China

China Destinations Travel Guide

Flag of China

Language: Chinese Mandarin
Currency: Chinese Yuan (CNY)
Calling Code: +86

 

China is located in Asia. It is the most populous country in the world after India. Its bordering countries are Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam to the south, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to the west, Russia to the northeast and northwest, Mongolia to the north and North Korea to the northeast.

China is the second largest economy in the world after the USA. Modern cities are characterized by new wealth, combined with poverty, which is still visible even in the most modern cityscape. Between the most modern skyscrapers there are small, bizarre-looking residential buildings. Many Chinese can afford a car, and the masses of bicycles that shaped the cliché of China are gradually disappearing from the cities with millions of inhabitants. It is important for Chinese people to show off their new wealth, and wealth and happiness are often equated.

But the new wealth is unevenly distributed. Migrant workers earn perhaps 1,500 yuan, spend only 200 yuan of it on living expenses, and send the rest home. In return, you get noodles three times a day because it's cheap, and eight people live in a one-room apartment. The bizarre differences between rich and poor can also be seen in the cityscape: old carts pulled by hand or by animals move between expensive luxury cars.

Chinese youth are completely apolitical, the party does its own thing, the youth and younger adults do their own. Mass protests are also not a Chinese thing. If the party decides that people have to relocate, then that's just how it is. The only complaints are if the financial compensation is not right. Reports in the Western media that suggest that all Chinese are dissidents are nonsense. On the contrary, Chinese people can be extremely nationalistic and very proud of their country.

The population consists of 55 minorities, but together they only make up about 8 percent of the population. The remaining 90 percent or more are Han Chinese.

In the West, China was particularly known for its one-child policy, with which the country attempted to slow down its immense population growth. The policy, which was never particularly popular among the population, caused such major demographic problems (including a massive aging population and a surplus of boys because girls were mostly aborted) that the country had to abandon this policy in 2016.

India is the country with the second highest population in the world. While the Indian population is still growing, in China it is largely stagnating or even shrinking - depending on the region. China is still considered an emerging country because, in addition to the industrialized east, there are also very rural areas in western China where modern technology is not widespread.

China has a supply problem. The country has numerous low mountain ranges, a very attractive landscape that should encourage travelers to China not to just stay in the cities. But you can't grow anything there. 22 percent of the world's population live in a country where only 10 percent of the land is arable. So it is no surprise that even the smallest corners of just a few square meters are planted. As the economy recovers, food quickly becomes more expensive, as more people can afford to eat more. The government is trying to counteract this with strict regulations, as there is always potential for unrest. But the increased wages mean that it is no longer worth it for the many migrant workers from the countryside to work their own farms, which further exacerbates the supply situation.

The Chinese love bright, glaring and flashing things, just like other East Asians. It is not just the television that looks like this, but entire cityscapes have been transformed into light orgies that even Las Vegas would be jealous of. Numerous high-rise buildings, whether offices or residential buildings, shine in the evening. The lights are usually turned off at 10 p.m. by order of the local authorities. Xi'an, for example, but especially Shanghai, are exceptional attractions in the evenings thanks to the city lights. An evening tour by bus or taxi is highly recommended there.

The waste of energy has its price. In addition to the Three Gorges Dam, which provides around 10 percent of China's electricity supply, China gets 85 percent from coal-fired power plants. The enormous environmental pollution caused by this is clearly noticeable in Chinese cities. China therefore wants to massively expand nuclear power. Whether this is a wise decision in view of the considerable risk of earthquakes in China is not being discussed there.

 

Regions

In addition to the regions and provinces or sub-regions, there are two special administrative zones in which a different economic system and, in some cases, different laws apply. The general statements made about China in this travel guide therefore only apply in part:
Hong Kong (香港)
Macau (澳门)

The island of Taiwan is officially regarded as a province of China by the government of the People's Republic of China and by most other countries in the world as well as the UN. In practice, however, it is a separate state with its own administration and laws. For this travel guide, it is therefore more appropriate to regard Taiwan as an independent state, which is not intended to be a political statement.

 

Northeast

The "Rust Belt".
Heilongjiang (黑龙江) · Jilin (吉林) · Liaoning (辽宁)

 

North

The Yellow River Basin; the historical heartland of China.
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (内蒙古) · Hebei (河北) · Beijing (北京) · Shanxi (山西) · Tianjin (天津)

 

Northwest

Grasslands and deserts, nomads, Islam.
Ningxia Autonomous Region (宁夏) · Xinjiang Autonomous Region (新疆) · Gansu (甘肃) · Qinghai (青海) · Shaanxi (陕西)

 

East

The new economic center of the country.
Anhui (安徽) · Fujian (福建) · Jiangsu (江苏) · Jiangxi (江西) · Shanghai (上海) · Shandong (山东) · Zhejiang (浙江)

 

South

Agricultural areas.
Guangxi Autonomous Region (广西) · Guangdong (广东) · Hainan (海南) · Henan (河南) · Hubei (湖北) · Hunan (湖南)

 

 

Southwest

Most minorities live in the exotic southwest; spectacular landscapes.
Tibet Autonomous Region (西藏) · Chongqing (重庆) · Guizhou (贵州) · Sichuan (四川) · Yunnan (云南)

 

Cities

Here is a selection of the most important and well-known cities.

1 Chengdu – The capital of Sichuan is also called the city without a sky because the sun is rarely seen there. The climate is humid and warm. The city lures with its traditional Sichuanese cuisine and its special charm - but you should bring some knowledge of Mandarin with you, as only a few people speak English there.
2 Chongqing - The largest city in the world - Chongqing (pronounced "dschong-dschin", approx. 32 million inhabitants) - has the flair of a French satellite town. If you arrive at night, it can happen that you find the city bearable, blinded by the neon signs that are everywhere. A stay in this city is only worthwhile by visiting the nearby Three Gorges, which have now also fallen victim to a dam and are more similar to the three great rivers. Even if the city's high-rise backdrop is impressive, the title "biggest city in the world" is a bit of misnomer. In fact, the 32 million inhabitants are spread over an area the size of Belgium. The core city has about 6 million inhabitants. Due to the river there is regularly a foggy haze over the city, in summer with temperatures above 40 degrees the city is also called the fire pot.
3 Guangzhou – The former canton has developed into an important trading metropolis as part of the boom in the Pearl River Delta. In terms of tourism, it mainly offers a contrast to the nearby special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
4 Nanjing – Nanjing (often Nanking in German) - which literally means "southern capital" - was the country's capital during the times of the Chinese Republic and is certainly one of the most beautiful cities in China. Beautiful temples and parks attract visitors to the metropolis on the Yangtse. However, you should refrain from visiting in the summer months - Nanjing is one of the four hottest cities in China.
5 Beijing – The capital of the People's Republic of China attracts with the Imperial Palace, also known as the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, countless street markets, an active nightlife and a short distance from the Great Wall.
6 Qingdao – The former German colony has blossomed into a popular tourist destination in recent years. In addition to holidays on the sandy beach, mountain trips to the adjacent Laoshan Mountains, where Taoism is at home, are also possible. Here you can visit a 2400 year old Taoist temple.
7 Shanghai – Along with Beijing and Xi'an, Shanghai is the tourist must-see in China. Compared to Beijing, there are no major tourist attractions (important destinations include the river promenade "The Bund", the Yu Garden and the Jin An Temple), but the city's high-rise landscape is extremely impressive. The future being built in Shanghai 24 hours a day turns the megalopolis into a single attraction. In addition, Shanghai is the shopping city par excellence in China. Xujiahui and Nanjing Road are just a few of the shopping spots in this metropolis of millions. If you want to holiday in Shanghai, you can also travel to some interesting suburbs, out of the high-rise landscape and into the idyll.
8 Shenzhen – Shenzhen was created as a special economic zone around the former colony of Hong Kong and has experienced a huge economic boom over the past 20 years, with no end in sight.
9 Suzhou – A smaller metropolis about 100km west of Shanghai is Suzhou (pronounced Su-dscho). The listing of the entire downtown of Suzhou as a Unesco World Heritage Site should speak for itself. Suzhou was and is the center of silk production in China. Located at the intersection between the Imperial Canal and the Yangtze River, it owes its economic upswing not only to its convenient location, but above all to the Chinese government's silk monopoly up until the 19th century.
10 Wenzhou – Wenzhou is a small, sleepy metropolis in the south of Zhejiang. Anyone who misses narrow shopping streets and Chinese smells in Beijing and Shanghai will get their money's worth here. The parks of the city are also very beautiful and invite the residents to make music and the tourists to linger. Since Wenzhou has a subtropical climate, a visit is advisable, especially in the winter months.
11 Wuhan – Wuhan is the capital of Hubei Province. Wuhan is considered a smoldering oven, and it gets quite hot in the summer months. On the other hand, in the cloudy winter months, the temperatures only reach values around the freezing point. A well-known attraction is the Yellow Crane Pagoda, which should not be visited around the New Year festival.
12 Lhasa – Lhasa is the capital of the autonomous province of Tibet. It is famous for the Potala, the residence of the Dalai Lama. In addition to the Potala, the Jokhang Monastery and the Norbulingka Palace (the traditional summer residence of the Dalai Lama) are also UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

13 Hong Kong

14 Macao

 

Travel Destination in China

Summer Palace contains spacious park, residential buildings, temples and many pavilions that lie on the shores of the artificial lake.

 

North China

Qin I mausoleum is famous for a huge Terracotta Army buried with the Emperor Quin I.

Ming Dynasty Tombs Thirteen Tombs of the Ming Dynasty are located 30 mi (45 km) Northwest of Bejing in China.

 

Central China

Huangshan Mountains are located in Anhui province these mountains started their unique formation 100 million years ago.

Wulingyuan Mountains are located in Hunan Province has some of the most amazing geological formations.

 

Southwest China

Guilin Hills are picturesque geological formations on a shores of beautiful rivers.

Picturesque Jiuzhaigou Valley lies in Sichuan Province of China.

 

Tibet

Gyantse Castle is a medieval citadel situated in Gyantse, Xigazê Prefecture in China. It was constructed in 1390.

 

How to get here

Entry requirements

Germans, French, Dutch, Spanish and Italians are allowed to enter the country for up to 15 days without a visa. From March 14, 2024, an analogous regulation will also apply to citizens of Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, Hungary and Austria. This measure is provisionally limited to December 31, 2025. Over the course of the year, the list was expanded a few more times, and Liechtensteiners are now also among the privileged.

Otherwise, citizens of Germany, Austria and Switzerland are required to have a visa. In Germany, the visa is not obtained from the embassy or consulate, but from the specially set up Chinese Visa Application Service Center. It operates offices in Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich in Germany; in Switzerland in Bern and Zurich. There are local differences in administrative practice. In some cases, online appointment bookings will be required in 2023. In Munich, for example, only EC cards are accepted, in Frankfurt also cash, in Düsseldorf you have to wait at least 2 weeks. The fees have been reduced by a quarter across the board for the calendar year 2024.

China only issues entry permits outside the country of residence in exceptional cases.

People who are over 14 and under 70 years old when applying must provide their fingerprints when applying, in effect visiting the office. A passport photo must be attached to the application. Special features: background as light as possible, no jewelry (necklace or similar), no glasses. A tourist visa for citizens of the Schengen states for one or two entries and a 30-day stay costs over €125 including the unavoidable service fee (as of July 2023). In Austria, you should contact the consulate. No visas are issued at the airports or borders. A tourist visa requires a passport with at least six months validity and a child's passport for children. You must also present flight tickets and confirmation of booked accommodation. Anyone who has visited a number of African countries must also present a health certificate from their doctor. It is advisable to apply for the visa at least one month before departure. Most visas are only valid for 3 months, so do not apply too early. Fingerprints are taken from all arriving foreigners. Self-service kiosks (“Foreigner Fingerprint Self Collection Area”) have been set up at larger airports where this must be done before queuing at the passport counter. An entry form must also be filled out beforehand.

Anyone who intends to visit Hong Kong or Macau on their travel route and then travel on to the People's Republic of China requires a multiple-entry visa. A visa that only allows for a single entry loses its validity when crossing the border into the special administrative regions of Hong Kong or Macau. Alternatively, you can apply for a new visa in Hong Kong or Macau. However, you must use an approved agent for this.

Under no circumstances should you exceed the length of stay permitted in the visa. This results in a heavy fine, the amount of which is calculated according to the number of days exceeded. You can only leave the country after paying and having a new visa issued.

Entry into the Tibet Autonomous Region is only possible with a special permit. Travel via the passes from Kyrgyzstan also requires special (expensive) arrangements in advance. In Xinjiang Province, the terrorism problem has been brought under control, but restrictions for travelers still apply.

Foreigners are required to report to the local police if they stay in one place for more than 24 hours. If you stay in a hotel, the hotel will automatically report this, for which you must have your passport copied at the hotel. If you are staying in private accommodation, the respective host must report it. Foreign students must report to the police themselves. It is best to take a Chinese friend with you. For foreign students who live on campus but not in an official dormitory, the police may ask you to present a Chinese rental agreement. The Chinese rental contract only needs to include the rent, the names of the tenant and landlord, the duration, the location of the apartment and a signature of the tenant and landlord. The help of a Chinese friend or his Chinese buddy from the university is worth its weight in gold here.

Visa-free short-term stay in transit: Citizens of 54 nations, including 25 Schengen states (but not Liechtenstein) and 15 other Europeans (including Britons), can enter China visa-free for 240 hours upon entry via sixty entry points, which vary locally, upon presentation of a confirmed onward flight, not a return flight. The permit (“Arrival Card for Temporary Entry Foreigners”) is available locally, but the corresponding transit should be clarified with the airline beforehand. Exits via places other than the place of entry are not permitted. The list of entry points also shows which areas (normally the respective province) in the surrounding area can be traveled to. (As of January 2025) The aforementioned registration requirement also applies to these stays. Any overstays, even short-term ones, must be agreed with the authorities. The clock starts ticking at midnight on the calendar day following the day of entry.

 

Airplane

Most Europeans visiting China do so by air. There are direct flights from Europe to many Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Xi'an, Chengdu, Qingdao, Shenyang, and Hong Kong. All other major Chinese cities can be reached by transfer. If you plan ahead and look for it, you can get a ticket for less than 600 euros (as of November 2015). The difference in quality between European and Chinese airlines is now negligible.

When departing from Europe and transferring to a domestic flight at a Chinese airport, baggage must either be checked in at the destination airport or checked through customs at the connecting airport and checked in again. Until recently, it was not possible to check through to the final airport. The cost of an outbound flight by Eurowings from Germany to Bangkok, Thailand, ranges from 200 to 300 euros, depending on how quickly you book. There are often very inexpensive flights from Bangkok to East Asian countries such as China and Southeast Asia such as Singapore (as of February 2017).

Safety regulations that apply internationally also apply in China and to domestic flights.

 

Rail

Beijing is a terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway. You can also enter the territory of the People's Republic of China by train from Hong Kong, Vietnam and North Korea. The border control takes place either at the destination station, or you have to leave the train for the formalities.

 

Car/motorcycle/bicycle

Several of China's neighbors, especially in Southeast Asia, offer international bus service to Chinese cities. It is also possible to take a bus directly from Hong Kong or Macau to certain cities on the Chinese side. Due to border control, it is usually necessary to leave the vehicle. Some connections are not available to foreigners.

Entering China with your own car or motorcycle can be difficult and quite expensive. Chinese license plates and a driver's license are required. In addition, you will need a guide (supervisor). For motorcycles, a vehicle must be added. As a result, the cost of a stay can quickly reach thousands of euros (e.g., 3,100 euros for a five-day stay in Xinjiang with four motorcycles, entering the Torgat Pass via Kashgar and leaving from Aksu to Kazakhstan via Cholga).

The Beijing Traffic Management Bureau offers relatively good information. Detailed information is available in English and Chinese.

Entering the country by bicycle is relatively easy. Although the car is replacing the automobile as the primary mode of transportation in China in the past, it is still widely used.

 

Ship

There are several ferry connections to coastal cities in the People's Republic of China from Hong Kong and Macau. Information and tickets are available at the respective ferry terminals. The exit formalities take place before boarding the ship, the entry formalities after leaving the ship on the Chinese side.

 

Local transport

By Airplane

Flying has been booming in China for about a decade. Most major cities in China have airports, often newly built and generously sized. The number of connecting flights is also increasing rapidly. Numerous Chinese airlines own aircraft, most of which have recently been procured from Western countries. Therefore, flight safety in China is no less than in Europe.

Tickets for domestic flights are the same regardless of the airline. However, discounts are often available depending on availability. For this reason, it is recommended that tickets be booked locally or through a Chinese booking portal (ctrip.com is the largest). Abroad, domestic flights in China are usually much more expensive.

Airports in Chinese cities are often located in the suburbs, and transportation is not always convenient. Delays and cancellations are not uncommon. Therefore, when planning a trip, one should always check whether the same route could be traveled more comfortably by high-speed rail.

Those wishing to fly from China to Hong Kong or Macau should be aware that these flights are international. It is usually much cheaper to fly to Shenzhen or Zhuhai and then cross the border overland from there. International flights originating in China are usually considerably more expensive than international flights.

 

By rail

China has been building a high-speed rail network since 2006, which is already the longest line in the world. The rolling stock on the high-speed lines is made in China but incorporates European and Japanese technology. Along with the new lines, huge new stations have appeared, making high-speed rail travel very relaxing. On many routes, trains have become a cheaper and better alternative to flying.

Away from the high-speed rail network, there is a network of conventional lines, with trains of various categories and equipment. These either connect areas where high-speed rail has not yet penetrated, or they serve a clientele for whom high-speed rail is not readily available.

Train categories are identified by number. The following categories are available:
Bullet trains are numbered G (高速 gāosù) or C (城际chéngjì). They run between major cities at speeds of up to 300 km/h and make only a few or no stops, depending on the number.
D (动车 dòngchē) is a train with a maximum speed of 200 km/h and is similar in comfort to G and C. There are also night trains with sleeping cars.
Z (直达 zhídá) are direct trains that connect major cities and have no intermediate stops. These are often night trains with more comfortable and modern rolling stock. They are very comfortable and usually a cheaper alternative to long trips on high-speed trains.
Until a few years ago, express trains were the best that China Railway could offer. Many of these trains have been replaced by high-speed trains and are now seen as inexpensive alternatives to high-speed trains and on secondary routes. These trains are slower than Z trains, stop more frequently, and have older rolling stock.
Trains beginning with K (快速 kuàisù) are slower and older than trains beginning with T.
Trains without letters are the slowest and oldest. They are preferred by migrant workers because they are the cheapest way to travel. Many of these trains run off the main transportation routes and are rarely seen by tourists.

Few trains begin with other letters (regional or special trains).

High-speed trains have two or three compartment classes:
Hard seat (2nd class) means 2:3 seating in non-adjustable seats. It is slightly narrower than 2nd class in Europe.
Soft Seat (软座) or First Class is 2:2 seating with adjustable seating. It is almost the same as first class in Europe. Recommended for fat foreigners. For more cultured travelers. Some trains still offer business class (商务座).

Standing tickets are not sold.

On conventional trains.
Soft lie (软卧) in four-person compartments.
Hard seat (硬卧), a six-person compartment, similar to European couchette cars, but without compartment doors.
Soft seat (软座), equivalent to European first class.
Hard seats (硬座), comparable to European second class cars, but depending on the age of the vehicle. However, on trains for migrant workers, 3:3 bench seats with backrests built at a 90-degree angle and minimal seat size and padding can also be found.
Free seating (无座) usually means standing room. Such tickets are sold on an unlimited basis and may be long distance. Prices are the same as for hard-seat cards. Before and after national holidays, tourists must travel long distances without a seat, which can be embarrassing.

Riding long distances in a hard seat compartment is a good way to get in touch with the average Chinese person. If you have time to spare, give it a try. Fellow travelers will turn out to be loud, friendly, and outgoing, and you will soon be sharing food, looking at pictures on your cell phone, and playing cards - even if you speak little Chinese.

Tickets can be bought at train stations or at ticket offices scattered throughout the town. All tickets are for personal use, so you will need to show your passport when buying a ticket. Ticket sales usually begin 20 days before the train departs. When demand is low, one can go to the station and get a ticket for the next train, but during summer vacation and around national holidays, one risks long waits and standing room only travel afterwards. All tickets are valid only for specific trains on specific dates, so it is highly recommended that you find out the number of your desired train and stick to that train when making your purchase. Otherwise, you risk arriving at your destination at an impossible time. Sales staff usually speak only Chinese, so those who do not speak Chinese should either get help from a native speaker or write down the necessary data. Do not expect advice at the counter. If you need help, you should go to a travel agent or a friendly citizen.

China Railway Internet Ticket Sales (12306.cn) is only available to those with a Chinese ID card. However, even foreigners can check departure and arrival times, train numbers, ticket prices, and seat availability. In the future, China Railways plans to do away with printed tickets.

Most cities in China have multiple train stations. The correct station is indicated on the ticket and under no circumstances should it go to another station. You may only enter the main hall of a Chinese train station with a valid ticket. Your luggage will be X-rayed at the station entrance, and your ticket and corresponding identification card will be checked. You wait for the train in your own waiting room and can only enter the platform shortly before the train departs. Due to these procedures and the size of the building, it is advisable to be at the station at least 20 minutes before the train departs. Tickets can be checked during the journey, but in any case one cannot leave the station without a ticket at the destination station. During the trip, food and drinks can be bought according to Chinese preferences. Train punctuality is surprisingly high considering the long distances involved. Toilet sanitation varies by train category and worsens during long journeys. Bring your own paper and soap.

