• SOUTHERN MEDICAL UNIVERSITY
• XIAMEN UNIVERSITY
• NANCHANG UNIVERSITY
• JINAN UNIVERSITY

China at a glance

China, officially the People’s Republic of China (Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo), country in East Asia, the world’s largest country by population and one of the largest by area, measuring about the same size as the United States. The Chinese call their country Zhongguo, which means “Central Country” or “Middle Kingdom.” The name China was given to it by foreigners and is probably based on a corruption of Qin (pronounced “chin”), a Chinese dynasty that ruled during the 3rd century bc.
China proper centers on the agricultural regions drained by three major rivers—the Huang He (Yellow River) in the north, the Yangtze (Chang Jiang) in central China, and the Zhu Jiang (Pearl River) in the south. The country’s varied terrain includes vast deserts, towering mountains, high plateaus, and broad plains. Beijing, located in the north, is China’s capital and its cultural, economic, and communications center. Shanghai, located near the Yangtze, is the most populous urban center, the largest industrial and commercial city, and mainland China’s leading port.
One-fifth of the world’s population—1.3 billion people—live in China. More than 90 percent of these are ethnic Han Chinese, but China also recognizes 55 national minorities, including Tibetans, Mongols, Uighurs, Zhuang, Miao, Yi, and many smaller groups. Even among the ethnic Han, there are regional linguistic differences. Although a common language called Putonghua is taught in schools and used by the mass media, local spoken languages are often mutually incomprehensible. However, the logographic writing system, which uses characters that represent syllables or words rather than pronunciation, makes it possible for all Chinese dialects to be written in the same way; this greatly aids communication across China.
In ancient times, China was East Asia’s dominant civilization. Other societies—notably the Japanese, Koreans, Tibetans, and Vietnamese—were strongly influenced by China, adopting features of Chinese art, food, material culture, philosophy, government, technology, and written language. For many centuries, especially from the 7th through the 14th century ad, China had the world’s most advanced civilization. Inventions such as paper, printing, gunpowder, porcelain, silk, and the compass originated in China and then spread to other parts of the world.

Geography
China stretches some 5,001 kilometers across the East Asian landmass in an erratically changing configuration of broad plains, expansive deserts, and lofty mountain ranges, including vast areas of inhospitable terrain. The eastern half of the country, its seacoast fringed with offshore islands, is a region of fertile lowlands, foothills and mountains, desert, steppes, and subtropical areas. The western half of China is a region of sunken basins, rolling plateaus, and towering massifs, including a portion of the highest tableland on earth.
The vastness of the country and the barrenness of the western hinterland have important implications for defense strategy. In spite of many good harbors along the approximately 18,000-kilometer coastline, the nation has traditionally oriented itself not toward the sea but inland, developing as an imperial power whose center lay in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River on the northern plains.
China also has the Tibet Plateau towards the south. The Tibet Plateau is a very large plateau with very high altitudes. To the north of the Tibet Plateau lies the Gobi Desert, one of the world's largest and hottest[citation needed] deserts, which stretches mostly into Mongolia.

Economics Of China
Gross domestic product (GDP): $ 1,931,710,300,000 (2004); Government budget balance as share of GDP: -2.3542 % (2003); Inflation, GDP, avg. annual: .7789 % (2000); Inflation, consumer prices, avg. annual: 0.993 % (2000); GDP per capita: $ 1,470 (2004); Trade balance: 6.15967 % of imports (2002); Labor force, unemployment rate: 4 % (2002); GDP, industry share: 46.2252 % (2004); GDP, manufacturing share: 39.3421 % (2004); GDP, services share: 40.6673 % (2004); Currency: Yuan/Renminbi.

