CHINA, FLAG OF

national flag consisting of a red field (background) with a large yellow star and four smaller stars in its upper hoist corner. The flag's width-to-length ratio is 2 to 3. The red of the Chinese flag has two historical bases. It expresses the revolutionary communist philosophy that has dominated China since 1949, when the forces of Mao Zedong won the Chinese civil war and expelled the Nationalists and their flag from the mainland. However, red is also the traditional ethnic colour of the Han, who form the overwhelming majority in the country. Under the Ch'ing (Manchu) dynasty, which ruled from 1644 until 1911/12, most of the flags of China were yellow, the Manchu ethnic colour. Blue became associated with the Mongols, white with the Tibetans, and black with the Hui-the other major Chinese ethnic groups. In the first republic, established in 1912, these five colours formed horizontal stripes in the national flag. Indeed, five has long been a significant number in Chinese symbolism; it corresponds to the four cardinal points plus the centre (i.e., China itself), as well as the traditional Five Classics, Five Elements, Five Rulers, and Five Virtues. In the flag of the People's Republic of China, first officially hoisted on October 1, 1949, the symbolism of five was reflected in the stars appearing in yellow in the upper hoist canton. The large star was said to stand for the Chinese Communist Party and its leading role in guiding the nation. The smaller stars, one point of each of which aims at the centre of the large star, were associated with the four social classes united in the coalition supporting the party-the proletariat, the peasants, the petty bourgeoisie, and the "patriotic capitalists." Later, reinterpretations of the party structure led to a revised symbolism: the large star was said to stand for China, the smaller stars for national minorities. Whitney Smith History Prehistory Archaeology in China Principal sites of prehistoric and Shang China. The practice of archaeology in China has been rooted in modern Chinese history. The intellectual and political reformers of the 1920s challenged the historicity of the legendary inventors of Chinese culture, such as Shen Nung, the divine farmer, and Huang Ti, the Yellow Emperor. At the same time, scientific study of the prehistoric period was being sponsored by Western archaeologists and paleoanthropologists. The establishment of the Academia Sinica (Chinese Academy of Sciences) in 1928 enabled Chinese scholars to study Chinese archaeology for themselves, but the eruption of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 made excavation difficult. That some researchers found themselves, with their collections, in Taiwan after 1949 and that much archaeology practiced in the People's Republic of China was reported within a Marxist framework further demonstrate archaeology's links to politics. The waning of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s meant the resumption of archaeological excavation and publication. A modernizing nation began to produce scholarship, increasingly informed by scientific analysis, in a quantity and quality commensurate with its size and its traditions of learning. Early man The fossil record in China promises fundamental contributions to the understanding of human origins. There is considerable evidence of Homo erectus by the time of the Lower Paleolithic (the Paleolithic Period began c. 2,500,000 years ago and ended 10,000 years ago) at sites such as Lan-t'ien, Shensi; Ho-hsien, Anhwei; Yan-mou, Yunnan; and, the most famous, that of so-called Peking man at Chou-k'ou-tien, Peking Municipality. The Lower Cave at the last site has yielded evidence of intermittent human use from c. 460,000 to 230,000 years ago. Many caves and other sites in Anhwei, Hupeh, Honan, Liaoning, Shantung, Shansi, and Shensi in North China and in Kweichow and Hupeh in the South suggest that H. erectus achieved wide distribution in China. Whether H. erectus pekinensis intentionally used fire and practiced ritual cannibalism are matters under debate. Significant Homo sapiens cranial and dental fragments have been found together with Middle Paleolithic artifacts. Such assemblages have been unearthed at Ting-ts'un, Shansi; Ch'ang-yang, Hupeh; Ta-li, Shensi; Hsu-chia-yao, Shansi; and Ma-pa, Kwangtung. Morphological characteristics such as the shovel-shaped incisor, broad nose, and mandibular torus link these remains to the modern Mongoloid race. Few archaeological sites have been identified in the south. A number of widely distributed H. erectus sites dating from the upper Pleistocene manifest considerable regional and temporal diversity. Upper Paleolithic sites are numerous in North China. Thousands of stone artifacts, most of them small (called microliths), have been found, for example, at Hsiao-nan-hai, near An-yang, Honan; Shuo-hsien and Ch'in-shui, Shansi; and Yang-yan, Hopeh; these findings suggest an extensive microlith culture in North China. Hematite, a common iron oxide ore used for colouring, was found scattered around skeletal remains in the