from China Imperial Maritime Customs, Special Series: Silk
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1answer
156 views
Travelling from England to China in 1810
I'd like to know what would have been the most common route to travel from England to Canton, China, in 1810 and how long the journey would have taken.
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0answers
151 views
How were Chinese Communist POWs treated after the civil war?
I was watching the film ‘The Assembly’ and the opening scene involved a battle where Chinese Nationalist troops had surrounded a group of Chinese Communists and were about to overrun them. Before the ...
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1answer
197 views
Please post a picture of the mills tonfa were supposedly used to turn
A tonfa is a forearm length club with a handle protruding sideways. A common claim is that the weapon was originally a handle used to turn millstones. German Wikipedia claims that there are pictures ...
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1answer
205 views
Do Manchurian Nationalists Want Independence?
Manchuria existed from the Middle Ages to Present-day China.
The Qing dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria. In the late 16th Century. Source
The Qing dynasty ruled ...
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0answers
105 views
Why is Shandong named Lu?
Shandong, a Chinese province, is sometimes known as Qilu, after the Zhou dynasty states of Qi and Lu.
However, its name is further shortened as Lu. For example, Shandong cuisine is known in Chinese ...
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1answer
223 views
When were Liu Hui's mathematical works first translated into English?
I'm researching Liu Hui who lived circa 220 AD to 260 AD. He independently solved many challenging mathematical problems, and was an amazing mathematician previously unknown to me. I came across this ...
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0answers
114 views
What role, if any, did the Chinese Communist Party play in the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang?
The Soviets invaded Xinjiang to support their client, a warlord who had no connection to the CCP.
Did the CCP support this invasion? Oppose it? Or just try to avoud talking about it?
Related: were ...
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1answer
299 views
How did Mao Zedong's policy abuse affect those in the Five Black Categories during the Cultural Revolution?
Mao Zedong attempted to fragment society by distinguishing between different sectors of society, by labeling those whose presence was a threat to Mao Zedong communist policy the Five Black Categories.
...
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1answer
158 views
When the Chinese were driven out of modern Vietnam in AD 938, did an Vietnamese ethnic identity already exist?
With some periods of interruption, China dominated Vietnam for more than 10 centuries between 111 BC and 938 AD. This wikipedia article and its subsidiary links spoke of sinification and shifting of ...
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1answer
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What happened at the Battle (or not?) of Luding Bridge, during the Long March of Chinese Communists in 1935?
I've just finished reading Mao: The Unknown Story by Chang and Halliday. She seems very biased against Mao and revels in accusing him of lying and manipulating. If this were to be taken as a serious ...
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1answer
190 views
Before ww2, why did Japan allow Chinese students to study military science?
In 1917, Cheng Fangwu and his friends were openly anti-Japan; yet in Japan they were free to elect whatever major they liked. Cheng studied steel making, guns, ballistics and torpedoes but later ...
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1answer
576 views
What good came from the Great Leap Forward?
I'm currently reading the book "Mao's Great Famine" by Frank Dikötter. It's a very harrowing book covering the unimaginable waste and destruction of resources, environment and life that occurred ...
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2answers
164 views
Which tools were available in 1933 for the Chinese government to intervene in the money market?
I do not have profound knowledge of the Chinese banking sector in the 1930s, but, for instance,
Tamagna, Frank M. Banking and finance in China. International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific ...
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1answer
2k views
What percentage of the British Empire's economy was profits from the opium trade?
Between 1820 and 1840 the British sold a lot of Opium in China. Compared with the total size of the British Empire's economy, how big was the Opium trade?
I have an old friend who maintains that even ...