Example costs (as of January 2019): to travel from Beijing to Xi'an, 1212 km by high-speed train (4.5-6 hours; hard seat ¥515, soft seat ¥825, business ¥1627; 12 trains per day) or night train (11.5-14. (5 hours, ¥156 (hard seat), ¥268 (hard lying), ¥422 (soft lying), 8 daily). If you simply ask for a Beijing-Xi'an ticket at the counter, you risk being booked on Z151 (arriving at Xi'an at 03:23). So you should stick to Z19 (Beijing-Xi'an nonstop, arriving at 08:00 am). Those who like long train rides can take an overnight train from Beijing to Kunming (4 trains a day, 34-44 hours, seat reservation ¥302, seat reservation ¥513, seat reservation ¥814). From Shanghai to Beijing, it takes 4 hours and 24 minutes by China National Railways' racecourse, G2 or G4 trains (¥554 for a hard seat, average speed 290 km/h). If you want to interact with the common people in a sustainable way, you can choose train 1462, which costs 156 yen and travels in 22 hours at an average speed of 59 km/h.

Departure times and delays: In contrast to delays that are common in Germany, they are very rare in China. In China, trains even depart too early. In fact, if you arrive at the platform three minutes before departure and it is still three minutes before departure, it is possible that a train official will not let you on the train to avoid a delay. In some cases, however, you may be able to persuade the officials to let you board the train.

 

With the long-distance bus

Intercity buses are a popular mode of transportation in China, replacing airplanes and railroads. They also provide almost all connections between major cities. In some areas, buses are the only way to get around. Bus travel is less expensive, especially in remote areas, but the vehicles can have technical problems and the trip is correspondingly less comfortable. Sleeper buses are also available on long-distance routes. In most cases, tickets can be obtained directly before departure as there are enough places available. Buses are an alternative when trains are full. Every city has several bus terminals, so you will need to ask for the correct one. English is not spoken at the bus terminals, so you will need to be able to say your destination in Chinese or write it down. Buses usually travel between two cities, and the two cities are prominently displayed in the front window of the bus.

For long distances, buses are the most unsafe mode of transportation. Although armed robberies on intercity buses have become very rare, horrific traffic accidents with fatalities are televised daily on Chinese television. Accidents, traffic jams, and road closures can cause travel times to exceed the allotted time. If in doubt, trains or airplanes are preferable.

 

Subway

Several cities have opened subway systems in recent years, and the subway systems in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou are among the largest in the world. The system works the same throughout China: a ticket (plastic chip or card) is purchased from a machine. With this ticket, you pass through a barrier gate to the platform. When exiting the subway area, the same ticket is used to pass through the barrier. Subway tickets are very inexpensive, starting at ¥2, and you can travel all over Shanghai for ¥10. If you plan to stay in a city for a long time, getting a value card will save you the trouble of buying tickets frequently. In some cities, you can also use a cell phone app to cross the barrier.

Be prepared for heavy crowding on platforms, cars, and especially at transfer stations, especially during rush hour. Passengers' luggage is scanned at all subway stations, so congestion and delays are common here as well. It is important to plan enough time and be careful with valuables.

 

With the taxi

Cabs are a very popular and widespread mode of transportation in China. They are considerably cheaper than in Europe, usually costing only a few euros for a long trip. Cabs in major cities are metered. Most drivers are honest and will turn on the cab meter without special request. Sometimes a penny or two is added as a fuel surcharge. As in any travel country, it makes sense to check cab fares on the Internet beforehand to avoid getting ripped off. In China, however, this is often not a problem. As a rule, empty cabs should be stopped with a hand signal. At certain times of the day, such as b. when the driver is changing shifts, when it is raining suddenly, or during major events, it can be difficult or impossible to get a cab. In this case, make a reservation (negotiate!) in advance. or use the subway, bus, or private car. It is also possible to charter a cab for the day, for example to visit tourist attractions outside of the cities, but this requires negotiating with the driver. In small towns in rural areas, expect to pay 500-600 yen per day.

Cab drivers rarely speak English, and international terms such as "airport" are often not understood. Drivers may refuse to take a ride because of difficulty communicating with foreigners, too short a distance, a shift change, or traffic congestion. In any case, it is necessary to be able to say the destination in Chinese or write it down in Chinese. Under certain circumstances (e.g., high prices or fuel shortages), all drivers consistently refuse to use cab meters, forcing you to negotiate. Many cities also have unlicensed drivers ("black cabs"). The only people who feel comfortable riding in a black cab are those who are fluent in Chinese and know the way to their destination. Otherwise, there is a risk of fraud and robbery, which as a foreigner, I would avoid if possible. Cab drivers do not expect tips and will usually round up or down to the nearest yuan and give you change without hesitation.

The cab industry is also going digital in China. The most popular cab app today is called DiDi, which acquired Uber China in 2016. As a rule, after ordering cab service, the driver will call you and agree on the exact point of departure. Nevertheless, it is worth installing this app before traveling to China. Various cab apps, such as Didi Dache (滴滴打车) and Kuaidi Dache (快的打车), also make it easy to pay with payment apps such as Wechat. These cabs are even cheaper than regular cabs and often have more comfortable and significantly nicer cars. Often you can pay directly through the cab app. Setting up and ordering a cab requires some knowledge of Chinese or the help of a Chinese friend. But you should use these apps, especially if you are staying for an extended period of time.

 

With the city bus

All Chinese cities have extensive urban bus systems. However, the route maps, stops, and destination signs are usually only in Chinese, making them of little use to tourists. City buses are also the slowest mode of transportation in the city. Nevertheless, as a tourist, you may still rely on buses, especially if there are no cabs available.

Fares are very inexpensive (between one and two yen to get around the city), and fares are usually put into a designated box with the driver. Discounts are available if you pay with a prepaid card.

 

By bike and on foot

The bicycle, which shaped China's urban image until the 1980s, has all but disappeared and is gradually making its way onto the streets. Any visitor to China will be struck by the large number of fellow cyclists lined up on the side of the road. The Chinese use their bikes as sports equipment in the park or as transportation to the nearest subway station. Sometimes demonic air pollution, the recklessness of other road users, and bike paths and side streets often blocked by cars make cycling unattractive. This is also true for tourists, with only a few exceptions.

Few places in China are suitable for exploring on foot. Walking in Chinese cities means slaloming around cars parked on sidewalks, streetlights, and broken manhole covers. Add to this the noise, air pollution, long distances, and summer heat, and walking can be very tiring.

Users of GPS devices should be aware that in China, due to government manipulation, the numbers displayed generally deviate from actual conditions. In sensitive border areas, errors can range from 200 to 600 meters!

 

Language

Mandarin is the standard Chinese language. Cantonese is spoken in Hong Kong and the neighboring province of Guangdong. Macau also has its own dialect, as do most provinces south of Shanghai. However, the spelling is the same everywhere except in Taiwan and parts of Hong Kong. In Taiwan and parts of Hong Kong, it is spelled "Traditional Chinese"; on the mainland, it is spelled "Simplified Chinese. Because of the strong dialects, it has actually happened that Chinese people in the north and south have to communicate in foreign languages.

Chinese has many homonyms, i.e., words that have the same pronunciation but several meanings. Chinese people can tell what a word means from its context. Chinese characters consist of tens of thousands of pictographs, many of which are names. Students leave school with a knowledge of about 3,500 Chinese characters, but eventually they will have about 5,000. To be able to read some newspapers, 3,000 characters would be enough. Grammar, however, is much simpler. There are no cases or articles. On the contrary, Chinese people routinely despair over why they are called girls, despite the fact that they are women. Translated into Chinese, it means "I beat you" or "you beat me. After a few years in China, there are many foreigners who cannot read characters, even though they can speak quite well. Chinese, on the other hand, have considerable difficulty pronouncing the letter R. The trick is to gargle for weeks and learn the R on your own.

Those who do not speak Chinese will face major problems in some areas of the country. English is usually spoken in hotels and restaurants along the standard tourist routes, and you can get help buying train tickets and excursions, but you will have to be very patient in other areas. Chinese learn English in school, but the exam is written. This causes the phenomenon that it is difficult to find someone who speaks English, but even in places far from the main tourist attractions, business is written above the entrance to almost all stores in English as well as Chinese.

English is usually not a problem at hotel receptions, but other hotel employees often only understand important phrases, e.g., name price. Ticket vending machines at public subway stations can be operated in English and are easy to use. In tourist areas, ticket booths are almost everywhere, and English is quite understandable here. Those who use buses need to know how to get on the bus. This is also true for cab drivers; there is no need to call out your name or globally known keywords such as "airport" or "train station. Street vendors in tourist areas usually speak English to the extent that they can negotiate prices. Most English is perfect for traffickers trying to get tourists into overpriced bars (see security).

It is definitely worth taking important words in Chinese characters or having your hotel or tour guide write them down for you, for example. However, there is no guarantee that if you show them the sign at the bus terminal, they will also tell you how to get there. Nevertheless, China is a country that is undergoing a great deal of change, and it is possible that in a few years it will be much easier. There is a clear westernization throughout China.

There is one advantage for Western travelers. Arabic numerals are the only numerals in use in China today. Chinese numerals have their own numbers, but because of the complexity of the system, they are only used in bookkeeping. Otherwise, all numbers such as B, for example, would be displayed in the numbers we know, 0 through 9.

In China, the standard greeting that can be used at any time of the day or night is ni hao, which is the German equivalent of guten tark, literally meaning "how are you?" However, since niau means urine, it should be pronounced separately from ni hao. When ordering food at a restaurant, it is a good idea to take note of the Chinese characters for various foods and animals and their meanings. For example, meat, soup, water, cola, or animals such as duck, pig, cow, etc. It is easy to make a letter that means pork from the two letters pig and meat.

In modern times, it is also recommended to use applications such as Pleco, a partly free software program.

 

Shopping

China's currency is the renminbi (RMB), usually abbreviated as renminbi (RMB in meters) or colloquially as kuai. All three names mean the same thing. The next smallest unit is the kuan (角); 10 kuan is equivalent to 1 RMB. 1 jiao is worth 10 fen, the next smaller unit, but there are no coins or bills.

Currently, 1 euro = approximately 7.34 yen. In Europe, the exchange rate for cash is very poor. You should carry only the minimum amount of cash and only have it with you in case of an absolute emergency. With a credit card, this emergency money is almost never needed. Many hotels will exchange money at the official rate without problems; withdrawals with EC cards will incur an additional fee. Imports into China can be up to RMB 20,000, but given the poor exchange rate, this would be pointless for the average traveler.

Credit card exchange rates in Germany are sometimes worse than those at exchange offices or hotels. This area varies greatly from region to region and location to location in China, so information should be obtained in advance.

If you are staying in China for a long period of time, you may want to ask your Chinese friends to teach you how to pay by scanning QR codes with a payment app like B.Wechat (like Whatsapp, but with payment functions, etc.). This payment method is very popular in China.

Groceries are considerably cheaper than in Europe. A beverage bottle such as a cola (0.5 liter) costs about 3 yuan, and even large attractions cost less than 5 yen. A can of cola (0.33L) is often available for 1 yen at restaurants in Xiamen. Water is even cheaper. A pastry from a bakery costs a few yuan, and for a few euros you can feed your whole family at a bakery. Small food markets are everywhere, and prices are low here as well.

Basically, China is a country where prices vary widely, sometimes unbelievably. Especially in the big shopping streets of Beijing and Shanghai, the price level is breathtaking. You can get just about anything here. The goods there are likely to be authentic. As city dwellers become more affluent, it is important for the Chinese to be seen to have authentic brand-name goods. Buying fake goods is now considered embarrassing to many Chinese. One should also be wary of insect markets and other places that sell exotic foods. Prices are often displayed at the top of the stand, and they are often disproportionately high. So you should either check the price or ask before you buy.

In China, prices can be surprisingly high, especially for electrical appliances. The following items should be bought with caution, as they are rarely cheap or of poor quality:
Printer accessories, ink cartridges, etc.
Computer-related products
DVD players, televisions
Photographic equipment can be dramatically more expensive (2-3 times more).

Some of the following items can be purchased more cheaply
DVDs and VideoCDs can be purchased at legitimate stores for as little as 7 yuan per disc. If you are buying in large quantities, ask for a discount.
Books, here there are discounts of up to 80% of the German price. English literature can be found in larger bookstores.
Clothing (clothing, if branded, can be more expensive than here, but still does not protect the buyer from fakes. Also, the Chinese market still specializes in small sizes, and 3XL or shoes size 47 are hard to find).

Caution There are numerous illegal copies of all kinds of brand-name products in circulation. To avoid prosecution in Germany, one should be especially careful with electronic media. In a typical tourist market, nothing is guaranteed to be authentic. The Chinese themselves do not shop there. However, they can receive services there, such as calligraphy, or have personalized souvenirs made.

Bars in hotels and on cruise ships can be as expensive as in Europe or even more. A cup of coffee can be 5 euros.

European tourism companies often have local partners arrange trips. It is common in China for package tourists to be forcibly dragged to sales events. Tour guides must obtain proof that they took the group there. One major package tour operator once clearly stated in its catalog, "No more than one group per day. Sometimes you can definitely learn something in a real company, and sometimes, for show, you are introduced only to pseudo-workers who work for a few seconds out of sight of the tourists. These stores are very expensive and one can spend thousands of euros. The only reason to buy there is that if the goods are counterfeit, the tour operator guarantees to refund the money.

Chinese sellers are very aggressive. Salespeople, even obvious employees, will go after tourists and it is difficult to fend them off.

 

Typical souvenirs

Chinese tea
Pasta
Calligraphy
Stamps written in Chinese or Latin characters, e.g. B. with your name or the name of a loved one. Best to buy at the Great Wall of China in Badaling.
Silk
Qingdao Beer Named after the brewery once founded by German settlers as Germania Brewery.

 

Negotiations

In China, it is important to negotiate prices before buying. Point to the item you want and take it. Then, either negotiate the price verbally if you speak Chinese or ask the seller to show you the selling price on his/her cell phone or seller's calculator and enter the price you are willing to pay in yuan on your cell phone. It is possible to get at least half of the original price. If you negotiate hard enough, you can get a discount of 90% or more. At ordinary food supermarkets, set restaurants, and public facilities such as train stations, it is not customary to negotiate.

 

Cuisine

Food is central to Chinese culture, and food is very important to the Chinese. It is not for nothing that they prefer to say "Qi Fan Le Ma" (Have you eaten yet?) instead of "Ni Hao" as a greeting. In recent years, however, the Chinese have moved considerably away from the topic of their favorite food. The numerous food scandals that have claimed lives have left too deep a scar. The government's greed for profit has also made many food producers lose their inhibitions and prudence.

The food served in China is very different from the Chinese food served in street corner Chinese restaurants in Germany. In China, the food is also much hotter. The Chinese eat hot food three times a day. So a Chinese hotel breakfast means fried noodles, egg rice, soup, etc. At breakfast in Chinese hotels, you can also have warm or hot orange juice. Warm or hot water is also very common. Chinese people also prefer to drink beer that is not chilled, because they believe it is good for the stomach and therefore good for one's health.

Basically everything in a Chinese kitchen is recycled. They eat pig snouts, chicken feet, and even scorpions. However, they do not have pets. Cats are not allowed at all, and only specially bred meat dogs are allowed. Many Chinese, however, will not eat dogs, scorpions, or other exotic foods for the rest of their lives. Package travelers need not fear that such strange foods will be pushed under the crumbs. The food served as the average tourist basically corresponds to what is known in Chinese restaurants. For image reasons, the Chinese government wants to drastically limit the consumption of animals that are considered pets in other countries. The majority of Chinese eat pork, beef, poultry, and seafood. Seafood is especially common in coastal towns. The region has a special local cuisine, with a wide variety of very tasty dishes. Still, if you want to eat exotic dishes such as dog or snake, you have to look for something special. Of course, my Chinese friends are very helpful in finding such restaurants, and they often consider what Westerners might want to eat. The prices of these exotic dishes are often particularly high.

Contrary to popular belief in the West, rice is rarely used in many dishes. It is served only if you are not full. It is often ordered separately. Rice is completely unnecessary because of the wide assortment of dishes that are often eaten at the same time as others at round turntables. These round revolving tables are usually found in upscale restaurants and are usually only used to seat large groups of diners.

There are many food stalls in China. What I often hear from people who have lived in China for a long time is that if you know the right food stalls, they can be a good source of supply. The turnover rate is very high, so nothing goes out of date there. They are not suitable for short-term travelers, because they quickly get diarrhea from the unfamiliar food. As anywhere in the world, it is important to make sure that the food here is fresh and well prepared. Food stalls often sell vegetables and especially tasty fruits at reasonable prices. Here you need to make sure they are fresh, peeled and cut right in front of you. In Xiamen, a whole mango, freshly peeled and cut, costs about 12-15 yen (depending on the size of the mango) (as of January 2017) Unpeeled and uncut mangoes are of course cheaper. Of course, mangoes, dragon fruit, and other region-generated fruits taste much better because they are not harvested unripe and transported for long periods of time.

Chinese food is much fresher, especially compared to Germany. This is true, for example, in restaurants with aquariums, where you can still choose live fish or lobster. These ingredients are killed in the kitchen, cooked, and served completely fresh. Flavor enhancers and other additives are often used, depending on the restaurant's price point. People with allergies should check to see if there are any items to which they are allergic. For example, nuts.

For the intrepid tourist, I recommend going to a restaurant and ordering whatever is on the menu. Most of the time, you will find that you will eat some great tasting food that you never thought you would eat. Of course, you can also use your vocabulary to limit the dishes to, for example, B. soup with pork or soup with noodles.

Vegetarian and vegan restaurants are quite rare. But even here the demand from locals as well as tourists is increasing, and the dishes offered are constantly expanding. Especially in the larger cities.

Peking duck (Chinese: 北京烤鴨/北京烤鸭, běijīng kǎoyā) is one of the most famous dishes in Chinese cuisine and is served mainly in specialty restaurants. The duck is presented to the customer, the skin is cut into diamond-shaped pieces, the fat is trimmed off, and the rolled pancake is served with sauce and green onions as an appetizer. The meat is then cut into bite-sized slices and served as a main dish with various side dishes.
Dim sum (Chinese: 點心 / 点心) are small filling dumplings usually served steamed or fried in a bamboo basket. We also call this dough Dampfnudel. There are countless variations, especially in southern and eastern China. One thing to keep in mind when eating them is that the filling is very hot. This filling, if any, can be hearty or sweet, such as b. minced meat or date palm sauce. Beans and fibrous dried pork (which looks like cotton wool) are also popular. In fact, one should be surprised.
Bibliography

Françoise Hauser: China en Wok. in: In Asia, Vol. 6 (November/December) (2007). - Culinary trips to China.

 

Special restaurants and grocery stores

In this section you will find special restaurants, bakeries and other grocery stores.

Xiamen, Fujian Province
Kempinski Hotel Xiamen Paulaner Brauhaus, No. 98 Hubinzhong Road, Siming District, Xiamen, Fujian.Tel: +86 (0) 592 235-1613, Fax: +86 (0) 592 235-1999, Email: paulaner.xiamen@kempinski.com. Xiamen. Large German restaurant on the ground floor of the Kempinski Hotel Siamen. It has German beer, German sausages and other German specialties.In 2016/2017 there was a German chef. The restaurant was also known as a monthly gathering place for Germans, Austrians, and Swiss (as of February 2017). I do not personally know if this is still the case today or if there is a German chef. The music is quite good. Prices are quite high compared to Chinese restaurants, in the mid to high price range. You have to be prepared to pay around 230-250 yen, not 15-25 yen like in cheaper and tasty Chinese restaurants. Unfortunately, like many Western restaurants, this restaurant has a bad habit of adding a flat 10-20% tip to the bill (as of February 2017). The quality of the food is very close to German sausages, and the dishes (made according to German recipes) ranged from good to very good. Open Sun-Sat 5:30 p.m.-11:30 p.m.; payment methods UnionPay, VISA, Master, American Express, JCB, Diners Club, cash, WeChat pay, Ali pay.

Changsha, Hunan Province
Bach's Bakery, Xiang Chun Xiang #8, Kai Fu Qu, Changsha, Hunan, China (address is in an alley, not a street, so hard to find) Phone: +86 731 8862 6264; the German bakery (the Chinese name for "Bach" is "Ba He") is especially looking for hearing impaired people. Based in Changsha, Hunan Province, the bakery has been run by German Uwe Blützer (Chinese name: Wu Zhenrong) and his wife Dorothee Blützer (Chinese name: Du Xuehui) since 2011. Hours of operation: Monday-Saturday 8:00 a.m.- 8:00 p.m., closed Sundays.

West Lake Chamber, Jin Ma Food City, Hongshan Tourism District, Changsha City (Chinese: 长沙市开福区马栏山西湖楼酒家). Located in Changsha, the capital of central China's Hunan Province, the 4,000-seat restaurant is one of the world's largest restaurants, and after being listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest Chinese restaurant, it is now considered the largest restaurant in Asia. The 4,000-seat restaurant is regarded as the largest restaurant in Asia. In early 2003, construction began on a catering facility of unprecedented scale in the Kaifu district of Changsha City. The restaurant complex covers an area of 88 mu (about 5.8 hectares) in the developing Jinma Restaurant City, a 20-minute drive from Huanghe International Airport. Across the street is Changsha's largest park, Yuehu Park. Numerous buildings and parks are constructed in a traditional architectural style. There are four distinct areas throughout the complex. Area A contains 70 large and small rooms, including a performance hall where daily performances are held. Area B has 10 luxurious private rooms in the style of the Imperial Palace. Area C has nine luxurious Cantonese-style booths, and Area D is a snack street. Traditional Chinese cuisine, both Hunan and Cantonese, takes precedence and is prepared in five large kitchens; 1,000 people, including 300 chefs, work here. Approximately 700 chickens and 2,600 pounds of pork are processed each week. There is a large parking lot in front of the restaurant for buses and cars. In October 2004, the Guinness World Records Center Shanghai declared Xihu Lou the largest restaurant in China. In May 2006, the restaurant received the "First Five-Star Tourism Restaurant" award from the Changsha Tourism Bureau. Features Hunan cuisine.