Upper Cave at Chou-k'ou-tien (c. 10th millennium BC) and may represent the first sign of human ritual. History China after the death of Mao Perhaps never before in human history had a political leader unleashed such massive forces against the system that he had created. The resulting damage to that system was profound, and the goals that Mao Zedong sought to achieve ultimately remained elusive. The agenda he left behind for his successors was extraordinarily challenging. Readjustment and recovery Mao's death and the purge of the Gang of Four left Hua Guofeng (Hua Kuo-feng), a compromise candidate elevated by Mao in the wake of the purge of Deng Xiaoping, as the official leader of China. Hua tried to consolidate his position by stressing his ties to Mao and his fidelity to Mao's basic ideas, but many others in the top leadership wanted to move away from precisely these issues, and Hua's position eroded over the remainder of the decade. The ambivalent legacies of the Cultural Revolution were reflected in the members of the Political Bureau chosen just after the 11th Party Congress had convened in August 1977. Like Hua Guofeng, almost half of the members were individuals whose careers had gained from the Cultural Revolution; the other half were, like Deng Xiaoping, the Cultural Revolution's victims. While this balance would be reached only after a period of years, the tide quickly began to turn decidedly in favour of the latter group. History The Cultural Revolution, 1966-76 As the clash over issues in the autumn of 1965 became polarized, the army initially provided the battleground. The issues concerned differences over policy directions and their implications for the organization of power and the qualifications of senior officials to lead. Much of the struggle went on behind the scenes; in public it took the form of personal vilification and ritualized exposs of divergent worldviews or, inevitably, "two lines" of policy. Lin Biao, in calling for the creative study and application of Mao's thought in November and at a meeting of military commissars the following January, consistently placed the army's mission in the context of the national ideological and power struggle. In these critical months the base of operations for Mao and Lin was the large eastern Chinese city of Shanghai; and newspapers published in that city, especially the Liberation Army Daily, carried the public attacks on the targets selected. Attacks on cultural figures The first target was the historian Wu Han, who doubled as the deputy mayor of Peking. In a play, Wu supposedly had used allegorical devices to lampoon Mao and laud the deposed former minister of defense, Peng Dehuai. The denunciation of Wu and his play on Nov. 10, 1965, constituted the opening volley in an assault on cultural figures and their thoughts. As the Cultural Revolution gained momentum, Mao turned for support to the youth as well as the army. In seeking to create a new system of education that would eliminate differences between town and country, workers and peasants, and mental and manual labour, Mao struck a responsive chord within the youth; it was their response that later provided him with his best shock troops. As a principal purpose, the Cultural Revolution was launched to revitalize revolutionary values for the successor generation of Chinese young people. During the spring of 1966 the attack against authors, scholars, and propagandists emphasized the cultural dimension of the Cultural Revolution. Increasingly it was hinted that behind the visible targets lay a sinister "black gang" in the fields of education and propaganda and high up in party circles. Removal of Peng Zhen (P'eng Chen) and Lu Dingyi (Lu Ting-yi) and subsequently of Zhou Yang, then tsar of the arts and literature, indicated that this was to be a thoroughgoing purge. Clearly, a second purpose of the Cultural Revolution would be the elimination of leading cadres whom Mao held responsible for past ideological sins and alleged errors in judgment. History Establishment of the People's Republic The Communist victory in 1949 brought to power a peasant party that had learned its techniques in the countryside but had adopted Marxist ideology and believed in class struggle and rapid industrial development. Extensive experience in running base areas and waging war before 1949 had given the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) deeply ingrained operational habits and proclivities. The long civil war that created the new nation, however, had been one of peasants triumphing over urban dwellers and had involved the destruction of the old ruling classes. In addition, the party leaders recognized that they had no experience in overseeing the transitions to socialism and industrialism that would occur in China's huge urban centres. For this, they turned to the only government with such experience-the Soviet Union. Western hostility against the People's Republic of China, sharpened by the Korean War, contributed to the intensity of the ensuing Sino-Soviet relationship. When the CCP proclaimed the People's Republic, most