Culture
China’s traditional class and social structure traces back more than 3,000 years to the Shang (1570?-1045? bc) and Zhou (1045?-256 bc) dynasties. During this period a ruling class emerged from a combination of priests, military leaders, and administrators. By the 4th and 3rd centuries bc, the legitimacy of the ruling elite was embedded in the writings of Confucius and other scholars.
Confucian doctrine sought to develop a framework for a stable and harmonious society. In this framework, mutual responsibilities and obligations were defined between ruler and subjects, husband and wife, parents and children, father and eldest son, and eldest son and other siblings. If the roles were carried out properly, society would function in a well-ordered manner. China was defined as a male-centered society in which the family name passed down through the male line. The eldest son was charged with performing important annual rituals that involved reverence for deceased ancestors and parents. Veneration for ancestors was an important part of Chinese family life, and every Chinese home had, and typically still has, a small shrine for ancestors.
Beyond family life, Chinese social order traditionally was defined in terms of a few main social groupings. The emperor and his attendants were at the top of the social order. Below him was the imperial bureaucracy, staffed at all levels—court, province, prefecture, and county—with elite scholar officials. Through these officials, backed by the army and other imperial policing authorities, the imperial government administered the state and imposed its authority and control when challenged. Farmers, soldiers, merchants, and artisans were below the bureaucrats. This general social order persisted until the imperial system was overthrown in 1911, although over time the position of merchants had improved. By the 20th century, a number of families with commercial and industrial interests had amassed great fortunes. Their wealth permitted them the luxury of educating their children, and through this means, their families’ status advanced in the traditional hierarchy.
When the Chinese Communists gained power in 1949, the social hierarchy changed dramatically. Poor peasant farmers and people who had joined the Communist army during the revolution were held in esteem within the party, which exercised great influence over society. Landlords and educated elites often were punished, and many lost their land and other properties. In rural areas there were many executions and other punishments for landlord families.