 

Nightlife

In fact, even the biggest nightlife areas in Shanghai and other major cities are almost always "dead" by around 11 pm. In most major cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, and Qingdao, the nightlife takes place only in a small part of the city. It is mostly in the "entertainment districts" that bars stay open after midnight. Chinese are not familiar with nightlife, and in some cities there is no public transportation at night, so they have to rely on cabs. Bar prices range from 1 euro for a beer to over 10 euros, with all sorts of variations. Don't be afraid to go to bars with locals. An interesting discussion may ensue.

China is probably one of the few countries where you can get into the city's top clubs for free. Tables at such clubs usually cost 1,000 to 2,000 euros a night. They also often offer free drinks (whiskey, beer, vodka, rum, cola, etc.) and snacks (nuts, watermelon, etc.) Just contact the club manager or customer advisor on Wechat to let them know when and how many people are coming. You can get contact information from Germans and other international students in China. There is no such thing as dead nightlife at all. It is common among international students to party until 5 am. In the past (before 2012), international students were paid for their parties (about 80 euros per night). This was and still is, of course, illegal, as student visas do not allow work and risk deportation. Behind this perhaps unique rule is the fact that international students are attracted to the predominantly "white" Chinese tourists in their respective nightclubs. The Chinese often invite them to come to their tables, even inviting them for drinks and food. The "whites" are considered a status symbol. This rarely happens, however, and one should be careful not to be responsible for some of the costs later on. For travelers who like to party and stay in China for long periods of time, we recommend visiting local universities and asking international students for the Wechat contact information for the managers of their respective clubs. Especially at the end of the semester, international students will often tell you which clubs are the best and what music is playing. Note that there are no such liberal regulations in place regarding bars.

Note to those who are not fond of alcohol: Chinese people like to drink to get "yuan" and such "competition" does not harm the average European male. Their favorite beer is usually Qingdao (Tsingtao). This "yuan" drinking is introduced by the German word gānbēi, meaning "toast"; gānbēi does not necessarily mean to drink "yuan," but to drink "yuan" (yuan).

Peking Opera is a representation of famous Chinese fairy tales and myths. Peking Opera performances are highly stylized and require specialized knowledge to understand them all. Peking Opera has suffered from a decline in Chinese youth audiences over the past few years.

 

Hotels

Accommodations are offered in every possible category and price range. Price level is also a good indicator of quality level, since the Chinese prefer to make reservations through Internet portals, where they also rate hotels. Hotel prices are higher in large cities than in small towns. In low season, hotel prices are much lower than in high season.

As a general rule, a license is required for hotels to accommodate foreigners. This rule is not always strictly observed. Those who have the opportunity to visit non-tourist countries will stay in hostels that do not have such a license. In places where the situation is tense (e.g. Xinjiang), this is not possible.

Four- and five-star hotels in China, especially in large cities, have performance and price levels that can be compared to European luxury hotels. If you don't need luxury, you can find a number of chain hotels in China that offer cleanliness and moderate comfort for around 300 yuan (about 39 euros - as of March 31, 2020) or less on booking sites such as Booking.com . You can find a good room with breakfast included. If breakfast is sparsely laid out and you don't like it, I suggest booking a room without breakfast and going to a nearby restaurant. That is, of course, if they are available.

Chinese cities are large, so it makes sense to choose accommodations that are convenient to tourist attractions and transportation. For example, 5-star hotels in industrial parks often have very low weekend rates, but are far from tourist attractions and difficult to reach without a cab. With cab fares so low, it is no problem to find a restaurant located a short distance away. The only important thing to remember is to take down the names and addresses in Chinese characters to and from hotels and hostels (if you do not speak Chinese), and always use a legitimate cab (their cabs also have a cab meter). As a general rule, it is advisable to make reservations through a reliable reservation portal. If you go to a hotel without a reservation, ignore the posted room rates and ask for a discounted price in Chinese.

Generally, hotel room charges are paid at check-in. Most hotels also require a deposit, which is paid by credit card or cash. Check-in is usually a lengthy process, as police registration must also be done at the same time. Rooms have complimentary bottled drinking water and items that are charged for when used. Sometimes these items have upscale prices. Disposable toothbrushes, toothpaste, and other hygiene items of questionable quality are usually provided in the bathroom, and there are breathing masks in the closet in case of fire. Mattresses in China are usually much firmer than in Central Europe. Chinese hotels usually do not have non-smoking rooms, so the rooms smell more or less like cigarettes. If the smell is too strong or there are other problems, it is common practice to walk at the front desk and ask for another room.

When checking out, the front desk staff usually calls a maid, who checks the room for consumption of paid items or theft. Only then is the deposit returned. This extra time should definitely be planned for. If you are lucky, you may get the items left in your room returned immediately.

 

Security

China is safe. There is crime, and as a tourist, it is a favorite place to go, as it is in almost any other country in the world. Therefore, wallets and valuables should be protected at all times and hotel safes should be used. Crime rates are generally low, but in some cities it is not advisable to visit at night.

Cash is preferred, but avoid carrying large amounts of cash: RMB 1,000-1,500 is the maximum, unless you are paying at a hotel, etc. ECards and credit cards work fine at most automated teller machines (ATMs). DANGER Some credit cards require activation to be used abroad.

Police are omnipresent in urban areas, but as anywhere else in the world, crime there is high, so it is best not to enter excessively dark alleys and entertainment districts. By the way, not everyone who looks like that is a cop. Most of the men in uniform belong to private security services, even public ones. That does not stop these private security services from doing a military-style goose chase that most armies in the world cannot do.

Above all, the trick with the knockout drop is repeatedly reported in the press. The supposedly nice companion you meet at a disco or hotel bar will mix a knockout drop in your drink when you go to the bathroom. This can still happen at the disco or hotel bar, but usually only in the hotel room. If you return to your hotel after 1-2 days you will find that you have been robbed and your credit cards stolen. I recommend never going on a "tour" here alone.

The same goes for nighttime walks in the pub district. Usually, there are still a few empty corners between the pub tour bases. Usually two people will approach you, one with a knife or pistol out, the other will take your wallet and leave. At this point, it is very helpful to have another person with you. If you find yourself in this situation, you should not play the hero; you should give them money. There is only a slight difference between armed robbery and murder under China's criminal law.

However, the following smuggler's modus operandi is much more common than the knockout-drop scam: You are approached by a young man or woman who speaks English, or even German, fluently and engage in lively conversation for a few minutes. They then suggest a change of location to a nearby bar or tea room. The bill can reach four figures in euros. Chatting is safe, but never make a phone call. As a tourist, it is almost impossible to escape this scam, especially in Beijing.

Be wary of street vendors as well. First, talk of bargaining and brief rejection is often used by pickpockets. Second, merchants, especially in Beijing, know that they are mostly dealing with newcomers to China. The vendors assume that tourists are unfamiliar with money, so they often give them counterfeit bills as change.

Criticism of the government can also be a problem. In particular, the Tiananmen Square incident is considered taboo in the local community. The Chinese leadership is not stupid and knows that the Chinese are talking about it. But they would not want to hear about it, at least not in the square itself. In one case, a tour guide in Tiananmen Square spoke to a group of visitors about the student uprising in a foreign language, and the plainclothes secret police understood the language. The tour guide was immediately arrested and the tour group was left without a guide.

Road traffic is a very serious source of danger. Traffic rules are almost completely ignored. Here one can see the sudden affluence of China. As yet, riding bicycles and mopeds like pigs in a china shop had no significant impact, but as cars became more popular, they led to a dramatic number of accidents that killed many within a few years. Even though only one in ten Chinese owns a car, official figures show that about 100,000 people have lost their lives on the roads. But if you have ever experienced Chinese traffic jams, you will be more surprised. The Chinese take grotesque risks, but they are not aggressive. The Chinese take grotesque risks, but they are not aggressive. Other road users are not insulting enemies and think it will be okay. It is almost "harmonious chaos." On the Autobahn, cars are repeatedly passed and overtaken at speeds of 80 to 100 kilometers per hour, one meter apart on either side. On country roads, they share lanes with everything with wheels and feet. Horns are sounded regularly, preventing many accidents. The horn should make the other party aware that you are behind them. The law of the strong and the great applies, which dictates who should retreat and give way. Roughly speaking, the order is trucks, buses, cars (sometimes cabs have priority), motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, and pedestrians.

As in Vietnam, when crossing the road, cross at traffic signals or zebra-zone crosswalks whenever possible. Do not rely on zebra zone crosswalks under any circumstances. Few people stop at crosswalks because of pedestrians. Cabs also often ignore red lights, and always do so when making a right turn. No driver obeys traffic rules just because there are pedestrians. If you think nothing of it, you will have your first accident at the arrival airport. Before crossing the crosswalk, make sure your car is still far enough away from the zebra zone crosswalk to avoid hitting a car directly. After that, walk at a fast but steady pace so as to be predictable to drivers. Avoid fast walking unless necessary. Observe the speed and distance of the car from the edge of your line of sight. Avoid looking directly at the driver. This is usually interpreted as the pedestrian paying attention and the driver not needing to pay attention. On the other hand, if the driver does not look directly at the pedestrian, the driver is usually careful not to hit the pedestrian.

 

Health

Traveling to China can be stressful for one's health. The long journey, the time change, the sudden change in rhythm of life, the air pollution, and last but not least, the Chinese food, cause many travelers to become ill along the way. Diarrhea, vomiting, and coughing are especially common. For this reason, we recommend that you consult your physician before traveling and have a small first aid kit ready. Medicines are available in China, but not in the brands and compositions known in Europe. Those who need to take medicines on a regular basis should bring sufficient quantities with them. They should also consult their physician regarding vaccinations. Most doctors recommend getting at least a hepatitis vaccination. Also inquire about vaccinations required by the Chinese government.

While there, you must follow certain rules to maintain your health. These include not drinking tap water, not eating dodgy street food, eating lots of rice, and avoiding oily or spicy food at the beginning of your trip. As for tap water, do not rely on boiling it in the kettle provided by the hotel. Although it kills bacteria, some water is contaminated with oil and other substances that cannot be removed by this method. So, these substances are not always visible. However, water bottles are very inexpensive and are a good choice for making tea. As for water bottles, one should make sure that they are sealed in their original state. Bottled water is also recommended for brushing teeth. Food should be well cooked and hot, and fruits should be peeled. Meat should be avoided on the street and in small, unrefrigerated snacks. Fish should absolutely be eaten only fresh. Special attention should be paid to hygiene. Of course, unprotected sexual contact should be avoided.

If you become ill in China and need medical care, it is best to be referred to an English (or German) speaking doctor. There are international hospitals in large cities that cater to foreign patients. The Chinese health care system is efficient outside the big cities, but you will probably need to take an interpreter with you. Few doctors in China have private practices like those in Central Europe, so you will have to go to a hospital or clinic even for outpatient care. In any case, a fee must be paid at registration, and the cost of treatment and medication is also paid on the spot. There is little consideration for privacy, and several patients may be in the examination room at the same time. Those treated as inpatients usually come to a room with multiple beds where other patients and their relatives are located. As a foreigner, you will feel some stares. In China, intravenous infusions are common, oral medications are rarely prescribed, and a combination of herbal and Western medicines are used. Large halls are set up for IVs, nurses tend to patients, and TVs blare everywhere.

Many Chinese have a certain distrust of the health care system. They suspect that doctors prescribe treatments and drugs that are more expensive than necessary, prescribe hospital stays that are too long, and generally only care about making money for themselves. There is also a fear of counterfeit medicines. For more information, see "Practical Information" in the chapter on Tropical Diseases and Health Travel.

Toilets in China are unfamiliar to many Western visitors. For more information and tips, see Toilets in China.

According to the World Bank, 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China. Smog is also expected to occur. Especially in susceptible cities like Beijing, and even more so in winter. The English Wikipedia article on smog in China gives a good overview of the problem and the cities affected. Therefore, it is recommended to buy a mask certified FFP2 or FFP3 in Germany. For long-term stays, air filters for one's own apartment are also worth using. The Chinese government publishes exposure values via apps and the Internet. These values are not always correct. In some cities, such as Beijing, measurements from the U.S. embassy or consulate can be used as a reference. Xiamen, for example, is a city with very clean air and roads, and at the same time very green.

 

Smoking

China is a paradise for smokers. Most Chinese men and, increasingly, a minority of Chinese women smoke. Cigarettes are cheap, even Western brands are inexpensive. With few exceptions, smoking is ubiquitous, and no-smoking signs are largely ignored. The government's half-hearted efforts to reduce tobacco abuse among the population seem to have little effect.

On airplanes, high-speed trains, and better yet, in hospitals, smoking is truly taboo. Staff members are strictly prohibited from smoking. In air-conditioned trains, buses, cabs, elevators, and other enclosed spaces, smoking is not permitted but is tolerated by the staff. If a foreigner asks a Chinese smoker to stop smoking in these places, he or she can expect support from the non-smoking Chinese.

Smoking is the norm in restaurants, nightlife, hotel rooms, etc., and as a foreigner, there is probably nothing you can do about it. However, there are many non-smoking restaurants. Many hotels offer non-smoking rooms.

 

Climate and travel time

The central region around Shanghai and Nanjing has about the same climate as southern Spain and Cyprus, with temperatures around 0°C and very little snow.

The further north you go, the colder the climate becomes. Beijing's climate is probably comparable to that of Poland, with really cold weather for 3-4 months, but still warm in summer. On the other hand, in the more inland regions of Outer Mongolia, the winters can get down to minus 30 degrees Celsius, but the summers are quite pleasant.

If you prefer a warmer climate, but not hot, we generally recommend the following climates
Winter: Winter: Southern China, including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.
Late fall to early spring: Southern China, up to Shanghai, weather permitting.
Autumn to Spring: Central China, up to and including Shanghai and Nanjing.
Early fall/late spring: Beijing, Inner Mongolia, south to Shanghai, weather permitting.
Summer: warm with temperatures above 40°C in the northern regions and throughout China.

Xiamen is especially worth visiting in summer and autumn. Autumn (September-October) is particularly suitable. Roughly from May to October. In the background, temperatures can drop sensitively to around 13-17°C from November to April. heavy rains can occur from February to April. Summers are quite hot (over 30°C) and humid, while temperatures in September and October are very pleasant, ranging from 23°C to 28°C. There is often a pleasant breeze. Xiamen has very clean air, lots of greenery, and many beaches.

 

Rules and respect

If someone has made a mistake, you can blame that person, but it must be done politely and always with a solution that is acceptable to both parties. Also, one should not criticize the Chinese interlocutor directly, but through flowers if possible. Also, this criticism should be done only in one-on-one conversations and not in front of others.

While sniffing in public is perfectly normal in Germany, it should not be done in China. If you must blow your nose, you should take a handkerchief and look away from the other person or table. In tourist areas, it is more tolerated, but at least you should throw your handkerchief away without putting it in your pocket.

The Chinese, on the other hand, spit on the floor with the utmost glee and volume on the street or right outside the store or office where they work. This spitting on the ground persists even though it is not popular among the Chinese.

Burping is also considered completely normal. In restaurants, especially for non-Chinese food, it is common for the food you order not to be served. Ask if the waiter speaks English or if you speak Mandarin. Naked criticism is not appropriate.

Children China is a very child-friendly country. If you travel with children, you will find that the Chinese are more sociable than you might expect. Children are considered status symbols, and blonde children attract a lot of attention in tourist areas. Photographs with Europeans are very popular with Chinese from the western provinces. Everyone wants to touch the beautiful blonde hair, and they are eager to explain that your child is beautiful. Of course, all this is done with the consent of the parents and always with the utmost respect. In any case, there is no sense that you are being made a spectacle; on the contrary, it is as if everyone wants nothing more than to get to know you. The children themselves cope with the clamor surprisingly well.

Nudity in public is frowned upon. Even going topless on the beach is not appropriate.

After several wars between China and Japan and a very brutal Japanese occupation of China, historical relations are strained to this day. This should be taken into account in the discussion. In any case, the Chinese are of the opinion that the Japanese copied their culture from the Chinese.

Tipping was completely unknown until a few years ago. Thanks to foreign tourists, the Chinese in commercial establishments and tourist attractions now know what tipping is and accept it even if they do not expect it. In rural areas, tipping should still be saved today, and it can definitely be taken as an insult. Especially in large hotels and restaurants in Europe and the United States, a tip of 10% to 20% of the price is uniformly calculated. Unfortunately, this bad practice is becoming more and more common.

 

Post and telecommunications

It is helpful to speak even a smattering of Mandarin Chinese, especially if you are planning an extended trip to the western provinces. In the north, Russian (the official first foreign language in schools) is helpful, and in the south, French can also be a point of reference.

Internet is available free of charge in any hotel, either by cable or wireless LAN. Connections are fairly fast, at least the first time you access it. However, once you try to open a system-critical page, the network becomes unbearably slow; ARD and ZDF online are partially blocked, but most newspaper portals are accessible. Google and Facebook do not work at all. Wikivoyage is not a problem. In particular, Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, search engines and porn sites are blocked. To get around this, a paid VPN is recommended. Free VPNs should be avoided for a variety of reasons. However, China's Internet restrictions are becoming increasingly strict, and VPN providers are also partially or completely blocked. Of course, you will need to check before you leave in order to take advantage of any promotions.

If you do not bring your own laptop. Mid-range and higher hotels usually have so-called business centers, where Internet PCs are also available. However, they are expensive (usually 1 RMB per minute) and the connection is slow. It is not suitable for more than short emails. On the other hand, if you want to bring your own device and type Chinese characters, you can install a free program (so-called IME), which is often available on the Internet or in the OS.

The keyboard still has the QWERTY sequence of Latin characters. However, when you open the program's interface, everything will be in Chinese. Of course, if you type in the desired website in the address line, it will appear in the desired language. The problem arises when the computer reports a question, which is then only in Chinese, and the Y and N characters only indicate that it is a yes/no question. This is often used to verify that a password has been saved. If you want to delete your password or browser history at the end of a session, you must operate the Chinese menu. For security reasons, e-mails should be redirected to an e-mail account specifically set up for the trip so that they can be deleted after the trip. In addition, online banking at hotels and Internet cafes should be avoided at all costs. Not least because of the prevalence of the old Internet Explorer 6.

Incidentally, when the Chinese themselves use Latin characters to pronounce Chinese characters on their computers and cell phones, a list of candidate Chinese characters is displayed as they type. This sounds tedious, but since the Chinese language is practiced and whole syllables or words can be selected directly, this allows them to write much faster.

As already mentioned for areas such as food and transportation, I would recommend using various apps such as Pleco (Pleco Software), Taxisapps, Wechat, etc. There are also many great map apps that can be used in offline mode.

Cell Phones: It used to be impossible to use your own cell phone in China because China uses its own cell phone standards that are incompatible with Western cell phones. This has improved as models from Chinese manufacturers are now available in Europe and these phones can be used in China. However, models from Western manufacturers still cannot be used in China (exception: iPhone). Purchasing a SIM card in China, even if it is possible without problems, should be discouraged, as it would mean "enjoying" Chinese censorship. If you surf the Internet only by roaming via a provider in your own country, there is no problem.

Postage for a postcard to Europe is RMB 4.50. Postcards are best given at the hotel, but a fee of several yuan may be added. Mailing time to Europe is about one week.

China has a number of television stations, most of which are broadcast by the state-run CCTV; CCTV News, also known as CCTV 9, is broadcast in English and provides minimal information on world events. On non-Chinese issues, the information can be informative but otherwise one-sided. German soccer results are also reported there, and sometimes matches are broadcast live on other channels, but in those cases it is at night due to the time difference. Depending on the hotel, there are also BBC and CNN news channels, and occasionally Deutsche Welle TV. Chinese TV stations are mostly military and historical films. Sometimes there are German TV series, but of course they are dubbed by Chinese state TV.

 

History

China is one of the oldest civilizations and advanced cultures of humanity. The Han Chinese have established themselves as the bearers of this culture and the dominant ethnic group in the history of China (Chinese 中國歷史 / 中国历史, Pinyin Zhōngguó Lìshǐ).

Written records of Chinese culture go back over 3000 years. In myth, it originally goes back to the three original emperors: Fu Xi, Shennong and finally the Yellow Emperor Huangdi as the actual creator of culture - they were preceded by 16 earthly and a number of so-called heavenly emperors. However, there is no historical evidence for the existence of these personalities; according to tradition, they are said to have lived 5000 to 6000 years ago.

 

Prehistory

Early Paleolithic finds prove that the hominid species Homo erectus was native to the area of ​​present-day China at least 500,000 to 600,000 years ago. This is proven by two skulls and various stone tools of the Yuanmou people that were found in Yunnan province. They were dated to be between 500,000 and 1.7 million years old; this long time span is due to the fact that the exact location of the fossils was no longer known at the time of dating. The productive site in the "Dragon Bone Hill" of Zhoukoudian near Beijing proves that the Peking people lived there around 400,000 years ago; they are also attributed to Homo erectus. However, the oldest evidence of the presence of early relatives of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) are 2.1 million year old stone tools that were discovered in the Shangchen site in Lantian County (Shaanxi Province), but which could not be assigned to a specific species of hominin due to the lack of fossils. According to the dating, the Shangchen finds are significantly older than the earliest fossils of Homo erectus / Homo ergaster in Africa - at 1.9 million years old.

According to the Tianyuan 1 fossil, anatomically modern humans have lived in China for at least 40,000 years.

After the last ice age, the sea level rose, causing the coastline to shift inland. At that time, the region of today's Beijing lay on the bottom of a sea, and the plains along today's coasts consisted of large swamplands.

In the Neolithic period, there were numerous complex, regionally different cultures in China, which can be identified primarily by their cord-patterned pottery. These are documented for what is now Hubei 10,000 years ago, and for what is now Fujian 8,000 years ago. The first agriculture was probably practiced south of the Yellow River 8,000 years ago. The first dwellings with a storage economy are documented for the same period. Agriculture may also have begun in southern China at around the same time. Finally, in northern China there are numerous sites where the existence of wooden dwellings, the keeping of domestic animals and the storage of supplies is documented for 7,000 years ago, while the people of southern China still lived in caves. Excavations have also uncovered numerous utensils made of stone and bone.

