1.
Chongqing
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Chongqing, formerly transliterated as Chungking, is a major city in Southwest China and one of the Five national central cities in China. Administratively, it is one of Chinas four direct-controlled municipalities, the municipality was created on 14 March 1997, succeeding the sub-provincial city administration that was part of Sichuan Province. Chongqings population as of 2015 is just over 30 million with a population of 18.38 million. The official abbreviation of the city, Yu, was approved by the State Council on 18 April 1997 and this abbreviation is derived from the old name of a part of the Jialing River that runs through Chongqing and feeds into the Yangtze River. Chongqing was also a Sichuan province municipality during the Republic of China administration, Chongqing has a significant history and culture and serves as the economic centre of the upstream Yangtze basin. It is a manufacturing centre and transportation hub, a July 2012 report by the Economist Intelligence Unit described it as one of Chinas 13 emerging megacities. Tradition associates Chongqing with the State of Ba, the Ba people supposedly established Chongqing during the Spring and Autumn period after moving from their first capital Yicheng in Hubei under pressure from Chu. This new capital was first named Jiangzhou, in 316 BC, however, the state of Ba was conquered by the State of Qin. Jiangzhou subsequently remained under Qin Shi Huangs rule during the Qin Dynasty, the successor of the Qin State, and under the control of Han Dynasty emperors. Jiangzhou was subsequently renamed during the Southern and Northern Dynasties to Chu Prefecture, then in 581 AD to Yu Prefecture, the name Yu however survives to this day as an abbreviation for Chongqing, and the city centre where the old town stood is also called Yuzhong. It received its current name in 1189, after Prince Zhao Dun of the Southern Song Dynasty described his crowning as king, in his honour, Yu Prefecture was therefore renamed Chongqing subprefecture marking the occasion of his enthronement. In 1362, Ming Yuzhen, a peasant rebelling leader, established the Daxia Kingdom at Chongqing for a short time, in 1621, another short-lived kingdom of Daliang was established by She Chongming with Chongqing as its capital. The Manchus later conquered the province, and during the Qing Dynasty, immigration to Chongqing, in 1890, the British Consulate General was opened in Chongqing. The following year, the city became the first inland commerce port open to foreigners, the French, German, US and Japanese consulates were opened in Chongqing in 1896–1904. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, it was Generalissimo Chiang Kai-sheks provisional capital, the city was also visited by Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Supreme Commander of SEAC which was itself headquartered in Ceylon, modern day Sri Lanka. Chiang Kai Shek as Supreme Commander in China worked closely with Stilwell, the Japanese Air Force heavily bombed it. Due to its mountainous environment, many people were saved from the bombing, due to the bravery, contributions and sacrifices made by the local people during World War II, Chongqing became known as the City of Heroes. Many factories and universities were relocated from eastern China to Chongqing during the war, in late November 1949 the Nationalist KMT government fled the city
2.
Great Hall of the People (Chongqing)
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The Great Hall of the People, also translated as the Chongqing Peoples Auditorium, located in central Chongqing, China, is a large hall for political meetings and cultural events. The Hall is located in Yuzhong District, and serves as one of the symbols of Chongqing. The exterior resembles the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, construction of the Hall began in June 1951 and completed in April 1954, with the involvement of Deng Xiaoping, who was the First Secretary of the Communist Partys Southwest Bureau at the time. The building includes an auditorium and three adjoining parts to the east, south, and north. It covers a area of 66,000 m2. The building is 65 meters high, the circular domed auditorium is 55 meters high and its internal diameter is 46.33 meters. The auditorium is encircled by five storey of additional viewing areas and has a capacity of 4,200 people. The building is symmetric, with colonnades and wings, the building can be viewed from the Peoples Square below. Opposite is the Three Gorges Museum and it is currently the meeting place of the municipal legislative bodies - the Peoples Congress and Peoples Political Consultative Conference. Great Hall of the People, Beijing Media related to Great Hall of the People (Chongqing at Wikimedia Commons}
3.
Monument to the People's Heroes
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It is located in the southern part of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, to the north of Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. The architect of the monument was Liang Sicheng, with elements designed by his wife. The civil engineer, Chen Zhide was also instrumental in realising the final product, the monument has also served as the centre of large-scale mourning activities that later developed into protest and unrest, such as the deaths of Premier Zhou Enlai and Hu Yaobang. The monument has an height of 37.94 metres. It weighs over 10,000 tonnes and contains about 17,000 pieces of marble and granite from Qingdao, Shandong Province, and the nearby Fangshan District. Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who laid down their lives in the war of liberation. The conduct of activities at the Monument to the Peoples Heroes is regulated by the Major Events Administration Office of the Tiananmen Area Administrative Committee. Strict rules apply to conduct within the vicinity of the monument, since the protests of 1989, the government has prohibited climbing the monument beyond the protective barrier without prior approval, as well as photography and filming. Today, those intending to lay wreaths at the monument must apply five days in advance, certain domestic groups, such as police and military units, would also sometimes lay wreaths at the monument. History of Beijing Satellite photo of the Monument
4.
Tiananmen Square
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Tiananmen Square is a city square in the centre of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen located to its north, separating it from the Forbidden City. The square contains the Monument to the Peoples Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the Peoples Republic of China in the square on October 1,1949, Tiananmen Square is within the top ten largest city squares in the world. It has great significance as it was the site of several important events in Chinese history. Outside China, the square is best known for the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the Tiananmen, a gate in the wall of the Imperial City, was built in 1415 during the Ming dynasty. In the 17th century, fighting between Li Zichengs rebel forces and the forces of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty caused heavy damage to, or even destroyed, Tiananmen Square was designed and built in 1651, and has since been enlarged by four times its original size in the 1950s. Near the centre of the square stood the Great Ming Gate, the gate to the Imperial City, renamed Great Qing Gate during the Qing dynasty. This gate had a status as the Gate of the Nation. It normally remained closed, except when the Emperor passed through, commoner traffic was diverted to side gates at the western and eastern ends of the square, respectively. Because of this diversion in traffic, a marketplace, called Chess Grid Streets, was developed in the big. In 1860, during the Second Opium War, when British and French troops invaded Beijing, they pitched camp near the gate and briefly considered burning down the gate and they decided ultimately to spare the Forbidden City and instead burn down the Old Summer Palace. When the forces of the Eight-Nation Alliance besieged Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, they damaged the office complexes. After the Boxer Rebellion ended, the became a space for the foreign powers to assemble their military forces. In 1954, the Gate of China was demolished, allowing for the enlargement of the square, in November 1958, a major expansion of Tiananmen Square started, which was completed after only 11 months, in August 1959. This followed the vision of Mao Zedong to make the square the largest and most spectacular in the world, in that process, a large number of residential buildings and other structures have been demolished. On its southern edge, the Monument to the Peoples Heroes has been erected, the year after Maos death in 1976, a mausoleum was built near the site of the former Gate of China, on the main north-south axis of the square. In connection with this project, the square was further increased in size to become fully rectangular, the urban context of the square was altered in the 1990s with the construction of National Grand Theatre in its vicinity and the expansion of the National Museum. Used as a meeting place since its creation, its flatness is contrasted by the 38-metre high Monument to the Peoples Heroes
5.
Xicheng District
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Xicheng District is a district of Beijing. Xicheng District spans 32 square kilometres, making it the largest portion of the old city, Xicheng is subdivided into 15 subdistricts of the city proper of Beijing. The former Xuanwu District was merged into Xicheng on July 2010, the Xidan commercial district, Beijing Financial Street, Beihai Park, Jingshan Park, Shichahai and Zhongnanhai are within its jurisdiction. The popular Houhai bar area is also in Xicheng Precinct, before the communist takeover, most royalties and aristocrats resided in the precinct. The oldest Catholic church in Beijing, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception is located in Xicheng, there are 15 subdistricts in the district, COSCO has its headquarters in the Ocean Plaza building in Xicheng. The Xinhua News Agency has its headquarters in the Dacheng Plaza in Xicheng, in addition Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and the State Grid Corporation of China also have their headquarters in Xicheng. The Chinese Ministry of Education is headquartered in Xidan, Xicheng District, the China Food and Drug Administration is headquartered in Xicheng District. Beijing No.4 High School is also in Xicheng District, one school in Niujie, the Beijing Xuanwu Huimin Elementary School, serves the Hui people living in the area. It used to be in Xuanwu District, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education, the local education authority, used to be headquartered in Xicheng District. The Central Conservatory of Music is based in Xicheng, near Fuxingmen, official website of Xicheng District Government Photo Gallery of Houhai area Includes 20 high quality photographs Photo Gallery of Qianhai area Includes 20 high quality photographs
6.
