1.
Simplified Chinese characters
–
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
Simplified Chinese characters
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Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese characters
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The slogan 战无不胜的毛泽东思想万岁 (Zhàn wúbù shèng de Máo Zédōng sīxiǎng wànsuì; Long live the invincible
Mao Zedong Thought) on
Xinhua Gate in Beijing.
Simplified Chinese characters
–
The first batch of Simplified Characters introduced in 1935 consisted of 324 characters.
2.
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
Traditional Chinese characters
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Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese characters
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Job announcement in a Filipino Chinese daily newspaper written in Traditional Chinese characters.
Traditional Chinese characters
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A Series of Reading workbook in Traditional Chinese used in some Elementary schools in the Philippines.
3.
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
Standard Chinese
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A poster outside of high school in
Yangzhou urges people to speak Putonghua
Standard Chinese
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Zhongguo Guanhua (中国官话/中國官話), or Medii Regni Communis Loquela ("Middle Kingdom's Common Speech"), used on the frontispiece of an early Chinese grammar published by
Étienne Fourmont (with
Arcadio Huang) in 1742
4.
Hanyu 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
Hanyu Pinyin
–
A school slogan asking elementary students to speak
Putonghua is annotated with pinyin, but without tonal marks.
Hanyu Pinyin
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In
Yiling,
Yichang,
Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Chinese characters and in Hanyu Pinyin
5.
Bopomofo
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Zhuyin fuhao, Zhuyin or Bopomofo is a system of phonetic notation for the transcription of spoken Chinese, particularly the Mandarin dialect. The first two are traditional terms, whereas Bopomofo is the term, also used by the ISO. Consisting of 37 characters and four marks, it transcribes all possible sounds in Mandarin. Zhuyin was introduced in China by the Republican Government in the 1910s and used alongside the Wade-Giles system, the Wade system was replaced by Hanyu Pinyin in 1958 by the Government of the Peoples Republic of China, and at the International Organization for Standardization in 1982. The informal name Bopomofo is derived from the first four syllables in the ordering of available syllables in Mandarin Chinese. The four Bopomofo characters that correspond to these syllables are placed first in a list of these characters. The same sequence is used by other speakers of Chinese to refer to other phonetic systems. The original formal name of the system was Guóyīn Zìmǔ and Zhùyīn Zìmǔ and it was later renamed Zhùyīn Fúhào, meaning phonetic symbols. In official documents, Zhuyin is occasionally called Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I, in English translations, the system is often also called either Chu-yin or the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols. A romanized phonetic system was released in 1984 as Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II, the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, led by Wu Zhihui from 1912 to 1913, created a system called Zhuyin Zimu, which was based on Zhang Binglins shorthand. A draft was released on July 11,1913, by the Republic of China National Ministry of Education and it was later renamed first Guoyin Zimu and then, in April 1930, Zhuyin Fuhao. The last renaming addressed fears that the system might independently replace Chinese characters. Zhuyin remains the predominant phonetic system in teaching reading and writing in school in Taiwan. It is also one of the most popular ways to enter Chinese characters into computers and smartphones, in elementary school, particularly in the lower years, Chinese characters in textbooks are often annotated with Zhuyin as ruby characters as an aid to learning. Additionally, one newspaper in Taiwan, the Mandarin Daily News. In teaching Mandarin, Taiwan institutions and some communities use Zhuyin as a learning tool. The Zhuyin characters were created by Zhang Binglin, and taken mainly from regularised forms of ancient Chinese characters, the modern readings of which contain the sound that each letter represents. It is to be noted that the first consonants are articulated from the front of the mouth to the back, /b/, /p/, /m/, /f/, /d/, /t/, /n/, Zhuyin is written in the same stroke order rule as Chinese characters
Bopomofo
–
An example of a Zhuyin keypad for Taiwan.
Bopomofo
–
Table showing Zhuyin in
Gwoyeu Romatzyh.
6.
Wu Chinese
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Wu is a group of linguistically similar and historically related varieties of Chinese primarily spoken in the whole city of Shanghai, Zhejiang province, southern Jiangsu province and bordering areas. Major Wu varieties include those of Shanghai, Suzhou, Ningbo, Wuxi, Wenzhou/Oujiang, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, Wu speakers, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Lu Xun and Cai Yuanpei, occupied positions of great importance in modern Chinese culture and politics. Wu can also be found being used in Shaoxing opera, which is only in national popularity to Peking opera, as well as in the performances of the popular entertainer. Wu is also spoken in a number of diaspora communities, with significant centers of immigration originating from Shanghai, Qingtian. Suzhou has traditionally been the center of Wu and was likely the first place the distinct variety of Sinitic known as Wu developed. Suzhou dialect is considered to be the most linguistically representative of the family. Due to the influence of Shanghainese, Wu as a whole is incorrectly labelled in English as simply, Shanghainese, among speakers of other Sinitic languages, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light, and flowing. There is an idiom in Mandarin that specifically describes these qualities of Wu speech, Ngu nung nioe ngiu, Wu varieties have the largest vowel quality inventories in the world. The Jinhui dialect spoken in Shanghais Fengxian District has 20 vowel qualities, Wu Chinese, along with Min, is also of great significance to historical linguists due to their retention of many ancient features. These two languages have proven pivotal in determining the history of the Chinese languages. More pressing concerns of the present are those of language preservation, however, many analysts believe that a stable state of diglossia will endure for at least several generations if not indefinitely. Saying one speaks Wu is akin to saying one speaks a Romance language and it is not a particularly defined entity like Standard Mandarin or Hochdeutsch. They do this by affixing 話 Wo to their locations endonym, for example, 溫州話 Wēnzhōuhuà is used for Wenzhounese. Affixing 閒話 xiánhuà is also common and more typical of the Taihu division, Wu, the formal name and standard reference in dialectology literature. Northern Wu, Wu typically spoken in the north of Zhejiang and it by default includes the Xuanzhou division in Anhui as well, however this division is often neglected in Northern Wu discussions. Southern Wu, Wu spoken in southern Zhejiang and periphery, comprising the Oujiang, Wuzhou, Western Wu, A term gaining in usage as a synonym for the Xuanzhou division and modeled after the previous two terms since the Xuanzhou division is less representative of Northern Wu. Shanghainese, is also a common name, used because Shanghai is the most well-known city in the Wu-speaking region. The term Shanghainese is never used by linguists to refer to anything
Wu Chinese
–
Wu (Wú Yǔ) written in
Chinese characters
7.
Cantonese
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Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China. It is the prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages and it is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western World. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, in English, the term Cantonese is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton and this narrow sense may be specified as Canton language or Guangzhou language in English. However, Cantonese may also refer to the branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, Cantonese is used for Cantonese proper, historically, speakers called this variety Canton speech or Guangzhou speech, although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people call it provincial capital speech or plain speech. In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, in mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and it is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The variant spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese, Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China
Cantonese
–
Street in
Chinatown, San Francisco. Cantonese has traditionally been the dominant Chinese variant among Chinese populations in the Western world.
Cantonese
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Gwóngdūng Wah / gwong 2 dung 1 waa 6 (Cantonese) written in
traditional Chinese (left) and
simplified Chinese (right) characters
Cantonese
–
Chinese dictionary from Tang dynasty. Modern Cantonese pronunciation is more similar to Middle Chinese from this era than other Chinese varieties.
8.