It is documented that millet began to be cultivated in northern China 8,000 years ago. This was harvested with stone sickles and stored in pottery bowls or tripod containers. The most important of these for the Chinese is the Yangshao culture, which includes the well-researched Banpo settlement, and the Longshan culture and the Majiayao culture are also important. The cultures of northern China have certain similarities with one another.

The cultures of southern China have a different character to those of northern China. Instead of millet, the people of southern China domesticated rice; the oldest evidence of wet rice cultivation comes from Hemudu and is 7,000 years old. There are finds of rice that are significantly older at 11,500 years, but it is uncertain whether this was gathered or planted rice.

5,000 years ago the climate cooled and tribes from the north slowly migrated south. During this time the transition from life as hunters and gatherers to a sedentary lifestyle took place. Overall, numerous Neolithic cultures are documented in the area of ​​present-day China for the fifth to second millennium BC.

These early Chinese cultures had all already reached a high level of technology. They produced fine ceramics and lacquer bowls, kept domestic animals and mastered numerous tools. The oldest traces of textile production are 6,000 years old. The oldest silk is estimated to be 5,300 years old. The oldest writing-like characters are 7,000 years old. At the end of the 3rd millennium BC, bronze processing was introduced. The mechanisms by which these different cultures became the core of Chinese culture are still the subject of research. The Erlitou culture in what is now Henan, with its high level of organization, the succession system and its trade, power and dependency relationships, formed the basis for the following royal dynasties.

 

Early dynasties

The Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, which were already referred to as the three dynasties of ancient China in the Zhou period, probably existed alongside each other as tribes at first and only began to gain importance for each other through supra-regional activities.

During the period of the three dynasties, the transition to the Bronze Age and later to the Iron Age took place. Since the Shang period, a priestly class called Fangshi created the cultural foundation that was later summarized into Daoism and Chinese philosophy. The two main works of Daoism, the Daodejing (6th century BC) and the Zhuangzi (4th century BC), were created, which, like the teachings of Taiji, were already recognized as widespread and established teachings in their respective times. Confucianism (founded in the 5th century BC) summarized existing teachings and expanded them to include political dimensions and applications. Together with Buddhism, which came later, Daoism and Confucianism form the three teachings, which (along with the uniform language and writing) form important cornerstones of Chinese culture and continue to shape Chinese culture to this day.

 

Xia Dynasty (ca. 2200–1600 BC)

The Xia Dynasty (ca. 2200–1600 BC), which supposedly dates back to an emperor named Yu (禹), is referred to in texts from the Zhou period as the earliest Chinese dynasty. However, there is no archaeological evidence that the dynasty or its rulers actually existed; they could also be assigned to the realm of mythology. However, the archaeological finds in Erlitou in Henan Province, especially inscriptions on ceramics and shells, which are attributed to Old Chinese, could be an indication of their real existence. In any case, the word Xia became an ethnic-cultural term for everything Chinese as early as the Zhou period.

 

Shang Dynasty (ca. 1570–1066 BC)

The Shang Dynasty (ca. 1570–1066 BC) is the oldest Chinese ruling dynasty whose existence is archaeologically proven. Its center was in what is now northern Henan and western Shandong, and during its greatest power it controlled an area that stretched from what is now Hebei to the Yangtze River. The Shang capital was moved several times.

During the Shang period, bronze processing, especially the production of ritual vessels, experienced an early boom, but this should not obscure the fact that the majority of the population was still living in the Stone Age. Under the Shang, people began to practice collectively organized agriculture and the professions of craftsmen and officials developed. During this era, a calendar system was created, sacrificial and burial rites were practiced, and large underground burial sites were built. Numerous finds of written documents date from this period, particularly manuscripts on mussel shells that could be dated using the radiocarbon method, or on oracle bones. Even then, the script comprised several thousand characters, some of which are still used today with the same meaning as they were then.

A genealogy of 30 kings has been handed down. The Shang kings had a complicated succession system and it is likely that the kings granted fiefs to their relatives and to high officials.

In the areas of present-day China not controlled by the Shang Dynasty, there were other cultures that also worked with bronze. The most famous are the Chu objects made of gold, bronze and jade, which were found at Sanxingdui (Chengdu).

 

Zhou Dynasty (1046–256 BC)

The Zhou Dynasty (周朝) (1045–221 BC) is divided into two periods: the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. The latter in turn is divided into the Spring and Autumn Annals and the Warring States Period. While only late records exist from the first period, there are many contemporary documents from the Eastern Zhou period. The Zhou Dynasty was probably a union of various small tribes that formed small states and whose head was Zhou. In the Western Zhou period, only the Zhou rulers called themselves king (Wang 王), while the other rulers called themselves Gong (公, usually translated as duke). It was not until the Spring and Autumn period that the other rulers also began to call themselves king, which is a clear indication of the loss of authority of the Zhou rulers.

From the Zhou period onwards, it is also possible to assign clear dates to historical events. The loss of power of the Zhou rulers led to increasing centralization. Initially there were around 170 small kingdoms, which were only loosely united but which already considered themselves to be one people - especially in contrast to the barbarians of the surrounding nomadic tribes.

Through wars, marriage and diplomacy, the kingdoms continued to unite. At the time of the Warring States period, only seven kingdoms still existed. During that time, population numbers grew rapidly due to improved agricultural cultivation methods. Weapons made of iron were used. The Zhou period was the heyday of China's great philosophers.

 

Imperial period

In the more than 2000 years of the Chinese Empire, periods of relative stability alternated with invasions by nomadic peoples (especially from the northern regions) and violent upheavals between the dynasties, which sometimes led to long-lasting divisions.

Traditional Chinese historiography places great emphasis on describing the respective main dynasties, while the periods of division tend to be neglected. Below is a list of all eras with a short description of each. The detailed descriptions of the respective dynasties, periods or states can be found in detailed articles.

 

Qin Dynasty (221–207 BC)

The Qin Empire was one of the seven kingdoms at the end of the Zhou Dynasty. It had an efficient administration and extremely restrictive legislation that regulated the lives of the peasants. Through intrigue, the merchant Lü Buwei succeeded to the throne for Prince Zhuangxiang, who appointed Lü Buwei as chancellor.

After the prince's death, his son Zhao Zheng became the new king. He was characterized by particular brutality. There were several assassination attempts, but they failed. In several campaigns, Zheng subjugated the other kingdoms and thereby brought about the unification of the empire in 221 BC. He had himself crowned the first emperor and called himself Qin Shihuangdi ("First God Emperor of Qin"). A series of reforms were subsequently carried out. All of China received the efficient administrative system of the Qin Empire. In addition, measurements and weights were standardized. Minister Li Si standardized the writing.

To protect against the nomadic tribes in the north and west, he had the Great Wall of China built using forced labor by connecting the existing walls of the seven kingdoms. The first canals for transporting goods were also built.

In 210 BC, Emperor Qin Shihuangdi died. He was buried in a large complex; the famous Terracotta Army is one of his grave goods (and one so insignificant that it was not even mentioned in historical records). His grave has not been opened to date; the explorations to date have shown that it was allegedly not touched by grave robbers. Shortly after his death, peasant uprisings broke out under his son, which led to a civil war and the founding of the Han Dynasty.

 

Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD)

In view of the desolate conditions in the country, the first Han emperors tried to consolidate the situation through low taxes and generous land distribution. The successful measures made the Han period a golden age of the imperial period. In fact, the Han Dynasty was so successful militarily and economically that the Chinese people were henceforth referred to as Han Chinese. The annexation of the ethnic groups in what is now southern China (conquest of Canton in 111 BC) took place during their reign.

With the subjugation of the small states along the Silk Road, an indirect trade relationship with the Roman Empire was established. At the same time, Buddhism reached China in this way. However, the Han emperors elevated Confucianism to the state philosophy. It was to remain valid in this function for the next two millennia. In the defensive struggle against the steppe kingdom of the Xiongnu and other groups, the emperors used the so-called heqin policy in addition to military actions.

The usurpation of the imperial throne by Wang Mang from 9 to 23 AD ended the so-called Western Han Dynasty. It was followed by the Eastern Han Dynasty, which temporarily succeeded in restoring imperial central power.

The rule of the last Han emperor was weakened mainly by internal power struggles at the imperial court (the last emperors no longer exercised any real control), the influence of wealthy landowning families in the provinces (at the expense of the imperial central government) and internal unrest. All of this simultaneously led to the strengthening of regional military rulers who were no longer loyal to the emperor. The Yellow Turban Rebellion, led by a sect of Daoism, plunged the country into complete chaos. The last Han emperor, Han Xiandi, was only a puppet and was forced to abdicate the throne at the end of 220. The empire split into three separate kingdoms.

 

Three Kingdoms Period (220–280)

Long before the last Han emperor, Xian, was deposed, he had degenerated into an instrument of power for ambitious warlords who held him captive. The central power had collapsed, and the individual territories were ruled by regional warlords who briefly formed alliances with each other, only to fight each other again a short time later.

In 220, when the last Han emperor had to abdicate, three regional powers had emerged from these struggles: The Wei dynasty of Cao Cao controlled the Chinese heartland on the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. Shu (founded by Liu Bei) had holed itself up in the difficult-to-access Sichuan basin province. Finally, the Wu dynasty under Sun Quan controlled the fertile land south of the Yangtze and was able to maintain the river as a natural border against the strong Wei.

Thanks to the very popular novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and countless plays (but also the historical work Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms), many stories and heroes from this era are as well known among the Chinese as Adam and Eve are in the western world. Some of the heroes were even worshipped as gods or elevated to god emperors by later emperors.

This interim period was ended by Sima Yan, a minister of the Wei. He deposed the last Wei emperor Cao Huang, took his place himself and thus founded the Jin dynasty. The weakness of the other two kingdoms allowed him to reunite the country after 60 years of division and an even longer period of unrest.

 

Jin dynasty (265–420)

The Jin dynasty was soon shaken by internal power struggles when armed conflicts broke out among the emperor's brothers. Nomads from the north (such as the Xiongnu) were able to exploit this weakness. The capture and execution of the Jin Emperor Jin Huaidi by the Xiongnu ruler Liu Cong brought an end to the Western Jin Dynasty. A relative of the emperor fled to what is now Nanjing and founded the Eastern Jin Dynasty, while the old Chinese heartland drifted into chaos. The invading nomads were unable to establish a stable government, and the sixteen kingdoms replaced one another in rapid succession.

 

The Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–581)

By the end of the Jin Dynasty, two power blocs had established themselves: the foreign northern dynasty along the Yellow River and a national Chinese southern dynasty along the Yangtze. Both power blocs fought with varying intensity for the entire country, but neither bloc was able to win.

As a result of these struggles, the power of the military commanders steadily increased. In the south, four dynasties replaced one another within just under 150 years. All changes followed the same pattern: the military commander deposed the ruling emperor and installed himself in his place. In the north, however, the Northern Wei Dynasty was able to hold its own for a long time, but its empire eventually split into two parts.

During this period of unrest, a foreign religion experienced its first heyday: Buddhism spread in China. In the north, some kingdoms even began to establish it as the state religion. Many monasteries also date from this period.

 

China and the West

Between 500 and 1500 AD, China was superior to the West in almost all areas. This advantage was most evident in science and technology. The Chinese made discoveries that the West did not make until centuries later. As early as the 4th century, the Chinese achieved such high temperatures in furnaces that they could produce cast iron. In the 6th century, they developed a process for producing steel that was not achieved in the West until 1846 with the Siemens-Martin process. The Chinese also invented paper production, porcelain, the magnetic compass, the printing press and gunpowder before the Europeans. The Chinese were particularly good at astronomy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, meteorology and seismology. Their agricultural technology, which was superior to that of the Europeans (for example the development of the reversible plough with iron plough caps, or the harness and collar for using the horse as a draft animal, or the targeted, state-initiated development of crops, or the introduction of more robust and productive plants such as Champa rice from Vietnam) and the construction of canal systems enabled them to farm more efficiently and more productively than the Europeans.

 

Sui Dynasty (581–618)

The short-lived Sui Dynasty represented a unification of the country after a division of almost 300 years. However, high taxes and hard labor imposed on the peasants by the Sui Emperor quickly led to uprisings that paved the way for the Tang Dynasty. The Tang Dynasty benefited from the Sui's reforms and construction projects. The best example of this is the Grand Canal, which was started under the Sui Emperor Sui Wendi (581-604) and still connects the Yangtze Delta with northern China today.

 

Tang Dynasty (618-907)

Like the Han Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty represents a high point of the Chinese imperial era. The Chinatowns in American cities are called Tang-Ren-Jie (Streets of the Tang People) in Chinese. Nevertheless, the glorification by later historiography does not always correspond to the historical facts - for example, the marriage of the Tang princess Wen Cheng to the ruler of Tibet in 641 was more of an act of appeasement. In the first 150 years of the Tang Empire, China repeatedly undertook aggressive campaigns of conquest in Central Asia and the Korean peninsula.

One weakness of the Tang dynasty was its internal power struggles. The only empress in Chinese history, Empress Wu Zetian (reigned 690-705), was able to come to power through intrigue and very brutal methods. The rebellion of An Lushan (756-763) plunged Tang China into chaos and weakened the dynasty permanently.

The classic five-syllable and seven-syllable poems reached their heyday (poet Li Bai), and trade with the West via the Silk Road also flourished. Christianity reached China for the first time. Intensive relations were also maintained with Japan and Korea. Zen Buddhism reached Japan by sea.

 

The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907–960)

From 907 to 960, for more than half a century, the country was politically torn. During this short period, China was a true multi-state system, with five short-lived governments alternating in rapid succession to control the old imperial heartland in northern China, hence the name Wudai (Five Dynasties). During the same period, ten relatively stable, independent states formed in parts of eastern and southern China, which is why this period is also known as the Shiguo (Ten Kingdoms).

Most of the major developments of this period were already initiated in the late Tang period, and many were not completed until the founding of the Song dynasty. For example, political disintegration had already begun long before Zhu Wen brought the Tang dynasty to a formal end in 907. The developments that led to reunification, rapid economic growth and the decline of the aristocratic families were initiated long before the first Song ruler Taizu, who reconquered a large part of the empire, and extended well into the Song period.

 

Liao Dynasty (916–1125), Song Dynasty (960–1279), Jin Dynasty (1125–1234)

The Song Dynasty (960–1279) initially succeeded in reunifying central and southern China after a 53-year period of internal struggles (Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms), while the north of the country was first ruled by the Qidan Liao Dynasty and then by the Jurchen Jin Dynasty. As a lesson from the fall of the Tang Dynasty, the Song Dynasty placed the army under civilian command. The entire empire, which included the core Chinese provinces, was covered with police stations and offices that guaranteed the central power of the emperor. Paper money was issued and maritime trade became more important. The Song Dynasty was a time of cultural prosperity and inventions (around 1100 there were large iron foundries that produced around 150,000 tons of iron and steel). In the Song period, the steel industry was very important for the economy and society. By 1078, they were producing as much steel as England did at the beginning of industrialization in the 18th century. This was encouraged by the state paying the inventors.

Another important innovation in the Song Dynasty was the introduction of wet rice cultivation and early-ripening rice varieties. The south now became China's breadbasket, as the climatic conditions there are optimal. This also led to a shift in economic centers to the south. The river was used even more intensively as a trade route and large trading cities were built on the banks. They also formed the basis for the flourishing export of silk and porcelain. The enormous economic growth of this period, around 1100, resulted in the population doubling from 50 to around 100 million and the standard of living had also improved enormously.

The Ci poem form, which reached its peak in the Song period, broke with the uniform number of syllables of Tang poems, introduced rhythm into the recitation and seemed much livelier and more intense.

A radically progressive reform attempt by Wang Anshi to mitigate the unfair distribution of land and the corrupt civil service system failed due to resistance from local officials who felt disadvantaged (1069–1085).

The Song Dynasty was constantly threatened from outside, which meant that the Song Empire was a militarily well-equipped state that was constantly involved in border conflicts. The Song took a more defensive stance towards the establishment of states on their western and southwestern borders (Western Xia Dynasty of the Tanguts, Nanzhao). Due to the civilian supreme command, the Northern Song Dynasty was only able to achieve partial success against the Liao and later the Jin Dynasty in northern China. At the beginning of 1127, the capital Kaifeng, which had already been surrounded by the Jurchen since the beginning of 1126, fell and Emperor Huizong was taken prisoner. The Southern Song Dynasty, founded by Gaozong, a son of Emperor Huizong, was able to survive for almost another 150 years thanks to the Yangtze River as a natural border and a policy of appeasement.

Although China had often been ruled by northern peoples before, the Song period was the first time that an ethnic consciousness among the Han Chinese developed. The reason for this was probably the discriminatory policies of the Liao and Jin rulers, who degraded the Han Chinese in northern China to second-class citizens. Later Han Chinese "national consciousness" found its earliest historical references and "national heroes" here, such as Yue Fei.

 

Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368)

The Mongolian army that overran the Eurasian continent was the first to fall victim to the Jin Dynasty, followed shortly afterwards by the Western Xia Dynasty and finally by the Southern Song. Kublai Khan established the Yuan Dynasty in China. The Yuan rulers continued the policy of ethnic discrimination, which meant that they were never really accepted by the majority of the population. Traditional historiography generally judged the Yuan Dynasty and its rulers very disparagingly. Nevertheless, trade with Central Asia and beyond experienced a period of prosperity. Marco Polo reached China via the Silk Road. A typhoon thwarted the plan to conquer Japan.

 

Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)

The population of China was largely dissatisfied with the rule of the Mongols. This eventually led to a peasant revolt (Red Turbans), which drove the Mongols back. The Ming Dynasty took over power in 1368. China flourished again. Art and crafts, especially porcelain production (Ming vases), reached new heights.

The founder of the dynasty was Zhu Yuanzhang (Hongwu). He placed particular emphasis on agriculture - not least because of his peasant origins. Large latifundia were confiscated by the state, divided up and leased to small farmers. Private slavery was banned. The role of the emperor became even more autocratic and the centralization of the imperial bureaucracy was promoted, which is why the Ming period is seen as the beginning of so-called Chinese absolutism. Foreign merchants were subject to the same restrictions as locals.

During the Mongol rule, the population had decreased by 40 percent to around 60 million. Two centuries later, it had doubled under the Ming emperors due to the economic boom. Urbanization increased. Large cities such as Nanjing and Beijing contributed to the growth of crafts.

The early days of the Ming dynasty were an era of special seafaring achievements under Emperor Yongle and his admiral Zheng He, who made China the leading maritime nation in the world in terms of technology (treasure ships) and navigation. The early Ming period was also characterized by a strongly expansive foreign policy.

The later Ming emperors adopted a more defensive strategy due to the Mongol invasions. To protect themselves against the Mongols, they had the Great Wall rebuilt and brought up to today's standards. In 1551, Emperor Jiajing issued a sea ban (Hai jin) against the emerging piracy of the Wokou on the coast; ships were only allowed to have one mast. Nevertheless, Zheng He's voyages laid the foundation for the subsequent settlement of Southeast Asia by the Chinese and for further trade by sea. In 1567, the ban on sea travel was lifted again because its implementation was unsuccessful.

During the Ming period, the first western trading post was opened by the Portuguese in Macau.

Internally, the Ming emperors set up a network of secret services unprecedented in Chinese history, soon led by powerful eunuchs. When the last Ming emperor, Chongzhen, came to power, he tried to curb the power of the eunuchs and to alleviate the suffering of the rural population through land reform. Nevertheless, the measures came too late. When the peasants rebelled in Shaanxi Province, the situation could no longer be brought under control. The emperor hanged himself when the rebels marched into Beijing.

General Wu Sangui, who was supposed to guard the Great Wall of China northeast of Beijing, called the Manchus for help and opened the gates of the wall to the Qing armies.

 

Qing Dynasty (1644–1912)

The Manchus founded the last Chinese dynasty after the fall of the Ming Dynasty in 1644. By the end of the century they had consolidated their power throughout the territory that the Ming had ruled and, at considerable expense, expanded it to include Xinjiang, Tibet and Mongolia. The key to success was the combination of Manchu martial talent and Chinese administration.

Some outstanding cultural achievements were made under the Qing. Under Emperor Kangxi, the largest dictionary was compiled and under Emperor Qianlong a lexicon of all important cultural works was written. The famous book "The Dream of the Red Chamber" also dates from this period. Advances in agriculture and an enormous economic boom enabled the population to double from 160 million to 300 million between 1700 and 1800. China, as the most important political and economic power in Asia, accounted for about 50% of world production. In 1759, the Chinese Empire reached its maximum extent in history at 11.5 million km²; it was about 20% larger than today.

Although the Qing dynasty was the last, it is considered one of the most successful because China was experiencing a cultural and political heyday at that time. The Sinocentric worldview also flourished. In order to consolidate their rule, the early Qing emperors specifically recruited intellectuals and sought their cooperation in the state. But they also imposed cruel punishments for some offenses; for example, if certain anti-Manchu words were used, they would have the entire house destroyed.

In the 19th century, China experienced massive social tensions. This was a result of natural disasters combined with increased pressure from Europeans (especially England) to integrate the economy into the emerging world market. Until around 1820, China had a foreign trade surplus. Britain in particular had a massive trade deficit with China due to excessive tea imports, with losses of 20 million pounds annually. From around 1820, the British East India Company systematically increased the export of opium to China, even though the import of opium was prohibited. Between 1821 and 1837, the amount handled increased fivefold. This led to a trade deficit on the Chinese side. China's attempt to defend itself against the increasingly powerful foreign countries (due to western industrialization) and their free trade policy failed. In the First Opium War (1839 to 1842) and the Second Opium War (1856–1860), Britain used military force to ensure that it could import opium into China. From the Chinese perspective, the century of humiliation began roughly after the First Opium War. In pursuing its economic interests, the United Kingdom government accepted that millions of Chinese became dependent on opium, which led to social and economic problems in China.