Beijing
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Beijing is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China and the worlds third most populous city proper. It is also one of the worlds most populous capital cities, the city, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing is the second largest Chinese city by population after Shanghai and is the nations political, cultural. It is home to the headquarters of most of Chinas largest state-owned companies, and is a hub for the national highway, expressway, railway. The citys history dates back three millennia, as the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, Beijing has been the political centre of the country for much of the past eight centuries. Beijing was the largest city in the world by population for much of the second millennium A. D, the city is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. Its art treasures and universities have made it centre of culture, encyclopædia Britannica notes that few cities in the world have served for so long as the political headquarters and cultural centre of an area as immense as China. Siheyuans, the traditional housing style, and hutongs, the narrow alleys between siheyuans, are major tourist attractions and are common in urban Beijing. The city hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics and was chosen to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, many of Beijings 91 universities consistently rank among the best in China, of which Peking University and Tsinghua University are ranked in the top 60 universities in the world. Beijings Zhongguancun area is known as Chinas Silicon Valley and Chinas center of innovation. According to the 2016 InterNations Expat Insider Survey, Beijing ranked first in Asia in the subcategory Personal Finance Index, expats live primarily in urban districts such as Dongcheng and Chaoyang in the east, or in suburban districts such as Shunyi. Over the past 3,000 years, the city of Beijing has had other names. The name Beijing, which means Northern Capital, was applied to the city in 1403 during the Ming Dynasty to distinguish the city from Nanjing, the English spelling is based on the pinyin romanisation of the two characters as they are pronounced in Standard Mandarin. Those dialects preserve the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 京 as kjaeng, the single Chinese character abbreviation for Beijing is 京, which appears on automobile license plates in the city. The official Latin alphabet abbreviation for Beijing is BJ, the earliest traces of human habitation in the Beijing municipality were found in the caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District, where Peking Man lived. Homo erectus fossils from the date to 230,000 to 250,000 years ago. Paleolithic Homo sapiens also lived more recently, about 27,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found neolithic settlements throughout the municipality, including in Wangfujing, the first walled city in Beijing was Ji, a city from the 11th to 7th century BC
7.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
8.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
9.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
10.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
11.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
12.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
13.
Communist Party of China
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The Communist Party of China is the founding and ruling political party of the Peoples Republic of China. It was founded in 1921, chiefly by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, the CPC is currently the worlds second largest political party with a membership of 88.76 million as of 2016. It also controls the worlds largest armed force, the Peoples Liberation Army, the highest body of the CPC is the National Congress, convened every fifth year. The partys leader holds the offices of General Secretary, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, through these posts the party leader is the countrys paramount leader. The current party leader is Xi Jinping, elected at the 18th National Congress, the CPC is still committed to communist thought and continues to participate in the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties each year. The official explanation for Chinas economic reforms is that the country is in the stage of socialism. The planned economy established under Mao Zedong was replaced by the socialist market economy, the CPC has its origins in the May Fourth Movement of 1919, during which radical ideologies like Marxism and anarchism gained traction among Chinese intellectuals. Other influences stemming from the Bolshevik revolution and Marxist theory inspired the Communist Party of China, Li Dazhao was the first leading Chinese intellectual who publicly supported Leninism and world revolution. In contrast to Chen Duxiu, Li did not renounce participation in the affairs of the Republic of China, both of them regarded the October Revolution in Russia as groundbreaking, believing it to herald a new era for oppressed countries everywhere. The CPC was modeled on Vladimir Lenins theory of a vanguard party, Study circles were, according to Cai Hesen, the rudiments. Several study circles were established during the New Culture Movement, the founding National Congress of the CPC was held on 23–31 July 1921. With only 50 members in the beginning of 1921, the CPC organization, while it was originally planned to be held in Shanghai French Concession, police officers interrupted the meeting on 3 July. Because of that, the congress was moved to a tourist boat on South Lake in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, only 12 delegates attended the congress, with neither Li nor Chen being able to attend. Chen sent a representative to attend the congress. The resolutions of the called for the establishment of a communist party. The communists dominated the left wing of the KMT, a party organized on Leninist lines, when KMT leader Sun Yat-sen died in March 1925, he was succeeded by a rightist, Chiang Kai-shek, who initiated moves to marginalize the position of the communists. Fresh from the success of the Northern Expedition to overthrow the warlords, Chiang Kai-shek turned on the communists, ignoring the orders of the Wuhan-based KMT government, he marched on Shanghai, a city controlled by communist militias. Although the communists welcomed Chiangs arrival, he turned on them, Chiangs army then marched on Wuhan, but was prevented from taking the city by CPC General Ye Ting and his troops
14.
Parliament
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In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative, elected body of government. Generally a modern parliament has three functions, representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government, historically, parliaments included various kinds of deliberative, consultative, and judicial assemblies. The term is derived from Anglo-Norman parlement, from the verb parler talk, the meaning evolved over time, originally any discussion, conversation, or negotiation, through various kinds of deliberative or judicial groups, often summoned by the monarch. By 1400, it had come to mean in Britain specifically the British supreme legislature, various parliaments are claimed to be the oldest in the world, under varying definitions. The Sicilian Parliament, whose first assembly was convened in 1097, the Icelandic Althing, year 930, but only including the main chiefs. Since ancient times, when societies were tribal, there were councils or a headman whose decisions were assessed by village elders, some scholars suggest that in ancient Mesopotamia there was a primitive democratic government where the kings were assessed by council. The same has been said about ancient India, where some form of deliberative assemblies existed, however, these claims are not accepted by most scholars, who see these forms of government as oligarchies. Ancient Athens was the cradle of democracy, the Athenian assembly was the most important institution, and every citizen could take part in the discussions. However, Athenian democracy was not representative, but rather direct, the Roman Senate controlled money, administration, and the details of foreign policy. Some Muslim scholars argue that the Islamic shura is analogous to the parliament, however, others highlight what they consider fundamental differences between the shura system and the parliamentary system. England has long had a tradition of a body of men who would assist, under the Anglo-Saxon kings, there was an advisory council, the Witenagemot. The name derives from the Old English ƿitena ȝemōt, or witena gemōt, the first recorded act of a witenagemot was the law code issued by King Æthelberht of Kent ca. 600, the earliest document which survives in sustained Old English prose, however, the Witan, along with the folkmoots, is an important ancestor of the modern English parliament. As part of the Norman Conquest of England, the new king, William I, did away with the Witenagemot, membership of the Curia was largely restricted to the tenants in chief, the few nobles who rented great estates directly from the king, along with ecclesiastics. William brought to England the feudal system of his native Normandy and this is the original body from which the Parliament, the higher courts of law, and the Privy Council and Cabinet descend. Of these, the legislature is formally the High Court of Parliament, only the executive government is no longer conducted in a royal court. Most historians date the emergence of a parliament with some degree of power to which the throne had to defer no later than the rule of Edward I, like previous kings, Edward called leading nobles and church leaders to discuss government matters, especially finance. A meeting in 1295 became known as the Model Parliament because it set the pattern for later Parliaments, in 1307, Edward I agreed not to collect certain taxes without the consent of the realm
15.
National People's Congress
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The National Peoples Congress is the national legislature of the Peoples Republic of China. With 2,987 members in 2013, it is the largest parliamentary body in the world, the NPC is elected for a term of five years. It holds annual sessions every spring, usually lasting from 10 to 14 days, the fourth session of the 12th NPC was held from March 5 to March 16,2016. In theory, the NPC is the highest organ of power in China. However, in practice it usually acts as a stamp for decisions already made by the states executive organs. One of its members, Hu Xiaoyan, told the BBC in 2009 that she has no power to help her constituents and she was quoted as saying, As a parliamentary representative, I dont have any real power. In 2014, the party pledged to unswervingly adhere to the leadership of Chinese Communist Party. Since the 1990s, the NPC has become a forum for mediating policy differences between different parts of the Party, the government, and groups of society, there are mainly four functions and powers of the NPC,1. To amend the Constitution and oversee its enforcement Only the NPC has the power to amend the Constitution, Amendments to the Constitution must be proposed by the NPC Standing Committee or 1/5 or more of the NPC deputies. In order for the Amendments to become effective, they must be passed by 2/3 majority vote of all deputies, to enact and amend basic law governing criminal offences, civil affairs, state organs and other matters 3. To elect and appoint members to the state organs The NPC elects the Chairman, Vice Chairmen, Secretary-General. It also elects the President of the Peoples Republic of China, NPC also appoints the Premier of the State Council and many other crucial officials to the central state organs. The NPC also has the power to remove the officials from the office. The drafting process of NPC legislation is governed by the Organic Law of the NPC and it begins with a small group, often of outside experts, who begin a draft. Over time, this draft is considered by larger and larger groups, by the time the full NPC or NPCSC meets to consider the legislation, the major substantive elements of the draft legislation have largely been agreed to. However, minor wording changes to the draft are often made at this stage, the process ends with a formal vote by the Standing Committee of the NPC or by the NPC in a plenary session. The NPC mainly exists to give sanction to decisions already made at the highest levels of the government. However, it is not completely without influence and it functions as a forum in which legislative proposals are drafted and debated with input from different parts of the government and outside technical experts
16.