Jyutping
–
Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme, the LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system. The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5, only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables. ^ ^ ^ Referring to the pronunciation of these words. There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese, however, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping. Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they differ in the following, The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, the initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale. The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale, the initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale. In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel, in Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances. Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale, eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/ and these three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6, lem2, and gep6. To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h. Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they have differences, The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping. The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu and i are used in Jyutping, the initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping. The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping. To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, however, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping
Jyutping
–
Jyutping Romanization.
9.
Southern Min
–
Southern Min, or Minnan, is a branch of Min Chinese spoken in certain parts of China including southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and southern Zhejiang, and in Taiwan. The Min Nan dialects are spoken by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora, most notably the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia. In common parlance, Southern Min usually refers to Hokkien, including Amoy and Taiwanese Hokkien, the Southern Min dialect group also includes Teochew, though Teochew has limited mutual intelligibility with Hokkien. Hainanese is not mutually intellgible with other Southern Min and is considered a separate branch of Min. Southern Min is not mutually intelligible with Eastern Min, Pu-Xian Min, any other Min branch, Hakka, Cantonese, Shanghainese or Mandarin. Southern Min dialects are spoken in the part of Fujian. The variant spoken in Leizhou, Guangdong as well as Hainan is Hainanese and is not mutually intelligible with other Southern Min or Teochew, Hainanese is classified in some schemes as part of Southern Min and in other schemes as separate. Puxian Min was originally based on the Quanzhou dialect, but over time became heavily influenced by Eastern Min, eventually losing intellegility with Minnan. A forms of Southern Min spoken in Taiwan, collectively known as Taiwanese, Southern Min is a first language for most of the Hoklo people, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, as some Hoklo have very limited proficiency in Southern Min while some non-Hoklo speak Southern Min fluently, there are many Southern Min speakers also among Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Many ethnic Chinese immigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia and present-day Malaysia and Singapore. In general, Southern Min from southern Fujian is known as Hokkien, Hokkienese, many Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese also originated in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong and speak Teochew language, the variant of Southern Min from that region. Southern Min-speakers form the majority of Chinese in Singapore, with the largest group being Hokkien, despite the similarities the two groups are rarely seen as part of the same Minnan Chinese subgroups. The variants of Southern Min spoken in Zhejiang province are most akin to that spoken in Quanzhou, the variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants and are collectively known as Taiwanese. Those Southern Min variants that are known as Hokkien in Southeast Asia also originate from these variants. The variants of Southern Min in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province are known as Teochew or Chaozhou. Teochew is of importance in the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora, particularly in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sumatra. The Philippines variant is mostly from the Quanzhou area as most of their forefathers are from the aforementioned area, the Southern Min language variant spoken around Shanwei and Haifeng differs markedly from Teochew and may represent a later migration from Zhangzhou
Southern Min
–
Koa-a books, Min Nan written in Chinese characters
Southern Min
–
Distribution of Southern Min.
10.
Hokkien
–
Hokkien /hɒˈkiɛn/ is a group of Southern Min dialects spoken throughout Southeastern China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and by other overseas Chinese. Hokkien originated in southern Fujian, the Min-speaking province and it is closely related to Teochew, though there is limited mutual intelligibility, and is somewhat more distantly related to Hainanese and Leizhou dialect. Besides Hokkien, there are also other Min and Hakka dialects in Fujian province, the term Hokkien is etymologically derived from the Southern Min pronunciation for Fujian, the province from which the language hails. The variety is known by other terms such as the more general Min Nan or Southern Min. Fujianese and Fukienese are also used, although they are somewhat imprecise, the term Hokkien is not usually used in Mainland China or Taiwan. Conversely Hokkien is the name in Southeast Asia in both English, Chinese or other languages. Speakers of Hokkien, particularly those in Southeast Asia, typically refer to Hokkien as a dialect, people in Taiwan most often refer to Hokkien as the Taiwanese language, with Minnan and Holo also being used and 福建話 is not as common. Hokkien originated in the area of Fujian province, an important center for trade and migration. The major pole of Hokkien varieties outside of Fujian is Taiwan, the Taiwanese version mostly have origins with the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou variants, but since then, the Amoy dialect is becoming the modern prestige standard for the language. There are many Hokkien speakers among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia as well as in the United States, many ethnic Han Chinese emigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian, and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia and present day Malaysia and Singapore. Many of the Hokkien dialects of this region are similar to Taiwanese and Amoynese. Hokkien is reportedly the native language of up to 80% of the Chinese people in the Philippines, Hokkien speakers form the largest group of overseas Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines. Southern and part of western Fujian is home to four principal Hokkien dialects, Chinchew, Amoy, Chiangchew and Longyan, originating from the cities of Quanzhou, Xiamen, Zhangzhou and Longyan. As Xiamen is the city of southern Fujian, Amoy is considered the most important, or even the prestige dialect. It is a hybrid of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects, same as Amoy dialect, the varieties of Hokkien spoken in Taiwan are hybrids of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects, and are collectively known as Taiwanese Hokkien or just Taiwanese. Used by a majority of the population, it bears much importance from a socio-political perspective, the varieties of Hokkien in Southeast Asia originate from these dialects. The Singaporeans, Southern Malaysians and people in Indonesias Riau and surrounding islands variant is from the Quanzhou area and they speak a distinct form of Quanzhou Hokkien called Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien. Among ethnic Chinese inhabitants of Penang, and other states in Northern Malaysia and Medan, with areas in North Sumatra, Indonesia
Hokkien
–
Distribution of Min Nan dialects. Hokkien is dark green.
11.
Eastern Min
–
Eastern Min, or Min Dong, is a branch of the Min group of varieties of Chinese. The prestige form and most-cited representative form is the Fuzhou dialect, Eastern Min varieties are mainly spoken in the eastern part of Fujian Province in Peoples Republic of China, in and near the cities of Fuzhou and Ningde. They are also encountered as the mother tongue on the Matsu Islands. Additionally, the inhabitants of Taishun and Cangnan to the north of Fujian in Zhejiang also speak Eastern Min varieties, Eastern Min generally coexists with the official standard Chinese in all these areas. Cities with high concentrations of immigrants include New York City, especially Little Fuzhou, Manhattan, Sunset Park, Brooklyn. They are also found in various Chinatown communities in Europe, including London, Paris, Chinese communities within Ikebukuro, Tokyo, Japan as well as Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia have significant populations of Eastern Min speakers. Fuzhou communities can also be found in Sitiawan, Perak and Yong Peng, the Eastern Min group is conventionally divided into three branches, Houguan dialect subgroup, including the Fuzhou dialect, Fuqing dialect, Lianjiang dialect and the dialect of the Matsu Islands. Funing dialect subgroup, including the Ningde dialect and the Fuan dialect, manjiang dialect, spoken in parts of Taishun and Cangnan, Wenzhou, Zhejiang. Besides these three branches, some islands in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong were classified as Eastern Min. Zhongshan Min is a group of Min varieties spoken in the Zhongshan county of Guangdong, according to Nicholas Bodman, only the Longdu dialect and Nanlang dialect belong to the Eastern Min group, while the Sanxiang dialect belongs to Southern Min. A preliminary report on the dialects of Mintung, the Gutian dialect of Min Dong District
Eastern Min
–
Min Dong (violet)
12.