China had to give up its economic protectionism. After the first Opium War, China had to cede Hong Kong to Great Britain in the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 and open other treaty ports. After the second Opium War, China had to open more ports and make extensive concessions not only to Great Britain, but also to France, Russia and the USA. As a result, an open-door policy was introduced in China. The damage to the Chinese economy was irreversible. Large parts of the economy collapsed, and mass poverty was the immediate result.

The Taiping Rebellion with 20 million victims, the Nian Rebellion and Islamic and separatist efforts in Mongolia and Xinjiang supported by Russia brought the Qing Dynasty into distress and could only be suppressed in some cases with foreign military help. As a result, China increasingly fell to the level of a colony. The empire, which had lasted for over two millennia, was in a serious crisis: Confucian rule was based primarily on the reputation of the emperor - the last emperors of the Qing dynasty had to accept too much loss of face and lost a lot of prestige.

In the last years of the late 19th century in particular, China suffered one humiliation after another: in 1895, the defeat against Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Boxer Rebellion that got out of control in 1900 and the Boxer Protocol of 1901 associated with it. The Qing dynasty was at its end at the beginning of the 20th century and had to give in to calls for reforms.

The Qing emperors initially tried to counteract this with modernization efforts, for example with the so-called campaign for self-strengthening. Conservative forces, especially Empress Dowager Cixi, thwarted this by instigating a military coup in 1898 and removing the reformers from office (for example Emperor Guangxu). Corruption paralyzed the army; the modernized troops were defeated in several wars.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Qing dynasty lay in ruins. Two opposition movements had formed in the country: on the one hand, the moderates, who wanted to reform the empire into a constitutional monarchy, and on the other, the revolutionaries, who wanted to finally eliminate the empire and make China a republic.

 

Republic of China (1912–1949)

In 1912, the Qing Dynasty and the last emperor, Puyi, who was only five years old, came to an end. General Yuan Shikai negotiated with the revolutionaries under Sun Yat-sen, who proclaimed the Republic of China on January 1, 1912, and also put pressure on the imperial family. To prevent civil war and unnecessary bloodshed, Sun gave up the presidency in favor of Yuan, provided that Yuan could persuade the dynasty to give up without a fight.

Yuan Shikai was a man of tradition. When it became known that he wanted to ascend the imperial throne himself in 1915, not only the provinces rebelled, even his own generals refused to support him. Deeply disappointed and hurt, Yuan died shortly afterwards on June 6, 1916. Puyi was restored again for two weeks in 1917.

Various uprisings followed. Yuan Shikai's powerful Beiyang Army (Beiyang = Northern China, more precisely: Liaoning, Hebei and Shandong) split into several factions that fought each other (Northern Warlords). Many southern provinces declared themselves independent. This period is known in historiography as the Warlord Era and lasted until Chinese reunification (1928) after the Northern Campaign.

The cultural change in China on the way from the empire to a more modern society was reflected in the ban on foot binding, the New Culture Movement of the 1910s and 20s and the May Fourth Movement in 1919.

 

First World War

In 1917, after the German Empire declared submarine warfare, China was drawn into World War I by declaring war on the Central Powers Germany and Austria-Hungary. Although China did not send troops to the European, Asia Minor or African theaters of war, it supported the French armaments industry, agriculture and mining with around 140,000 Chinese contract workers for the British troops' staging area in France. The internal turmoil prevented China from taking a direct part in the war. China's main motive for entering the war in the first place was fear of Japan's harsh imperialist policy of interests. In November 1914, shortly after entering the World War, the Japanese had taken the German colony of Kiautschou/Tsingtau on China's coast. Japan now had an appetite for new conquests. China wanted the support of the European and American allies of the World War to secure its territory against Japan - and it was to get this support by declaring war on the enemies of the Allies. After the death of Yuan Shikai in 1916, the Warlord Era began.

From 1921, Sun Yat-sen tried to build his own power base in Guangdong in order to restore his ideals of a republic.

In 1927, the decades-long Chinese civil war began.

 

Japanese expansion and World War II

Japan conquered Manchuria in 1931 and established the puppet state of Manchukuo there in 1932 with Puyi as emperor. In July 1937, the Japanese began the second Sino-Japanese War and continued the conquests. On March 30, 1940, the Japanese installed Wang Jingwei (d. 1944) as head of government of the newly organized Republic of China controlled by the Japanese in Nanjing. The war ended in 1945 with the end of World War II. In World War II, China had the second highest number of casualties of all the nations involved after the Soviet Union (see also: Nanking Massacre, Unit 731). At least ten million Chinese civilians and three and a half million soldiers lost their lives. Recent research even estimates that the worst consequences of the war were over twenty million deaths and that agriculture was destroyed. The conflict between communists and nationalists, which had been dormant in the fight against Japan, flared up again. In 1949, Mao Zedong's troops finally defeated the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek. The nationalists fled to Taiwan, which had only recently been reclaimed from Japan, where the Republic of China continues to exist to this day. The People's Republic of China was founded on the mainland.

 

People's Republic of China

Yuan Shikai had sufficient military powers under his command to prevent China from falling apart. However, he was unable to stop the advance of foreign powers; he suppressed any attempts at civil society, and the Kuomintang was banned in 1913. The country's elites therefore turned away from the state during this phase and pursued their own interests. Yuan had himself proclaimed emperor on January 1, 1916, while Japan deliberately weakened him by raising the Twenty-One Demands. The central government lost control of China's politics, the country fragmented, and the military governors of the provinces and hundreds of warlords fought for influence in changing alliances during the warlord period. Chaos and misery reigned, and the population suffered under oppression. Mongolia and Tibet declared their independence. The phase of fragmentation was also a creative time, in which the intellectual climate changed through confrontation with Western ideas. The May Fourth Movement became the starting point for numerous political and intellectual movements, schools and universities were founded. Capital and knowledge from abroad flowed into the treaty ports, and the basis for the development of the economy was laid.

After the October Revolution in Russia, China also became fascinated with socialist and communist ideas; in 1921 the Communist Party of China was founded. Since China lacked industry as a basis for a proletarian movement, the Comintern supported both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party (CP). As part of the First United Front, the two parties cooperated against the warlords and Japanese expansionism. With Soviet help, the Whampoa Military Academy was founded in 1924, from which numerous officers emerged who were important in later Chinese history, such as Chiang Kai-shek and Zhou Enlai. After the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925, tensions arose in the united front, delaying progress in the Northern Campaign. After securing Shanghai in March 1927, Chiang Kai-shek had thousands of (alleged) communists killed and a strike crushed on April 12, 1927, which caused the united front to collapse. Chiang, who had control of the army within the Kuomintang, outmaneuvered the left wing of the party and set up a counter-government in Nanjing. In June 1928, his troops managed to capture Beijing, which initially reunited China.

The communists, who had been forced into the countryside, attempted to stage uprisings in some cities and establish Soviet territories. However, the uprisings in Nanchang in August 1927, Canton in December 1927 and Changsha in 1930 were crushed. Mao Zedong, on the other hand, managed to hold onto a larger area for longer after the Autumn Harvest Uprising and set up a Soviet republic in the mountains of Hunan and Jiangxi using a strategy adapted to rural conditions. Due to the encirclement by Kuomintang troops, it had to be evacuated in 1934, and the leaders of the Communist Party retreated to the north of Shaanxi on the Long March, where they arrived one year later ideologically consolidated and united. During this march, Mao won the internal party battles and was elected Chairman of the Central Committee.

Japan, whose troops had been stationed in northeast China since 1901 after the Boxer Rebellion, seized Manchuria from the warlord Zhang Xueliang in 1931 and established the vassal state of Manchukuo there. In 1933, Japanese troops took Jehol. In view of the threat posed by Japan, the Communists called for an alliance of all parties and armed forces. However, Chiang preferred to first consolidate the Kuomintang's rule over the Communist Party. In December 1936, Chiang was forced to agree to a second united front, which was only formed after the Marco Polo Bridge incident and the open outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Despite the united front, Chiang deployed his most powerful troops against the Communists. The united front remained weak, and despite support from the USA and the USSR, Chiang's troops were poorly organized and had poor morale. The Japanese troops thus succeeded in occupying the large plains and coastal areas of China; in Nanjing they committed mass murder lasting several weeks. However, they were unable to control the conquered areas permanently. Chiang's government had to retreat to Chongqing.

Shortly after Japan's surrender, Mao Zedong negotiated with Chiang Kai-shek in Chongqing to resolve their differences, but to no avail. The Kuomintang subsequently attempted to gain control of the entire country, but its troops were undisciplined and had no clear mandate, its representatives were corrupt and feared by the population. However, the Kuomintang won the parliamentary elections held in 1947. The People's Liberation Army, on the other hand, had enough support among the population. It conquered Manchuria in 1948, Nanjing in April 1949 and Shanghai in May 1949. The Kuomintang government fled to the island of Taiwan, which had been occupied in 1945, wiped out the elite there and established a dictatorship.

 

Mao Zedong era (1949–1976)

On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China in Beijing. This marked the end of Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist government on the Chinese mainland. The Communists' seizure of power was not a coup brought about from outside, but rather a revolution supported by a broad majority in China. In the first phase after the proclamation of the People's Republic, the state and party leadership carried out a so-called land reform from 1949 to 1952, in which almost half of the agricultural land was distributed to around 120 million farmers. "Large landowners" were expropriated. In 1950, the Communist Party passed a marriage law that, in addition to the constitution, specified the equality of men and women. In particular, the right of women to decide for themselves whether to marry, the prohibition of demanding a dowry for the bride or concubinage, the introduction of a minimum age for women, which led to the abolition of child and forced marriages, and the legalization of the termination of a marriage through divorce with corresponding regulations on the division of property between the spouses, all permanently improved the situation of Chinese women. However, breaking the traditional rural cultural practice or imparting knowledge of the law to rural women encountered difficult hurdles. Active and passive women's suffrage was introduced in 1949.

In February 1950, the communist state and party leadership signed a friendship and mutual assistance treaty with the Soviet Union. The development of the urban economy was given priority after the Communist Party's activities had concentrated on rural areas during the civil war. To this end, a "four-party coalition" of workers, peasants, petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie was formed under the slogan "New Democracy". At the 8th Party Congress, Mao's values ​​such as activism, altruism, unity with the masses and abstinence from consumption did not win him a majority, and the path of imitating the Soviet development model with the priority development of heavy industry was confirmed.

Mao Zedong initiated the departure from the Soviet model with his speech on the "Ten Great Relationships" in April 1956. In May 1957 he initiated the Hundred Flowers Movement to mobilize the intelligentsia. When the call for healthy criticism also led to criticism of the party and individual party leaders, the party responded with the "Campaign against Right Deviants", in the context of which at least 400 critics were executed and half a million people were deported to labor camps. The departure from the Soviet Union became final in 1958, when the Great Leap Forward was announced. As part of this campaign, almost the entire rural population was grouped into 26,000 people's communes and organized according to military principles. They were supposed to promote agriculture and heavy industry simultaneously as a "production battle". However, planning errors, chaos and natural disasters led to around 30 million people starving to death nationwide within three years from 1960 to 1962. Liu Shaoqi took on the task of consolidating the economy from 1963 to 1964. He was criticized for his measures as a "revisionist".

Under the pretext of revising undesirable developments and purging the bureaucracy, Mao Zedong began the Cultural Revolution in the early summer of 1966. Young people across the country were organized into so-called Red Guards. A wave of terror began against representatives and decision-makers of the state and the intelligentsia; schools and universities remained closed for several years in some cases. The individual was to be destroyed, the revolution was to be permanent. China closed itself off even more to foreign countries. In 1968 the "movement to the countryside" began, with 15 million young city dwellers being assigned to work in agriculture. President Liu Shaoqi and numerous other high-ranking party officials were criticized as "revisionists" and removed from office. The Cultural Revolution also saw the growing fear of a Soviet attack following the Sino-Soviet rift, which made normalization of relations with the USA necessary. After a visit by President Nixon in 1972, Beijing established diplomatic relations with Washington; Beijing also took over Taiwan's seat at the United Nations. The Cultural Revolution ended after Mao's death in September 1976 and the arrest of the "Gang of Four" in October 1976.

 

Reform and opening (1976/1980 to 1999)

When Mao died, his designated successors were already dead: Lin Biao died in 1971 after an alleged coup attempt, Deng Xiaoping was linked to the protests on Tian'anmen Square in 1976 after the death of Prime Minister Zhou Enlai and was demoted. Thus, the previously little-known Hua Guofeng was chosen as Mao's successor. Hua and his supporters, who stood for the continuation of Mao Zedong's policies, were outmaneuvered and deposed by Deng by 1980. In December 1978, the course of the "Four Modernizations", which is closely associated with Deng's name, was confirmed by the party leadership. Victims of the Cultural Revolution and other excesses were rehabilitated and economic freedoms were expanded. A market economy gradually replaced the centrally planned economy adopted from the Soviet Union in order to increase the economic performance of the system. A peace and friendship treaty was signed with the former wartime enemy Japan, and foreign investment was gradually permitted. Deng visited the USA, which subsequently became an important foreign policy partner. The special economic zones were designated areas where experiments could be carried out with market economy mechanisms, and in 1984 a further 14 coastal cities were opened.

However, the expansion of economic freedoms was not matched by an expansion of personal freedoms. Parallel to the party congress in December 1978, the public expressed their dissatisfaction with the restrictions on freedom at the Democracy Wall, which was closed after demands for democracy arose. The "campaign against intellectual pollution" was used against intellectuals who had gradually taken greater freedoms for themselves. The negative side effects of the economic reforms, such as growing inequality, corruption, inflation and the lack of social security, increased the potential for protest. This erupted when mourning rallies for General Secretary Hu Yaobang, who was deposed in 1987 and died in the spring of 1989, led to renewed demonstrations on Tian'anmen Square. They became more radicalized in parallel with Mikhail Gorbachev's visit to Beijing for normalization talks, and were violently ended in early June. From the Chinese perspective, the return of the Hong Kong and Macau colonies under the principle of "one country, two systems" represents a further step towards ending the colonization of China. In addition, relations with Russia were revived.

Although the undesirable side effects of the economic reforms were controversially discussed within the party leadership, the Deng era was a period of comparatively great unanimity. The rapid economic growth, which drastically reduced the number of people below the poverty line from 250 million in 1979 to 45 million in 1999, legitimized the measures. Deng was succeeded by Jiang Zemin; under him and his successors, the Communist Party endeavored to defuse the still existing potential for protest by settling conflicts and applying the law. The challenges that the party and state leadership have had to face since then include the social conditions of migrant and factory workers, the rapid aging of society caused by the "one-child policy" and demands for the rule of law, the fight against corruption and state arbitrariness.

 

Development into a world power (21st century)

In the first twenty years of the 21st century, China experienced unprecedented economic growth. On average, China’s economic power grew by 8.9% annually from 2000 to 2019 inclusive. In addition to doubling China’s share of world trade, gross domestic product increased sixfold during this time, so that by the end of that period China had grown to become the second largest economy in the world. This had a positive impact on the quality of life of more than 200 million Chinese who rose from absolute poverty. For decades, up until 2020, the People’s Republic’s growth engine was primarily the real estate and construction sector, which at its peak accounted for more than a quarter of economic output. The construction boom ended with a drop in prices in the Chinese real estate market and the liquidation of one of the country’s largest construction companies (Evergrande). According to a decision by the government, industrial production and the technology sector should take on the role of economic engine. In order to absorb know-how, among other things, In order to obtain access to quantum technology, artificial intelligence, hypersonic technology and biotechnology, the country has been and continues to be engaged in massive industrial espionage; from 2000 to at least 2023, China was the country with the most cyber attacks in the world.

Against the backdrop of its foreign policy geared towards economic expansion, China began to underpin its claim to power in the world with massive development funding for Africa and the One Belt, One Road project.

During the 2010s, China began an attempt to systematically re-educate the Uighurs in Xinjiang. From a Chinese perspective, the decade was also marked by the confrontation with the Hong Kong protest movement in 2014, which revived with the protests from 2019 onwards.

At the end of 2019, a wave of illness in the Chinese city of Wuhan sparked an epidemic that developed into a global pandemic. After the Chinese authorities initially tried to cover up the outbreak, it came into the spotlight worldwide in early January 2020. While other countries were hit harder and harder by the pandemic, China was spared the second wave in autumn 2020 and was able to return to a largely normal everyday life. The state and party leadership initially relied on a strict zero-Covid policy. After its failure and nationwide protests, China's leadership abruptly ended this approach. In the weeks that followed, a nationwide wave of infections occurred, which, according to estimates by international experts, resulted in around two million people dying in China. A critical debate about the mistakes and omissions during the pandemic outbreak is prevented by the state and party leadership.

With the 14th Five-Year Plan from 2021 to 2025 adopted in March 2021 and the associated long-term goals up to 2035, the CCP shifted the economic focus to the development of the domestic market. The two main developments are the expansion of research and development, especially basic research, and the strengthening of the supply of industrial goods and services for national consumption. It is noteworthy that for the first time all key figures are only target values ​​and deviations due to market forces are explicitly recognized. In 2024, China's economy has cooled further, with growth remaining below government expectations.

 

Geography

In terms of total area (land and water), China is the fourth largest country in the world with 9,596,960 km² and the third largest country in terms of land area with 9,326,410 km². The territory stretches from the northernmost tip on the Siberian border to the southern tip of Hainan Island for around 5,500 kilometers and from east to west for around 5,200 kilometers. In the east and southeast, the country borders on the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the South China Sea. In the south, southwest, west and northwest, high mountain ranges, in the north steppes and deserts, and in the northeast the Amur and Ussuri separate the country from its neighbors.

With a total length of 22,133 kilometers, China has the longest land border of all countries. The coastline of all sea borders is 14,500 kilometers. In total, the People's Republic of China has 14 neighboring countries. These are, anti-clockwise: North Korea in the northeast, then Russia and Mongolia, westwards Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, southwards and southwestwards India, Nepal and Bhutan, and finally Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.

The physical surface, climatic conditions and thus the habitability of the individual regions vary greatly. The country slopes from west to east. The topographical structure can be divided into five forms, the respective proportions of which in the total area of ​​the mainland are as follows: mountains (33.3%), plateaus (26%), basins (18.8%), plains (12%) and hilly areas (9.9%).

Western China has a pronounced high mountain character with plateaus in between. The highest mountains are: Himalayas, Tian Shan, Pamir, Altai. To the east there are plateaus and sedimentary basins, such as the Mongolian Plateau, the Tarim Basin, the Sichuan Basin and the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia are the driest parts of the country, with the Gobi and the Taklamakan representing their distinct desert climate. The east of China is characterized by four large floodplains. There are huge river deltas on the coasts. The southeastern coastal strip is mountainous, while the south is more hilly.

There are around 5,400 islands scattered throughout the territorial waters. According to the UN's claim to sole representation, the People's Republic of China considers Taiwan to be the largest island with an area of ​​36,000 square kilometers, and Hainan with an area of ​​34,000 square kilometers the second largest. Of the 14 mountains that are higher than 8,000 meters, nine are on the Chinese border or within China. Most of China's high mountains rise from the highlands south of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the roof of the world. The Himalayan chain is on average 6,000 meters above sea level. The highest mountain in China is Qomolangma (Mount Everest), which lies on the border with Nepal and, at 8,848.86 meters, is also the highest mountain in the world.

The Yangtze River (or Yangtze for short) is the longest river in China with a total length of 6,300 kilometers and the third longest river in the world after the Nile and the Amazon. The Yellow River (Huang He) is the second longest river in China; its total length is 5,464 kilometers. Other large rivers are the Xi Jiang, the Mekong, the Pearl River and the Heilong Jiang. The rivers flow from west to east according to the geographical conditions: from the high regions with snow and glaciers to the plains and the coasts.

The largest canyon in China is the Dihang Gorge of the Yarlung Tsangpo in the Tibetan Plateau. With a length of 504.6 kilometers and a depth of up to 6,009 meters, the narrow gorge is considered the largest in the world. The deepest point in the country is -154 meters in the dried-up Aydingkol Lake in the Turpan Depression in eastern Xinjiang.

Poyang Lake, located in the plain on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze, is the largest freshwater lake in China. Its area is 3,583 square kilometers. The largest salt lake is Qinghai Lake on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau with an area of ​​4,583 square kilometers. The largest canal is the Grand Canal. It begins in the north in Beijing and ends in the south in Hangzhou. Its total length is 1,801 kilometers. Construction began in the 5th century BC - it is the longest and oldest man-made waterway in the world.

Since 1949, the Chinese legal time (UTC+8), which corresponds to the Beijing time zone, has been used throughout China.

 

Climate

The climate in China is as diverse as its geography, with 18 different climatic regions. The continental climate is found in the northeast. The winter is long, very cold and dry, but often sunny. The summer, on the other hand, is warm and humid because it is influenced by the summer monsoon. Then it can be humid and warm with 30 °C and high humidity.

The dry desert climate extends from the Taklamakan in the west to Beijing. It is characterized by frosty and snow-poor winters and hot summers. In addition, there is extreme dryness and large daily temperature fluctuations. In the high mountains in the interior of China, there is a cool mountain climate with large temperature contrasts. The winters are extremely cold, but the sun shines almost continuously during the day. In summer it is moderately warm and there is occasional rain.

In the east between Beijing and the Yangtze, there is a temperate monsoon climate. There are consistently cool, sometimes frosty, mostly dry and snow-poor winters. The sun often appears at this time of year. In summer it gets increasingly hotter. The summer monsoon brings not only plenty of rain, but often oppressive humidity. The climate in the east south of the Yangtze is subtropical, in the extreme south it is tropical. Winters are mild to warm and rather dry. In summer it is tropically hot with heavy rainfall and high temperatures. It hardly gets any cooler at night either.

Precipitation increases steadily from west to east and from north to south. In the deserts of central China barely 100 milliliters of rain fall annually; the wettest region is southeast China with up to 3000 mm. In all regions almost all precipitation falls in the summer months. On this basis, China's land area consists of 36% fertile farmland, 24% grassland, 9% forest and 2% wetlands, as well as 21% desert and 6.5% wasteland. Cities in China take up 1.5% of the total area.