Educational Scenario

Education has played a major role in China’s long and rich cultural tradition. Throughout much of the imperial period (221 bc-ad 1911), only educated people held positions of social and political leadership. In 124 bc the first state academy was established for training prospective bureaucrats in Confucian learning and the Chinese classics. Historically, however, relatively few Chinese have been able to take the time to learn the complex Chinese writing system and its associated literature. It is estimated that as late as 1949 only 20 percent of China’s population was literate. To the Chinese Communists, this widespread illiteracy was a stumbling block in the promotion of their political programs. Therefore, the Communists combined political propaganda with educational development. By 2005 China’s literacy rate had reached 87 percent, although literacy levels between the sexes were different. The literacy rate for males was 94 percent, whereas the rate among females was only 81 percent. Literacy in China is defined as the ability to read without difficulty.
One ambitious CCP program has been the establishment of universal public education for such a large population. From 1949 to 1951, more than 60 million peasants enrolled in winter schools, or sessions, which were established to take advantage of the slack season for agricultural workers. Communist leader Mao Zedong declared that a primary goal of Chinese education was to reduce the sense of class distinction among the population. This was to be accomplished by reducing the social gaps between the manual and mental laborer; between the city and countryside resident; and between the worker in the factory and the peasant on the land.
The most radical developments in Chinese education, however, took place from 1966 to 1978, during the Cultural Revolution and the years that followed. From 1966 to 1969 the government closed virtually all schools and universities in China. Many of the 131 million youths who had been enrolled in primary and secondary school became involved in Mao’s chaotic efforts to shake up China’s new elite. These efforts involved using students as youthful critics to attack governmental programs and policies. Primary and secondary schools began to reopen in 1968 and 1969, but institutions of higher education did not reopen until the period from 1970 to 1972.
During the Cultural Revolution, government policies toward education changed dramatically. The traditional 13 years of primary and secondary schooling, spanning from kindergarten to 12th grade, were reduced to 9 or 10 years. Colleges that had traditionally had a 4- or 5-year curriculum adopted a 3-year program. Part of these 3 years had to be spent in productive labor in support of the school or the course of study being pursued. A 2-year period of manual labor also became mandatory for most secondary-school graduates who wished to attend college.
Following Mao’s death in 1976, the government began a major review of these policies. As a result, and because of an increased interest in the development of science in Chinese education, curricula came to resemble those of the pre-Cultural Revolution years. Programs for primary and secondary education were gradually readjusted to encompass 12 years of study (although only 9 years were made compulsory). High school graduates were no longer required to go to the countryside for 2 years of labor before competing for college positions. The Cultural Revolution thus resulted in a decade of disruption in China’s educational programs. During this period nearly an entire generation of students simply was not educated or received only a marginal education heavily flavored with the radical politics of the Maoist era.
Since the late 1970s the educational system has changed significantly with the reinstitution of standardized college-entrance examinations. These exams were a regular part of the mechanism for upward mobility in China before the Cultural Revolution. During the Cultural Revolution, radical leaders eliminated the entrance exams by arguing that they favored an elite who had an intellectual tradition in their families. When colleges reopened between 1970 and 1972, many candidates were granted admission because of their political leanings, party activities, and peer-group support. This method of selection ceased in 1977 as the Chinese launched a new campaign for the so-called Four Modernizations. The stated goals for this campaign, which sought to rapidly modernize agriculture, industry, defense, and science and technology, required high levels of training. Such educational programs by necessity had to be based more on theoretical and formal skills than on political attitudes and the spirit of revolution. However, after students agitated for greater democracy in the 1970s and 1980s, which culminated in the government’s violent crackdown on student protestors in Tiananmen Square in June 1989, university students were again required to complete one year of political education before entering college (see Tiananmen Square Protest).
Chinese higher education is now characterized by the key-point system. Under this system, the most promising students are placed in selected key-point schools, which specialize in training an academic elite. Students finishing secondary school may also attend junior colleges and a variety of technical and vocational schools. Among the most prominent comprehensive universities in China are Peking University (founded in 1898) and Tsinghua University (1911), in Beijing; Fudan University (1905), in Shanghai; Nanjing University (1902); Nankai University (1919), in Tianjin; Wuhan University (1893); Northwest University (1912), in Xi’an; and Sun Yat-Sen University (1924), in Guangzhou. Prestigious science and technical universities include the Beijing Institute of Technology (1940), Tongji University (1907) in Shanghai, and the University of Science and Technology of China (1958) in Hefei.
In the past, students received free university education but upon graduation were required to accept jobs in state-owned industries. The government instituted a pilot program in 1994 whereby the state allowed university students the option of paying their own tuition in exchange for the freedom to find their own jobs after graduation. This enabled graduates who paid their way to choose better paying jobs with foreign companies in China, or to demand better pay from state-owned enterprises. By the late 1990s, all incoming university students were required to pay their own tuition, although government loans were available.
Certain fields of study have grown in popularity in Chinese higher education. While engineering and science remain very popular, other fields, including medicine, economics, literature, and law, have grown considerably in recent years. Another trend has been the rapid increase in the number of advanced students who study abroad, mainly in North America, Europe, and Japan.
In 1998–1999 China had 145 million pupils enrolled in primary schools, and 91 million students enrolled in secondary schools. By contrast, enrollments in 1949 had been about 24 million in primary schools and 1.25 million in secondary schools. There were 12.1 million students enrolled in institutions of higher learning in 2001–2002.

