Emergence of Modern China By Brady Lawson, Wes Schuler and

Early History Chinese civilization originated along the Huang He river, which is now called the yellow river. Confucianism was the most common early religion in china. Used staple crops such as rice to feed a large population. Ruled by all powerful emperors who were treated godlike by the people they ruled. To china cooperation among people was more important technical knowledge.

The Great Wall, built in early China.

Imperialism In China By 1900 the European powers within china grouped china into spheres of influence. These are areas in which the countries occupying china had political and economic control, but did not govern. The people of china did not agree with this treatment so they formed different ideas of rebellion such as accepting or rejecting western culture. however, others wanted parts of western culture to further advance their country.

Republic of China A series of revolts in 1911 led to nationalists power for seeing the emperor to give up the throne. Nationalists declared china a republic with Sun Yat-sen as president. In the mid-1920s, Sun died and Chiang Kai-shek took over. Chiang, a trained soldier became president in 1928.

The Long March The 1920s led to a split in the nationalists party. Some people adopted ideology based on communism. Chiang Kai-shek disagreed with communist ideas and had the people killed. The survivors fled and built a hub in Jiangxi; their numbers grew, so Chiang sent an army to find and kill them The nationalists won the battle and the communists retreated in a year-long, northward journey known as the long march.

WWII In the early 1930s the Japanese took advantage of chaos in china for their invasion plans. They began with Manchuria and later attempted to take over other areas. This invasion led nationalists and communists to unite against the common enemy.

The communists take over After WWII ended in 1945, the two groups fought for superior control of china. However, while fighting the Japanese the Communist carried out social reforms that led to the betterment of their military forces. By 1949 the Nationalist power had been destroyed. Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan, while, in Beijing, Mao Zedong declared Communist china as the Peoples Republic of China.

Chiang Kai-shek

The Great Leap Forward Despite economic changes, china still failed to meet expectations. In 1958 Mao Zedong introduced a new idea: The Great Leap Forward into communism. This new ideal divided the nation into the communes which contained both farms and industry. Mao hoped the changes would lead to economic organization, however, production fell greatly. The difficult work in bad conditions offered no incentives for the people to work. It is because of this the Great Leap Forward failed after only 2 years.

Cultural Revolution Criticism flowed towards Mao Zedong so in 1966 he called for a cultural revolution to replace the old order and establish new socialist society. Mao Unleashed radical men and women, called red guards, to enforced his policy of destroying the Four Olds: ideology thought habits and customs.

Mao Zedong

Four Modernizations After Mao Zedong died in 1976, a group led by Deng Xiaoping started a program called the Four modernizations. The goal of this procedure is was to improve agriculture, industry, science and technology, and defense in a short amount of time. The agriculture improvement was successful, as well as the industry business. But it got unexpected results and they had an even economic growth.

Deng Xiaoping

Tiananmen Square In early 1989 thousands of Chinese began a series of demonstrations to demand democratic reform. They government demanded that the crowd disperse, and the military expectantly opened fire on the people. They killed 2,000 people and wounded hundreds more.

Work Cited Books – Prentice Hall World geography BaerWald/Fraser Websites- http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-art/157645/73291/Deng-Xiaoping Picture of Deng Xiaoping http://www.theleftanchor.com/2010/04/biography-of-mao-zedong.html Picture of Mao Zedong http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.carpenoctem.tv/img/kaishek.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.carpenoctem.tv/military/kaishek.html&usg=__Vz6MFzU14honS6wJj2OAAm_KbN4=&h=300&w=306&sz=45&hl=en&start=0&sig2=KKIlCoekXmuXPNulO8Rbdw&zoom=1&tbnid=PF5I6V5bCp8hcM:&tbnh=154&tbnw=167&ei=UclRTcW8EI68sAPT-vW9Bg&prev=/images%3Fq%3DChiang%2BKai-shek%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26biw%3D1143%26bih%3D637%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=203&oei=UclRTcW8EI68sAPT-vW9Bg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0&tx=96&ty=69 Picture of Chiang Kai-shek http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=27959 picture of modern china. http://win.eldon.k12.mo.us/ems/teachers/slawless%20pages/lawlessancientciv.htm picture of the great wall of china.