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| Official name: Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo (Zhongguo) (People's Republic
of China) Head of State: State President Hu Jintao (elected 15 Mar 2003) Head of government: Premier of the State Council Wen Jiabao (appointed 16 Mar 2003) Ruling party: Zhongguo Gongchangdang (Chinese Communist Party) (CCP) Area: 9,596,961 square km Population: 1.34 billion (2004) Capital: Beijing (Peking) Official language: Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese – Beijing dialect). Currency: Renminbi yuan (Rmb) = 100 fen Exchange rate: Rmb8.28 per US$ (Nov 2004) GDP per capita: US$1,060 (2003) GDP real growth: 8.50% (2003) Labour force: 744.00 million (2003) Unemployment: 10.20% (2003) Inflation: 0.60% (2003) Oil production: 3.40 million bpd (2003) Balance of trade: US$28.70 billion (2003) Foreign debt: US$150.00 billion (2003) Annual FDI: US$53.50 billion (2003) |
Historical profile
From the nineteenth century onwards, the ruling Qing Dynasty (1644–1911)
came under increasing pressures from internal demographic and economic imbalances,
and incursions from Western powers. Following defeat at the hands of the Japanese
(1895) and escalating concessions to Western powers after the Boxer Uprising
(1901), the centuries-old system of promotion to the civil service via examinations
ended in 1905 and dynastic rule collapsed in 1911. Yuan Shikai failed to become
emperor and a chaotic period of rule by 'warlords', regional power-brokers with
military resources, ensued.
1920s The Zhongguo Gongchangdang (CCP) (Chinese Communist Party) was formed and declared the southern province of Jiangxi an autonomous 'soviet' in 1927. The Communists were brutally suppressed by the rival Kuomintang (Nationalist Party).
1935 Mao Zedong took control of the CCP during the 'Long March', begun in October 1934, in which thousands of Communist fighters fled Jiangxi for the northern Shanxi province.
1937–45 The Japanese occupied increasingly large areas of China. The government of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang retreated to Sichuan province in the west of China.
1949 The People’s Republic of China was established in October following the victory of Communist guerrilla forces led by Mao Zedong over the Kuomintang government, which fled to the island province of Formosa (now Taiwan).
1950 Tibet (Xizang), an independent region of western China, was occupied by Chinese Communist forces.
1958–60 In Mao's Great Leap Forward to collectivise agriculture and bring about a socialist economic system, some 40 million people died from hunger.
1965 Tibet became an autonomous region of China, but has not enjoyed any real political or cultural autonomy.
1966 To prevent the establishment of a ruling class and to destroy his enemies within the CCP, Chairman Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Some 800,000 died in the cities, but the wider effects of enforced rural re-education were widespread psychological trauma and the breakdown of industry and educational institutions.
1980–97 During this period, the CCP with over 40 million members and political control, was dominated by China’s elder statesman, Deng Xiaoping, who initiated gradualist economic reform designed to create a 'socialist market economy'.
1986 The CCP Central Committee adopted a resolution redefining the general ideology of the CCP to provide a theoretical basis for the programme of modernisation and the ‘open door’ policy of economic reform. An anti-corruption campaign was launched and there was significant liberalisation in the field of culture and the arts. However, student demonstrations in major cities were regarded by China’s leaders as excessive ‘bourgeois liberalisation’.
1987 In the ensuing clampdown, in January, Hu Yaobang unexpectedly resigned as CCP general secretary, accused of ‘mistakes on major issues of political principles’. The thirteenth National Congress of the CCP opened in October. The ‘reformist’ faction within the Chinese leadership emphasised the need for further reform and the extension of the ‘open door’ policy. Li Peng became premier of the state council.
1989 The death of Hu Yaobang in Beijing served as a catalyst for the most serious student demonstrations ever seen in the People’s Republic of China. The protests were against alleged corruption and nepotism within the government and sought a limited degree of Soviet-style glasnost in public life. A state of martial law was declared in Beijing. With the government fearing for its security, the army attacked protesters in and around Tiananmen Square. All over China, similar demonstrations were put down using force. The reformist Zhao Ziyang, CCP general secretary, was confined under house arrest. Deng brought in Jiang Zemin as general secretary to replace him. Jiang was also made chairman of the central military commission.
1990 Martial law was lifted.
1993 Deng retired from his civilian offices, but continued to exert influence over the 'third generation' of leaders, including Jiang, who was elected state president.
1997 China re-established sovereignty over Hong Kong, which had been under British control under a treaty signed during the Qing dynasty.
1998 The Quanguo Renmin Daibiao Dahui (National People’s Congress) (NPC) re-elected Jiang as president and chairman of the government’s central military commission. Li Peng stepped down as premier, but was named chairman of the NPC and retained his number two ranking in the party hierarchy, officially outranking the new premier Zhu Rongji. The NPC also approved major changes in the leadership, bringing in a new cabinet of younger technocrats.
2000 China signed bilateral trade deals with the EU and the US in preparation for its eventual accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and consequent deeper integration within the global trading system.
2001 The leaders of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrghyzstan and Tajikistan, later joined by Uzbekistan, established the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) and agreed to fight religious extremism and terrorism. Beijing won its bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games. In October, President Jiang Zemin offered China's support to the US for military action aimed at terrorist activities following the 11 September attacks in the US. China was formally admitted to the WTO. Jiang launched his 'Three Represents' theory.
2002 China began the first round of trade talks with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) for the establishment of a free trade zone no later than 2010. Vice President Hu Jintao was formally appointed General Secretary of the CCP.
2003 Due to the spread of the flu-like virus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars), China threatened to execute or jail for life anyone who intentionally spread SARS. Hu was elected as state president and Zeng Qinghong replaced Hu as vice president. Wen Jiabao was appointed premier. Jiang retained the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission (head of the armed forces). China and Egypt joined a WTO agreement on removing all tariff barriers to information technology products, such as personal computers and telecommunications equipment. China became the third country to put a man in space.
2004 In April, legislators ruled out direct elections for a Hong Kong leader in 2007. Instead of waiting until 2007, Jiang Zemin resigned as chairman of the Central Military Commission on 18 September and President Hu Jintao assumed supreme authority as head of the armed forces, as well as the party and the state.
2005 In March, China's National People's Congress passed an anti-secession
law, enshrining Beijing's claim of sovereignty and its threat of military force
in the event of Taiwan's formal independence; more than one million people took
to the streets in Taipei to express opposition to the law. There were anti-Japanese
protests in April, opposing Japan's becoming a permanent member of the UN Security
Council.
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