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
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The Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference, also known as the Peoples PCC or just the PCC, is a political advisory body in the Peoples Republic of China. The organisation consists of delegates from a range of parties and organisations. The proportion of representation of the parties is determined by established convention. In practice, the largest and dominant party in the Conference is the Communist Party of China which has one third of the seats. Other members are drawn from the United Front parties allied with the CPC, the Conference is intended to be more representative and be composed of a broader range of people than is typical of government office in the Peoples Republic of China. The National Committee of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference typically holds a meeting at the same time as plenary sessions of the National Peoples Congress. Both CPPCC National Committee and NPC plenary sessions are called the National Lianghui. The 2014 session of the CPPCC is scheduled to open on March 3,2014, a less common translation is the National Congress. This translation is discouraged, as it causes confusion with the National Peoples Congress as well as with the National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the organisational hierarchy of the CPPCC includes the National Committee and regional committees. Regional committees of the CPPCC include the provincial, prefecture, so are the relationships between upper-level regional committees and lower-level committees. Operating budgets on each level are independently administered by the administrations for the region, making the National committee. An indirect leadership, however, exists via the United Front Departments on each level, the Conference dated prior to the existence of Peoples Republic of China. This was included in the Double Tenth Agreement and this agreement was implemented by the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China, who organised the first Political Consultative Assembly from January 10–31,1946. Representatives of the Kuomintang, Communist Party of China, Chinese Youth Party and this conference was then renamed the Peoples Political Consultative Conference. The first conference approved the Common Program, which served as the de facto Constitution for the five years. The conference approved the new anthem, flag, capital city, and state name. In effect, the first Peoples Political Consultative Conference served as a constitutional convention, from 1949 to 1954, the conference became the de facto legislature of the PRC. In 1954, the Constitution transferred this function to the National Peoples Congress, the role that CPPCC plays in the Chinese government is stated in the preamble of the PRC Constitution
17.
National Congress of the Communist Party of China
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The National Congress of the Communist Party of China is a party congress that is held every five years. The National Congress is theoretically the highest body within the Communist Party of China, since 1987 the National Congress has been held in the months of October or November. The venue for the event, beginning in 1956, is the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, in the past two decades the National Congress of the CPC has been pivotal at least as a symbolic part of leadership changes, and therefore has gained international media attention. In addition, as people at the top level of the party retire, there is room for members of the party to move up one level. Because of the structure of the party and the existence of mandatory retirement ages, cadres who are not promoted at a party congress are likely to face the end of their political careers. In addition to making changes, the Congress also reviews and changes, if necessary, the Partys Constitution, and selects the Central Committee. Each five-year cycle of the National Peoples Congress also has a series of plenums of the Central Committee which since the mid-1990s have been more or less regularly once every year. Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, election of the delegates to the 18th National Congress of CPC. china. org. cn. Chinas Party Congress, Power, Legitimacy, and Institutional Manipulation, chinas Party Congress, Power, Legitimacy, and Institutional Manipulation
18.
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
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The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China is a political body that comprises the top leaders of the Communist Party of China. It is currently composed of 205 full members and 171 alternate members, members are elected once every five years by the National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The Central Committee is, formally, the partys highest organ of authority when the National Congress is not in session and it also oversees work of various powerful national organs of the party. The Committee convenes at least once a year at a plenary session, the Committee operates, however, on the principle of democratic centralism, i. e. once a decision is made, the entire body speaks with one voice. The role of the Central Committee has varied throughout history, nonetheless, Central Committee plenums function as venues whereby policy is discussed, fine-tuned, and publicly released in the form of resolutions or decisions. The Central Committee is therefore technically the partys highest organ of authority when the National Congress is not in session. The Central Committee must also be convened to prepare for a National Congress, for example, to determine its dates, delegate selection, agenda. The Central Committee has the power to elect the General Secretary and the members of the Politburo, its Standing Committee, and the Central Military Commission. These elections take place in the form of votes, i. e. there is only one candidate. In some instances write-in candidates may also be allowed, the Central Committee also confirms membership of the Secretariat, the organ in charge of executing party policy, whose membership is determined through nomination by the Politburo. The Central Committees role has varied throughout history and it was founded in 1927 as a successor organization to the Central Executive Committee, a group of party leaders charged with executing party work during the pre-revolutionary days of the CPC. Over the next decades it served to confirm the party leadership lineup and legitimize military, strategic. In practice, power was concentrated in a group of military and political leaders. Although the Central Committee was required to convene at least once a year, it did not convene at all in 1951–53,1960, 1963–65, and 1967. Mao did not hold power over the Central Committee, as evidenced by the debates surrounding the policies of the Great Leap Forward. Mao faced some opposition at the 11th Plenum but ultimately most delegates were goaded into ratifying Maos decisions, many members were politically disgraced or purged thereafter. The Committee was then convened again in October 1968 to ratify the decision to then head of state Liu Shaoqi from the Party. At the 12th plenum, less than half the members actually attended, in a letter to Mao evaluating the members of the Central Committee at the time, Kang Sheng wrote that some 70% of CC members were considered traitors, spies, or otherwise politically unreliable
19.
Ten Great Buildings
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The Ten Great Buildings are ten public buildings that were built in Beijing in 1959, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China. They were part of an architecture and urbanism initiative of the Great Leap Forward, most of the buildings were completed in a time span of ten months. Two subsequent art campaigns for these buildings were conducted in 1961, the buildings were designed by members of the Beijing Institute of Architectural Design, working with the Beijing Planning Bureau and the Ministry of Construction. The Ten Great Buildings transformed Beijing and these monumental new buildings, constructed on a grand scale and providing modern facilities and services, helped to establish and celebrate an image of Mao Zedongs New China. C. and Moscow. The National Museum of China – Originally known as the China Revolutionary History Museum, the Cultural Palace of Nationalities – Located on the north side of West Changan Avenue, the Nationalities Cultural Palace is a medium rise building incorporating traditional Chinese design elements. It has won a number of awards as an example of modern Chinese-style design, the Beijing Railway Station – Designed by architects Yang Tingbao and Chen Dengao, Beijing Railway Station was the largest modern passenger rail terminal in China at the time of construction. Since its construction, it has served as the terminal of a number of domestic and international services, including services to Moscow, Ulan Bator and it replaced the old Beijing Railway Station at Qianmen, near Tiananmen Square, which had been built in 1901. The Workers Stadium – The multi-purpose stadium was last renovated in 2004 and it hosted the first National Games of the Peoples Republic of China. The National Agriculture Exhibition Hall – Premier Zhou Enlai oversaw the planning of this building and it was first used in 1959 to house the Tenth Anniversary National Agricultural Achievements Exhibition. The Diaoyutai State Guesthouse – The hotel and guesthouse complex is built on the site of an 800-year-old garden dating back to the Jin Dynasty, the building incorporates design elements of traditional Chinese garden architecture. Formerly reserved for visiting dignitaries and Party officials, the guesthouse is now open to the public The Minzu Hotel – The Minzu Hotel is located on West Changan Avenue and it has hosted numerous foreign delegations, and is often used for press conferences. The Overseas Chinese Hotel – The original Overseas Chinese Hotel was demolished in the 1990s, a new building on the same site is now part of the Prime Hotel chain. The Chinese Peoples Revolutionary Military Museum – Located on Fuxing Road in Beijing, displays focus on wars of the twentieth century, especially the Chinese Civil War, but also cover other ancient and modern warfare and weapons. The main building is seven storeys high at the centre, and is topped by a central steeple, two four-storey side wings extend on either side. The art program to coincide with the construction of the Ten Great Buildings was vast in its scope—including some 345 paintings, murals, many were done in the modes of traditional Chinese painting, and others were in the socialist realist style. The Great Hall of the People received much of the commissions attention, one aspect of the decoration in the Great Hall was the correlation of rooms for representatives from each province with regional art by artists from these respective provinces. The artistic centerpiece of this building was a painting by Fu Baoshi. Entitled This Land So Rich in Beauty, it is one of the largest paintings on paper in China, the painting was based on the poem Ode to Snow by Mao Zedong, and includes a transcription of Maos calligraphy of the title
20.
10th anniversary of the People's Republic of China
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The tenth anniversary celebrations of the Peoples Republic of China were held on October 1,1959. The main event was held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the preceding evening, a grand banquet with many international dignitaries had been organized. In Beijing, ten buildings were constructed ahead of the celebrations. The most prominent of the ten was the Great Hall of the People, on September 28 and 29,1959 a meeting of more than 10,000 people was held in the Great Hall of the People. Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi were present at the dias, Liu Shaoqi held a keynote speech at the meeting. On the evening of September 30,1959, a banquet was hosted in the Great Hall of the People. Around 5,000 people attended the banquet, including guests from around 80 countries, Mao Zedong and Nikita Khrushchev entered the hall together, meeting applause. Zhou Enlai and Khruschev presented their greetings at the banquet, the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko also participated in the banquet. Khruschev had arrived directly from a visit to the United States on the same day and he held a short speech upon his arrival at the airport. According to Chinese media, the Tiananmen Square event gathered 700,000 people, at Tiananmen Square participants formed a human version of the national emblem of the Peoples Republic with the numerals 1949 and 1959 on the sides. A band of one thousand musicians with brass instruments and olive-green uniforms opened the event, at this point Mao Zedong and Nikita Khrushchev entered the dias. Other dignitaries on the dias included Liu Shaoqi, Soong Ching-ling, Lin Biao, Zhu De, Dong Biwu, Deng Xiaoping, the mayor of Peking, Peng Zhen, declared the ceremony open at 10.00. The national anthem was played and a delegation of 400 Young Pioneers presented a tribute at the Peoples Heroes Monument. After a speech by Defense Minister Lin Biao, a military parade began, followed by a parade of workers, peasants, students, at the September 30 banquet, a number of international delegations assisted, representing communist and workers parties and governments. Names of head of delegation in brackets, datong Town and the oilfields were renamed Daqing, in reference to the tenth anniversary celebrations. Major parades were organized in Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Xian, Wuhan, Shenyang
21.