Chinese understood that the new leadership would be preoccupied with industrialization. A priority goal of the Communist political system was to raise China to the status of a great power. While pursuing this goal, the "centre of gravity" of Communist policy shifted from the countryside to the city, but Chairman Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) insisted that the revolutionary vision forged in the rural struggle would continue to guide the party. In a series of speeches in 1949 Chairman Mao stated that his aim was to create a socialist society and, eventually, world Communism. These objectives, he said, required transforming consumer cities into producer cities to set the basis on which "the people's political power could be consolidated." He advocated forming a four-class coalition of elements of the urban middle class-the petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie-with workers and peasants, under the leadership of the CCP. The people's state would exercise a dictatorship "for the oppression of antagonistic classes" made up of opponents of the regime. The authoritative legal statement of this "people's democratic dictatorship" was given in the 1949 Organic Law for the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and at its first session the conference adopted a Common Program that formally sanctioned the organization of state power under the coalition. Following the Communist victory, a widespread urge to return to normality helped the new leadership restore the economy. Police and party cadres in each locality, backed up by army units, began to crack down on criminal activities associated with economic breakdown. Soon it was possible to speak of longer-term developmental plans. The cost of restoring order and building up integrated political institutions at all levels throughout the nation proved important in setting China's course for the next two decades. Revolutionary priorities had to be made consonant with other needs. Land reform did proceed in the countryside: landlords were virtually eliminated as a class, land was redistributed, and, after some false starts, China's countryside was placed on the path toward collectivization. In the cities, however, a temporary accommodation was reached with non-Communist elements; many former bureaucrats and capitalists were retained in positions of authority in factories, businesses, schools, and governmental organizations. The leadership recognized that such compromises endangered their aim of perpetuating revolutionary values in an industrializing society, yet out of necessity they accepted the lower priority for Communist revolutionary goals and a higher place for organizational control and enforced public order. Once in power, Communist cadres could no longer condone what they had once sponsored, and inevitably they adopted a more rigid and bureaucratic attitude toward popular participation in politics. Many Communists, however, considered these changes a betrayal of the revolution; their responses gradually became more intense, and the issue eventually began to divide the once cohesive revolutionary elite. This development is central to an understanding of China's political history since 1949. Scholars tend to divide China's history into periods after the formation of the People's Republic in 1949. These postwar periods, which will be discussed here briefly, must be used with caution, however, because their definition depends so much on which events are selected for emphasis. Reconstruction and consolidation, 1949-52 During this period, the CCP made great strides toward bringing the country through three critical transitions: from economic prostration to economic growth, from political disintegration to political strength, and from military rule to civilian rule. The determination and capabilities demonstrated during these first years-and the respectable showing (after a century of military humiliations) that Chinese troops made against UN forces on the Korean Peninsula in 1950-53-provided the CCP with a reservoir of popular support that would be a major political resource for years. Liberation Army troops-called Chinese People's Volunteers-entered the Korean War against United Nations forces in October 1950. Peking had felt threatened by the northward thrust of UN units and had attempted to halt them by its threats to intervene. These threats were ignored by U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, however, and when UN troops under his command reached the Chinese border, Peking acted. By the war's end in July 1953 approximately two-thirds of China's combat divisions had seen service in Korea. In the three years of war, a "Resist America, Aid Korea" campaign translated the atmosphere of external threat into a spirit of sacrifice and enforced patriotic emergency at home. Regulations for the Suppression of Counterrevolutionaries (Feb. 20, 1951) authorized police action against dissident individuals and suspected groups. A campaign against anti-Communist holdouts, bandits, and political opponents was also pressed. Greatest publicity