 

Flora

Much of China's natural vegetation has been replaced or altered by thousands of years of human settlement, but individual areas provide space for great biodiversity, giving China one of the richest and most diverse faunas and floras in the world. In the tropical and temperate zones of the northern hemisphere, China has by far the most indigenous plant species. In total, more than 7,000 species of woody plants have been recorded, including 2,800 trees and over 300 species of gymnosperms. The rare ginkgo tree, the dove tree and the dawn redwood, which have long since become extinct elsewhere, still grow in China. Among the flowering plants, 650 of the 800 known azalea species occur in China, 390 of the 450 known primrose species and around 230 of the 400 known gentian species. Over 400 varieties of the shrub peony, which originates from Shandong Province, have been cultivated in gardens.

The richest and most extensive coniferous forests occur in the mountains of the northeast, where stands of larch, the birch species Betula platyphylla (related to silver birch), and Scots pine thrive, and in the Hinggan Mountains stands of Korean pine and Dahurian larch. In the Sichuan Basin, the vegetation changes with altitude, so that a variety of conifers grow at high elevations, deciduous trees and cypress at mid-elevations, and bamboo at lower elevations. Further south, in the subtropical provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang, evergreen broadleaf forests predominate. Forests give way to natural grasslands and shrub steppes in drier western and northwestern areas, particularly in the semi-arid regions of Shanxi and Shaanxi, in the steppes of Inner Mongolia, and along the desert fringes of the Tarim and Junggar Basins.

 

Fauna

The different habitats are home to a diverse fauna, ranging from arctic species in Manchuria to a rich tropical wildlife in the south. In total, there are over 6,300 vertebrates in China, of which 2,469 are terrestrial vertebrates, with around 500 mammals, 1,258 bird species, 376 reptiles, 569 amphibians and 3,862 fish species. There are also hundreds of thousands of invertebrate species, including around 150,000 insect species.

Some species that have already become extinct in other parts of the world have survived in China. These include the paddlefish from the Yangtze River, certain alligators and salamanders, the giant panda, which only lives in southwest China, and the water deer, which only exists in China and Korea. Endemic and particularly rare animal species include the snub-nosed monkey, the South China tiger, the four species of eared pheasant, the red-crowned crane, the Nipponi bison and the Chinese alligator.

The tropical south of China is home to many primates, including gibbons, macaques and many other species of monkeys. Larger predators, such as bears, tigers and leopards, are only present in limited numbers and are only native to remote areas. Leopards live in northern Manchuria; Tibet is the habitat of the snow leopard. Smaller predators, including foxes, wolves and raccoons, are numerous in many regions. Antelopes, gazelles, chamois, wild horses and other ungulates inhabit the mountainous regions and valleys in the west. The elk is common in northern Manchuria. Birds can be found in a wide variety of species, including pheasants, cranes, parrots, herons and Asian peacocks. Water buffalo are among the domestic animals used as draft animals in the south, as are camels, which are used as pack animals in the dry north and west, and yaks, which serve as semi-domesticated high mountain cattle in Tibet. Flounder, cod, tuna, squid, crabs, shrimps and dolphins are found mainly on the south coast. China's rivers provide a habitat for various carp species as well as salmon, trout, sturgeon and catfish. Many of China's inland waters are used for fish farming.

The panda is considered a national treasure by the Chinese. By order of China's National Forestry Administration, the provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi have been obliged since 2011 to carry out a census of the population living in the wild every ten years. The last so-called panda census at the beginning of 2015 counted 1,864 specimens, ten years previously there were only 1,596. The panda breeding station in Chengdu plays a significant role in this growth, from where the sexually very abstinent pandas with a correspondingly low reproductive rate are released into the wild after breeding.

The first nature reserves were established in the 1950s. Since then, a total of over 2,700 nature reserves have been created in China. The area of ​​all protected areas is 1.42 million square kilometers. This corresponds to around 15 percent of the country's territory.

 

Natural disasters

China is regularly hit by droughts, floods, snowstorms, hail, landslides, sandstorms and wildfires. In addition, the coasts in the south and east of the country are often exposed to tropical cyclones and typhoons. Floods regularly occur on all major rivers. The last major flood disasters occurred in 1998 and 2016, when entire regions were flooded for weeks. Both events were preceded by an El Niño.

The Yangtze lies in the densely populated Yangtze Delta. This area has been plagued by floods for centuries. The causes of the floods are soil erosion, droughts and the containment of the natural river flow. The construction of the Three Gorges Dam was and is therefore controversial.

Tectonic earthquakes cause the greatest damage in the People's Republic of China. According to the Chinese Meteorological Administration, they are responsible for the most human casualties and the greatest economic losses each year. On average, around 20 earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 to 5.9 occur in China each year; three to four between 6.0 and 6.9; and only every two to three years a maximum of two of magnitude 7.0 or more occur. The east of China, the southern provinces and the Himalayas are particularly affected. The most recent earthquakes to cause devastating damage were the Sichuan earthquake in 2013 and the Jiuzhaigou earthquake in 2017, both with a magnitude of 7.0.

 

Culture

Contemporary culture in particular is affected by restrictions and censorship. China's state security authorities are trying to prevent supposedly critical art from being shown in public spaces. According to China's state and party leadership, art exhibitions should mainly spread "positive energy". Works with supposedly unpleasant content are not wanted, at least not in public spaces. Numerous critical contemporary visual artists live in exile, such as Ai Weiwei and Badiucao. Musicians and bands in China usually have to submit their planned lyrics in advance and have them approved before performances.

China's state and party leadership is also using transnational repression to put pressure on critical artists living abroad.

Traditional Chinese culture is shaped by Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism.

More than 30 Chinese buildings are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the Great Wall, Qin Shihuangdi's mausoleum with more than 7,000 life-size figures of the Terracotta Army and the Imperial Palace in Beijing as part of the Forbidden City.

 

Literature

The more than three thousand year history of Chinese literature is dominated by poetry, with its peak up to the 16th century. The classics include:
the Book of Songs from the 6th century BC, the oldest collection of Chinese poems and the largest in the world from pre-Christian times;
the Elegies of Chu from the 4th century BC, which are considered the earliest complete written evidence of the shamanistic culture of Central Asia;
the works of Li Bai, Wang Wei, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, Li Houzhu from the Tang Dynasty (7th-10th century), which often contain criticism of the prevailing social conditions in a clear, simple and generally understandable prose style (Tu-Wen);
the artistic landscape descriptions by Su Shi and Ouyang Xiu during the Song Dynasty (10th-13th century);
the masterpiece Jin Ping Mei, which became famous and temporarily banned due to its erotic and pornographic passages;
the Four Classical Novels from the 14th to 18th centuries, which are considered the most important adventure epics in Chinese literature and are still used as a template for stage performances, comics and films today.

Classical Chinese literature is closely linked to Chinese calligraphy, which in turn is closely related to Chinese painting. One of the most famous Chinese calligraphers was Wang Xizhi, whose style from the 4th century AD is still the basis of "beautiful writing" today. The invention of paper is attributed to the Chinese Ts'ai Lun around 105 AD. The most famous Chinese paper, Xuan paper, is one of the "Four Treasures of the Scholar's Room". It is still referred to as the "King of all Papers" and is part of the intangible world heritage.

In contrast to the tradition that ended with the fall of the empire in 1911, modern literature (1912 to 1949) and contemporary literature (since 1949) in China has been well researched and translated in many ways. Its value has been assessed schematically as follows: Like classical literature, modern literature is also largely part of world literature. On the other hand, after 1949 there were declines for ideological reasons, from which contemporary Chinese literature on the mainland was only able to slowly recover with the start of the reform period (1979).

A fair assessment of Chinese literature after 1912 is so difficult because, strictly speaking, one would have to distinguish between Chinese-language literature that is written worldwide and literature that is associated with a political state structure. Chinese literature is not only written in the People's Republic of China, but also in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as overseas (Malaysia, USA, etc.). The wide range of publication options available today often makes it difficult to clearly assign authors to a country or region.

 

Sport

Traditional Chinese martial arts are known worldwide, especially the styles of kung fu. Basketball, badminton and table tennis are popular sports. Football is the most popular spectator sport in China. In recent years, the state and party leadership have invested the equivalent of many billions of euros in expanding football infrastructure. Stadiums and football academies have been built, football lessons have been promoted in schools and the development of a China-wide football league has been promoted. Chinese professional clubs have invested billions more, including in signing foreign football professionals. However, the footballing quality and international competitiveness of Chinese football have so far fallen short of expectations. At the end of 2023, China's men's national football team was only ranked 79th in the FIFA world rankings. International observers say that the state-imposed expansion of the football sector in China has flopped.

In 1991 and 2007, the Women's World Cup took place in the People's Republic of China. China's capital Beijing hosted the Summer Paralympics and the Summer Olympic Games in 2008. The 2009 Women's Handball World Championship was held in Jiangsu Province in December 2009. The II Summer Youth Olympic Games were held in Nanjing in 2014. The 2022 Winter Olympics will be held in Beijing. Special Olympics China was founded in 1985 and has participated in the Special Olympics World Games several times.

 

Population

According to the annual report of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), India should have overtaken China as the world's most populous nation by mid-2023. Previously, the People's Republic of China was the most populous country in the world. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, 1,412,600,000 people lived there in 2021.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the country had two centuries of great population growth, but also great losses due to war, famine, epidemics and natural disasters. Mao Zedong viewed a high population as a sign of national strength. The first census, carried out in 1953, showed a population of over 580 million, 70 million more than previously estimated. In response to this, late marriages and contraception were first promoted at the end of the 1950s because there was a shortage of jobs in the cities and the ratio of population to arable land in the countryside was unfavourable. Due to the falling infant mortality rate (from 200 ‰ in 1949 to 60 ‰ at the beginning of the 1970s and 45 ‰ by 2000) and the increasing life expectancy (by one year annually between 1953 and 1970), the population grew rapidly. Life expectancy, which had been 28 years in 1950, had risen to 68.5 years by 2000.

From 1973, only two children were allowed per marriage. This was enforced in cities and also in the countryside, although national minorities were exempt. In 1979, the one-child policy was officially introduced, which was enforced regionally and sometimes with violence, such as forced abortions. In 1996, fertility was between 1.5 and 1.6 children per woman. In 2000, it was between 1.2 and 1.4 children per woman. The effects of the one-child policy include non-registration of births and up to 70 abortions per 100 births - the cultural preference for sons meant that female fetuses in particular were aborted. Due to the non-registration of births, it is assumed that the actual birth figures are 15 to 30 percent higher than the recorded births. The sex ratio has shifted from the normal value of 1,050 boys to 1,000 girls in the 1950s and 1960s to 1,200 boys to 1,000 girls since 1997. In regions with particularly strict birth control, there are around 27 million girls missing in the birth cohorts 1980 to 2010. Socioeconomic reasons have led to the decline in birth rates.

The goal of the one-child policy to stabilize the population at 1.2 billion by the turn of the millennium was missed; in 2000, around 1.27 billion people lived in China. The population peaked in 2021 at 1.412 billion people and has been declining since then.

In regions where the one-child policy was strictly enforced, according to a 2014 forecast, around 40 percent of people will be over 65 years old in 2050. For these reasons, the one-child policy was replaced by the two-child policy on January 1, 2016 and by a three-child policy in 2021. Nevertheless, the birth rate continued to fall.

In 2023, there were 6.39 births per thousand inhabitants, compared to 6.77 in 2022 (for comparison: in Germany, this figure is 9.4). In 2023, 9.02 million babies were born, compared to 9.56 million babies in 2022. The total population fell to 1.409 billion people in 2023, 2.08 million less than in the previous year.

 

Population distribution

The 1.4 billion inhabitants are very unevenly distributed across the territory. The imaginary Heihe-Tengchong line divides China into a western part, which takes up 57% of the country's territory, and an eastern part. In 1982, about 94% of the total population lived in the 43% of the country's eastern territory. Many districts in the eastern part of the country have a population density of more than 800 to 900 people per square kilometer, while large areas in the western part of the country are uninhabited.

 

Migration

After the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1978, 17.9 percent of China's population, or 170 million people, lived in cities. During a phase of urban revitalization from 1978 to 1995, the urban population grew to 30.5 percent of the total population. This was followed by a phase of rapid urban growth, so that in 2013 around 730 million people, or 53.7 percent of the population, lived in cities. Increased efficiency in agriculture, which freed people up to work in low-productivity jobs, and industrialization led to this development. Urbanization has been an important factor in economic growth in recent decades. By 2020, the urbanization rate is expected to increase to 60 percent of the population.

In the People's Republic of China, there are 15 megacities with a total population of over 260 million people, and more than 150 cities with a population of over one million. The three largest metropolitan areas are the Yangtze Delta, the Pearl River Delta and the region around Beijing and Tianjin, where several cities with a population of over a million are located in a small area and are the preferred destinations for internal migration.

Despite the high rate of urbanization, China has managed to avoid the formation of slums and infrastructure overload as in other developing countries. Nevertheless, China is affected by the negative side effects of rapid urbanization, such as the destruction of agricultural land, environmental pollution and inadequate compensation when agricultural land is expropriated. In the suburbs of the metropolitan areas, numerous artificial cities have been built that are purely dormitory settlements for workers, such as Anting. Here there are sometimes high vacancy rates because industrial settlements have not materialized and new construction has been fueled by speculation.

 

Ethnic groups

China is a multi-ethnic country. 91.51 percent of the population are Han (around 1.25 billion). The name goes back to the Han Dynasty. However, this largest population group is not a homogeneous group: Over time, strong regional differences developed in terms of language, dialect, settlement forms, folk tales, clothing and diet. The 18 largest ethnic groups after the Han in 2010 were:
Zhuang (16.9 million),
Uighurs (11.5 million),
Hui (10.5 million),
Manchu (10.3 million),
Miao (9.4 million),
Yi (8.7 million),
Tujia (8.3 million),
Tibetans (6.2 million),
Mongolians (5.9 million),
Dong (2.8 million),
Buyei (2.8 million),
Yao (2.7 million),
Bai (1.9 million),
Koreans (1.8 million),
Hani (1.6 million),
Li (1.4 million),
Kazakhs (1.4 million),
Dai (1.2 million).

A total of 55 ethnic groups are recognized as national minorities, which, in addition to minority protection, are granted special rights in the Chinese constitution, such as instruction in their own language, easier access to higher education, and special quota regulations. However, these rights have been increasingly eroded since the 2000s. After unrest in Tibet in 2008, Tibetans were driven out of their residential areas and assimilated through tourism. In 2016, there were several self-immolations. Unrest in Xinjiang province in 2009 exacerbated the conflict between the Uighurs and the state. After a series of attacks in 2014, China began implementing the assimilation policy, the Xinjiang re-education camps, an ethnocide of Muslim Uighurs and other minorities in Xinjiang. After the so-called China Cables - secret documents of the People's Republic of China - were leaked, the situation of the Uighurs received international attention in 2019.

 

Languages

In addition to Mandarin Chinese, which is based on a dialect of Mandarin and is the general official language, other official languages ​​are officially recognized depending on the region. These include Cantonese in Hong Kong and Macau and English in Hong Kong. There are also regional languages ​​such as Zhuang in Guangxi, Tibetan in Tibet, Uighur in Xinjiang, then Mongolian in Inner Mongolia and Korean in Yanbian. There are also Tibeto-Burmese languages ​​such as Ladhakish and Yi, then Tai-Kadai languages ​​such as Bouyei, Dong, Tai Lü, Tai Nüa or Tai Pong, but also Mangghuer and the Turkic languages ​​Äynu, Ili Turki, Salar or West Yugur.

 

Religions

The four most important religions in China are Buddhism, Taoism, Islam and Christianity. There are also some popular religions among national minorities. Chinese religions are generally family-based and do not require membership. Of the major religions, only Taoism originates from China. Buddhism dates back to the 1st millennium BC; it spread in China from the 1st century AD. Taoism goes back a similar distance, integrating numerous elements from much older religions. Islam came to China in the 7th/8th century, Christianity in the 13th century. Jesuits began missionizing in the late 16th century. Protestantism came to China in 1807.

During the imperial era, Confucianism was considered orthodox, the other religions heterodox. Since its founding, the People's Republic of China has been a secular state in accordance with its communist ideology of state atheism. Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism are religions recognized by the state, although Catholicism and Protestantism are considered to be separate religions and are not allowed to organize independently. The Roman Catholic Church is banned in the People's Republic, and only a Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which does not recognize the authority of the Pope and has no contact with the Vatican, is permitted. Under Mao, the Catholic Church experienced a particularly rigid form of control. The new religious community of Falun Gong is now the focus of state persecution, with reports of organ harvesting and executions of members of the community prompting human rights organizations to take action.

As in the former Eastern Bloc countries of Europe that are critical of religion, China is based on a strict principle of separation between religion and state. The right to freedom of religion is formally anchored in the constitution of the People's Republic. Due to the disastrous effects on believers during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), the Chinese government has been striving since the 1980s to grant religious freedom and open up spaces for religious activities. Traditional faiths such as Taoism and Buddhism, which are seen as an integral part of Chinese culture, receive state support.

Constitutionally, everyone is free to pray alone or in community with others, to recite scriptures, to hold religious services, to baptize or to read masses. In practice, these rights are often restricted. Nevertheless, a "religious boom" has been observed in China since the turn of the millennium. Temples and monasteries have become more popular, and Tibetan Buddhism has also spread again in the country's eastern provinces.

In 2013, the People's Republic had a population of 1.4 billion, with around 85,000 religious sites, around 300,000 priests, around 3,000 religious groups and 74 theological institutions. Religious organizations can establish their own schools and publish books and periodicals. Higher education and research institutions sometimes offer religious programs and research projects.

There is no church tax in China. The respective religious communities finance themselves through donations and mainly through intangible services provided by the respective religious order, for example the joint construction or repair of buildings or the joint management of gardens and agricultural land. There is no religious instruction in schools, but since the end of the 1990s the opening of privately run religious schools and kindergartens has been observed.

Since no one in China is supposed to officially profess a religious denomination, there are no official figures and no reliable statistics on the number of religious followers. All studies and projections by Chinese and foreign institutions are based on estimates and surveys, some of which differ considerably from one another. In addition, the boundaries between the different faiths in China are often fluid. In several Chinese regions, it is not unusual for believers to profess different religions. There is a Chinese saying about this:

"A Chinese is a Confucian when things are going well; he is a Taoist when things are going badly; and he is a Buddhist when faced with death."

In this respect, the religious scene in China is very diverse and can by no means be considered a homogenous culture. Shenism, a mixture of religious and philosophical practices, is very widespread. Taoism and Confucianism are two examples of philosophical beliefs in China that contain religious elements. Aspects of ritual and belief about the afterlife exist independently of the philosophies. Apart from the European ones, the focus of all religions practiced in China has always been not an invisible god, but life, the earth, happiness and harmony.

 

Politics

The People's Republic of China is an autocratically governed, centralist party dictatorship under President Xi Jinping. The Chinese state organization is formally anchored in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China. According to this, the state is organized according to the "principle of democratic centralism". Although eight other political parties are permitted in the People's Republic of China, the Communist Party of China has leadership over all of these bloc parties within the framework of the united front. This means that the People's Republic of China is a socialist one-party state in which decisions are made first by the Communist Party of China. Only then are the fundamental political goals laid down in the constitution and the political guidelines implemented in the state apparatus. There is no separation of powers into legislative, executive and judicial branches, but rather an interlocking of powers.

 

Communist Party

The Communist Party of China was founded in 1921 and has held party congresses every five years since then to determine policy. The Communist Party of China is led and represented by the General Secretary, who usually also holds the position of President of the People's Republic of China. Since 2012, Xi Jinping has been General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, President of the Republic and Supreme Commander of the Army. The Standing Committee of the Politburo, which consists of seven people and is the center of power in the People's Republic of China, is elected at the party congresses. The Standing Committee is elected from the ranks of the Politburo, which has 25 members. The Politburo is elected every five years by the Central Committee, which has around 200 members. The Central Committee is chosen at the party congresses by the 3,000 delegates who attend. The delegates are sent by the various party organizations. As soon as three party members come together, they form a grassroots organization of the Communist Party. The entire state apparatus is reflected in a parallel structure within the party, i.e. within all state organs there are parallel party organizations that make the actual decisions.

In 2016, the Communist Party of China had 89 million members. The membership structure has changed in recent years, as party cadres, workers, private entrepreneurs and a high proportion of students now reflect the heterogeneity of Chinese society. Until 2014, party members were selected based on their economic, political or academic position. Since 2014, the criterion of "loyalty to the party" has been the decisive factor for joining.

Under Xi Jinping, the Communist Party aims to realize the "Chinese Dream". Document number 9, an internal party strategy paper, warns against "influence from the Western world". The beginning of the Xi era is also characterized by the rigid "anti-corruption campaign" with which Xi will have made many enemies in the party. At the party congress in autumn 2017, it was decided that the limit of two terms for a presidency would be abolished. This decision was included in the constitution at the National People's Congress in 2018. This means that Xi can remain President of the People's Republic of China until the end of his life. This decision was seen as a step back from the personal rule of Mao Zedong. Until Xi Jinping's presidency, an internal party balance in the form of collective leadership was assumed. With the abolition of the age limits, this collective leadership was abandoned. This decision was justified by the fact that "stability" took priority because there were "problems" with the separation of party and state. Analysts assume that there were factional struggles within the party at the end of the Hu Jintao era. There are rumors that point to a foiled coup in 2011. With the anti-corruption campaign, Xi has eliminated possible opponents, while at the same time corruption is undermining the legitimacy of the Communist Party, so that he has no other choice. However, he must have control over politics and the economy to do this. Xi is putting political control over economic growth. This puts the leadership in a dilemma, however: on the one hand, they must prevent the arbitrary actions of the oligarchic economic cliques by punishing corruption, but at the same time they are dependent on these economic cliques to keep the state apparatus functioning. During Xi Jinping's second term as head of state and party in China, the personality cult surrounding him has increased significantly across the country. The state media in China are increasingly referring to Xi as the "core" of the Communist Party.