Great Leap Forward
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The Great Leap Forward of the Peoples Republic of China was an economic and social campaign by the Communist Party of China from 1958 to 1962. The campaign was led by Chairman Mao Zedong and aimed to transform the country from an agrarian economy into a socialist society through rapid industrialization and collectivization. However, it is considered to have caused the Great Chinese Famine. Chief changes in the lives of rural Chinese included the introduction of mandatory agricultural collectivization. Private farming was prohibited, and those engaged in it were persecuted and labeled counter-revolutionaries, restrictions on rural people were enforced through public struggle sessions and social pressure, although people also experienced forced labor. Rural industrialization, officially a priority of the campaign, saw its development, aborted by the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward. It is widely regarded by historians that The Great Leap resulted in tens of millions of deaths, a lower-end estimate is 18 million, while extensive research by Yu Xiguang suggests the death toll from the movement is closer to 55 million. Historian Frank Dikötter asserts that coercion, terror, and systematic violence were the foundation of the Great Leap Forward, the years of the Great Leap Forward saw economic regression, with 1958 through 1962 being the only period between 1953 and 1976 in which Chinas economy shrank. Political economist Dwight Perkins argues, enormous amounts of investment produced only modest increases in production or none at all, in short, the Great Leap was a very expensive disaster. In subsequent conferences in March 1960 and May 1962, the effects of the Great Leap Forward were studied by the CPC. Moderate Party members like President Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping rose to power, in October 1949 after the defeat of the Kuomintang, the Chinese Communist Party proclaimed the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China. Immediately, landlords and wealthier peasants had their land holdings forcibly redistributed to poorer peasants, in the agricultural sectors, crops deemed by the Party to be full of evil, such as opium, were destroyed and replaced with crops such as rice. Within the Party, there was debate about redistribution. This would allow the state to buy at a low price and sell much higher, before 1949, peasants had farmed their own small pockets of land, and observed traditional practices—festivals, banquets, and paying homage to ancestors. It was realized that Maos policy of using a monopoly on agriculture to finance industrialization would be unpopular with the peasants. Therefore, it was proposed that the peasants should be brought under Party control by the establishment of agricultural collectives which would facilitate the sharing of tools. By 1958 private ownership was abolished and households all over China were forced into state-operated communes. Mao insisted that the communes must produce more grain for the cities, together, taxation and compulsory purchases accounted for 30 percent of the harvest by 1957, leaving very little surplus
22.
Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (Guangzhou)
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The Sun Yat-sen or Zhongshan Memorial Hall is an octagon-shaped building in Guangzhou, the capital of Chinas Guangdong Province. The hall was designed by Lu Yanzhi and was built with funds raised by local, construction work commenced in 1929 and completed in 1931. The hall is an octagonal structure with a span of 71 meters without pillars, housing a large stage. The hall itself has been damaged and repaired several times until 1998. A statue of Sun Yat-sen was erected in front of the main entrance, the memorial hall is accessible from Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station of Guangzhou Metro. Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall in Singapore Beck, Sanderson, pakula, Hannah, The Last Empress, Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern China, New York, Simon & Schuster. Travel China Guide - Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall
23.
Red star
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A red star, five-pointed and filled, is an important symbol often associated with communist ideology, particularly in combination with hammer and sickle. It has been used in flags, state emblems, monuments, ornaments. The five-pointed red star has served since about 1917 as a symbol of communism. One interpretation sees the five points as representing the five fingers of the workers hand, a red star became one of the emblems, symbols and signals representing the Soviet Union under the rule of the Communist Party, along with, for example, the hammer and sickle. In Soviet heraldry, the red star symbolized the Red Army and the service, as opposed to the hammer and sickle. It is most often thought that Russian troops fleeing from the Austrian and German fronts found themselves in Moscow in 1917, to distinguish the Moscow troops from the influx of retreating front-liners, officers gave out tin stars to the Moscow garrison soldiers to wear on their hats. When those troops joined the Red Army and the Bolsheviks they painted their tin stars red, another claimed origin for the red star relates to an alleged encounter between Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Krylenko. Krylenko, an Esperantist, wore a lapel badge, Trotsky enquired as to its meaning. On hearing that, Trotsky specified that soldiers of the Red Army should wear a similar, red and it has also been suggested that the use of the red star might be related to the popular novel called Red star from 1908 by Alexander Bogdanov. Following its adoption as an emblem of the Soviet Union, the red star became a symbol for communism in a larger sense, the symbol became one of the most prominent of the Soviet Union, adorning all official buildings, awards and insignia. Sometimes the hammer and sickle appeared depicted inside or below the star, separatist and socialist movements also sometimes adopted the red star, as on the Estelada flag in the Catalan countries. Titos partisans, often including people with different political views, or even with a religious background, wore the red star as an identification symbol. As the use of the red star spread to communism in East Asia, it was adapted, while some states kept the star as it was, some used a star, particularly on a red field. The Far Eastern Republic of 1920 to 1922 used a star on its military uniforms. The flag of Vietnam also has a star on a red field. In Brazil, however, the red star remained as it was, the Soviet and Russian Federation military newspaper is called the Red Star. Some sports teams from non-communist countries used it, such as French Red Star from Paris, Swiss club FC Red Star Zürich, English Seaham Red Star F. C. the Brazilian leftist Workers Party uses a red star as its symbol with the party acronym inside. Hugo Chávez and his supporters in Venezuela have used the red star in numerous symbols and logos and it was also used throughout 2007 as a symbol of the 5 Engines of the Bolivarian Socialist Revolution
24.
Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China
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U. S. President Richard Nixons 1972 visit to the Peoples Republic of China was an important step in formally normalizing relations between the United States and China. It marked the first time a U. S. president had visited the PRC, which at that time considered the U. S. one of its foes, and the visit ended 25 years of separation between the two sides. Early in his first term, Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger began sending subtle overtures hinting at warmer relations to the PRC government. After a series of overtures by both countries, Kissinger flew on secret diplomatic missions to Beijing, where he met with Premier Zhou Enlai. On July 15,1971, the President announced that he would visit the PRC the following year, occurring from February 21 to 28,1972, the visit allowed the American public to view images of China for the first time in over two decades. Nixon dubbed the visit the week that changed the world, the repercussions of the Nixon visit were vast, and included a significant shift in the Cold War balance, putting the PRC with the U. S. against the Soviet Union. Nixon going to China has since become a metaphor for an unexpected or uncharacteristic action by a politician, improved relations with the Soviet Union and the PRC are often cited as the most successful diplomatic achievements of Nixon’s presidency. Many Americans felt concern that communists might dominate schools or labor unions, the reason for opening up China was for the U. S. to gain more leverage over relations with the Soviet Union. Resolving the Vietnam War was an important factor. National Security Council staffer Winston Lord noted, First, an opening to China would give us more flexibility on the world scene generally and we wouldn’t just be dealing with Moscow. We could deal with Eastern Europe, of course, and we could deal with China, secondly, by opening relations with China we would catch Russia’s attention and get more leverage on them through playing this obvious, China card. This effort, in fact, worked dramatically after Kissinger’s secret trip to China, thirdly, Kissinger and Nixon wanted to get help in resolving the Vietnam War. By dealing with Russia and with China we hoped to put pressure on Hanoi to negotiate seriously, at a maximum, we tried to get Russia and China to slow down the provision of aid to North Vietnam somewhat. One of the main reasons Richard Nixon became the 1952 vice-presidential candidate on the Eisenhower ticket was his strong anti-communist stance, despite this, in 1972 Nixon became the first U. S. president to visit mainland China while in office. Ulysses S. Grant visited China on a tour after leaving office. Herbert Hoover lived in China briefly in 1899 before becoming President, dwight Eisenhower made a state visit to Taiwan in 1960, during the period when the United States recognized the Republic of China government in Taipei as the sole government of China. In July 1971, President Nixons National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger secretly visited Beijing during a trip to Pakistan, Transcripts of White House meetings and once confidential documents show Nixon began working to open a channel of communication with Beijing from his first day in the White House. From February 21 to 28,1972, U. S. President Richard Nixon traveled to Beijing, Hangzhou, almost as soon as the American president arrived in the Chinese capital, Chairman Mao summoned him for a quick meeting
25.