Fuzhou dialect
–
The Fuzhou dialect, also Fuzhounese, Foochow or Hok-chiu, is the prestige variety of the Eastern Min branch of Min Chinese spoken mainly in eastern Fujian province. Like many other varieties of Chinese, the Fuzhou dialect is dominated by monosyllabic morphemes which carry lexical tones, while the Eastern Min branch that it belongs to is closer to Southern Min than to other Sinitic branches such as Mandarin or Hakka, they are still not mutually intelligible. Centered in Fuzhou City, the Fuzhou dialect covers eleven cities and counties, Fuzhou City Proper, Pingnan, Gutian, Luoyuan, Minqing, Lianjiang, Minhou, Changle, Yongtai, Fuqing and Pingtan. It is also the local language in many northern and middle Fujian cities and counties such as Nanping, Shaowu, Shunchang, Sanming. Fuzhou dialect is widely spoken in some regions abroad, especially in Southeastern Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. The city of Sibu in Malaysia is called New Fuzhou due to the influx of immigrants there in the late 19th century and early 1900s. Similarly, quite a significant number of Fuzhounese have emigrated to Singapore, Taiwan, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, in older works, the variety is called Foochow dialect, based on the Chinese postal romanization of Fuzhou. In Chinese, it is sometimes called 福州語, native speakers also refer to it as Bàng-uâ, meaning the everyday language. After the Qin Dynasty conquered the Minyue kingdom of southeast China in 110 BC and it once served to standardize the language and is still widely quoted as an authoritative reference book in modern academic research in Min Chinese phonology. In 1842, Fuzhou was open to Westerners as a treaty port after the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing, but due to the language barrier, however, the first Christian missionary base in this city did not take place without difficulties. In order to convert Fuzhou people, those missionaries found it necessary to make a careful study of the Fuzhou dialect. Their most notable works are listed below,1856, M. C, White, The Chinese language spoken at Fuh Chau 1870, R. S. Maclay & C. C. Baldwin, An alphabetic dictionary of the Chinese language in the Foochow dialect 1871, baldwin, Manual of the Foochow dialect 1891, T. B. Adam, An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect 1893, Charles Hartwell, Three Character Classic of Gospel in the Foochow Colloquial 1898, baldwin, An Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language of the Foochow Dialect, 2nd edition 1905, T. B. Adam, An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect, 2nd edition]1906, The Foochow translation of the complete Bible 1923, T. B. Adam & L. P. Peet, An English-Chinese dictionary of the Foochow dialect, 2nd edition 1929, one of their most famous works was the Japanese-Chinese Translation, Fuzhou Dialect published in 1940 in Taipei, in which katakana was used to represent Fuzhou pronunciation. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, Fuzhou society had been largely monolingual, but for decades the Chinese government has discouraged the use of the vernacular in school education and in media, so the number of Mandarin speakers has been greatly boosted. Recent reports indicate that less than 50% of young people in Fuzhou are able to speak Fuzhou dialect, in Mainland China, the Fuzhou dialect has been officially listed as an Intangible Cultural Heritage and promotion work is being systematically carried out to preserve its use
Fuzhou dialect
–
Foochowese in
Fujian Province, regions where the standard form is spoken are deep blue. 1:
Fuzhou City Proper, 2:
Minhou, 3:
Fuqing, 4:
Lianjiang, 5:
Pingnan 6:
Luoyuan, 7:
Gutian, 8:
Minqing, 9:
Changle, 10:
Yongtai, 11:
Pingtan 12: Regions in
Fuding, 13: Regions in
Xiapu, 14: Regions in
Ningde 15: Regions in
Nanping, 16: Regions in
Youxi
Fuzhou dialect
–
The authoritative Foochow rime book
Qī Lín Bāyīn
Fuzhou dialect
–
Dictionary of the Foochow dialect, 3rd Edition, published in 1929
Fuzhou dialect
–
Japanese-Chinese Translation: Fuzhou Dialect, published in
Taipei, 1940. Foochow kana is used to represent Fooochow pronunciation.
13.
Foochow Romanized
–
Foochow Romanized, also known as Bàng-uâ-cê or Hók-ciŭ-uâ Lò̤-mā-cê, is a Latin alphabet for the Fuzhou dialect of Eastern Min adopted in the middle of 19th century by Western missionaries. It had varied at different times, and became standardized in the 1890s, Foochow Romanized was mainly used inside of Church circles, and was taught in some Mission Schools in Fuzhou. But unlike its counterpart Pe̍h-ōe-jī for Hokkien, even in its prime days Foochow Romanized was by no means universally understood by Christians. After Fuzhou became one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened by the Treaty of Nanjing at the end of First Opium War, faced with widespread illiteracy, they developed Latin alphabets for Fuzhou dialect. The first attempt in romanizing Fuzhou dialect was made by the American Methodist M. C, white, who borrowed a system of orthography known as the System of Sir William Jones. In this system,14 initials were designed according to their voicing. ⟨p⟩, ⟨t⟩, ⟨k⟩ and ⟨ch⟩ stand for, and, besides the default five vowels of Latin alphabet, four diacritic-marked letters ⟨è⟩, ⟨ë⟩, ⟨ò⟩ and ⟨ü⟩ were also introduced, representing, and, respectively. This system is described at length in Whites linguistic work The Chinese Language Spoken at Fuh Chau, the most significant change was made for the plosive consonants, where the spiritus lenis ⟨᾿⟩ of the aspirated initials was removed and the letters ⟨b⟩, ⟨d⟩ and ⟨g⟩ substituted for and. In the aspect of vowels, ⟨è⟩, ⟨ë⟩, ⟨ò⟩ and ⟨ü⟩ were replaced by ⟨a̤⟩, ⟨e̤⟩, ⟨o̤⟩, since the diacritical marks were all shifted to underneath the vowels, this left room above the vowels which was occupied by the newly introduced tonal marks. Thus Foochow Romanized avoids the potentially awkward diacritic stacking seen for instance in the Vietnamese script, the sample characters are taken from the Qi Lin Bayin, a renowned phonology book about the Fuzhou dialect written in the Qing Dynasty. The pronunciations are recorded in standard IPA symbols, note that Foochow Romanized uses the breve, not the caron, to indicate Yīnpíng and Yángrù tones of Fuzhou dialect. Everything You Want To Know About Foochow Romanized Gô Iók Cŭ, The Old Testament, sĭng Iók Cŭ, The New Testament, in Foochow Romanized. An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect, by T. B, adam,1905 Learning material of Foochow Romanized at the Wayback Machine
Foochow Romanized
–
An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect, 2nd Edition, published in 1905
Foochow Romanized
–
Bible in Foochow Romanized (
Exodus), published by British and Foreign Bible Society in 1908
Foochow Romanized
–
Dictionary of the Foochow dialect, 3rd Edition, published in 1929
Foochow Romanized
14.
Chinese language
–
Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
Chinese language
–
The
Tripitaka Koreana, a Korean collection of the
Chinese Buddhist canon
Chinese language
–
Hànyǔ (Chinese) written in
traditional (left) and
simplified (right) characters
Chinese language
–
"
Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion " by
Wang Xizhi, written in
semi-cursive style
15.