 

State building

According to its constitution, the People's Republic of China is a "socialist state under the democratic dictatorship of the people". The constitutional amendments in 1993, 1999, 2004, 2012 and 2018 continue to emphasize the absolute leadership of the party. In addition, the preamble states that the "principle of the socialist market economy" is to be pursued, private property and human rights are to be "protected" and "rule by law" is to be sought. According to the constitution, the highest state organ is the National People's Congress, the legislature of the People's Republic of China. The deputies elect the president, the prime minister and other leaders. It passes laws of fundamental importance and votes on the executive's accounts. The National People's Congress has around 3,000 deputies and usually meets once a year in early March. The working organ of the People's Congress is the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, which meets every two months and passes most laws. Due to the lack of real power, the National People's Congress is referred to as a voting machine, but there are also controversies, such as the Three Gorges Dam project in 1992. Other scientists therefore do not consider this description necessarily justified, as dissenting voices have been raised - especially when it comes to personnel decisions. People's congresses are elected at all levels, i.e. at provincial, district and county level. The people to be elected are specified by the party. In the past, free elections were only possible at county and village level.

The Political Consultative Conference of the People's Republic of China was founded in 1946 and was the legislative body of the People's Republic of China until 1954. Since then, it has only had an advisory function. It meets parallel to or after the National People's Congress every year in March.

The actual highest office in the People's Republic of China is that of the President. He signs the laws passed by the National People's Congress, which only then come into force. He also appoints and dismisses the Prime Minister and his deputy, the State Commissioners and the ministers. Only he can declare a state of war. Xi Jinping has been President since 2013 and is also General Secretary of the CCP. As Prime Minister, Li Qiang heads the State Council. Li Zhanshu is Chairman of the National People's Congress.

The central administrative body is the State Council. The Prime Minister heads the State Council and directs its work. He is formally accountable as the State Council's representative in the National People's Congress. Four Vice-Premiers, State Secretaries and the Ministers support the Prime Minister and are responsible to him. The provinces and autonomous regions have their own governments and people's congresses. The structure, working methods and powers of the provincial governments correspond in basic structure to the central government level.

 

Administrative structure

The administrative structure consists of six levels. They are divided below the national level as follows:
Provincial level with 22 provinces, five autonomous regions and four municipalities directly under the central government. The two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau are also located at this level. They are administered according to the principle of one country, two systems and have their own constitutions and laws. In addition, 15 cities have special economic zones with special rights. According to the official representation of the People's Republic of China, Taiwan is the 23rd province of the People's Republic.
District level with 45 autonomous districts and aimags and 288 prefecture-level cities.
County level with 1,596 counties, autonomous counties, banners and special areas as well as 361 county-level cities and 897 urban districts.
Municipality level with 32,685 large towns, municipalities, ethnic communities and sums, as well as 7,696 street districts.
Village level with an unknown number. At this lowest level, state power is exercised in the Danweis, which form the lowest level of the executive.

The central government sets policy with orders and framework laws. However, these are not legally binding for the local governments; instead, they implement the policy with their own legislation through their people's congresses. Sanctions for non-compliance are only possible in the form of personnel decisions. Article 89 of the constitution gives the State Council the authority to revise norms or decisions of the local authority. However, conflicts of authority are not openly resolved. Conflicts are settled in negotiations between the central and local governments. This is why the People's Republic has sometimes been described as "informal federalism". With the inauguration of Xi Jinping, recentralization is intended. There are no steps towards formal federalism. However, the administrative structures are fragmented, so that "governing through" is not possible; instead, every political decision is implemented "on a negotiated basis" or not.

 

Legal system

In the Chinese hierarchy of norms, the decisions of the Communist Party of China are above those of the legal bodies. At the national level, laws are passed by the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee. These laws are then incorporated into their own laws by the local people's congresses. The implementation of the central guidelines at the local level is only examined by an examination commission of the National People's Congress, which is sent to the provinces after prior notice.

According to the Chinese constitution and the organizational law for people's courts, people's courts are the organs of the state's jurisdiction. There are "people's courts", intermediate people's courts, "special people's courts" and higher people's courts at various levels. The highest legal authority is the Supreme People's Court in Beijing, which oversees the jurisdiction of the people's courts and interprets the case law.

Although Xi Jinping has promised legal reforms, these do not correspond to a rule of law, but use law as a means. Repression and censorship have increased since he took office, although Chinese citizens are more aware of their rights than they were 20 years ago and are trying to assert them. In 1999, Germany began a German-Chinese dialogue on the rule of law with the People's Republic of China in order to exchange views on legal issues.

 

Domestic policy

The political goals are set out in five-year plans. They provide an indication of the political direction for the next five years. The current five-year plan runs from 2015 to 2020 and the new 14th five-year plan, which covers the period from 2021 to 2025, is currently being drawn up.

Under President Xi Jinping, restrictions have been tightened in all areas since 2012. Fighting corruption has become "essential" for the party, as corruption has increased significantly with the economic reforms. Xi Jinping initiated the so-called "anti-corruption campaign" in 2012. Numerous corruption proceedings have been opened and high-ranking politicians (Zhou Yongkang, Bo Xilai) have been convicted. Without the party's approval, these disciplinary proceedings would not be possible. The downside of the anti-corruption campaign is a civil service apparatus that is only partially functional because it no longer makes decisions because the fear of being accused of corruption paralyzes the officials. Since 2014, Operation Fox Hunt has been used to persecute Chinese citizens abroad if they have fled abroad with state funds. In principle, Xi has thus expanded the anti-corruption campaign to the world. According to Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, the People's Republic of China ranked 80th out of 180 countries in 2019.

Under Xi Jinping, a system of neighborhood surveillance was revived during the COVID-19 pandemic. Households are organized into groups of 10 led by a leader, such as a village cadre or a former cadre. This group division has historical roots, but the new version comes from experiences in Xinjiang. This neighborhood system is intended to exercise social control.

 

Human rights

Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accuse the People's Republic of numerous violations of basic human rights. The human rights situation in the People's Republic of China has been criticized, especially since the massacre on June 4, 1989 in Tian'anmen Square.

With thousands of executions, the People's Republic of China is the country in the world where the death penalty is carried out most frequently. The exact figures can only be estimated, as the actual number of executions is a state secret.

Formally, the Chinese government has largely ratified the United Nations human rights conventions. According to Article 33, Paragraph 3 of the Chinese Constitution of 2004, "the state respects and guarantees human rights." According to the Chinese interpretation, the state "grant and protects" human rights, but these must not be directed against the interests of other citizens or "the state." This means that subjective rights do not have priority in the People's Republic of China.

Particular attention was paid to cases such as the re-education camps in Xinjiang, the oppression of Uighurs and Tibetans, the organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China, the systems of "re-education through labor" and "arrest and repatriation," the social credit system, and birth control as part of the one-child policy.

 

Surveillance

In cities, surveillance cameras are being installed on a large scale on streets and public squares. While the Chinese state had installed an estimated 176 million cameras in the first half of 2017, the number of surveillance cameras doubled in the following year. Estimates of the number of cameras installed up to and including 2020 are between 567 and 600 million. The Chinese police use image and facial recognition software from Megvii and SenseTime, among others, to evaluate the images. At the same time, the social credit system was tested from 2020, in which citizens receive points for socially appropriate behavior and have points deducted for violations of morality or criticism of the party. Those with few social credit points are disadvantaged when booking travel tickets or similar. However, a nationwide social credit system for citizens was not introduced until 2023 and the concept was instead mainly applied to companies.

 

Foreign policy

The foreign policy of the People's Republic of China is characterized by the desire to be a world power and to secure geostrategic resources and trade routes. As the second most populous country in the world, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a nuclear power and a growing economy, China is increasingly striving to participate in all important global political issues and confidently pursues its national interests. The People's Republic of China is a member of the G20 and the BRICS states.

Since the end of the 2010s, according to public opinion, China has been catching up with the USA as the second superpower, and the conflict between the alliances of the two states is sometimes referred to as the Second Cold War. The two China-led organizations SCO and BRICS plus are increasingly seen as opponents of the US-led NATO. In contrast to the first Cold War, Russia is now China's junior partner.

An important project since 2013 has been the New Silk Road Initiative ("One Belt, One Road"), which initially sought to build a trade route from the People's Republic of China to Europe along the old Silk Road. However, this trade route now extends beyond this old Silk Road and now covers almost all parts of the world. It is no longer limited to trade, but also aims to gain access to resources and political and military influence. The investment projects associated with this (such as the 17+1 initiative in Eastern Europe or the port of Piraeus in Greece) are often used as a means of exerting pressure. In this context, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) was founded in 2016 by the People's Republic of China. In 2011, China replaced the USA as Africa's largest trading partner through its development financing.

In relations with other states, the One China doctrine is strictly adhered to: This means that any state that wants to trade with the People's Republic of China or enter into diplomatic relations with it must not recognize the Republic of China on Taiwan as an independent state. Otherwise, he will have to expect sanctions.

Since Donald Trump took office in 2016, Sino-American relations have been at a low point. The trade conflict between the United States and the People's Republic of China has existed since 2018 and, due to the close financial and economic ties between the two states, has had serious consequences - including for the rest of the world. There are also points of friction in the South China and East China Seas, where China is becoming increasingly aggressive. Triggered, among other things, by events related to the Taiwan conflict, tensions between the two states regularly arose in the early 2020s.

Relations between China and South Korea and North Korea have become more difficult since 2013. Since 2016, China has agreed to stricter UN sanctions against North Korea, even though North Korea is a communist state and a socialist "brother state". In principle, the People's Republic wants to maintain the status quo, especially since a collapse of North Korea is likely to result in a flood of refugees into the People's Republic of China. Chinese-Japanese relations remain tense. The dispute often erupts over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. It also involves historical controversies and resources under international law. Relations with other neighbors in the region, such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and Brunei, are also tense, partly due to the ownership disputes in the South China Sea. Nevertheless, Chinese investments, some of them extensive, continue to be made in all of these countries.

Relations with other neighboring countries, such as Russia, have relaxed (also due to overlapping geostrategic interests), but Chinese-Russian relations are strained by historical disputes. Since Russia's attack on Ukraine, however, China's state and party leadership have again moved closer to Russia. Pakistan is a close ally of the People's Republic, see Chinese-Pakistani relations. Chinese-Indian relations are conflict-ridden due to territorial border disputes and have even led to isolated military clashes in recent years. In September 2023, China and Syria agreed on a "strategic partnership" between the two states.

Sino-German relations are characterized by close economic ties. In the political sphere, regular consultations take place, such as the German-Chinese Rule of Law Dialogue. However, areas of conflict have also emerged in this relationship since 2016, such as a significant increase in Chinese investments, which for the Germans is associated with the fear of a drain of know-how (see, for example, the Kuka case), China's refusal to submit to international law in the South China Sea and, finally, China's open criticism of the liberal social model. Chinese influence on other states and societies is therefore increasingly referred to as a "systemic struggle".

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was criticism that China had withheld information about the virus and put pressure on countries to distribute medical supplies when they criticized China's foreign policy.

 

Taiwan conflict

The Taiwan question is a problem from the Chinese civil war, in the final phase of which the nationalist government retreated to the island of Taiwan and established a military dictatorship there, while the People's Republic was proclaimed on the mainland. The "return of Taiwan to the People's Republic of China" is firmly anchored in Chinese nationalism and is the goal of the Chinese leadership, even though Taiwan was never part of the People's Republic. Alongside the conflict on the Korean peninsula, the Taiwan question is the greatest security policy challenge in East Asia.

Under the slogan of the One China principle, the governments on both sides of the Taiwan Strait agree that there is only one China, but that there are different views on who the legitimate government of this one China is. Since Deng Xiaoping, the government of the People's Republic has intended to unite Taiwan with the mainland under the principle of one country, two systems, whereby Taiwan would be promised greater autonomy than Hong Kong after its return by Great Britain. The Taiwanese population sees this as a strategy of subjugation and distrusts the promises from Beijing. Beijing reserves the right to use force under certain conditions, including Taiwan's nuclear armament or concrete steps towards independence by the government in Taipei. The military balance is constantly changing in Beijing's favor. The USA has made a political commitment to support Taiwan.

The People's Republic's strategy is to make Taiwan economically dependent on the mainland, promote social exchange, isolate Taiwan diplomatically, threaten the island militarily and influence the USA in its favor. Since the beginning of the opening policy, Taiwanese companies have invested more than 200 billion US dollars on the mainland and employ around 14 million Chinese workers. Around 60 percent of Taiwan's direct investments abroad go to the People's Republic; around a quarter of Taiwan's foreign trade is conducted with the People's Republic. Beijing's calculation that Taiwanese businesspeople and companies would intervene with the Taiwanese government in Beijing's favor has not worked, however.

Since Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party was elected as President of Taiwan in early 2016, relations have deteriorated as she seeks the status quo. Tsai was re-elected in early 2020.

 

Intelligence services

The Ministry of State Security (國家安全部 / 国家安全部, Guójiā Ānquánbù) is a tightly organized, civilian service responsible for foreign intelligence and internal security. It is subordinate to the State Council. Residencies for Chinese foreign intelligence are located in embassies or consulates, in Germany, for example, in the Chinese embassy in Berlin. The Military Intelligence Service, Department Two (Information) of the General Planning Department (Chinese: 總參謀部 / 总参谋部, Pinyin: Zǒngcānmóubù) of the People's Liberation Army, also maintains foreign missions.

 

Military

The People's Liberation Army was founded in 1927 and helped the Communist Party during the "revolutionary struggle" before 1949 and in consolidating its rule after 1949. The People's Liberation Army is the largest army in the world in terms of personnel. It consists of the army, navy, air force and missile forces. The People's Republic of China is a nuclear power. It has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and declared an unconditional renunciation of first use.

The Central Military Commission coordinates defense policy, formulates military doctrine and assumes supreme command in the event of war. The supreme commander is Xi Jinping as chairman of the Central Military Commission. For 2017, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated that the People's Republic of China's military expenditure was 1,544 billion yuan, or 1.9 percent of gross domestic product. After the USA and Russia, the People's Republic of China ranks third in global military spending (followed by India).

 

Communication and information

From the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 until the 1980s, all media were state-run. Even after the controlled opening of the market to private players, the state news agency Xinhua News Agency, the state television station China Central Television (CCTV) and People's Daily, the party organ of the Communist Party, dominated the media landscape. The General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) and the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) ensure control and censorship. The mass media in the People's Republic of China mainly consists of television, radio, daily newspapers and magazines. From the 2000s onwards, the Internet became increasingly important for the dissemination of information and is extensively censored and monitored.

 

Censorship

China's media are subject to strict censorship and are centrally controlled by daily directives from the government. Under head of state and party leader Xi Jinping, the Communist Party further expanded its comprehensive control over news and information with the help of the latest technology. In October 2021, a draft of market access positive lists announced that in future only media that are financed by the Communist Party will be allowed. Internationally, it promotes this repressive model as a "new world order of media". The many taboo topics that are censored include human rights violations and political protests. The People's Republic's internet censorship is considered one of the strictest in the world. Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube, Skype and Wikipedia are banned in China, and search engines filter out sensitive search queries for the government. Chinese social media apps are used in a targeted manner. In 2023, the organization Reporters Without Borders ranked the People's Republic 179th out of 180 in the press freedom rankings, just ahead of North Korea. The same organization reported the number of journalists imprisoned in China to date as 67 and the number of blogging citizen journalists imprisoned as 46.

 

Media

A lively media scene has developed since the 1970s. While in the 1980s and 1990s it was still magazines, films and literature, since the 2000s online media have conquered the public. There is a wide range of magazines and online platforms, services and online media. But this should not disguise the fact that all media in the People's Republic are censored. Many of these media are profitable companies that finance themselves through advertising and have to cooperate with the Communist Party.

The People's Daily (Chinese 人民日报, Pinyin Rénmín Rìbào) is the state newspaper that reports the guidelines of the Communist Party. Critical reports were found in Southern Weekly (Chinese 南方周末, pinyin Nánfāng Zhōumò) and for finance in Caijin (Chinese 财经, pinyin Cáijīng) and Caixin (Chinese 财新, pinyin Cáixīn). English-language newspapers include China Daily and Global Times, the latter with a strongly nationalist orientation.

China Central Television (CCTV) is the state television, which broadcasts over 20 channels. Advertising revenue secures the financing. Since 2018, CCTV, China National Radio (CNR) and China Radio International (CRI) have merged to form the China Media Group (Chinese 中央广播电视总台, Pinyin Zhōngyāng Guǎngbò Diànshì Zǒng Tái). CRI also provides information in German on the Internet. Voice of China is the broadcasting company for foreign countries, which has the rank of a ministry. The Central Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China is responsible for content and administration. In 2020, the China Film Administration, together with the China Association for Science and Technology, published a guide to promoting the development of science fiction films, highlighting this genre as an important growth area and a new driving force for the high-quality development of the Chinese film industry.

Due to the high number of mobile users, news portals such as QQ.com, Sohu.com and Sina.com are used. Mobile apps are popular in China. KuGou has around 450 million active users per month, especially in rural areas, followed by QQ Music with 211 million and KuWo with 108 million.

 

Telecommunications

In September 2019, around 192 million households had a fixed telephone connection. This low number can be attributed to the fact that telephone connections were distributed restrictively in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and demand could not keep up with installation. The situation changed with the advent of mobile phones. In December 2018, the number of mobile phone contracts concluded in China was 1.57 billion. Of China's more than 800 million Internet users in 2018, 98 percent were mobile Internet users.

 

Society

Income and distribution

With a per capita income of 54 US dollars, the state was one of the poorest countries in the world when it was founded in 1949. Over 80 percent of the population were landless farmers, day laborers and migrant workers. With the start of economic reforms, living conditions and prosperity improved from the 1980s onwards. According to the World Bank, the People's Republic of China transformed from a developing country to a country with an upper middle income level within 30 years. The United Nations Development Program ranks the People's Republic of China among the countries with high human development.

According to the World Wealth Report, the number of US dollar millionaires in China rose to 4.4 million people in 2019. This makes the People's Republic of China one of the three countries with the most millionaires in the world, behind the USA and Japan. Measured by population density, more dollar millionaires lived in Hong Kong in 2016 than anywhere else in the world.

In 2017, households had an average consumption expenditure of 22,902 RMB (equivalent to just under 3,000 euros/as of April 2020) per year. In cities, this figure was 31,032 RMB and in rural areas, 11,704 RMB. Depending on the calculation method, the Gini coefficient for income inequality is between 42.2 percent and 61 percent, although the World Bank considers values ​​above 40 percent to be worrying. In 1980, income inequality was still 32 percent. This development is leading to dissatisfaction among the population and social protests. The Chinese government is trying to counteract this with social policy measures such as surveillance and censorship.

Chinese millennials have high expectations to meet from their parents, employers and the authoritarian state. Due to the one-child policy, they have to support their own parents in old age, work according to the slogan 996 - from nine in the morning to nine in the evening, six days a week - and should be happy through work, according to Xi Jinping. This led to a movement called lying flat (Chinese: 躺平; pinyin: Tǎng píng), in which millions of people want to withdraw and live their own lives.

 

Social security

The social safety net consists of state-organized social insurance, which covers the risks of illness, old age, unemployment, accidents and maternity, and social assistance, which provides a livelihood. Although a social insurance law came into force nationwide in 2011, the specific design of the various social insurance branches depends on the respective local government. State social insurance only insures employees. In 2009, voluntary health insurance was introduced for children, students, the self-employed, the rural population and generally for every citizen who is not an employee. The state pays half of the contributions and the other half is paid by the insured person, who can take out this insurance voluntarily. In this way, the Chinese government wants to integrate the entire Chinese population into health care by 2020.

The phenomenon of urban poverty has been occurring in the People's Republic since the end of the 1990s, so a state social assistance system was set up. Securing a livelihood is part of social assistance. This includes disaster relief, support for poor areas and for low-income families, which is primarily provided as maintenance for poor and single elderly people, the disabled and orphans. The assistance is provided in the form of services, benefits in kind and cash. The prerequisite for receiving the benefit is that they have no right to maintenance payments from relatives in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity. The head of a needy family must apply for a minimum subsistence allowance to the relevant authority or the residents' committee, which will monitor the information on his or her personal situation. Personal and social controls are provided by the residents' committee. Field research results show that subsistence allowances are used to influence former prisoners or dissidents in their views on the state. A draft social assistance law exists, but it has not yet been passed.

 

Health care

When the People's Republic was founded, life expectancy was an average of 40 years. This was due to poor nutrition, a lack of medical care and the associated high prevalence of communicable diseases. The average life expectancy of the Chinese population rose to 76.34 years by 2015 due to better living conditions and medical care. Obesity, respiratory diseases, cancer, stroke, heart attack, smoking and unhealthy eating also contribute to health impairments in China. Tuberculosis remains one of the most threatening infectious diseases in China. The SARS pandemic in 2002/2003 revealed the deficiencies in the health system. The COVID-19 pandemic in the People's Republic of China began in the city of Wuhan in December 2019. It developed from China into a global COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2017, there were around 28,000 hospitals nationwide, around 4,000 clinics for traditional Chinese medicine, 37,015 medical stations, 33,965 local health stations and 195,176 outpatient clinics. The institutions are financed through health insurance contributions, government subsidies and the sale of medicines. The provision of sufficient specialists is problematic, which is partly due to the payment of medical staff. This leads to a low quality of medical treatment.

IT solutions such as e-health systems, telehealth and e-learning are seen in strategy papers as a possible solution for greater efficiency in hospitals.

A central health protection institution is the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. This institution works with foreign research institutions.

Since 2016, the central government has been increasingly promoting traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in order to reduce health care expenditure.