Liu Shaoqi
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Liu Shaoqi was a Chinese revolutionary, statesman, and theorist. For 15 years, President Liu was the third most powerful man in China, behind only Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai. Originally groomed as the successor to Mao, Liu antagonized Mao in the early 1960s before the Cultural Revolution and was criticized, then purged, by Mao starting in 1966. Liu disappeared from public life in 1968 and was labelled the commander of Chinas bourgeoisie headquarters, Chinas foremost capitalist-roader, and he died under harsh treatment in late 1969, but was posthumously rehabilitated by Deng Xiaopings government in 1980 and granted a national memorial service. In 1920, Liu and Ren Bishi joined a Socialist Youth Corp, in 1921 Liu joined the newly formed Chinese Communist Party. Liu went back to China in 1922, and as secretary of the All-China Labor Syndicate, led several railway workers strikes in the Yangzi Valley, in 1925 Liu became a member of the Guangzhou-based All-China Federation of Labor Executive Committee. During the next two years Liu led numerous campaigns and strikes in Hubei and Shanghai. Liu worked with Li Lisan in Shanghai in 1925, organizing Communist activity following the May Thirtieth Incident, after his work in Shanghai Liu traveled to Wuhan. Liu was briefly arrested in Changsha and then returned to Guangzhou to help organize the 16-month-long Canton-Hong Kong strike, in 1927 Liu was elected to the Partys Central Committee, and was appointed to the head of its Labor Department. In 1929 Liu returned to work at the Party headquarters in Shanghai, in 1930 and 1931, Liu attended the Third and Fourth Plenums of the Sixth Central Committee, and was elected to the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic in 1931 or 1932. Later in 1932 Liu left Shanghai and traveled to the Jiangxi Soviet, in 1932 Liu became the Party Secretary of Fujian Province. In 1936 Liu became Party Secretary in North China, leading the anti-Japanese movements in that area with the assistance of Peng Zhen, An Ziwen, Bo Yibo, Ke Qingshi, Liu Lantao, and Yao Yilin. In 1939 Liu ran the Central Plains Bureau, and, in 1941, some Japanese sources have alleged that the activities of Lius organization sparked the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937, which gave Japan the excuse to launch the Second Sino-Japanese War. In 1937 Liu traveled to the Communist base at Yanan, and, in 1941, in 1945 Liu was elected as one of five CCP Secretaries at the Seventh National Party Congress. After the Seventh National Party Congress Liu became the leader of all Communist forces in Manchuria and northern China. In 1949, Liu became the Vice Chairman of the Central Peoples Government, in 1954, China adopted a new constitution at the first National Peoples Congress. At the Congresss first session, Liu was elected chairman of the Congresss Standing Committee, from 1956 to his downfall in 1966, Liu ranked as the First Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China. Lius work focused on party organizational and theoretical affairs, Liu was an orthodox Soviet-style Communist, and favored state planning and the development of heavy industry
26.
State funeral
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A state funeral is a public funeral ceremony, observing the strict rules of protocol, held to honour people of national significance. State funerals usually include much pomp and ceremony as well as religious overtones, generally, state funerals are held in order to involve the general public in a national day of mourning after the family of the deceased gives consent. A state funeral will often generate mass publicity from both national and global media outlets and she had the title of Spiritual Leader of the Nation of Argentina, a title granted by the Congress of Argentina. Nearly three million people covered the funeral of Evita in the streets of Buenos Aires, eva Perón, Spiritual Leader of the Nation, died. Eva Perón was granted a funeral and a full Roman Catholic requiem mass. On 9 August, Saturday, the body was transferred to the Congress Building for an additional day to be publicly viewed. On Sunday,10 August, after a final Sunday mass, passing her coffin through the streets was showered with carnations, orchids, chrysanthemums, wallflowers and roses thrown from the balconies nearby. Juan Perón died at age 78 on July 1,1974, the Vice President, saying the country was announced with great sorrow I must convey to the people of Argentina the death of this true apostle of peace and nonviolence. On November 17,1974 the remains of Evita, while the body was in Congress, filed past the coffin 135,000 people, out of more than a million Argentines lost their bid farewell to their leader. Two thousand foreign journalists reported the details of the funeral, raul Alfonsín died at age 82 on 31 March 2009, due to lung cancer and then his health would be aggravated, in his last days, broncoaspirativa pneumonia. The next day they were taken to a gun carriage escorted by the Mounted Grenadiers Regiment at Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires. Although there was some effort made to him, it did not do so His wife. He was also expected to run for president in 2011, a state funeral was held on November 3,2010 in Bridgetown for former Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson. State funerals were held for the president-elect of Brazil, Tancredo Neves, the former vice-president of Brazil, José Alencar, was also buried with a head of states honor, after his passing due to cancer. In 2006, the House of Commons voted unanimously, on an introduced by the NDP. However, John Babcock, after becoming the last surviving veteran, in August 2011, in a rare circumstance, Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered a state funeral for his political adversary and Leader of the Opposition, Jack Layton. Layton died of cancer three months after his New Democratic Party became the opposition, for the first time in his partys history. In 2014, former finance minister Jim Flaherty received a state funeral after his death, crispin Sorhaindo, former President of Dominica, was given a state funeral on January 18,2010 in Roseau
27.
Hu Yaobang
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Hu Yaobang was a high-ranking official of the Peoples Republic of China. He was the leader of the Communist Party of China from 1981 to 1987, first as Chairman from 1981 to 1982, Hu joined the Chinese Communist Party in the 1930s, and rose to prominence as a comrade of Deng Xiaoping. During the Cultural Revolution, Hu was purged, recalled, and purged again, after Deng rose to power, following the death of Mao Zedong, Deng promoted Hu to a series of high political positions. Throughout the 1980s Hu pursued a series of economic and political reforms under the direction of Deng, Hus political and economic reforms made him the enemy of several powerful Party elders, who opposed free market reforms and attempts to make Chinas government more transparent. Hu was forced to resign as Party general secretary in 1987, Hus position as Party general secretary was taken by Zhao Ziyang, who continued many of Hus economic and political reforms. A day after Hus death, in 1989, a small-scale demonstration commemorated him, a week later, the day before Hus funeral, some 100,000 students marched on Tiananmen Square, leading to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Hu Yaobangs ancestors were Hakkas from Jiangxi, during the Ming dynasty they migrated into Hunan, where Hu was born. Hu Yaobang was born into a peasant family, and received little formal education. As a child he never attended school, and he himself to read. Hu participated in his first rebellion when he was twelve, left his family to join the Chinese Communist Party when he was only fourteen, during the factional struggles that polarized the CCP during the 1930s, Hu supported Mao Zedong and opposed the 28 Bolsheviks. Hu was one of the youngest veterans of the Long March, once Mao was removed from power, shortly before the beginning of the Fourth Encirclement Campaign, Maos supporters were persecuted, and Hu Yaobang was sentenced to death. Just before the beginning of the Long March, he and others were on their way to be beheaded, however, a powerful local communist commander named Tan Yubao intervened at the last minute, saving Hus life. Because of Hus support of Mao, he was deemed unreliable, Hu Yaobang was seriously wounded in the battle of Mount Lu, near Zunyi, close to the area where Mao Zedong rose back to power via the Zunyi Conference. After Hu was wounded the communist field medic teams chose not to help Hu, Hu was rescued by a childhood friend of his, a Chinese Red Army commander, who happened to pass by. Hu called out his friends nickname to ask for help, in 1936, Hu joined an expeditionary force led by Zhang Guotao. Zhang Guotaos forces were defeated by the local Nationalist warlords. Hu Yaobang, along with Qin Jiwei, became two of the thousands of prisoners-of-war captured by Ma cliques forces, Hu was one of only 1,500 prisoners-of-war whom Ma Bufang decided to use as forced labor rather than execute. Ma Bufang sent several Muslim cavalry divisions under General Ma Biao to fight against the Japanese, since the marching route had to pass the border of the communist base in Shaanxi, Hu Yaobang and Qin Jiwei decided to return to the Communists, and secretly organized an escape
28.
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
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The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, commonly known in China as the June Fourth Incident, were student-led demonstrations in Beijing in 1989. More broadly, it refers to the national movement inspired by the Beijing protests during that period. The protests were suppressed after the government declared martial law. The number of deaths has been estimated at anywhere between the hundreds to the thousands. The reforms of the 1980s had led a nascent market economy which benefited some groups but seriously disaffected others, common grievances at the time included inflation, limited preparedness of graduates for the new economy, and restrictions on political participation. The students called for democracy, greater accountability, freedom of the press, at the height of the protests, about a million people assembled in the Square. As the protests developed, the authorities veered back and forth between conciliatory and hardline tactics, exposing deep divisions within the party leadership, by May, a student-led hunger strike galvanized support for the demonstrators around the country and the protests spread to some 400 cities. Ultimately, Chinas paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and other party elders believed the protests to be a political threat, Party authorities declared martial law on May 20, and mobilized as many as 300,000 troops to Beijing. The Chinese government was condemned internationally for the use of force. Western countries imposed sanctions and arms embargoes. The Chinese government initially condemned the protests as a counter-revolutionary riot, the police and internal security forces were strengthened. Officials deemed sympathetic to the protests were demoted or purged, more broadly, the suppression temporarily halted the policies of liberalization in the 1980s. Considered a watershed event, the protests also set the limits on political expression in China well into the 21st century. Its memory is associated with questioning the legitimacy of Communist Party rule. In the Chinese language, the incident is most commonly known as the June Fourth Incident, June Fourth refers to the day on which the Peoples Liberation Army cleared Tiananmen Square of protesters, although actual operations began on the evening of June 3. Some use the June Fourth designation solely to refer to the carried out by the Army. Names such as June Fourth Movement and 89 Democracy Movement are used to describe the event in its entirety, outside mainland China, and among circles critical of the crackdown within mainland China, it is commonly referred to in Chinese as June Fourth Massacre and June Fourth Crackdown. The government of the Peoples Republic of China have used numerous names for the event since 1989, in English, the terms Tiananmen Square Massacre, Tiananmen Square Protests or Tiananmen Square Crackdown are often used to describe the series of events
29.