Specials (Unicode block)
–
Specials is a short Unicode block allocated at the very end of the Basic Multilingual Plane, at U+FFF0–FFFF. Of these 16 codepoints, five are assigned as of Unicode 9, U+FFFD � REPLACEMENT CHARACTER used to replace an unknown, unrecognized or unrepresentable character U+FFFE <noncharacter-FFFE> not a character. FFFE and FFFF are not unassigned in the sense. They can be used to guess a texts encoding scheme, since any text containing these is by not a correctly encoded Unicode text. The replacement character � is a found in the Unicode standard at codepoint U+FFFD in the Specials table. It is used to indicate problems when a system is unable to render a stream of data to a correct symbol and it is usually seen when the data is invalid and does not match any character, Consider a text file containing the German word für in the ISO-8859-1 encoding. This file is now opened with an editor that assumes the input is UTF-8. The first and last byte are valid UTF-8 encodings of ASCII, therefore, a text editor could replace this byte with the replacement character symbol to produce a valid string of Unicode code points. The whole string now displays like this, f�r, a poorly implemented text editor might save the replacement in UTF-8 form, the text file data will then look like this, 0x66 0xEF 0xBF 0xBD 0x72, which will be displayed in ISO-8859-1 as f�r. Since the replacement is the same for all errors this makes it impossible to recover the original character, a better design is to preserve the original bytes, including the error, and only convert to the replacement when displaying the text. This will allow the text editor to save the original byte sequence and it has become increasingly common for software to interpret invalid UTF-8 by guessing the bytes are in another byte-based encoding such as ISO-8859-1. This allows correct display of both valid and invalid UTF-8 pasted together, Unicode control characters UTF-8 Mojibake Unicodes Specials table Decodeunicodes entry for the replacement character
Specials (Unicode block)
–
Replacement character
16.
Chinese characters
–
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and some other Asian languages. In Standard Chinese, and sometimes also in English, they are called hànzì. They have been adapted to write a number of languages including, Japanese, where they are known as kanji, Korean, where they are known as hanja. Collectively, they are known as CJK characters, in English, they are sometimes called Han characters. Chinese characters constitute the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world, Chinese characters number in the tens of thousands, though most of them are minor graphic variants encountered only in historical texts. Studies in China have shown that literacy in written Chinese requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters. In Japan,2,136 are taught through secondary school, the characters used in Japan are distinct from those used in China in many respects. There are various national standard lists of characters, forms, in South Korea, when Chinese characters are used they are of the traditional variant and are almost identical to those used in places like Taiwan and Hong Kong. In Old Chinese, most words were monosyllabic and there was a correspondence between characters and words. Rather, a character almost always corresponds to a syllable that is also a morpheme. However, there are a few exceptions to this correspondence, including bisyllabic morphemes. Modern Chinese has many homophones, thus the same syllable may be represented by many characters. A single character may also have a range of meanings, or sometimes quite distinct meanings, cognates in the several varieties of Chinese are generally written with the same character. They typically have similar meanings, but often quite different pronunciations and these foreign adaptations of Chinese pronunciation are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations, and have been useful in the reconstruction of Middle Chinese. When the script was first used in the late 2nd millennium BC, words of Old Chinese were generally monosyllabic, increasing numbers of polysyllabic words have entered the language from the Western Zhou period to the present day. The process has accelerated over the centuries as phonetic change has increased the number of homophones and it has been estimated that over two thirds of the 3,000 most common words in modern Standard Chinese are polysyllables, the vast majority of those being disyllables. The most common process has been to form compounds of existing words, words have also been created by adding affixes, reduplication and borrowing from other languages. Polysyllabic words are written with one character per syllable
Chinese characters
–
Chinese characters
Chinese characters
–
"Chinese character" in
traditional (left) and
simplified form (right)
Chinese characters
–
Ox scapula with oracle bone inscription
Chinese characters
17.
Geopolitics
–
Geopolitics is the study of the effects of geography on international politics and international relations. Geopolitics is a method of studying foreign policy to understand, explain and these include area studies, climate, topography, demography, natural resources, and applied science of the region being evaluated. Geopolitics focuses on power in relation to geographic space. In particular, territorial waters and land territory in correlation with diplomatic history, academically, geopolitics analyses history and social science with reference to geography in relation to politics. Outside of academia, a variety of groups offer a geopolitical prognosis, including non-profit groups, critical geopolitics deconstructs classical geopolitical theories, by showing their political/ideological functions for great powers during and after the age of imperialism. Mahan distinguished a key region of the world in the Eurasian context, namely, in this zone independent countries still survived – Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, China, and Japan. Mahan regarded those countries, located between Britain and Russia, as if between Scylla and Charybdis, of the two monsters – Britain and Russia – it was the later that Mahan considered more threatening to the fate of Central Asia. Mahan was impressed by Russias transcontinental size and strategically favorable position for southward expansion, therefore, he found it necessary for the Anglo-Saxon sea power to resist Russia. The Austro-Hungarian historian Emil Reich is considered to be the first having coined the acceptance in English as early as 1902, lea believed that while Japan moved against Far East and Russia against India, the Germans would strike at England, the center of the British Empire. He thought the Anglo-Saxons faced certain disaster from their militant opponents, sir Halford Mackinders Heartland Theory initially received little attention outside geography, but some thinkers would claim that it subsequently influenced the foreign policies of world powers. His formulation of the Heartland Theory was set out in his article entitled The Geographical Pivot of History, Mackinders doctrine of geopolitics involved concepts diametrically opposed to the notion of Alfred Thayer Mahan about the significance of navies in world conflict. He saw navy as a basis of Colombian era empire, the Heartland theory hypothesized a huge empire being brought into existence in the Heartland—which wouldnt need to use coastal or transoceanic transport to remain coherent. Mackinder posited that the centers of the Periphery were necessarily located in widely separated locations. The World Island could send its navy to destroy one of them in turn. Mackinder called this region the Heartland and it essentially comprised Central and Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Western Russia, and Mitteleuropa. The Heartland contained the grain reserves of Ukraine, and many natural resources. Mackinders notion of geopolitics was summed up when he said, Who rules Central, who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island. Who rules the World-Island commands the World, nicholas J. Spykman is both a follower and critic of geostrategists Alfred Mahan, and Halford Mackinder
Geopolitics
–
History of geography
18.
Geographical
–
Geography is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, the features, the inhabitants, and the phenomena of Earth. The first person to use the word γεωγραφία was Eratosthenes, Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of the Earth and its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but how they have changed and come to be. It is often defined in terms of the two branches of geography and physical geography. Geography has been called the world discipline and the bridge between the human and the physical sciences, Geography is a systematic study of the Earth and its features. Traditionally, geography has been associated with cartography and place names, although many geographers are trained in toponymy and cartology, this is not their main preoccupation. Geographers study the space and the temporal database distribution of phenomena, processes, because space and place affect a variety of topics, such as economics, health, climate, plants and animals, geography is highly interdisciplinary. The interdisciplinary nature of the approach depends on an attentiveness to the relationship between physical and human phenomena and its spatial patterns. Names of places. are not geography. know by heart a whole gazetteer full of them would not, in itself and this is a description of the world—that is Geography. In a word Geography is a Science—a thing not of mere names but of argument and reason, of cause, just as all phenomena exist in time and thus have a history, they also exist in space and have a geography. Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main fields, human geography and physical geography. The former largely focuses on the environment and how humans create, view, manage. The latter examines the environment, and how organisms, climate, soil, water. The difference between these led to a third field, environmental geography, which combines physical and human geography. Physical geography focuses on geography as an Earth science and it aims to understand the physical problems and the issues of lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, pedosphere, and global flora and fauna patterns. Physical geography can be divided into broad categories, including, Human geography is a branch of geography that focuses on the study of patterns. It encompasses the human, political, cultural, social, and it requires an understanding of the traditional aspects of physical and human geography, as well as the ways that human societies conceptualize the environment. Integrated geography has emerged as a bridge between the human and the geography, as a result of the increasing specialisation of the two sub-fields. Examples of areas of research in the environmental geography include, emergency management, environmental management, sustainability, geomatics is concerned with the application of computers to the traditional spatial techniques used in cartography and topography
Geographical
–
Map of the
Earth
Geographical
–
Biogeography
Geographical
Geographical
19.