Lifestyle
Communism has brought about far-reaching changes in China, as the way of life of China’s people has incorporated and adjusted to shifting ideological currents. Traditionally, the average Chinese citizen, especially the more than 90 percent of the population who resided in rural areas, had little or nothing to do with the central or local government. Most people’s lives were centered on their home village or town, and the family was the main unit of social activity and economic production. The Communist revolution injected the Communist Party into every level of urban and rural life and every institution of society. Thus for the average Chinese citizen, whether urban or rural dweller, Communism has brought a far more intrusive role of government in daily life and in the operation of all significant facets of the economy and society.
However, in the years following the death of Chairman Mao in 1976, China’s leaders gradually modified the strict policies of socialist guidance of the economy, and the role of the party in everyday life began to diminish. This shift reflected an increasing understanding among party leaders that the socialist approach was not succeeding. They recognized that it had not provided a better life for the Chinese people and was stifling economic growth. The shift has been particularly evident in the countryside. Reforms in the rural economy have led to a virtual privatization of rural land, with peasants acquiring long-term leases that amount virtually to private ownership. Many peasants are now responsible for earning their own livelihoods and supporting their families. The state’s role in their daily lives has clearly diminished, although it has not disappeared.
Despite the far-reaching changes in rural areas, country life remains attuned to the seasons and focused on nearby towns and cities for commerce and entertainment. In the rural areas surrounding large urban areas, the pace of life has intensified as farmers have geared their agricultural production to the growing demands of urban consumers. Moreover, much of China’s urban industrial development has flowed to the adjacent rural areas. In these areas land is readily available at lower prices, and the rules concerning release of noxious fumes, liquids, and solids are looser and often not enforced. The inhabitants of these rural areas peripheral to cities have greater opportunities for employment off the farms, often in industrial or service jobs that are not even related to the farm economy. Residents of these areas have been increasingly drawn into a quasi-urban lifestyle, with all of its attendant pleasures and challenges.
Traditional rural family life has been changed by the dynamism of the nearby cities and their evolving economies. New employment opportunities often attract the male head of household, who may later be followed by other members of the farm family. Such employment offers new opportunities but also new challenges. Uncertainty about the long-term prospects for employment off the farm often makes farmers reluctant to let go of their land and farms. When peasants leave the farm under such circumstances, they often leave the farming to those at home who have little interest and enthusiasm for the work, which may be viewed as difficult and tiresome. Under these conditions, the quality of the farm may decline, and the productivity of both land and people may begin to diminish. Nevertheless, the off-farm jobs enhance prospects for social as well as economic change. The new jobs bring rural Chinese into contact with urban dwellers who have different values and different ways of doing things.
Farther from the cities, in the more remote areas of the interior, the traditional rural way of life is generally more prominent. In these areas, opportunities for new off-farm jobs are limited. Yet even in these locations, many peasants have grown dissatisfied with local conditions. They have migrated to other provinces and distant cities in search of more profitable employment and relief from poverty and the routines of village life. Such migrations are not easy, however. The peasants are allowed to leave their villages only as temporary migrants to provide needed labor services in those urban jobs that are the most undesirable, difficult, and dirty. These include jobs in construction, transportation, and domestic service. Migrants must provide for their own lodging, food, and other needs. They are not entitled to the many privileges and subsidies afforded urban citizens employed in the state-supported sector of the economy—such as health care and good schooling for their children. Yet these transients continue to leave rural areas for the cities with dreams of either becoming permanent city dwellers or earning their fortunes and returning to their native villages with new wealth and power. Some have indeed done well. However, the reality for most of these transients is a difficult life of hard work and a second-class status, in cities far from their native villages.
In the cities, the power of the CCP and its governing apparatuses of state power are more obvious and controlling. Most people in cities are employed in state-operated commercial and industrial enterprises. Workers in these enterprises must adhere to state-mandated social rules, as well as employment rules, as the state controls virtually all aspects of life. Access to housing, health care, and education depend on following state-mandated guidelines of proper social conduct, such as the one-child per family policy. In the 1990s the state initiated an effort to privatize urban housing. By the close of the 20th century, many state-supported employees were able to purchase apartments through various state-supported credit arrangements.
At the same time, city life offers many opportunities that are not available in the countryside. City dwellers enjoy the benefits associated with higher incomes and enhanced cultural, commercial, and educational opportunities. China’s large cities in the eastern coastal provinces offer many of the amenities and opportunities associated with cities in the West. Among these are department stores containing the latest fashions, and lodging and restaurant facilities in hotels of world-class standards. In addition to outstanding local and non-local Chinese cuisine, European, Japanese, Indian, and American fare is available. American fast food, such as McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken, is widely available.
In and around China’s great cities are found the evolving lifestyles of the newly rich, those with strong connections in government and commerce who can accumulate substantial wealth. Members of this class are often eager to flaunt their new wealth. They buy fine clothing and accessories and fancy automobiles, and even purchase large, single-family dwellings near new private schools. Fancy restaurants, discos, and nightclubs are trendy venues for the newly rich to show off their wealth and status and enjoy a sophisticated lifestyle. The children of these urbanites are the ones most likely to go abroad for foreign study and learn foreign languages. Such education will permit them rapid entry into the business and professional circles of China’s increasingly globalized economy and society. While this newly wealthy population is comparatively small, it signifies the rapidly growing disparity in income levels between rich and poor in China’s cities.