 

Education

The Ministry of Education in Beijing is responsible for the education sector. The provinces and autonomous regions are responsible for shaping education policy (“cultural sovereignty”). As in many other public areas, the education administration of the People's Republic of China has been heavily deregulated: competencies have been transferred to lower levels, and these have autonomously implemented the educational standards in terms of finances, personnel and content. Education spending in the People's Republic of China has increased significantly since 2005. In 2017, 4.14 percent of gross domestic product was invested in education. This puts China roughly on a par with Germany; however, both countries invest significantly less than the OECD annual average of 5.3 percent.

In 2001, the People's Republic of China achieved a literacy rate of 98 percent of the population. Since 2009, China has regularly ranked among the top ten in the PISA study results tables. The school system includes preschools, primary schools and secondary schools, which are attended for a total of at least nine and a maximum of twelve years, as well as universities. In addition to the public schools, an extensive network of private schools has been created. The problem is that schoolchildren in rural areas in particular suffer from iron deficiency, parasitic intestinal worms and do not have glasses, which makes it difficult for them to learn. In rural areas, 53% of babies and toddlers fail the Bayley test and therefore do not have adequate cognitive, linguistic and emotional skills for their age, which affects their ability to learn at school. The reasons for this are poor nutrition and the way parents treat their children, as they neither speak to the children nor encourage them to interact.

Primary school generally lasts six years. Subjects include Chinese, mathematics, sports, natural sciences, music and art; English is taught from the 3rd grade onwards. Secondary education takes place in general or technical secondary schools and is divided into three years of lower secondary and three years of upper secondary. Chinese, mathematics, a compulsory foreign language (usually English), physics, chemistry, biology, technology, IT, sports, art, music, ethics, economics, history and geography are taught here. Since the early 1990s, in response to the Tian'anmen massacre, the Patriotic Education Campaign has been carried out in schools. As part of this campaign, the view of China's history and culture was changed in a nationalist direction. China's long history and the emergence of a wealthy, powerful nation-state are emphasized. Nationalism is seen as a spiritual pillar of the communist state. Any criticism of the Chinese Communist Party is therefore seen as an attack on the Chinese people. In November 2019, these guidelines for nationalist education were renewed in response to the protests in Hong Kong in order to strengthen national identity.

The Gao Kao refers to the final examination in the Chinese secondary system, which enables study at universities. This examination is the final examination of the twelve-year school education and is comparable to the Abitur in Germany. This final examination determines admission to one of the renowned universities; many parents therefore invest a lot of time and money in their children's education so that they can pass this exam as well as possible.

According to the official statistics of the Chinese Ministry of Education, there were 2,956 state-recognized higher education institutions (universities and colleges), 292 institutions for adult higher education and 813 other tertiary education institutions in China in 2019. In 1995, the Chinese Ministry of Education passed Project 211 and in 1998 Project 985, which specifically supported universities. Both programs were discontinued in September 2017 and replaced by the Double Excellence Program in order to reach the level of top Western universities by the middle of the 21st century. The teaching staff comprised 2.4 million teachers, most of whom have doctorates. The proportion of women in the teaching staff is almost 49 percent. In principle, university studies are subject to fees, although there are several options for scholarships, loans or - especially for the rural population - tuition fee waiver.

In 2017, 38 million Chinese were enrolled at universities. Almost 8 million completed their studies with a bachelor's, master's or PhD in 2017. By comparison: in Germany, almost three million people study, compared to 20 million across Europe. In absolute terms, the People's Republic is the largest university nation in the world. Finding a job after a university degree is becoming increasingly difficult. Therefore, in February 2019, the State Council passed the plan to implement the reform of national vocational training. The measures aim to obtain professional qualifications and strengthen cooperation with companies.

In recent years, controls on universities and scientists have become more stringent. In some cases, lecture halls are monitored with cameras and professors are denounced by students if they deviate from the views of the Communist Party.

 

Economy

In 2018, the service sector accounted for 52 percent of gross domestic product, the industrial sector over 40 percent, and agriculture 7 percent. Of China's almost 900 million workers in 2019, 45.1 percent were employed in the service sector, 28.3 percent in industry, and 26.6 percent in agriculture.

With the Made in China 2025 strategy, the People's Republic of China has been trying since 2015 to promote key industries in order to achieve global market leadership in these and become technologically independent from foreign countries. The massive state support has been criticized by foreign companies and states; the term Made in China 2025 is avoided by the Chinese leadership (as of 2019). The People's Republic of China has since been seen by foreign countries as a systemic competitor.

The Chinese financial system is state-managed. In addition to the People's Bank of China, which acts as the central bank, and the Ministry of Finance, both of which are subordinate to the State Council, there are so-called commercial banks that implement government policies. The Bank of China is one of the four large state-owned banks, alongside ICBC, China Construction Bank and the Agricultural Bank of China. They are responsible for granting loans, which are primarily given to state-owned companies. There are also so-called shadow banks, which are closely linked to the state-owned banks. Their job is to grant loans to private entrepreneurs. There are stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen as well as in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

In the past, China's strength as a manufacturing location was mainly due to the comparatively low wages; an advantage that has diminished in recent years due to sharp increases in wages. China is no longer a low-wage country. The strengths of the Chinese economy now lie in advanced production know-how and supply chain management. This gives rise to fears that China could get caught in the so-called middle-income trap.

 

Budget development

The People's Republic of China is the second largest economy in the world after the USA, and in terms of purchasing power parity, the largest since 2016. The gross domestic product (GDP) was 15.27 trillion US dollars in 2019. China's economy officially grew by 6.1 percent in 2019 compared to the previous year. However, Chinese analysts suspect significantly lower growth. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the People's Republic of China, Prime Minister Li Keqiang expects growth of less than three percent for 2020. Public debt as a percentage of GDP officially rose to 60.9 percent in China in 2019. Abroad, China's total debt of the government, companies and households is estimated at just under 243 percent of 2017 GDP. Inflation was 2.4 percent in 2019.

 

Agriculture

China has 10 percent of the world's arable land and thus has to feed 22 percent of the world's population. Agriculture is an important economic sector in China, accounting for around 7 percent of GDP in 2019, and employs over 300 million farmers. Small farmers account for around 80 percent of the country's food supply. The farms are either state-owned or small family businesses. Experts are in favor of restructuring, but analysts believe it is unlikely that the Communist Party would allow this.

China mainly produces rice, wheat, potatoes, tomatoes, sorghum, peanuts, tea, millet, barley, cotton, oilseeds, corn and soybeans. It also produces meat, mainly pork. For meat production, China needs feed, especially soybeans, which the country imports. Before the outbreak of African swine fever, China was one of the world's largest exporters of pork. Since the outbreak in China in 2018, it has been importing pork, especially from Germany and Spain.

 

Industry

As part of the Made in China 2025 strategy, Chinese companies, both state-owned and private, are to develop away from traditional industries such as mechanical engineering or aviation and towards new technologies such as artificial intelligence. More than 530 industrial parks with smart factoring have been created. Big data, cloud computing and green manufacturing are on the agenda. The People's Republic of China wants to move from being the world's workshop to becoming a global technology power. In some areas, such as electric batteries, the People's Republic of China has had a global market share of over 50 percent since 2017. In 2015, BYD was the world leader in the sale of electrically rechargeable vehicles. The introduction of compulsory quotas for the production of electric cars has led to a sharp increase in sales, making China the world market leader in electric cars. From 2019, all domestic and foreign car companies in China must produce ten percent of their total production as electric vehicles, and from 2020, twelve percent.

In key industries such as telecommunications, shipbuilding, aviation and high-speed trains, the share of state-owned companies is 83 percent, while in automotive and electronics companies it is only 45 percent. Private companies are considered innovative. The ZTE Corporation and smartphone manufacturer Huawei have filed the most application patents worldwide since 2015. Nevertheless, China is dependent on foreign countries in some key industries, as was shown in the chip industry, for example.

In October 2022, the US government imposed export restrictions on high-tech computer chips to China. Machines for the production of special semiconductors are also affected. This de facto initially cut off the People's Republic from the supply of state-of-the-art computer chips, such as those needed for cutting-edge scientific research and space and military technology. The US government justified the move, among other things, with the Chinese government's pursuit of military supremacy and its use of cutting-edge technology to monitor the population. US President Joe Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan explained that the aim was to keep China at a technological distance. In January 2023, media reports revealed that the governments of Japan and the Netherlands were also joining China's semiconductor restrictions.

Start-up companies are financially supported in the innovation industry and high-tech sector by receiving loans from state-owned banks. There is a high willingness to take risks when founding new companies. In 2018, venture capital invested in China amounted to 107 billion dollars. Overall, more is invested in the start-up scene than in the USA, for example. The metropolis of Shenzhen, which has a population of millions, is home to centers of the high-tech industry, entrepreneurship, innovation and the start-up scene. The city is the global center for computer companies and has earned a name for itself as the Silicon Valley for start-ups. Well-known start-ups in Shenzhen include Huawei, Tencent, DJI (company), Ubtech Robotics, SenseTime and Ping An Insurance. Companies such as Apple, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell, Microsoft, Nintendo, Olympus, Panasonic, Pioneer, SAP and Siemens not only produce most of their hardware in Shenzhen, but are increasingly relocating their software development to the economic metropolis on the Pearl River Delta.

The construction industry plays a central role in the Chinese economy: housing construction has contributed around 10% to gross domestic product in recent years, more than in any other country. The construction boom is fueled by the fact that Chinese employees are obliged to pay into a state building savings fund.

 

Service sector

Before the start of economic reforms in 1978, China's service sector was characterized by state-owned enterprises, rationing and regulated prices - with the reform came private markets, individual entrepreneurs and a commercial sector. Wholesale and retail trade developed and numerous shopping centers, retail stores, restaurant chains and hotels were built in urban areas. Tourism has also become a significant economic factor.

In 2018, the number of Internet users was over 800 million people. The majority of the Chinese population shops via e-commerce, 40 percent of global online trade is carried out in China. Corporations such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi are among the largest technology companies in the world. The high level of acceptance is facilitated by mobile payment systems such as Alipay or WeChat Pay. The so-called Singles' Day, November 11th, was launched by Alibaba and regularly achieves record sales. The state promotes e-commerce in rural areas as a kind of poverty project. So-called Taobao villages produce for online trade. This creates an effective infrastructure, such as in logistics, and the rural population is given employment opportunities.

 

Foreign trade

On December 11, 2001, China was admitted as the 143rd member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The status of the People's Republic of China as a "free market economy" is controversial. Strict conditions were imposed on the People's Republic. China received a contractual assurance from the WTO that it would receive free market economy status after 15 years at the latest. Before this deadline expired, several countries, including Australia, Brazil and South Africa, recognized the Chinese economic system as a free market economy. In contrast, the United States officially informed the WTO at the end of 2016 that it would refuse to recognize China because without market economy status, trading partners can more easily impose tariffs. As part of the America First policy promoted by Donald Trump since November 2016, decisive action is to be taken against the large trade deficit between the two countries by levying tariffs of up to 45 percent. The trade conflict between the United States and the People's Republic of China has been escalating since 2018.

While some EU states are also denying China status, export-strong nations such as Great Britain, Germany and Sweden are of the opinion that after almost twenty years of membership in the World Trade Organization, China can no longer be denied the status of a market economy, especially since other countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia, which have also joined the WTO, have been classified as "free market economies". However, the EU has not yet recognized China as a market economy because it would then have to lift its anti-dumping duties. Chinese state subsidies and violations of intellectual property rights are controversial. For Germany, the Federation of German Industries published a position paper in 2019 in which the People's Republic of China is described as a partner and systemic competitor. According to a study published in 2021 by the German Economic Institute (IW), the People's Republic of China is increasingly competing with the German economy on the European market, including in sophisticated industrial goods such as cars and modern machinery, with Chinese industry benefiting from unfair competitive conditions, according to this study.

A Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), which was negotiated at the end of 2020, is on hold due to Chinese "sanctions against a number of EU MPs" and against Lithuania.

 

Pension provision, pension insurance

Until the end of 2024, the retirement age in China will be one of the lowest in the world. On January 1, 2025, the People's Republic of China will raise the retirement age for female workers from 50 to 55 years, and for female employees from 55 to 58 years; from then on, men will no longer have to work until 60, but until 63.

 

Ecology

The economic boom in China is accompanied by serious environmental problems. In 2018, the People's Republic was only ranked 120th out of 180 countries in the Environmental Performance Index.

China's "ecological footprint" has doubled since the middle of the last century. High energy consumption causes high levels of air pollution. In 2005, the People's Republic of China overtook the USA in CO2 emissions for the first time and in 2018 was by far the world leader with a value of 11.2 billion tons. In 2013, record levels of over 800 micrograms of fine dust per cubic meter of air were measured in several cities in northern China; 30 times the level that the World Health Organization considers harmless.

As a result of the severe environmental pollution, groundwater is polluted in many places. Dam projects and high water consumption are leading to falling groundwater levels and the disappearance of lakes. Soil erosion and desertification are increasing, resulting in the loss of vegetation and arable and forest areas.

China ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2002 and the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016. Although individual Chinese cities are still regularly hit by heavy smog, pollution levels are demonstrably decreasing. According to Greenpeace, in the last quarter of 2017, pollution levels in Beijing, for example, fell by 53.8 percent compared to the previous year. However, over the entire period from 1750 to today, China's contribution to the greenhouse effect is still far behind that of the industrialized countries. In terms of per capita CO2 emissions, China has been ahead of Germany and the European Union since 2020. The Chinese government has announced that it will reduce annual CO2 emissions by 2030 at the latest. The People's Republic is to be climate neutral by 2060.

A reformed environmental protection law that has been in place since 2015 allows civil society organizations to file "lawsuits in the public interest" against construction projects or other projects that endanger the environment.

 

Research and development

Science and technology

The share of research expenditure in 2017 was 2.17 percent of GDP. Research and internationalization were driven forward, especially in technical and scientific subjects: Most of the recognized patents came from China in 2016 (1.2 million). In 2023, China overtook the USA in the Nature Index, which measures the share of published articles in leading scientific journals worldwide. The most important non-university research institution is the Chinese Academy of Sciences with 124 research institutes. In addition to space travel, research areas include nuclear fusion, quantum computing and geoengineering. In the humanities, particular emphasis is placed on archaeology.

 

Space travel

The launch of the Dong Fang Hong I satellite on April 24, 1970 marked the beginning of Chinese space travel's presence in space. The People's Republic of China's lunar program was approved on January 24, 2004, and Chang'e 1 entered lunar orbit on November 5, 2007. The first lunar landing took place on December 14, 2013 with the unmanned Chang'e 3 probe. On January 3, 2019, Chang'e 4 landed on the far side of the moon for the first time in the history of space travel, and on December 16, 2020, the return capsule of Chang'e 5 brought around 1.7 kg of lunar dust and rock samples back to Earth. On May 14, 2021, the Zhurong rover landed on Mars.

On October 15, 2003, Yang Liwei made the first manned Chinese space flight, and on June 18, 2012, the crew of Shenzhou 9 put China's first space laboratory, Tiangong 1, into operation. On April 29, 2021, the construction of the permanently occupied Chinese space station began with the launch of the Tianhe core module. A year and a half later, on November 3, 2022, the first expansion phase was completed. On October 30, 2000, the construction of the Beidou global satellite navigation system began and was completed on June 23, 2020.

 

Infrastructure

The People's Republic of China invested heavily in the country's infrastructure in the 2000s. Most projects are financed by the state to promote economic growth. The expansion of infrastructure is also necessary because the state's targets are an urbanization rate of 70 percent by 2030. All parts of China, with the exception of certain remote areas of Tibet, can be reached by rail, road, water or air.

In addition to the national projects, President Xi Jinping initiated the international infrastructure project One Belt, One Road in 2013, which is intended to revive the Silk Road and expand to other continents.

 

Energy

With the economic development of the People's Republic of China, energy consumption has increased; China is the world's largest energy consumer. The demand is primarily met by coal-fired power plants. These pollute the air in cities and metropolitan areas, for example in Beijing, considerably, especially in the cold season. There are numerous nuclear power plants in China.

The aim for 2020 was to achieve an energy mix in which the share of coal in the energy mix was to be less than 60 percent, that of non-fossil fuels more than 15 percent and that of gas more than 10 percent. In 2019, China generated 348.1 TWh of electricity from nuclear energy, 18.1 percent more than in 2018. Two new reactors were put into operation in 2019 (Haiyang and Yangjiang) and two more in 2020 (Tianwan and Taishan). In March 2019, 46 nuclear reactors with a capacity of 42.8 GW were in operation in China and 11 reactors with a capacity of 10.8 GW were under construction.

In 2021, China's wind turbines had a total installed capacity of 338.31 GW, of which 310.63 GW was onshore (39.8% of global onshore wind power capacity) and 27.68 GW offshore (48.4% of global offshore wind power capacity). Compared to China's previous year's figures of 279.96 GW onshore (39% of global capacity) and 10.78 GW offshore (28% of global capacity), these were increases of 11.0% and 157% respectively. China led the expansion of wind energy in 2021: 42% of the newly installed onshore turbines in 2021 were built in China, and 80% of the newly installed offshore capacity was built in Chinese maritime territory, and China was also the leader by a clear margin in terms of wind energy inventory.

In the first two quarters of 2024, an average of 5 GWp of solar and wind energy was installed in China per week. The People's Republic thus reached its publicly announced expansion target for renewable energies by 2030 6.5 years earlier. Hydroelectric and battery-electric storage make up the majority of the storage power plants required.

 

Rail transport

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the infrastructure was largely destroyed by the consequences of the war. The rail network could only be expanded slowly. In view of the continuing major bottlenecks, significant investments have been made in railway infrastructure and vehicles since the turn of the millennium. The railway, which is the most important means of long-distance transport, was able to use 120,970 kilometers of rail in 2016. Between 2008 and 2018, China built the world's largest high-speed rail network with 29,000 km of track. In 2018, China spent 803 billion RMB on railway projects. Prime Minister Li Keqiang announced in March 2019 that a further 800 billion RMB would be invested. The development of self-driving train technology is to be accelerated. In cities with more than 3 million inhabitants, inner-city rail transport is handled by subway systems or tram systems.

As the network is expanded, passenger numbers are increasing; in 2018, 3.3 billion passengers were transported (9 percent more than in 2017). The transport performance in freight transport was around 4 trillion tonne-kilometers.

 

Road transport

In 2016, China had over four million kilometers of roads, some of which are in very poor condition and have been expanded and improved since the 1990s. In the 1990s, a national plan was drawn up for highway construction. Since then, construction has been underway on the so-called 7-9-18 highway network. In this network, seven highways radiate out from Beijing; There are nine highways running north-south and 18 highways running west-east. A special achievement is the construction of the Beijing-Lhasa highway. In 2018, there were approximately 206 million cars registered in China. In order to reduce the environmental impact of car traffic, the Chinese government is promoting the production and use of alternatively powered vehicles.

 

Air transport

According to forecasts by the International Air Transport Association, Chinese civil aviation will become the world's largest market, measured in commercial passenger kilometers, by 2020 at the latest. Since 2014, the ten most frequently used air routes in the world have been in Asia. The number one connection is the Hong Kong-Taipei connection, with more than five million travelers annually, with the majority of mainland Chinese flying to Taiwan via Hong Kong. Hong Kong is also proving to be a hub for flights to Singapore, Shanghai, Seoul, Bangkok and Beijing. In 2015, the civil aviation industry in China transported 436 million people and 85.2 billion tonne-kilometers.

At the end of 2015, China's general aviation sector comprised more than 300 airports. The new Beijing Daxing Airport opened 46 kilometers south of Beijing city center in September 2019. In 2015, work began on the construction of Nagqu Dagring Airport, which was scheduled to open in 2019, but construction work was halted for the time being due to technical problems. A further 50 airports are under construction throughout China and are due to be completed by 2021 at the latest. In 2016, there were 28 airports in China, each of which handled over ten million passengers annually. The two airports in Shanghai, Hongqiao and Pudong, together exceeded the 100 million passenger mark in 2015. With over 94 million passengers annually, Beijing Capital International Airport was the airport with the second highest passenger volume in the world in 2016, surpassed only by Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

The Chinese commercial aircraft manufacturer Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) plans to be the first Chinese manufacturer to manufacture and sell commercial aircraft on a large scale itself. The C919 aircraft developed by COMAC is a direct challenge to the Boeing 737 and the Airbus 320, previously the best-selling passenger jets in the world. On May 3, 2017, the Comac C919 successfully made its maiden flight, opening up demand for the Chinese jumbo jet on the domestic market. In 2016, there were a total of 281 airlines in the People's Republic of China transporting passengers or cargo, 36 of which are state-owned. In 2007, the state-owned airlines were merged with service providers to form six conglomerates: Air China Group, China Eastern Group, China Southern Group, TravelSky, China National Aviation Fuel Group and China Aviation Supplies Holding Company.

Major private airlines include Cathay Pacific, Hainan Airlines, Beijing Capital Airlines, Qingdao Airlines, Juneyao Airlines and Urumqi Air. The market was opened to private providers in 2005. The aircraft of all Chinese airlines are mostly modern, the majority of them no older than five years.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, China's government has largely closed the People's Republic's borders. The number of international flights to and from China has since fallen by around 95 percent. In the 2022/23 winter flight schedule, only 5 percent of international connections were planned compared to 2019.

 

Maritime transport

Transport in China is characterized by inland and coastal shipping. There are 126,300 kilometers of navigable rivers and canals in China. The most important transport routes are the Yangtze, the Pearl River and the Grand Canal. There are more than 20 deep-water ports on the 18,000 km long coast that are ice-free even in winter. In 2014, half of the cargo was handled by water. Overseas cargo accounted for 60% of the volume of all Chinese water freight. 26% was transported by coastal shipping and 14% by inland waterways. In 2014, 3.5 billion tons of cargo were handled in inland ports.

The development plan for China's waterways and ports for the period 2007-2020 envisages that the transport volume should be increased by 40 percent from 2007 to 2010 and doubled again from 2010 to 2020.

In 2017, of the 20 largest ports in the world by container throughput, 9 were in China. Since 2009, the port of Shanghai has been the largest in the world by cargo throughput.