Deng Xiaoping
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Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese revolutionary and statesman. He was the paramount leader of the Peoples Republic of China from 1978 until his retirement in 1989, after Chairman Mao Zedongs death, Deng led his country through far-reaching market-economy reforms. While Deng never held office as the head of state, head of government or General Secretary, he nonetheless was responsible for economic reforms and an opening to the global economy. Born into a peasant background in Guangan, Sichuan province, Deng studied and worked in France in the 1920s and he joined the Communist Party of China in 1923. Following the founding of the Peoples Republic in 1949, Deng worked in Tibet, as the partys Secretary General in the 1950s, Deng presided over anti-rightist campaigns and became instrumental in Chinas economic reconstruction following the Great Leap Forward of 1957-1960. His economic policies, however, were at odds with Maos political ideologies, following Maos death in 1976, Deng outmaneuvered Maos chosen successor, Hua Guofeng. Some called him the architect of a new brand of thinking that combined socialist ideology with pragmatic market economy whose slogan was Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Deng possibly has ancestry from ethnically Hakka Han family in the village of Paifang, in the township of Xiexing, Guangan County in Sichuan province, approximately 160 km from Chongqing. Dengs ancestors can be traced back to Mei County, Guangdong, a prominent ancestral area for the Hakka people, Deng Xiaopings daughter Deng Rong wrote in the book My father Deng Xiaoping that his ancestry was probably but not definitely Hakka. Deng Xiaoping was born in Sichuan, Dengs father, Deng Wenming, was a middle-level landowner and had studied at the University of Law and Political Science in Chengdu. His mother, surnamed Dan, died early in Dengs life, leaving Deng, at the age of five Deng was sent to a traditional Chinese-style private primary school, followed by a more modern primary school at the age of seven. Dengs first wife, one of his schoolmates from Moscow, died aged 24 a few days after giving birth to Dengs first child and his second wife, Jin Weiying, left him after Deng came under political attack in 1933. His third wife Zhuo Lin was the daughter of an industrialist in Yunnan Province and she became a member of the Communist Party in 1938, and married Deng a year later in front of Maos cave dwelling in Yanan. They had five children, three daughters and two sons, when Deng first attended school, his tutor objected to his having the given name Xiānshèng, calling him Xixian, which includes the characters to aspire to and goodness, with overtones of wisdom. In the summer of 1919 Deng Xiaoping graduated from the Chongqing School and he and 80 schoolmates travelled by ship to France to participate in the Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement, a work-study program in which 4,001 Chinese would participate by 1927. Deng, the youngest of all the Chinese students in the group, had just turned 15, wu Yuzhang, local leader of the Movement in Chongqing, enrolled Deng and his paternal uncle, Deng Shaosheng, in the program. Dengs father strongly supported his sons participation in the work-study abroad program, the night before his departure, Dengs father took his son aside and asked him what he hoped to learn in France. He repeated the words he had learned from his teachers, To learn knowledge, Deng was aware that China was suffering greatly, and that the Chinese people must have a modern education to save their country
30.
Mao Zedong
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His Marxist–Leninist theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Mao adopted Marxism–Leninism while working at Peking University and became a member of the Communist Party of China. On October 1,1949, Mao proclaimed the foundation of the Peoples Republic of China, in the following years Mao solidified his control through land reform campaigns against landlords, and perceived enemies of the state he termed as counter-revolutionaries. In 1957, he launched the Great Leap Forward campaign that aimed to rapidly transform Chinas economy from an economy to an industrial one. The campaign contributed to a famine, whose death toll is estimated at between 15 and 45 million. In 1972, Mao welcomed American President Richard Nixon in Beijing, signalling a policy of opening China, Mao suffered a series of heart attacks in 1976, and died in September, aged 82. He was succeeded as Paramount leader by Hua Guofeng, who was sidelined and replaced by Deng. A controversial figure, Mao is regarded as one of the most important individuals in modern world history, Mao Zedong was born on December 26,1893 in Shaoshan village, Hunan Province, China. His father, Mao Yichang, was an impoverished peasant who had become one of the wealthiest farmers in Shaoshan. Growing up in rural Hunan, Mao Zedong described his father as a stern disciplinarian, Maos mother, Wen Qimei, was a devout Buddhist who tried to temper her husbands strict attitude. Zedong too became a Buddhist, but abandoned this faith in his mid-teenage years, at age 8, Mao was sent to Shaoshan Primary School. At age 13, Mao finished primary education, and his father united him in a marriage to the 17-year-old Luo Yigu. Mao refused to recognise her as his wife, becoming a critic of arranged marriage. Luo was locally disgraced and died in 1910, interested in history, Mao was inspired by the military prowess and nationalistic fervour of George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte. The famine spread to Shaoshan, where starving peasants seized his fathers grain and he disapproved of their actions as morally wrong, but claimed sympathy for their situation. At age 16, Mao moved to a primary school in nearby Dongshan. In 1911, Mao began middle school in Changsha, Revolutionary sentiment was strong in the city, where there was widespread animosity towards Emperor Puyis absolute monarchy and many were advocating republicanism. The republicans figurehead was Sun Yat-sen, an American-educated Christian who led the Tongmenghui society, in Changsha, Mao was influenced by Suns newspaper, The Peoples Independence, and called for Sun to become president in a school essay
31.
Lucy Angel
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Lucy Angel is an American country music family trio consisting of mother Kate Anderton and her two daughters, Lindsay and Emily. The group has charted one single, Crazy Too, on Country Airplay, Kate first entered the world of country music when her husband entered her into a country music talent search show, the Wrangler Country Showdown, which she won. Eldest daughter Lindsay started performing at age four, and by twelve had joined her mother in singing professionally, originally from Arizona, the family moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 2003, where Kate and Lindsay first took on the name Lucy Angel as the name of their duo. However, it wasnt long before youngest daughter Emily joined her mother and sister on the stage, Lucy Angels first public performance as a trio was opening for Neal McCoy. The group went on to open for acts such as Taylor Swift, Montgomery Gentry. On July 22,2011, they performed at the Country Thunder Music Festival in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin. In 2015, Lucy Angel opened shows for Jake Owen, Kip Moore, Craig Campbell, Chris Janson, Big & Rich, Lauren Alaina, James Otto, A Thousand Horses, LoCash, The Swon Brothers and more. Apart from touring the United States, Lucy Angel has also performed internationally, visiting Japan, Switzerland, in 2006, Lucy Angel performed at the 13th Annual Country Sunshine Festival in Kumamoto, Japan. In 2008, Lucy Angel performed at the Schützenhaus Albisgütli in Zurich, Lucy Angel journeyed to China twice in 2009. In May 2009, the group was invited back to China for the Zhangjiajie International Country Music Week in the Hunan Province, Lucy Angels self-titled debut album was released digitally on January 13 of 2015. The album is currently in Walmart and Target stores nationwide, Lucy Angel released Crazy Too to Country radio in May 2015. The single reached No.51 on the Country Airplay chart, Crazy Too was a SiriusXM The Highway, Highway Find in November and December 2014. Lucy Angel released How Long in 2007, Lucy Angel released two singles in 2011, Only Woman Left and Serious. Only Woman Left, their single, peaked at No.45 on MusicRow’s MusicRow CountryBreakout chart. Serious, their single reached No.31 on MusicRow’s CountryBreakout chart. In addition, they have a special single entitled Mr. Santa. Lucy Angel starred in a 13 episode docu-series, Discovering Lucy Angel on AXS TV in the Spring of 2015, the show is set to air internationally in the UK on SHOWBIZ TV beginning February 14,2016. Lucy Angel starred in an episode of HGTVs Interiors Inc during which they premiered their newest song, Lucy Angel performed Id Be Lyin on an episode of ABCs hit romance reality series, The Bachelor
32.
Politics of China
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The politics of the Peoples Republic of China takes places in a framework of a semi-presidential socialist republic run by a single party, the Communist Party of China. State power within the Peoples Republic of China is exercised through the Communist Party, the Communist Party of China uses Internal Reference to manage and monitor internal disagreements among the people of Peoples Republic of China. Peoples Congress members at the county level are elected by voters and these county level Peoples Congresses have the responsibility of oversight of local government, and elect members to the Provincial Peoples Congress. The Provincial Peoples Congress in turn elects members to the National Peoples Congress that meets each year in March in Beijing, the ruling Communist Party committee at each level plays a large role in the selection of appropriate candidates for election to the local congress and to the higher levels. The President of China is the head of state, serving as the ceremonial figurehead under National Peoples Congress. The Premier of China is the head of government, presiding over the State Council composed of four vice premiers, as a one-party state, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China holds ultimate power and authority over state and government. Chinas population, geographical vastness, and social diversity frustrate attempts to rule from Beijing, political power has become much less personal and more institutionally based than it was during the first forty years of the PRC. For example, Deng Xiaoping was never the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, President, or Premier of China, today the authority of Chinas leaders is much more tied to their institutional base. Central government leaders must increasingly build consensus for new policies among party members, local and regional leaders, influential non-party members, however, control is often maintained over the larger group through control of information. The Chinese Communist Party considers China to be in the stages of socialism. Many Chinese and foreign observers see the PRC as in transition from a system of ownership to one in which private ownership plays an increasingly important role. The more than 80 million-member Communist Party of China continues to dominate government, in periods of relative liberalisation, the influence of people and groups outside the formal party structure has tended to increase, particularly in the economic realm. Under the command system, every state owned enterprise was required to have a party committee. The introduction of the market means that economic institutions now exist in which the party has limited or no power. Nevertheless, in all institutions in the PRC, the party committees at all levels maintain a powerful. The CPCs most important responsibility comes in the selection and promotion of personnel and they also see that party and state policy guidance is followed and that non-party members do not create autonomous organizations that could challenge party rule. Particularly important are the small groups which coordinate activities of different agencies. Constitutionally, the partys highest body is the Party Congress, which is supposed to meet at least once every 5 years, meetings were irregular before the Cultural Revolution but have been periodic since then
33.
