An Introduction

The GeographyChina is the 4th largest country in the world.

China is 8 hours ahead of GMT.

Temperatures can plunge to -35°C in the north, whereas in the humid south, temperatures can be very high.

Rapid industrialisation has polluted many rivers and the cities have terrible smog problems.

Shanghai is the largest city in China, with a population of 20 million. It is the showpiece of the Chinese economy.

The Chinese People

92% are Han Chinese and the remaining 8% are comprised of around 55 minority ethnic groups.

Most of the population does not have any religious affiliation. Around 8% are Buddhist, 3% Christian and 1% Muslim.

The main languages are Manadrin, Cantonese, Gan, Hakka, Hui, Jin, Min, Ping, Wu and Xiang.

China has a population of 1,321,290,000.

GovernmentThe Chinese Parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), meets in the capital, Beijing.

China has 23 Provinces (if you include Taiwan, as the Chinese Government does): Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guizhou, Hainan, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan and Zhejiang.

There are five “autonomous regions”; Guangxi, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Xinjiang and Xiizang (Tibet).

The NPC has 2,987 seats. Elections are held very four years. The next elections are in 2012. Only members of the Chinese Communist party, its eight allied parties and sympathetic independent candidates are elected to the NPC.

NationalismArise, ye who refuse to be slaves!Let us amount our flesh and blood towards our new Great Wall!The Chinese nation faces its greatest peril,The thundering roar of our peoples will be heard!

Arise! Arise! Arise!

We are many, but our hearts beat as one!Selflessly braving the enemy's gunfire, march on!Selflessly braving the enemy's gunfire, march on!March on! March on! on!

March of the Volunteers

The CCP has promoted Chinese nationalism and patriotism as a way of preventing protest over the lack of human rights and democracy. In 2009 the CCP celebrated its 60th anniversary of coming to power.

National Anthem

Statistics on Quality of Life

Despite claims to its socialist credentials, China does not have a national health service. The CCP promises one in 2012.

Major killers at the moment are respiratory diseases, hepatitis B and road accidents.

Average life expectancy is 72 (m) and 75 (f).

Unemployment stands at around 4%.

GDP per head is £1,030 but China is one of the most unequal countries in the world, with vast inequalities between the urban elite and the rural poor. There are also many poor people in the big cities, usually those who have migrated from the countryside.

Pudong, Shanghai

Beijing’s Economic Extremes

Chinese Communism“The Communist Party of China is the vanguard both of the Chinese working class and of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. It is the core of leadership for the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics and represents the development trend of China's advanced productive forces, the orientation of China's advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people. The realization of communism is the highest ideal and ultimate goal of the Party……….

China is in the primary stage of socialism and will remain so for a long time to come. This is a historical stage which cannot be skipped in socialist modernization in China which is backward economically and culturally. It will last for over a hundred years”

CCP Constitution

Despite the inequality, the poverty, the lack of human rights and democracy, the CCP claims that “Communism with Chinese Characteristics” is a society which is socialist and on the way to becoming fully communist. One day.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

The CCP has governed China since its victory over the Kuomintang (Chinese National Party) in 1949.

The CCP does not allow any other party to govern China. To do so would “deflect” the country from its historic mission to establish a communist society.

The CCP is the largest political party in the world. It has 70 million members. Membership of the CCP is encouraged for students and intellectuals. Membership of the CCP has many advantages in securing jobs and good housing.

As such, corruption is a major problem in Chinese society.

Tiananmen Square

The crushing of the student protests in Tiananmen Square on June 4 1989 was evidence that the CCP will not tolerate peaceful opposition to its methods of rule.

The Tiananmen students protested against corruption and a lack of democracy.

The CCP, frightened of the recent Soviet policy of Glasnost (open-ness) which contributed to the end of the Soviet empire, brutally suppressed the protests.

Twenty one years on, discussion of Tiananmen is banned in schools and universities in China.

Tiananmen 20 years on

The Four PrinciplesSince 1979, its has been illegal to debate the relevance of the Four Principles of Chinese Communism:

•the principle of upholding the socialist path •the principle of upholding the people's democratic dictatorship•the principle of upholding the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and •the principle of upholding Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong thought .

The media, including the internet, in China is strictly controlled by the CCP.

Search engines and blogs which contain “subversive” phrases such as “democracy”, “freedom” are blocked. The CCP has even blocked access to Twitter.

Government coverage of Xinjiang protests

The Chinese Economic Miracle

In 1979, Prime Minister Deng Xiaoping stated that “to get rich was glorious”.

Private enterprise and wealth were no longer incompatible with Chinese socialism.

Since then China has pursued inward investment from the major global brands, especially to its Special Enterprise Zones, with taxes and wages are low.

China has become the workshop of the world. The Chinese economy has experienced double digit growth for the past five years. Even the credit crunch has only slowed down the pace of economic activit.y

Unlike just about every other country in the world, China has not gone into recession.

National Pride

A key goal of the CCP was to use the 2008 Olympic Games to promote Chinese patriotism. Inside China, the Olympics were a huge hit, with 98.6% of Beijing residents saying the games were a "success," in a poll published by the Beijing Evening News.

The political point was well made by the CCP: China has arrived as a superpower.

Issues

The downsides to the economic miracle are:

•The continuing low pay and poverty in the countryside

•The exploitation of migrants from the countryside to the cities

•Environmental damage

•A lack of human rights

•Suppression of minority groups; There have pro-independence protests in Tibet, which have been violently suppressed. In July 2009 there was conflict in the Xinjiang province (which is near Tibet) between Uighurs and incoming Han Chinese. Around 156 people were reported to have been killed in the biggest protests since Tiananmen.