attended Peking's dispatch of troops to Tibet at about the same time that it intervened in Korea. The distinctiveness and world reputation of the Tibetan culture was to make this a severe test of Communist efforts to complete the consolidation of their power. In 1959, after a period of sporadic clashes with the Chinese, the Tibetans rose in rebellion, to which Peking responded with force. Under the Agrarian Reform Law (June 1950) the property of rural landlords was confiscated and redistributed, which fulfilled a promise to the peasants and smashed a class identified as feudal or semifeudal. The property of traitors, "bureaucrat capitalists" (especially the "four big families" of the Nationalist Party -the K'ungs, Soongs, Chiangs, and Ch'ens), and selected foreign nationals was also confiscated, helping end the power of many industrialists and providing an economic basis for industrialization. Programs were begun to increase production and to lay the basis for long-term socialization. These programs coincided with a massive effort to win over the population to the leadership. Such acts as a marriage law (May 1950) and a trade-union law (June 1950) symbolized the break with the old society, while mass organizations and the regime's "campaign style" dramatized the new. During 1949-50, policy toward the cities focused on restoring order, rehabilitating the economy, and-above all-wringing disastrous inflation out of the urban economy. To accomplish these tasks, the CCP tried to discipline the labour force, win over the confidence of the capitalists, and implement drastic fiscal policies so as to undercut inflation. These policies brought such remarkable successes that by late 1950 many urban Chinese viewed the CCP leadership as needed reformers. Indeed, numerous capitalists believed them to be "good for business." But beginning in 1951, the revolutionary agenda of the Communists began to be felt in the cities. A Suppression of Counterrevolutionaries campaign dealt violently with many former leaders of secret societies, religious associations, and the KMT in early 1951. In late 1951 and early 1952, three major political campaigns brought the revolutionary essence of the CCP home to key urban groups. The Three Antis campaign targeted Communist cadres who had become too close to China's capitalists. The Five Antis campaign aimed at the capitalists themselves and brought them into line on charges of bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property and economic information, and cheating on government contracts. And the Thought Reform campaign humbled university professors and marked a turning point in the move from Western to Soviet influence in structuring China's university curriculum. The pressures toward national political consolidation and the costly struggle in Korea produced significant consequences. In the several provinces of Manchuria (now called the Northeast) there was a growing concentration of industrial and military presence, as well as an increased presence of Soviet economic advisers and key elements of China's tiny corps of technicians and specialists. This was a natural development in view of the extensive economic infrastructure left behind by the Japanese in this region and its proximity to Korea. Additionally, Northeast China had long been an area of Soviet interest. Gao Gang (Kao Kang) headed Northeast China, and, in addition to his authoritative regional position, Gao also influenced decisions in Peking. He planned the ThreeAnti campaign and took the lead in adapting Soviet techniques to Chinese factory management and economic planning. He promoted these techniques on a national basis when he moved to Peking in late 1952 to set up the State Planning Commission. Working closely with the head of the party's Organization Department and other senior officials, Gao subsequently allegedly tried to reduce drastically the authority of his potential competitors, notably Liu Shaoqi (Liu Shao-ch'i) and Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai), both leading members of party and state organs. The ensuing power struggle lasted more than a year, reflecting an underlying fissure in the CCP. Gao himself had long been a man of the rural base areas, while Liu and Zhou were associated far more with the pre-1949 work in the "white areas" (areas outside CCP control). After 1949, base area veterans believed that they received fewer high positions than their struggles in the wilderness had warranted. Within weeks after the National Conference of the party (March 1955) had proclaimed the defeat of the Gao clique, Peking approved a long-delayed First Five-Year Plan (technically covering the years 1953-57). That summer, active programs for agricultural collectivization and the socialization of industry and commerce were adopted. The period 1949-52 was marked by changes in Soviet influence in China. The officially sanctioned terms of that influence had been worked out in a visit by Mao to Moscow from mid-December 1949 until the following March and were formalized in a Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance (signed Feb. 14, 1950). Years later the Chinese charged that Moscow had failed to give Peking adequate support under that treaty and had left the Chinese to face UN forces virtually alone in Korea. The seeds of doubt concerning Soviet willingness to help China had been sown. Moreover, one of the errors purportedly committed by Gao Gang was his zealousness in using Soviet advisers and promoting the Soviet economic model for management. After the purge of pro-Gao elements, steps were taken to reduce direct Soviet control in China. These steps included reaching agreement on the final withdrawal of Soviet troops from Port Arthur (L-shun) by mid-1955. Moscow proved amenable to these changes, as Stalin's death had produced new Soviet efforts to end tensions with the Chinese. The applicability of the Soviet model to China and the degree to which its use might become a pretext for Soviet manipulation of China began to be questioned. Nevertheless, these potential reductions in Soviet influence were counterbalanced by growing Soviet activity in other fields. The Chinese army was reorganized along Soviet lines, with a greater emphasis on heavy firepower and mobility. Soviet texts and propaganda materials flooded the country. The Soviet Union had earlier extended $300,000,000 credit (used up by 1953); this was followed by a smaller developmental loan in 1954 (used up by 1956). Under these aid programs the Soviets supplied the equipment and technical aid for a large number of industrial projects. The Soviet Union also played a major role in Chinese foreign policy, and it appears that China accepted Moscow's leadership in the international Communist movement. Coordinating with Stalin, Peking supported revolutionary activity throughout Asia and opposed compromise with neutralist regimes. History The late republican period The war against Japan (1937-45) The Sino-Japanese War On July 7, 1937, a minor clash between Japanese and Chinese troops near Pei-p'ing (Peking's name under the National Government) finally led the two nations into war. The Japanese government tried for several weeks to settle the incident locally, but China's mood was highly nationalistic and public opinion clamoured for resistance to further aggression. In late July, new fighting broke out. The Japanese quickly took Pei-p'ing and captured Tientsin. On August 13 savage fighting broke out in Shanghai. By now the prestige of both nations was committed, and they were locked in a war. Phase one As never before in modern times, the Chinese united themselves against a foreign enemy. China's standing armies in 1937 numbered some 1,700,000 men, with 500,000 in reserve. Japan's naval and air superiority were unquestioned. But Japan could not commit its full strength to campaigns in China; the main concern of the Japanese Army was the Soviet Union, while for the Japanese Navy it was the United States. During the first year of the undeclared war, Japan won victory after victory against sometimes stubborn Chinese resistance. By late December, Shanghai and Nanking had fallen. But China had demonstrated to the world its determination to resist the invader; this gave the government time to search for foreign support. China found its major initial help from the Soviet Union. On Aug. 21, 1937, the Soviet Union and China signed a nonaggression pact, and the former quickly began sending munitions, military advisers, and hundreds of aircraft with Soviet pilots. Japanese forces continued to win important victories. By mid-1938 Japanese armies controlled the railway lines and major cities of northern China. They took Canton on October 12, stopping the railway supply line to Wu-han, the temporary Chinese capital, and captured Han-k'ou, Han-yang, and Wu-ch'ang on October 25-26. The Chinese government and military command moved to Chungking in Szechwan, farther up the Yangtze and behind a protective mountain screen. At the end of this first phase of the war, the National Government had lost the best of its modern armies, its air force and arsenals, most of China's modern industries and railways, its major tax resources, and all the ports through which military equipment and civilian supplies might be imported. But it still held a vast though backward territory and had unlimited manpower reserves. So long as China continued to resist, Japan's control over the conquered eastern part of the country would be difficult. History The early republican period The development of the Republic (1912-20) The first half of the 20th century saw the gradual disintegration of the old order in China and the turbulent preparation for a new society. Foreign political philosophies undermined the traditional governmental system, nationalism became the strongest activating force, and civil wars and Japanese invasion tore the vast country and retarded its modernization. Although the revolution ushered in a republic, China had virtually no preparation for democracy. A three-way settlement ended the revolution-abdication by the dynasty; relinquishment of the provisional presidency by Sun Yat-sen in favour of Yan