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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How did Mao regain and consolidate power after the Great Famine?
Mao Zedong's position had weakened after the Great Famine, and in the period during and leading up to the Cultural Revolution, he regained and consolidated his power. I am interested in getting a ...
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How did Larry Wu-tai Chin's leak in Oct. 1970 — of a classified document — allow China "to alter [...] volume of anti-U.S. rhetoric in the press"?
In the course of his nearly forty-year espionage career, [Larry Wu-tai] Chin [金无怠] supplied the PRC with information on U.S. intelligence requirements and foreign policy initiatives relating to China, ...
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How exactly did Larry Wu-tai Chin's leak in Oct. 1970 — of a classified document — allow China "to reap the maximum political benefits"?
In the course of his nearly forty-year espionage career, [Larry Wu-tai] Chin [金无怠] supplied the PRC with information on U.S. intelligence requirements and foreign policy initiatives relating to China, ...
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What did modern China do with food sold to the state?
I understand that communes, later, "production units", and eventually, households sold food to the state at a set price. If the state wants to pay a lower-than-market price for food, do they ...
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To what extent has ideographic script contributed to the unification of China？
The different languages of Europe are, by Chinese standards, just successive variants of one language. But the phonetic alphabet is so flexible that the same set of letters can spell almost any ...
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Did the Joseon dynasty ask the Ming/Qing emperors for permission to crown a new king?
Since they were vassals of Ming and Qing dynasties, did the Joseon kings ask permission for their coronation?
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What became of the daughter of Cixi‘s photographer?
„Princess“ DerLing has written several books on Empress Dowager Cixi. Her brother Xunling took the only photographs of Cixi known to me. But on some of the pictures from 1903 (example below) a little ...
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Was Ottawa, Canada the origin of the "Free Tibet" movement that became world famous in the 80's and 90's?
Free Tibet as a slogan became world-famous starting from 1986-1987
And the only reference I can find as to the sparks that ignited the movement are a demonstration in Ottawa in 1986, where Tibetans ...
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Why did China hate dogs? Why were dogs abject creatures in China?
I quote page 240 in Yuan-tsung Chen's 2008 Return to the Middle Kingdom | One Family, Three Revolutionaries, and the Birth of Modern China. This quote flummoxes me! I have a pet dog! I live in a ...
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How does the "conspiracy theory" work in China and for what purpose? [closed]
I am Chinese and have been surrounded by the "conspiracy theory" that the U.S. has been intending to destroy China for a long time.
Proponents of this theory
cite the Plaza Accord as ...
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Did the Chinese aim guns above ships in 19th century?
I have read some things that don't seem true about the Chinese opposing English and other western forces during the 19th century and early 20th. What seems to be true is that China was very aware of ...
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What was Hunanese cuisine like before chili peppers were imported to China?
Today, chilis are strongly associated with Hunanese cuisine, which is regarded as the spiciest Chinese regional cuisine. However, Chinese recipe books didn't start mentioning chilis until the 1790s, ...
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In Shanghai before World War II what were relations like between the Europeans living there and the local Chinese?
My Uncle has been telling me a lot about my great grandfather. He was in the merchant marine and, before World War II, he was stationed in Shanghai which at the time had a large European population. ...
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Did (other) PRC or Soviet leaders give 3+ hour congress speeches?
Fidel Castro is well-known for giving 4- or even 7-hour speeches. Xi Jinping gave a 3h 20min communist party congress speech. How does the latter compare to typical PRC or Soviet leaders speeches at ...
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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 ...
user46904
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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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