China
–
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
China
–
Yinxu, ruins of an ancient
palace dating from the
Shang Dynasty (14th century BCE)
China
–
Flag
China
–
Some of the thousands of life-size
Terracotta Warriors of the
Qin Dynasty, c. 210 BCE
China
–
The
Great Wall of China was built by several dynasties over two thousand years to protect the sedentary agricultural regions of the
Chinese interior from incursions by
nomadic pastoralists of the northern
steppes.
20.
Hainan
–
Hainan is the smallest and southernmost province of the Peoples Republic of China, consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. Hainan Island, separated from Guangdongs Leizhou Peninsula by the Qiongzhou Strait, is the largest island under PRC control and makes up the majority of the province. The province has an area of 33,920 square kilometers, with Hainan Island making up 32,900 square kilometers, there are a total of ten major cities and ten counties in Hainan Province. Haikou on the northern coast of Hainan Island is the capital while Sanya is a well-known tourist destination on the southern coast, the other major cities are Wenchang, Qionghai, Wanning, Wuzhishan, Dongfang, and Danzhou. Chinas controversial claims in the South China Sea, including the Nansha and Xisha Islands, are administered as part of the province. The provincial name derives from its island, Hainan, which is named for its position south of the Qiongzhou Strait. Former names for Hainan Island include Zhuya, Qiongya, and Qiongzhou, the later two gave rise to the provincial abbreviation 瓊 or 琼. Hainan Island first entered history in 110 BC, when the Han dynasty of China established a military garrison there following the arrival of General Lu Bode. In 46 BC the Han court decided that the conquest was too expensive, around that time, Han Chinese people together with military personnel and officials began to migrate to Hainan Island from the mainland. Among them were the offspring of those who were banished to Hainan for political reasons, most of them arrived in Hainan Island from the southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Fujian and Guangxi. Li people are the inhabitants of Hainan. They are believed to be the descendants of the ancient tribes from the mainland, some others live elsewhere on Hainan with other ethnic groups in Danzhou, Wanning, Qionghai, Lingshui and Tunchang. The area inhabited by the Li ethnic group totals 18,700 square kilometers, during the Three Kingdoms Period, Hainan was the Zhuya Commandery under the control of Eastern Wu. At the time of the Song dynasty, Hainan became part of Guangxi, under the Mongol Empire the island became an independent province then in 1370 was placed under the administration of Guangdong by the ruling Ming dynasty. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, large numbers of Han people from Fujian and Guangdong began migrating to Hainan, in the eighteenth century, the Li rebelled against the Qing Empire, which responded by bringing in mercenaries from the Miao regions of Guizhou. Many of the Miao settled on the island and their descendants live in the highlands to this day. During the 17th and 18th centuries, explorers referred to the island as Aynam, in 1906, the revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen proposed that Hainan should become a separate province although this did not happen until 1988. Hainan was historically part of Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces and as such was the Qiongya Circuit under the 1912 establishment of the Republic of China
Hainan
–
Hainan
Hainan
–
Map showing the location of Hainan Province
Hainan
–
Haikou, the capital of the province as seen looking south from
Evergreen Park, a large park located on the north shore of the city
Hainan
–
Hainanese residents in the countryside
21.
Special administrative regions of China
–
Article 31 reads, The state may establish special administrative regions when necessary. The systems to be instituted in special administrative regions shall be prescribed by law enacted by the National Peoples Congress in the light of the specific conditions. Pursuant to their Joint Declarations, which are binding inter-state treaties registered with the United Nations, and their Basic laws, there is additionally the Wolong Special Administrative Region in Sichuan province, which is however not established according to Article 31 of the Constitution. Generally, two SARs does not constitute the part of Mainland China by both Chinese and SAR authorities and it was envisioned as the model for the eventual reunification with Taiwan and other islands, where the Republic of China has resided since 1949. Special administrative regions should not be confused with special economic zones, Special administrative regions should be distinguished from the constituent countries system in the United Kingdom or Kingdom of the Netherlands. There are currently two special administrative regions established according to Article 31 of the Chinese Constitution, for the Wolong Special Administrative Region in Sichuan province, please see the section below. The two special regions of Hong Kong and Macau each have a codified constitution called Basic Law. The law provides the regions with a degree of autonomy, a separate political system. Currently, the two SARs of Hong Kong and Macau are responsible for all affairs except those regarding diplomatic relations, however, in some diplomatic talks involving a SAR, the SAR concerned may choose to send officials to be part of the Chinese delegation. The Government of Hong Kong has established Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices in few countries as well as Greater China Region, HKETOs serve as a quasi-interests section in favor of Hong Kong. For regions with no HKETOs, Chinese diplomatic missions take charge of protecting Hong Kong-related interest, some countries which have a diplomatic relation with central Chinese government maintain Consulate-General in Hong Kong. The Peoples Liberation Army is garrisoned in both SARs, PRC authorities have said the PLA will not be allowed to interfere with the local affairs of Hong Kong and Macau, and must abide by its laws. In 1988, scholar Chen Fang of the Academy of Military Science even tried to propose the One military, the PLA does not participate in the governance of the SAR but the SAR may request them for civil-military participation, in times of emergency such as natural disasters. Defence is the responsibility of the PRC government, a 1996 draft PRC law banned Peoples Liberation Army-run businesses in HK, but loopholes allow them to operate while the profits are ploughed back into the military. There are many PLA-run corporations in Hong Kong, the PLA also have sizable land-holdings in Hong Kong worth billions of dollars. Each of the SARs issues passports on its own to its permanent residents who are concurrently Chinese citizens, due to their colonial past, many inhabitants of the SARs hold some form of non-Chinese nationality. However, SAR residents who are Chinese descent have always considered as Chinese citizens by the PRC authorities. However, such travel documents cannot be used to travel to mainland China, therefore, master nationality rule applies so the holder may not enjoy consular protection while in mainland China
Special administrative regions of China
–
Flag
22.