Shih-k'ai, regarded as the indispensable man to restore unity; and Yan's promise to establish a republican government. This placed at the head of state an autocrat by temperament and training, and the revolutionaries had only a minority position in the new national government. Early power struggles During the first years of the republic there was a continuing contest between Yan and the former revolutionaries over where ultimate power should lie. The contest began with the election of parliament (National Assembly) in February 1913. The Nationalist Party (Kuomintang; KMT), made up largely of former revolutionaries, won a commanding majority of seats. Parliament was to produce a permanent constitution. Sung Chiao-jen, the main organizer of the KMT's electoral victory, advocated executive authority in a cabinet responsible to parliament rather than to the president. On March 20, 1913, Sung was assassinated; the confession of the assassin and later circumstantial evidence strongly implicated the Premier and, possibly, Yan himself. Parliament tried to block Yan's effort to get a "reorganization loan" (face value $125,000,000) from a consortium of foreign banks, but in April Yan concluded the negotiations and received the loan. He then dismissed three Nationalist military governors. That summer, revolutionary leaders organized a revolt against Yan, later known as the Second Revolution, but his military followers quickly suppressed it. Sun Yat-sen, one of the principal revolutionaries, fled to Japan. Yan then coerced parliament into electing him formally to the presidency, and he was inaugurated on October 10, the second anniversary of the outbreak of the revolution. By then his government had been recognized by most foreign powers. When parliament promulgated a constitution placing executive authority in a cabinet responsible to the legislature, Yan revoked the credentials of the KMT members, charging them with involvement in the recent revolt. He dissolved parliament on Jan. 10, 1914, and appointed another body to prepare a constitution according to his own specifications. The presidency had become a dictatorship. History Late Ch'ing Western challenge, 1839-60 The opium question, the direct cause of the first Sino-British clash in the 19th century, began with a late 18th-century British attempt to counterbalance their unfavourable China trade with traffic in Indian opium. After monopolizing the opium trade in 1779, the East India Company's government began to sell the drug at auction to private British traders in India, who shipped it to buyers in China. The silver acquired from the sale of opium in China was sold at Canton for the company's bills of exchange, payable in London, and was used by the company to purchase its large annual tea cargo for sale in Europe. This "triangular trade" became a major vehicle for realizing the potential gains from the British conquest of India, providing as it did a means to repatriate the company's Indian revenue in opium in the form of Chinese teas. In 1819 the company began to handle larger amounts of opium. Substantial social and economic disruption resulted from the spread of the opium habit and of corruption among petty officials and from a fall in the value of copper in China's bimetallic monetary system as silver was drained from the economy. The Peking court repeatedly banned the importing of opium but without success, because the prohibition itself promoted corruption among the officials and soldiers concerned. There was no possibility of the opium question being solved as a domestic affair. After the turn of the 19th century the main vehicle of opium smuggling was the country traders who were allowed only to manage the inter-Asian trade under the company's license. Without protection from the company, they cultivated the opium market in China on their own. They defied the opium ban in China and gradually became defiant toward Chinese law and order in general, having nothing in mind but making money. After Parliament revoked the East India Company's monopoly in 1834, William John Napier was appointed chief superintendent of British trade in China and arrived at Canton. He tried to negotiate with the Canton authorities on equal footing, but the latter took his behaviour as contrary to the established Sino-foreign intercourse. His mission failed. In Peking an 1836 proposal to relax the opium restraint acquired much support. But the Tao-kuang emperor appointed a radical patriot, Lin Tse-hs, as Imperial commissioner for an anti-opium campaign. Chinese anti-opium efforts, in fact, began to make considerable headway in controlling the Chinese side of the smuggling trade in late 1838 and early 1839. The critical foreign side of the opium trade was, however, beyond Commissioner Lin's direct reach. Arriving at Canton in March 1839, Lin confiscated and destroyed more than 20,000 chests of opium. Skirmishes began after September between the Chinese and the British. The first Opium War and its aftermath In February 1840 the British government decided on an expedition, and Rear Adm. George Elliot was