CHINA

China is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity.
China is one of the world's oldest civilizations and is regarded as the oldest continuous civilization.^[1][2] From 1000 to 1400, it possessed one of the the most advanced society and economy in the world through successive dynasties though it subsequently missed the industrial revolution and began to decline.^[3][4] In the 19th and 20th century, imperialism, internal weakness and civil wars damaged the country and its economy and led to the overthrow of imperial rule.
In 1949, when major combat ended in the Chinese Civil War, two political entities emerged having the term "China" in their names:

• The People's Republic of China (PRC), established in 1949, commonly known as China, has control over mainland China and the largely self-governing territories of Hong Kong (since 1997) and Macau (since 1999).
• The Republic of China (ROC) established in 1912 in mainland China, now commonly known as Taiwan, has control over the islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu.

In the 1950s, change to economic policies in Taiwan transformed the island into a technology-oriented industrialized developed economy after a period of high growth rates and rapid industrialization. In mainland China, in the 1970s, reforms known as the Four Modernizations modernized the agriculture, industry, technology and defense, vastly raising living standards, and making the PRC one of the great powers.^[5][6][7]
Historically, China's cultural sphere has extended across East Asia as a whole, with Chinese religion, customs, and writing systems being adopted to varying degrees by neighbors such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Through its history, China was the source of many major inventions.^[8] It has also one of the world's oldest written language systems. The first evidence of human presence in the region was found at the Zhoukoudian cave. It is one of the earliest known specimens of Homo erectus, now commonly known as the Peking Man, estimated to have lived from 300,000 to 780,000 years ago.^[9][10][11]

Etymology

English names

The word "China"^{[nb 1]} is derived from Cin (چین), a Persian name for China popularized in Europe by Marco Polo.^[12][13] In early usage, "china" as a term for porcelain was spelled differently from the name of the country, the two words being derived from separate Persian words.^[14] Both these words are derived from the Sanskrit word Cīna (चीन),^[14] used as a name for China as early as AD 150.^[15] The origin of this word is the subject of several conflicting scholarly theories.^[16] The traditional theory, proposed in the 17th century by Martin Martini, is that the word is derived from "Qin" (秦)(778 BC – 207 BC), the westernmost of the Chinese kingdoms during the Zhou dynasty, or from the succeeding Qin dynasty (221 – 206 BC).^[17] In the Hindu scriptures Mahābhārata (5th century BC )^[18] and Laws of Manu (2nd century BC), the word Cīna is used to refer to a country of "yellow-colored" barbarians located in the Tibeto-Burman borderlands east of India.^[19]

Chinese names

The official name of China changed with each dynasty. The common name is Zhōngguó (simplified Chinese: 中国; traditional Chinese: 中國, Mandarin pronunciation: [t͡ʂʊŋ˥˥ku̯ɔ˧˥]). This translates traditionally as "Middle Kingdom," or as "central country."
The name Zhōngguó first appeared in the Classic of History (6th century BC), and was used to refer to the late Zhou Dynasty, as they believed that they were the "center of civilization,"^{[nb 2]} while peoples in the four cardinals were called Eastern Yi, Southern Man, Western Rong and Northern Di respectively. Some texts imply that "Zhōngguó" was originally meant to refer to the capital of the sovereign, to differ from the capital of his vassals.^{[nb 3]} The use of "Zhōngguó" implied a claim of political legitimacy, and "Zhōngguó" was often used by states who saw themselves as the sole legitimate successor to previous Chinese dynasties; for example, in the era of the Southern Song Dynasty, both the Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song state claimed to be "Zhōngguó."^{[nb 4]}
Zhōngguó came to official use as an abbreviation for the Republic of China (Zhonghua Minguo) after the government's establishment in 1912. Since the People's Republic of China, established in 1949, now controls the great majority of the area encompassed within the traditional concept of "China", the People's Republic is the political unit most commonly identified with the abbreviated name Zhōngguó, with the Republic of China nowadays known commonly as "Taiwan".^{[nb 5]}

History

Ancient China was one of the earliest centers of human civilization. Chinese civilization was also one of the few to invent writing,^[8] the others being Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley civilization, the Maya and other Mesoamerican civilizations, the Minoan civilization of ancient Greece, and Ancient Egypt.^[20]

Prehistory

Archaeological evidence suggests that the earliest hominids in China date from 250,000 to 2.24 million years ago.^[21][22] A cave in Zhoukoudian (near present-day Beijing) has fossils dated at somewhere between 300,000 to 780,000 years.^[9][10][11] The fossils are of Peking Man, an example of Homo erectus who used fire.

The earliest evidence of a fully modern human in China comes from Liujiang County, Guangxi, where a cranium has been found and dated at approximately 67,000 years old. Although much controversy persists over the dating of the Liujiang remains,^[23][24] a partial skeleton from Minatogawa in Okinawa, Japan has been dated to 16,600 to 18,250 years old, so modern humans probably reached China before that time.^{[citation needed]}