Hong Kong
–
Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the Pearl River Delta of East Asia. Macau lies across the delta to the west, and the Chinese province of Guangdong borders the territory to the north. With a total area of 1,106 square kilometres. Hong Kong was later occupied by Japan during World War II until British control resumed in 1945, under the principle of one country, two systems, Hong Kong maintains a separate political and economic system from China. Except in military defence and foreign affairs, Hong Kong maintains its independent executive, legislative, in addition, Hong Kong develops relations directly with foreign states and international organisations in a broad range of appropriate fields. Hong Kong is one of the worlds most significant financial centres, with the highest Financial Development Index score and consistently ranks as the worlds most competitive and freest economic entity. As the worlds 8th largest trading entity, its legal tender, Hong Kongs tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by simple taxation with a competitive level of corporate tax and supported by its independent judiciary system. However, while Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and it has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the worlds longest life expectancy. Over 90% of the population use of well-developed public transportation. Seasonal air pollution with origins from neighbouring areas of Mainland China. Hong Kong was officially recorded in the 1842 Treaty of Nanking to encompass the entirety of the island, before 1842, the name referred to a small inlet—now Aberdeen Harbour —between Aberdeen Island and the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. Aberdeen was a point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen. Detailed and accurate romanisation systems for Cantonese were available and in use at the time, fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbours fresh water estuarine influx of the Pearl River or to the incense from factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon. The incense was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before Hong Kong developed Victoria Harbour, the name had often been written as the single word Hongkong until the government adopted the current form in 1926. Nevertheless, a number of century-old institutions still retain the form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric. As of 1997, its name is the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China. This is the title as mentioned in the Hong Kong Basic Law. Hong Kong has carried many nicknames, the most famous among those is the Pearl of the Orient, which reflected the impressive nightscape of the citys light decorations on the skyscrapers along both sides of the Victoria Harbour
Hong Kong
–
The Cenotaph in Hong Kong commemorates those who died in service in WWI and WWII.
Hong Kong
–
Flag
Hong Kong
–
Stamp with portrait of
Queen Elizabeth II, 1953
Hong Kong
–
Development of
Hong Kong Island in 1986
23.
Macau
–
Macau, also spelled Macao, officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the western side of the Pearl River Delta in East Asia. Macau is bordered by the city of Zhuhai in Mainland China to the north, Hong Kong lies about 64 kilometres to its east across the Delta. With a population of 650,900 living in an area of 30.5 km2, Macau was administered by the Portuguese Empire and its inheritor states from the mid-16th century until late 1999, when it constituted the last remaining European colony in Asia. Portuguese traders first settled in Macau in the 1550s, in 1557, Macau was leased to Portugal from Ming China as a trading port. The Portuguese Empire administered the city under Chinese authority and sovereignty until 1887, sovereignty over Macau was transferred back to China on 20 December 1999. The Joint Declaration on the Question of Macau and Macau Basic Law stipulate that Macau operate with a degree of autonomy until at least 2049. Macau participates in international organizations and events that do not require members to national sovereignty. Macau is a city in Southern China, known for its casinos. Its gaming revenue has been the worlds largest since 2006, with the heavily dependent on gaming. According to The World Factbook, Macau has the fourth highest life expectancy in the world, the present Chinese name means Inlet Gates. Macau is otherwise known in Chinese as Haojing or Jinghai, the name Macau is thought to be derived from the A-Ma Temple, a temple built in 1448 dedicated to Mazu, the goddess of seafarers and fishermen. It is said that when the Portuguese sailors landed at the coast just outside the temple and asked the name of the place, the Portuguese then named the peninsula Macau. The history of Macau is traced back to the Qin dynasty, the first recorded Chinese inhabitants of the area were people seeking refuge in Macau from invading Mongols during the Southern Song. Under the Ming dynasty, fishermen migrated to Macau from Guangdong, the Macau native people were Tanka boat people. Macau did not develop as a settlement until the Portuguese arrived in the 16th century. In 1513, Jorge Álvares became the first Portuguese to land in China, in 1535, Portuguese traders obtained the rights to anchor ships in Macaus harbours and to carry out trading activities, though not the right to stay onshore. In 1557, the Portuguese established a permanent settlement in Macau, the Portuguese continued to pay an annual tribute up to 1863 in order to stay in Macau. By 1564, Portugal commanded western trade with India, Japan, but their pride was damaged by the indifference with which the Chinese treated them
Macau
–
Portuguese coin (minted 1996) commemorating the arrival of the Portuguese in China in 1513
Macau
–
Flag
Macau
–
Ruins of St. Paul's, by
George Chinnery (1774–1852). The church was built in 1602 and destroyed by fire in 1835. Only the southern stone façade remains today.
Macau
–
Macau,
c. 1870.
24.
Kuomintang
–
The Kuomintang of China is a major political party in the Republic of China. It is currently the second-largest in the country, the predecessor of the KMT, the Revolutionary Alliance, was one of the major advocates of the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of a republic. The KMT was founded by Song Jiaoren and Sun Yat-sen shortly after the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, Sun was the provisional president but he did not have military power and ceded the first presidency to the military leader Yuan Shikai. After Yuans death, China was divided by warlords, while the KMT was able to only part of the south. Later led by Chiang Kai-shek, the KMT formed the National Revolutionary Army and it was the ruling party in mainland China from 1928 until its retreat to Taiwan in 1949 after being defeated by the Communist Party of China during the Chinese Civil War. In Taiwan, the KMT continued as the ruling party until the reforms in the late 1970s through the 1990s loosened its grip on power. Since 1987, the Republic of China is no longer a single-party state, however, the KMT is currently the main opposition party in the Legislative Yuan. The guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, advocated by Sun Yat-sen and its party headquarters are located in Taipei. The KMT is a member of the International Democrat Union, the previous president, Ma Ying-jeou, elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012, was the seventh KMT member to hold the office of the presidency. Together with the People First Party and New Party, the KMT forms what is known as the Taiwanese Pan-Blue Coalition, however, the KMT has been forced to moderate its stance by advocating the political and legal status quo of modern Taiwan. However, since 2008, in order to ease tensions with the PRC, the group planned and supported the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and the founding of the Republic of China on 1 January 1912. However, Sun did not have power and ceded the provisional presidency of the republic to Yuan Shikai. On 25 August 1912, the Nationalist Party was established at the Huguang Guild Hall in Peking, Sun, the then-President of the ROC, was chosen as the party chairman with Huang Xing as his deputy. The party opposed constitutional monarchists and sought to check the power of Yuan, the Nationalists won an overwhelming majority of the first National Assembly election in December 1912. But Yuan soon began to ignore the parliament in making presidential decisions, Song Jiaoren was assassinated in Shanghai in 1913. Yuan, claiming subversiveness and betrayal, expelled adherents of the KMT from the parliament, Yuan dissolved the Nationalists in November and dismissed the parliament early in 1914. Yuan Shikai proclaimed himself emperor in December 1915, in order tonary Party, members must take an oath of personal loyalty to Sun, which many old revolutionaries regarded as undemocratic and contrary to the spirit of the revolution. Thus, many old revolutionaries did not join Suns new organisation, Sun returned to China in 1917 to establish a military junta at Canton, in order to against the Beiyang government, but was soon forced out of office and exiled to Shanghai
Kuomintang
–
The KMT refer reverentially to founder
Sun Yat-sen as the "Father of the Nation." Sun is pictured here in 1917.
Kuomintang
Kuomintang
–
Venue of the
1st National Congress of Kuomintang in 1924.
Kuomintang
–
Generalissimo
Chiang Kai-shek, who assumed the leadership of KMT after the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925.
25.