Chung-Shan Building
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The Chung-Shan Building is part of the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall complex. Completed in 1966, the building is located in the Yangmingshan National Park in Taipei, the building is placed on the reverse of the 100 New Taiwan Dollar bill. The building serves as a location for hosting ceremonies by the President of the Republic of China for state visits, thousands of military veterans finished this construction within 13 months. Up to present, the hall still preserves many important scenes that witnessed constitutional development, the government has designated the Chungshan Hall as a historical monument. Chungshan Hall occupies a field of more than 130,000 square meters, situated in the sulfurous area of Yangmingshan, the structure is firmly founded on a ground base composed of mixtures of soft and hard soil, rocks and mud. The Chungshan Hall is a rarity of large-size edifice in the world that is erected directly at a sulfuric-gas spurting pit, the interior embellishments such as over 400 hand crafted palace lanterns, mother-of-pearl inlaid furniture, ceiling, design of doors and windows, and color drawings of pillars
34.
State Kremlin Palace
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The State Kremlin Palace, formerly and unofficially still better known as the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, is a large modern building inside the Moscow Kremlin. The building was built at the initiative of Nikita Khrushchev as an arena for Communist Party meetings. Although the architecture of the projected building contrasted sharply with the historic milieu, the structure was opened along with the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on October 17,1961. In 1962 the architects of the project, headed by Mikhail Posokhin were awarded the Lenin Prize for their work, the building is a modern glass and concrete design, with nearly half of it submerged underground. The main hall is able to hold six people and its acoustics were considered to be the most advanced at the time. Over the years this was the place for mass state events. Presently it is used for official and popular concerts, american singers Mariah Carey, Tina Turner and Cher have played in the palace, as did Canadian poet and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. Additionally, it is the venue of the Kremlin ballet group, also the Bolshoi Theatre was performing there while its historic building was closed for repairs. The number of rooms is well over eight hundred. Externally the palace is faced with marble and the windows are tinted and reflective. Nevertheless, the Palace was integrated into the complex of the Great Kremlin Palace with walkways linking it to the Patriarchal chambers. In Tom Clancys 1986 novel Red Storm Rising, the building is bombed in an operation by the KGB to justify an invasion of Western Europe. The building is depicted as being the place for the Council of Ministers. Ordinarily, the Council convened in the Kremlin Senate, which is explained in the novel as being closed for repairs
35.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
36.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
37.
University of California Press
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University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish books and papers for the faculty of the University of California and its headquarters are located in Oakland, California. It also distributes titles published by the Huntington Library, Watershed Media, each year it publishes approximately 180 new books and 31 journals in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences and keeps about 3,500 book titles in print. The Press commissioned as its corporate typeface University of California Old Style from type designer Frederic Goudy from 1936-8, finley Joan of Arc, The Image of Female Heroism, Marina Warner Strong Democracy, Participatory Politics for a New Age, Benjamin R. These titles were selected for their merit and for their illumination of California history. The Ford by Mary Austin Thieves Market by A. I, by Al Young Official University of California Press website California Digital Library - University of California Libraries Free Online - UC Press E-Books Collection Mark Twain Project Online
38.
Google Maps
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Google Maps is a web mapping service developed by Google. It offers satellite imagery, street maps, 360° panoramic views of streets, real-time traffic conditions, Google maps began as a C++ desktop program designed by Lars and Jens Eilstrup Rasmussen at Where 2 Technologies. In October 2004, the company was acquired by Google, which converted it into a web application, after additional acquisitions of a geospatial data visualization company and a realtime traffic analyzer, Google Maps was launched in February 2005. The services front end utilizes JavaScript, XML, and Ajax, Google Maps offers an API that allows maps to be embedded on third-party websites, and offers a locator for urban businesses and other organizations in numerous countries around the world. Google Map Maker allows users to expand and update the services mapping worldwide. Much of the satellite imagery is no more than three years old and is updated on a regular basis. Google Maps uses a variant of the Mercator projection. The current redesigned version of the application was made available in 2013. Google Maps for mobile was released in September 2008 and features GPS turn-by-turn navigation, in August 2013, it was determined to be the worlds most popular app for smartphones, with over 54% of global smartphone owners using it at least once. In 2012, Google reported having over 7,100 employees, Google Maps provides a route planner under Get Directions. Up to four modes of transportation are available depending on the area, driving, public transit, walking, in combination with Google Street View, issues such as parking, turning lanes, and one-way streets can be viewed before traveling. China mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, Jordan, Lebanon, only public transit directions are provided for South Korea. All countries of mainland North and Central America are covered contiguously, all countries of mainland South America are covered. All countries including Trinidad and Tobago* are treated contiguously, all inhabited countries and territories in the Caribbean are covered, though in general there are no connections between islands. Like many other Google web applications, Google Maps uses JavaScript extensively, as the user drags the map, the grid squares are downloaded from the server and inserted into the page. When a user searches for a business, the results are downloaded in the background for insertion into the panel and map. Locations are drawn dynamically by positioning a red pin on top of the map images, a hidden IFrame with form submission is used because it preserves browser history. The site also uses JSON for data rather than XML
39.
Beijing railway station
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Beijing Railway Station, or simply Beijing Station, is a passenger railway station in Dongcheng District, Beijing. The Beijing Railway Station opened in 1959 and was the largest train station in China at the time, though superseded by the larger Beijing West and Beijing South Stations, this station remains the only one located inside the old walled city. Trains entering and leaving the station pass by the Dongbianmen corner tower, with gilded eaves and soaring clock towers, the architecture of the railway blends traditional Chinese and socialist realist influence. Some international lines, also depart from this station, the Beijing Subways first line used to terminate at Beijing Railway Station from 1969 to 1981. The subway station is now a stop on Line 2, more than 30 Beijing bus and Beijing trolleybus routes stop at or near the railway station. In late October 1958, according to the early 1950 Beijing municipal governments construction and planning records, the stations design progressed rapidly and by early December the same year, the whole design proposal was completed. On December 10, the proposal was approved by the Central Committee. In determining the design proposal, Zhou Enlai proposed that turrets be built on each of the two wings of the main building and this suggestion was adopted.82 million yuan. Soviet Union experts were hired to give technical guidance at the construction sites. In just over seven months, the project was completed on September 10,1959, chairman Mao Zedong wrote the calligraphic characters in the station sign. The Beijing Railway Station was one of the largest construction projects in mainland China during that time modern facilities. At the time of completion, the station has a twelve tracks, installed on the roof of the Station House were two marble clock faces and every morning from 7am to 9pm the bell sounded punctually and The East Is Red song is played out. The four sets of escalators were replaced during the 1980 and again during 1990, in 1988, the Shanghai Electric Clock Factory installed Chinas first large screen display system in the Beijing Railway Station Square. Since June 18,2003, the Beijing Railway Station began an expansion of two new sites, comprising an area of 20,513 square meters and includes a large parcel luggage line. Renovations included the removal of the canopy, alterations to the steel arch station pole. Beijing Subway, Line 2 stops at the Beijing Railway Station, bus route numbers in bold denotes bus terminus. South Korea, Seoul Station Japan, Tokyo Station Ueno Station Official site Beijing Train Schedule
40.
Cultural Palace of Nationalities
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The Cultural Palace of Nationalities is located in Beijings Xicheng District, on West Changan Avenue. It was built in September 1959 and is one of the Ten Great Buildings and it was registered as the first of 55 museums in the city. It consists of a museum, gallery, library, art institute, theater, guesthouse, as a cultural institution, it is under the administration of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission of the Peoples Republic of China. The buildings architecture was praised when it was unveiled. The building has an area of 32,000 m², the main building for the tower has 13 floors. East and west sides are surrounded by wings, stretching north central exhibition hall, house body are white, with peacock blue glazed tile roof eaves decoration. Central Hall 2 entrance letter solidarity, progress, the mission of the Culture Palace is to serve and educate the various minority cultures of the country. The collection of National Culture Palace includes literature and science text books of more than 60 million copies, the basic display for the Chinese Traditional Culture Series exhibition, and theater performances will be from time to time various national art. In recent years, the community also to provide space to other types of exhibitions organized. National Palace Museum in 1979 has been changed to the National Palace Hall, the museums collection of cultural relics protection of ethnic minorities in China, of promoting minority cultures
41.