Health Care Services
Health care in China has improved dramatically since the economic reforms began. In 1949 the average life expectancy in China was 45 years. By 2006 the average had risen to 73 years (71 years for men and 74 years for women). During the same period the number of medical doctors increased greatly. Despite an overall rapid population increase, in 2004 China had 1 physician for every 609 inhabitants, as opposed to 1 for every 27,000 in 1949. Clinics typically are found at the village and district levels, and hospitals, in most cases, at the city and county levels.

Transport
The railroad is the most important mode of transportation in China. Since 1949 the total length of the country’s railroads has more than doubled, reaching 61,000 km (37,900 mi) in 2004. The two major north-south routes (Guangzhou-Beijing and Shanghai-Beijing) connect with lines that extend into the northeast and southeast of China and into Mongolia and Russia. In 1995 a new Beijing-Kowloon railroad was completed, linking Beijing and Hong Kong. The major east-west line, from Lianyungang to Lanzhou, connects with a rail line to Ürümqi in far northwestern China and to Kazakhstan in Central Asia. The new rail lines have provided a dense network in the heavily populated and economically important regions of northeastern, central, and southwestern China.
Road transport has become increasingly important in China. Before 1949, paved roads and highways only provided connections between the old coastal treaty ports (cities such as Shanghai and Tianjin that contained sections controlled by foreigners) and the surrounding countryside, but the road system now stretches well into the country’s interior. Roads connect Beijing to the capitals of all provinces and autonomous regions, as well as to major ports and railroad centers. The network also extends into rural areas, making most localities accessible by road. In 2003 China had a total length of 1,800,000 km (1,100,000 mi) of highways. Most paved roads were in good condition. Motorized public transportation is well-developed in urban centers. Bicycles are popular for traveling short distances.
Inland navigation on China's many rivers and canals accounts for a large proportion of the goods shipped within the country, and its potential for increased development is great. The largest inland waterway is the Yangtze River, which has major ports at Chongqing, Yichang, and Wuhan. Some 18,000 km (11,000 mi) of the Yangtze and its tributaries can be traveled by steamboats. China’s busiest inland waterway system, however, is the Grand Canal, which extends from Beijing to Hangzhou, near Shanghai. The southern portion of the canal is actually a network of many local canals and lakes. Such cities as Suzhou, Wuxi, and Changzhou are important inland ports in this region. In parts of rural China, peasants use irrigation and drainage canals as inland waterways.
China's long coastline and the proximity to the coast of some of the country’s most important industrial cities have long made coastal shipping an important mode of transportation. To accommodate and encourage the expansion of international trade, the government has invested in improving existing port facilities and constructing new ports. There are a number of major ports along China's coastline, including those at Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macao, Qinhuangdao, Guangzhou, Dalian, Ningbo, and Tianjin. China has a merchant fleet of 3,590 ships (2005) that visit ports around the world.
China’s largest international airports are at Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Provincial capitals and a number of other major cities have airports that handle domestic flights. China's national airline is Air China. A number of regional airlines have been established, and some of them also operate on international routes.