Geography of Taiwan
–
Taiwan is an island in East Asia, located some 180 kilometres off the southeastern coast of mainland China across the Taiwan Strait. It has an area of 35,883 km2 and spans the Tropic of Cancer, the East China Sea lies to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Luzon Strait directly to the south and the South China Sea to the southwest. There are several peaks over 3,500 m, the highest being Yu Shan at 3,952 metres, the tectonic boundary that formed these ranges is still active, and the island experiences many earthquakes, a few of them highly destructive. There are also many active volcanoes in the Taiwan Straits. The climate ranges from tropical in the south to subtropical in the north, the island is struck by an average of four typhoons in each year. The eastern mountains are forested and home to a diverse range of wildlife. The total area of the island is 36,193 km2 and it has a coastline of 1,139 km. The ROC claims an economic zone of 200 nmi and a territorial sea of 12 nmi. The main island of the archipelago is the island of Taiwan, the central point of the island is the Geographic Center of Taiwan in Puli Township, Nantou County. The southernmost point of the island is the Taiwan Southernmost Point in Hengchun Township, the island of Taiwan is separated from the southeast coast of China by the Taiwan Strait, which ranges from 220 km at its widest point to 130 km at its narrowest. Part of the shelf, the Strait is no more than 100 m deep. To the south, the island of Taiwan is separated from the Philippine island of Luzon by the 250 km -wide Luzon Strait, the South China Sea lies to the southwest, the East China Sea to the north, and the Philippine Sea to the east. The island of Taiwan was formed approximately 4 to 5 million years ago at a convergent boundary between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate. In a boundary running the length of the island and continuing southwards in the Luzon Volcanic Arc, most of the island comprises a huge fault block tilted to the west. The western part of the island, and much of the central range, in the northeast of the island, and continuing eastwards in the Ryukyu Volcanic Arc, the Philippine Sea Plate slides under the Eurasian Plate. The tectonic boundary remains active, and Taiwan experiences 15,000 to 18,000 earthquakes each year, of which 800 to 1,000 are noticed by people. The most catastrophic recent earthquake was the magnitude-7.3 Chi-Chi earthquake, on 4 March 2010 at about 01,20 UTC, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake hit southwestern Taiwan in the mountainous area of Kaohsiung County. Another major earthquake occurred on 6 February 2016, with a magnitude of 6.4, Tainan was damaged the most, with 117 deaths, most of them caused by the collapse of a 17-story apartment building
Geography of Taiwan
–
Taiwan is mostly mountainous in the east, with gently sloping plains in the west. The
Penghu Islands are west of Taiwan.
Geography of Taiwan
–
Taiwan lies on the western edge of the Philippine Plate
Geography of Taiwan
–
Shiukuluan River in
Hualien County
Geography of Taiwan
–
The San Guang River in northwestern Taiwan
26.
Empire of Japan
–
The Empire of Japan was the historical Japanese nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to the enactment of the 1947 constitution of modern Japan. Imperial Japans rapid industrialization and militarization under the slogan Fukoku Kyōhei led to its emergence as a world power, after several large-scale military successes during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, the Empire also gained notoriety for its war crimes against the peoples it conquered. A period of occupation by the Allies followed the surrender, Occupation and reconstruction continued well into the 1950s, eventually forming the current nation-state whose full title is the State of Japan or simply rendered Japan in English. The historical state is referred to as the Empire of Japan or the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan in English. In Japanese it is referred to as Dai Nippon Teikoku, which translates to Greater Japanese Empire and this is analogous to Großdeutsches Reich, a term that translates to Greater German Empire in English and Dai Doitsu Teikoku in Japanese. This meaning is significant in terms of geography, encompassing Japan, due to its name in kanji characters and its flag, it was also given the exonym Empire of the Sun. After two centuries, the policy, or Sakoku, under the shoguns of the Edo period came to an end when the country was forced open to trade by the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. The following years saw increased trade and interaction, commercial treaties between the Tokugawa shogunate and Western countries were signed. In large part due to the terms of these Unequal Treaties, the Shogunate soon faced internal hostility, which materialized into a radical, xenophobic movement. In March 1863, the Emperor issued the order to expel barbarians, although the Shogunate had no intention of enforcing the order, it nevertheless inspired attacks against the Shogunate itself and against foreigners in Japan. The Namamugi Incident during 1862 led to the murder of an Englishman, Charles Lennox Richardson, the British demanded reparations but were denied. While attempting to exact payment, the Royal Navy was fired on from coastal batteries near the town of Kagoshima and they responded by bombarding the port of Kagoshima in 1863. For Richardsons death, the Tokugawa government agreed to pay an indemnity, shelling of foreign shipping in Shimonoseki and attacks against foreign property led to the Bombardment of Shimonoseki by a multinational force in 1864. The Chōshū clan also launched the coup known as the Kinmon incident. The Satsuma-Chōshū alliance was established in 1866 to combine their efforts to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu, in early 1867, Emperor Kōmei died of smallpox and was replaced by his son, Crown Prince Mutsuhito. On November 9,1867, Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned from his post and authorities to the Emperor, however, while Yoshinobus resignation had created a nominal void at the highest level of government, his apparatus of state continued to exist. On January 3,1868, Satsuma-Chōshū forces seized the palace in Kyoto. On January 17,1868, Yoshinobu declared that he would not be bound by the proclamation of the Restoration, on January 24, Yoshinobu decided to prepare an attack on Kyoto, occupied by Satsuma and Chōshū forces
Empire of Japan
–
The battleship
Asahi
Empire of Japan
–
Flag
Empire of Japan
–
Samurai members of the
First Japanese Embassy to Europe (1862), around Shibata Sadataro, head of the mission staff (seated) and
Fukuzawa Yukichi (to his right) sign of the opening of Japan and Meiji Restoration.
Empire of Japan
–
Emperor Meiji, the 122nd emperor of Japan
27.
World War II
–
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
World War II
–
Clockwise from top left: Chinese forces in the
Battle of Wanjialing, Australian
25-pounder guns during the
First Battle of El Alamein, German
Stuka dive bombers on the
Eastern Front in December 1943, a U.S. naval force in the
Lingayen Gulf,
Wilhelm Keitel signing the
German Instrument of Surrender, Soviet troops in the
Battle of Stalingrad
World War II
–
The
League of Nations assembly, held in
Geneva,
Switzerland, 1930
World War II
–
Adolf Hitler at a German
National Socialist political rally in
Weimar, October 1930
World War II
–
Italian soldiers recruited in 1935, on their way to fight the
Second Italo-Abyssinian War
28.