Diaoyutai State Guesthouse
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The Diaoyutai State Guesthouse is a historic hotel and guesthouse complex in Beijing, China. It includes a number of buildings, houses and gardens, the hotel complex is mentioned as one of the Ten Great Buildings, a list of landmarks constructed in 1959 for the 10th anniversary of the Peoples Republic of China. The guesthouse is located in Beijings Haidian District, to the west of Sanlihe Road, the guesthouse is used to house visiting foreign dignitaries and provincial government officials. During the Cultural Revolution, it was used as the office of the Central Cultural Revolution Group, since then, the guesthouse has also been open to paying customers. The name Diaoyutai means angling platform, and is so named because the site was a fishing spot of Emperor Zhangzong of Jin. It is not related to the Diaoyutai Islands, list of hotels in Beijing Beijing portal Grand Hotel The Diaoyutai State Guesthouse
42.
Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution
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Military Museum of the Chinese Peoples Revolution or China Peoples Revolution Military Museum is located in Haidian District, Beijing, China. The museum displays restored military equipment from the history of the Peoples Liberation Army, up to and including modern-day machinery. One of the Ten Great Buildings erected in celebration of the anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, construction of the museum began in October 1958. The museums four floors include ten halls, the largest of which is the Hall of Weapons, in addition, the Hall of Weapons displays equipment from Chinas space program, such as satellites and a two-seat orbital capsule. With two exceptions, the halls are largely historical exhibits, combining plaster sculptures, maps, paintings, artifacts, movies. The museum is accessible by Line 1 of the Beijing Subway at the Military Museum Station and city bus routes 1,4,21,65,68,205,308,320,337,617,728, and 802. List of museums in China http, //www. china. org. cn/english/kuaixun/73574. htm
43.
Minzu Hotel
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The Minzu Hotel, located in Xicheng District, Beijing, Peoples Republic of China, is one of the Ten Great Buildings of Beijing. The Minzu Hotel is located on West Changan Avenue, having opening in 1959, it has hosted numerous foreign delegations, and is often used for press conferences. The 10-storey hotel has 507 rooms, list of hotels in Beijing Beijing portal Minzu Hotel
44.
National Museum of China
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The National Museum of China flanks the eastern side of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. The museums mission is to educate about the arts and history of China and it is directed by the Ministry of Culture of the Peoples Republic of China. It is one of the largest museums in the world, the building was completed in 1959 as one of the Ten Great Buildings celebrating the ten-year anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China. It complements the opposing Great Hall of the People that was built at the same time, the structure sits on 6.5 hectares and has a frontal length of 313 metres, a height of four stories totaling 40 metres, and a width of 149 metres. The front displays eleven square pillars at its center and it has a total floor space of nearly 200,000 m2 to display. The renovations were designed by the German firm Gerkan, Marg, the museum, covering Chinese history from the Yuanmou Man of 1. However Yves Carcelle, Chairman and Chief executive officer of Louis Vuitton Malletier defended the exhibition by stating, I think before money, theres history,157 years of creativity and craftsmanship
45.
Workers' Stadium
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The Workers Stadium, often called Gongti or Gong Ti, is a multi-purpose stadium in the Chaoyang District of north-eastern Beijing, China. It is mostly used for football matches, the stadium was built in 1959 and was last renovated in 2004. It has a capacity of 66,161 and covers a area of 350,000 square meters. It is one of the Ten Great Buildings constructed in 1959 for the 10th anniversary of the Peoples Republic of China, the stadium was the main venue for the 1990 Asian Games, where the opening and closing ceremonies were held. Some high attendance matches of the Beijing Guoan football club are held at the stadium. The stadium holds claim to the fastest womens 1500 m time ever recorded of 3,50.46, the fastest womens 3000 m of 8,06.11 and these world records still stand today and are arguably the stadiums biggest claim to fame. The next year, the stadium was demolished and renovated as part of Chinas bid for the 2000 Olympic Games - a bid which ultimately failed. The stadium continued to be a mainstay of Beijing sport into the 21st century, for the 2008 Summer Olympics it hosted the football quarter-finals and semi-finals, and the womens gold medal final. The stadium was scheduled to host the first ever NFL game played in China, however, the China Bowl was canceled in April 2007. The stadium was the host for the 2009 Barclays Asia Trophy on 29 July and 31 July 2009, featuring Beijing Guoan, the areas north, east and west of the stadium are popular nightlife destinations. The xi men offers a strip of nightclubs, the Workers Indoor Arena is located to the west of the stadium. Contrary to the usual sports occasions at the stadium, global superstar Mariah Carey began her sold-out five-show tour at the Workers Stadium, the stadium hosted FC Bayern Munichs pre-season China Tour of 2012, during which the Bundesliga club had a friendly match with Beijing Guoan. Linkin Park played The Hunting Party Tour at July 26,2015 in front of 60，000 audience. August 61999, A-mei - Mei Li 99 October 132002, Glay - Glay One Love In Beijing, audience,35,000 August 282004, Faye Wong - No Faye
46.
Olympic Green
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The Olympic Green is an Olympic Park in Chaoyang District, Beijing, China constructed for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Since then, the streets around the park have been used for a street race of the FIA GT1 World Championship in 2011. It will again serve as an Olympic Park when Beijing hosts the 2022 Winter Olympics, the Beijing National Stadium or Birds Nest is the centerpiece of this project. It hosted the opening and closing ceremonies, athletics, and football finals of the Games, the stadium has room for 91,000 spectators, but the capacity was reduced to 80,000 after the Olympics. It will be the site of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2022 Winter Olympics, the Beijing National Aquatics Center or Water Cube hosted the swimming, diving and synchronized swimming events. It has a capacity of 6,000 and is located next to the National Stadium and it will be the site of the curling competitions during the 2022 Winter Olympics. The Beijing National Indoor Stadium or the Fan held the handball, artistic gymnastics, with a capacity of 19,000, it was the main indoor arena used during the Games. The National Speed Skating Oval is an arena that will be built for the 2022 Winter Olympics, the Olympic Green Convention Center, also called the National Convention Center, held fencing and, the shooting and fencing disciplines of the modern pentathlon. It is also used as the International Broadcast Center and the Main Press Center, the center covers an area of 270,000 square meters. The Olympic Green Hockey Field hosted the hockey events. It covered an area of 11.87 hectares with 2 courts and it was deconstructed after the Games. The Olympic Green Archery Field hosted the archery events, the field occupied 9.22 hectares and had a capacity of 5,000. It was dismantled after the Games, the Olympic Green Tennis Center hosted the tennis and wheelchair tennis events. It has 16 courts and a capacity of 17,400 and it opened on October 1,2007. The park itself, outside of the venues constructed on the Olympic Green and these included the racewalk events, where the loops occurred on the Olympic Green, and the portion of the marathons just outside the National Stadium. The Beijing Olympic Village housed all the participating athletes, the village is made up of 22 6-story buildings and 20 9-story buildings. The Digital Beijing Building served during the Games as the data center and it was the only building on the Green at the time of the Olympics that was not an event venue. Since then it has converted into a museum of the Digital Olympics
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Beijing National Stadium
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Beijing National Stadium, officially the National Stadium, also known as the Birds Nest, is a stadium in Beijing. The stadium was designed for use throughout the 2008 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, the stadium is currently mostly unused, after having been unsuccessfully suggested as the permanent headquarters of the Beijing football team. The Birds Nest sometimes has some extra temporary large screens installed at the stands of the stadium, located at the Olympic Green, the stadium cost US$428 million. The design was awarded to a submission from the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron in April 2003 after a process that included 13 final submissions. The design, which originated from the study of Chinese ceramics, implemented steel beams in order to hide supports for the retractable roof, leading Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was the artistic consultant on the project. The retractable roof was removed from the design after inspiring the stadiums most recognizable aspect. Ground was broken on 24 December 2003 and the stadium opened on 28 June 2008. A shopping mall and a hotel are planned to be constructed to use of the stadium. In 2001, before Beijing had been awarded the games, the city held a bidding process to select the best arena design, multiple requirements including the ability for post-Olympics use, a retractable roof, and low maintenance costs, were required of each design. The entry list was narrowed to thirteen final designs, the model was approved as the top design by a professional panel and later exhibited to the public. Once again, it was selected as the top design, the nest scheme design became official in April 2003. During their first meeting in 2003, at Basel, the decided to do something unlike Herzog. China wanted to have something new for this very important stadium, in an effort to design a stadium that was porous while also being a collective building, a public vessel, the team studied Chinese ceramics. This line of thought brought the team to the nest scheme, the stadium consists of two independent structures, standing 50 feet apart, a red concrete seating bowl and the outer steel frame around it. Twenty-four trussed columns encase the inner bowl, each one weighing 1,000 tons, despite the random appearance of the Stadium, each half is nearly symmetrical. After a collapse of a roof at the Charles de Gaulle Airport and it was decided to eliminate the retractable roof, the original inspiration for the nest design, as well as 9,000 seats from the design. The removal of the elements helped to bring the project under the construction budget of $290 million. With the removal of the roof, the building was lightened, which helped it stand up to seismic activity, however