appointed first commissioner and plenipotentiary to China. In June, 16 British warships arrived in Hong Kong and sailed northward to the mouth of the Pei River to press China with its demands. No agreement was reached. In May 1841 the British attacked the walled city of Canton and received a ransom of $6,000,000, which provoked a counterattack on the part of the Cantonese. This was the beginning of a continuing conflict between the British and the Cantonese. The Ch'ing had no effective tactics against the powerful British Navy. They retaliated merely by setting burning rafts on the enemy's fleet; and they encouraged people to take the heads of the enemies, for which they offered a prize. The Imperial banner troops, although they sometimes fought fiercely, were ill-equipped and lacked training for warfare against the more modern British forces. The Green Standard battalions were similarly in decay and without much motivation or good leadership. To make up the weakness, local militias were urgently recruited, but they were useless. The British proclaimed that their aim was to fight the government officials and soldiers who abused the people, not to make war against the Chinese population. And indeed there was a deep rift between the government and people, of which the British could easily take advantage, a weakness in Ch'ing society that became apparent in the crisis of the war. Elliot's successor, Henry Pottinger, arrived at Macau in August and campaigned northward, seizing Amoy, Ting-hai, and Ning-po. Reinforced from India, he resumed action in May 1842 and took Wu-sung, Shanghai, and Chen-chiang. Nanking yielded in August, and peace was restored with the Treaty of Nanking. The main provisions of the treaty were the cession of Hong Kong, the opening of five ports to British trade, the abolition of the cohong system of trade, equality of official recognition, and an indemnity of $21,000,000. This was the result of the first clash between China, which had regarded foreign trade as a favour given by the Heavenly empire to the poor barbarians, and the British, to whom trade and commerce had become "the true herald of civilization." The Treaty of Nanking was followed by two supplementary arrangements with the British in 1843. In July 1844 China signed the Treaty of Wanghia with the United States and in October the Treaty of Whampoa with France. These arrangements made up a complex of foreign privileges by virtue of the most-favoured-nation clauses (guaranteeing trading equality) conceded to every signatory. All in all, they provided a basis for such later evils as the loss of tariff autonomy, extraterritoriality (exemption from the application or jurisdiction of local law or tribunals), and the free movement of missionaries. With the signing of the treaties-which began the so-called treaty-port system-the Imperial commissioner Ch'i-ying, newly stationed at Canton, was put in charge of foreign affairs. Following a policy of appeasement, his dealing with foreigners started fairly smoothly. But contrary to the British expectation, the amount of trade dropped after 1846; and, to their dissatisfaction, the question of opium remained unsettled in the postwar arrangements. The core of the Sino-Western tension, however, rested in an antiforeign movement in Kwangtung. History The Early Ch'ing dynasty The rise of the Manchu The Manchu, who ruled China from 1644 to 1911, were descendants of the Juchen tribes who had ruled North China as the Chin dynasty in the 12th century. From the 15th century they had paid tribute to the Ming and been organized in the commandery system, so they had long had extensive and regular contact with the Chinese state and, more importantly, with the Chinese military officers stationed in the Ming frontier garrisons. By the 16th century these officers had become a hereditary regional military group in southern Manchuria, the Manchu homeland. Transformed by their long residence on the frontier, the Chinese soldiers mingled with the "barbarians," adopting Manchu names and tribal customs. Still other Chinese were in the area as enslaved "bond servants" who worked the land or helped manage the trade in ginseng root, precious stones, and furs with China and Korea. Later, after the conquest of China, many of these bond servants became powerful officials who were sent on confidential missions by the emperor and staffed the powerful Imperial Household Department. Under Nurhachi and his son Abahai, the Aisin Gioro clan of the Chien-chou tribe won hegemony among the rival Juchen tribes of the northeast, then extended its control through warfare and alliances into Inner Mongolia and Korea. Nurhachi created large permanent civil-military units called "banners" to replace the small hunting groups used in his early campaigns. A banner was composed of smaller companies; it included some 7,500 warriors and their households, including slaves, under the command of a chieftain. Each banner was identified by a coloured flag that was yellow, white, blue, or red, either plain or with a border design. Originally there were four, then eight, Manchu