History of the Republic of China
–
The History of the Republic of China begins after the Qing dynasty in 1912, when the formation of the Republic of China as a constitutional republic put an end to 4,000 years of Imperial rule. The Qing dynasty, ruled from 1644–1912, the Republic had experienced many trials and tribulations after its founding which included being dominated by elements as disparate as warlord generals and foreign powers. The last days of the Qing dynasty in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were marked by civil unrest, in addition, there were sentiments that political power should return to the majority Han Chinese from the minority Manchus from the northeastern province of Manchuria. However, many of these measures were opposed by the conservatives of the Qing Court, the failures of the Imperial Court to enact such political liberalization and modernization caused the reformists to take the road of revolution. In 1905 Sun founded the Tongmenghui in Tokyo with Huang Xing, Suns political philosophy was conceptualized in 1897, first enunciated in Tokyo in 1905 and modified through the early 1920s. It centered on the Three Principles of the People, nationalism, democracy, the principle of nationalism called for overthrowing the Manchus and ending foreign hegemony over China. The second principle, democracy, was used to describe Suns goal of a popularly elected republican form of government, Peoples livelihood, often referred to as socialism, was aimed at helping the common people through regulation of the ownership of the means of production and land. This would be known as the Wuchang Uprising, which is celebrated as Double Tenth Day in Taiwan and it had been preceded by numerous abortive uprisings and organized protests inside China. The revolt quickly spread to neighboring cities, and Tongmenghui members throughout the country rose in support of the Wuchang revolutionary forces, on October 12 the Revolutionaries succeeded in capturing Hankou and Hanyang. However, the euphoria engendered by this victory was short-lived, on October 27, Yuan Shikai was reappointed by the Qing Court to lead the New Army, and loyalist forces under Feng Guozhang and Duan Qirui moved south to retake Wuhan. After heavy fighting in November, the out-manned and out-gunned Revolutionary Army was driven out of Hankou and Hanyang, during the 41-day Battle of Yangxia, however,15 of the 24 provinces had declared their independence from the Qing empire. Yuan Shikai halted his armys advance on Wuchang and began to negotiate with the revolutionaries, a month later, Sun Yat-sen returned to China from the United States, where he had been raising funds among Chinese and American sympathizers. On January 1,1912, delegates from the independent provinces elected Sun Yat-sen as the first Provisional President of the Republic of China, Yuan Shikai agreed to accept the Republic and forced the last emperor of China, Puyi, to abdicate on February 12. Empress Dowager Longyu signed the abdication papers, Puyi was allowed to continue living in the Forbidden City, however. The Republic of China officially succeeded the Qing Dynasty, some advocated that a Han be installed as Emperor, either the descendant of Confucius, who was the Duke Yansheng, or the Ming dynasty Imperial family descendant, the Marquis of Extended Grace. On January 1,1912, Sun officially declared the establishment of the Republic of China and was inaugurated in Nanjing as the first Provisional President. However, power in Beijing already had passed to Yuan Shikai, who had control of the Beiyang Army. To prevent civil war and possible foreign intervention from undermining the infant republic, on March 10, in Beijing, Yuan Shikai was sworn in as the second Provisional President of the Republic of China
History of the Republic of China
–
A
Rand McNally map of the Republic of China in 1914
History of the Republic of China
–
History of China
History of the Republic of China
–
Three
different flags were originally used during the Revolution. The bottom message says "Long live the Republic!" with the
five races represented by the Five-Color Flag of the Republic.
History of the Republic of China
–
Bonds that
Sun Yat-sen used to raise money for revolutionary cause. The Republic of China was also once known as the Chunghwa Republic.
29.
Chinese Civil War
–
The Chinese Civil War was fought between forces loyal to the Kuomintang -led government of the Republic of China, and forces loyal to the Communist Party of China. The civil war began in August 1927, with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-sheks Northern Expedition and it can generally be divided into two stages, the first being from 1927 to 1937, and the second being from 1946 to 1950 with the Second Sino-Japanese War separating them. The war represented a split between the Communist CPC and the KMTs brand of Nationalism. It continued intermittently until late 1937, when the two came together to form the Second United Front to counter the Japanese threat and prevent the country from crumbling. Chinas full-scale civil war resumed in 1946, a year after the end of hostilities with Japan, to this day no armistice or peace treaty has ever been signed, and there is debate about whether the Civil War has legally ended. The ROC mutually claims mainland China, and they continue the fight over diplomatic recognition. The Qing Dynasty, the last of the ruling Chinese dynasties, collapsed in 1911 and finally fell in 1912 with the abdication of the last emperor, Puyi. China fell into what became known as the era, when control of much of the country was divided among a group of powerful independent warlords. Sun Yat-sens efforts to aid from the Western countries were ignored, however. Thus the struggle for power in China began between the KMT and the CPC, in 1923, a joint statement by Sun and Soviet representative Adolph Joffe in Shanghai pledged Soviet assistance for Chinas unification. The Sun-Joffe Manifesto was a declaration of cooperation among the Comintern, KMT, Comintern agent Mikhail Borodin arrived in China in 1923 to aid in the reorganization and consolidation of the KMT along the lines of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The CPC joined the KMT to form the First United Front, in 1923, Sun Yat-sen sent Chiang Kai-shek, one of his lieutenants from his Tongmeng Hui days, for several months of military and political study in Moscow. By 1924 Chiang became the head of the Whampoa Military Academy, the Soviets provided the academy with much educational material, organization and equipment, including munitions. They also provided education in many of the techniques for mass mobilization, with this aid, Sun Yat-sen was able to raise a dedicated army of the party, with which he hoped to defeat the warlords militarily. CPC members were present in the academy, and many of them became instructors, including Zhou Enlai. Communist members were allowed to join the KMT on an individual basis, the CPC itself was still small at the time, having a membership of 300 in 1922 and only 1,500 by 1925. The KMT in 1923 had 50,000 members, however, after Sun died, the KMT split into left- and right-wing movements. KMT members worried that the Soviets were trying to destroy the KMT from inside using the CPC, the CPC then began movements in opposition of the Northern Expedition, passing a resolution against it at a party meeting
Chinese Civil War
–
Clockwise from the top: Communist troops at the
Battle of Siping,
Muslim soldiers of the NRA,
Mao Zedong in the 1930s,
Chiang Kai-shek inspecting soldiers, CCP general
Su Yu investigating the front field shortly before the
Menglianggu Campaign
Chinese Civil War
–
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Commander-in-Chief of the
National Revolutionary Army, emerged from the
Northern Expedition as the leader of the
Republic of China.
Chinese Civil War
–
A Communist leader addressing "Long March" survivors.
Chinese Civil War
–
From left to right: US diplomat
Patrick J. Hurley,
Chiang Ching-kuo,
Chiang Kai-shek,
Chang Ch'ün, Wang Shi Jie (王世杰),
Mao Zedong
30.
Taiwan Strait
–
The Taiwan Strait, or Formosa Strait, is a 180 kilometres wide strait separating the island of Taiwan from mainland China. The strait is part of the South China Sea and connects to the East China Sea to the north, the narrowest part is 130 km wide. The Taiwan Strait is the section of sea between the Chinese mainland and the island of Taiwan, much of mainland Chinas Fujian Province is west of the strait having the main islands of Kinmen, Xiamen, Pingtan and Matsu just off its coast. The Penghu or Pescadores Islands lie in the east of the strait, fishermen use the strait as a fishing resource. All of Fujians rivers run into the strait, except the Ting, taiwans government administers Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu. The strait is on the shelf, it is almost entirely less than 150 m deep. It hosts major shipping lanes including over a bank, around 25 m in depth, a theoretical median maritime border known as the cross-strait median also exists on the water to prevent certain transportation from passing. As part of the Peoples Republic of Chinas National Expressway Plan, if such an extreme construction were ever built, it would by far exceed the length of any man-made tunnel in the world today. Engineers in Beijing state that a tunnel is technically feasible, a War Like No Other, The Truth About Chinas Challenge to America. ISBN 0-471-98677-1 Bush, R. Untying the Knot, Making Peace in the Taiwan Strait, ISBN 0-8157-1290-1 Carpenter, T. Americas Coming War with China, A Collision Course over Taiwan. ISBN 0-415-36581-3 Copper, J. Playing with Fire, The Looming War with China over Taiwan, ISBN 0-275-98888-0 Federation of American Scientists et al. Rising Star, Chinas New Security Diplomacy, ISBN 0-8157-3146-9 Shirk, S. China, Fragile Superpower, How Chinas Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful Rise. If China Attacks Taiwan, Military Strategy, Politics and Economics, the Taiwan Strait, From Civil War to Status Quo. The Taiwan Strait, From Civil War to Status Quo Thies, Wallace J. Bratton, when Governments Collide in the Taiwan Strait
Taiwan Strait
–
A map showing the Taiwan Strait Area