banners; new banners were created as the Manchu conquered new regions, and eventually there were Manchu, Mongol, and Chinese banners, eight for each ethnic group. By 1648 less than 16 percent of the bannermen were actually of Manchu blood. The Manchu conquest was thus achieved with a multiethnic army, led by Manchu nobles and Han Chinese generals. Han Chinese soldiers were organized into the Army of the Green Standard, which became a sort of Imperial constabulary force posted throughout China and on the frontiers. Modern scholarship on the rise of the Manchu emphasizes the contributions of Chinese collaborators to the Manchu cause. The Manchu offered rewards and high positions to these Chinese, who not only brought military skills and technical knowledge with them but also encouraged the adoption of Chinese institutional models. From Chinese and Korean artisans the Manchu learned iron-smelting technology and acquired the advanced European artillery of the Ming. They created a replica of the Ming central government apparatus in their new capital, Mukden (modern Shen-yang), established in 1625. Whereas Nurhachi had initially based his claim to legitimacy on the tribal model, proclaiming himself khan in 1607, he later adopted the Chinese political language of the T'ien Ming ("Mandate of Heaven") and in 1616 created the Hou (Later) Chin dynasty. Abahai continued to manipulate the political symbols of both worlds by acquiring the great seal of the Mongol khan in 1635, and thus the succession to the Yan dynasty, and by taking on a Chinese dynastic name, Ch'ing, for his own dynasty the following year. The downfall of the Ming house was the product of factors that extended far beyond China's borders. In the 1630s and '40s China's most commercialized regions, the Yangtze Delta and the southeast coast, suffered an acute economic depression brought on by a sharp break in the flow of silver entering ports through foreign trade from Acapulco, Malacca, and Japan. The depression was exacerbated by harvest shortfalls resulting from unusually bad weather during 1626-40. The enervated government administration failed to respond adequately to the crisis, and bandits in the northwest expanded their forces and began invading north and southwest China. One of these bandit leaders, Li Tzu-ch'eng, marched into Peking in 1644 unopposed, and the Emperor, forsaken by his officials and generals, committed suicide. A Ming general, Wu San-kuei, sought Manchu assistance against Li Tzu-ch'eng. Dorgon, the regent and uncle of Abahai's infant son (who became the first Ch'ing emperor), defeated Li and took Peking, where he declared the Manchu dynasty. It took the Manchu several decades to complete the military conquest of China. In 1673 the conquerors confronted a major rebellion led by three generals (among them Wu San-kuei), former Ming adherents who had been given control over large parts of south and southwest China. This revolt, stimulated by Manchu attempts to cut back on the autonomous power of these generals, was finally suppressed in 1681. In 1683 the Ch'ing finally eliminated the last stronghold of Ming loyalism on Taiwan. The Ch'ing Empire After 1683 the Ch'ing rulers turned their attention to consolidating control over their frontiers. Taiwan became part of the empire, and military expeditions against perceived threats in north and west Asia created the largest empire China has ever known. From the late 17th to the early 18th century Ch'ing armies destroyed the Oyrat Empire based in Dzungaria and incorporated into the empire the region around the Koko Nor (Blue Lake) in Central Asia. In order to check Mongol power, a Chinese garrison and a resident official were posted in Lhasa, the centre of the Dge-lugs-pa (Yellow Hat sect) of Buddhism that was influential among Mongols as well as Tibetans. By the mid-18th century the land on both sides of the Tien Shan range as far west as Lake Balkhash had been annexed and renamed Sinkiang ("New Dominion"). Military expansion was matched by the internal migration of Chinese settlers into parts of China that were dominated by aboriginal or non-Han ethnic groups. The evacuation of the south and southeast coast during the 1660s spurred the westward migration of an ethnic minority, the Hakka, who moved from the hills of southwest Fukien, northern Kwangtung, and southern Kiangsi. Although the Ch'ing dynasty tried to forbid migration into its homeland, Manchuria, in the 18th and 19th centuries Chinese settlers flowed into the fertile Liao River basin. Government policies encouraged Han movement into the southwest during the early 18th century, while Chinese traders and assimilated Chinese Muslims moved into Sinkiang and the other newly acquired territories. This period was punctuated by ethnic conflict stimulated by the Han Chinese takeover of former aboriginal territories and by fighting between different groups of Han Chinese. History The Ming dynasty Political history Ineptitude on the throne, bureaucratic factionalism at court, rivalries among Mongol generals, and ineffective supervision and coordination of provincia