Hu Jintao

Hu Jintao

Hu Jintao (simplified Chinese: 胡锦涛; traditional Chinese: 胡錦濤; pinyin: Hú Jǐntāo; born 21 December 1942) is currently the Paramount Leader of the People's Republic of China, holding the titles of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China since 2002, President of the People's Republic of China since 2003, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission since 2004, succeeding Jiang Zemin in the fourth generation leadership of the People's Republic of China, and commands the largest standing army in the world. Since his ascendancy Hu has reinstated certain controls on the economy and has been largely conservative with political reforms. His foreign policy is seen as less conciliatory than that of his predecessor, though China's global influence has increased while he has been in office.

Hu's rise to the presidency represents China's transition of leadership from old, establishment Communists to younger, more pragmatic technocrats. For most of Hu's adult life he has been involved in the Communist party bureaucracy, notably as Party Chief for the Tibet Autonomous Region, and then later Vice-President under Jiang Zemin. An advocate for China's peaceful rise, Hu's political philosophy is summarily described as aiming to found a basis for a Harmonious Society domestically and for Peaceful Development internationally, the former generated by a Scientific Development Concept, which seeks integrated solutions to tackle China's various economic, environmental and social problems.

Hu Jintao was born in Jiangyan, Jiangsu on 21 December 1942. His branch of the family migrated from Jixi of Anhui Province to Jiangyan during his grandfather's generation.

Even though his father owned a small tea trading business in Taizhou, the family was relatively poor. His mother died when he was seven, and he was raised by an aunt. Hu's father was later denounced during the Cultural Revolution, an event that (together with his relatively humble origins) apparently had a deep effect upon Hu, who diligently tried to clear his father's name.

Hu was a talented student in high school, excelling in activities such as singing and dancing. In 1964, while still a student at Beijing's Tsinghua University, Hu joined the Communist Party of China, prior to the Cultural Revolution. He graduated with a degree in hydraulic engineering in 1965. At Tsinghua University Hu met a fellow student Liu Yongqing, now his wife. They have a son and daughter, Hu Haifeng and Hu Haiqing respectively.

In 1968, Hu volunteered for service in Gansu and worked for a hydro-power station while also managing Party affairs for the local branch of the Ministry of Water Resources and Electric Power. From 1969 to 1974, Hu worked for Sinohydro Engineering Bureau, as an engineer.

In 1974, Hu was transferred to the Construction Department of Gansu as a secretary. The next year he was promoted to vice senior chief. In 1980, Deng Xiaoping implemented the "Four Transformations" program, which aimed to produce communist leaders who were "more revolutionary, younger, more knowledgeable, and more specialized." In response to this nation-wide search for young party members, Song Ping, the first secretary of CPC Gansu Committee (Gansu's governor) discovered Hu Jintao and promoted him several ranks to the position of deputy head of the commission. Another protégé of Song, Wen Jiabao, also became prominent at the same time.

In 1981, Hu, along with Deng Xiaoping's daughter Deng Nan and Hu Yaobang's son Hu Deping, were trained in the Central Party School in Beijing. Hu made a good impression on Deng Nan, who happened to report it to her father. Hu Deping even invited Hu Jintao to his home and met with Hu Yaobang, who was a standing member of the politburo at that time. Hu Jintao's modesty created an impact on Hu Yaobang.

In 1982, Hu was promoted to the position of Communist Youth League Gansu Branch Secretary. His mentor Song Ping was transferred to Beijing as Minister of Organization of the Communist Party of China, and was in charge of senior cadres' recommendation, candidacy and promotion. With the support of Hu Yaobang and Deng Xiaoping, Hu was assured of a bright future in the party. At Song Ping's suggestion, in 1982 central Party authorities invited Hu to Beijing to study at the Central Party School. Soon after, he was transferred to Beijing and appointed as secretariat of the Communist Youth League Central Committee ("CY Central"). Two years later Hu was promoted to First Secretary of CY Central, thus its actual leader. During his term in the Youth League, Hu escorted Hu Yaobang, who was General Secretary of CPC then, in visits around the country. Hu Yaobang, himself a veteran coming from the Youth League, could reminiscence his youth through Hu's company.

In 1985, Hu Yaobang pushed for Hu Jintao to be transferred to Guizhou as the provincial Committee Secretary of Communist Party of China. In contrast to the members of the "Shanghai clique", Hu spent most of his career in China's poorer hinterland rather than in the economically prosperous coastal regions. Partly because of this, he was relatively unknown to Western analysts before his ascent to power. In 1987 Hu Jintao handled the local students protest parallel to the Democracy Wall carefully, whereas in Beijing similar protests resulted in Hu Yaobang's forced resignation. During the 1980s, Hu Jintao, was the director of the All China Youth Federation.

In June 1988, the Party Secretary in Tibet collapsed from altitude sickness and had to resign. Party head Zhao Ziyang proposed Hu because he had already worked in two of China's poorer provinces. On 10 December 1988, the Tibetan capital Lhasa was rocked by riots. Soon afterward, on 28 January 1989, the revered Panchen Lama died, an event in which many Tibetans believe Hu was involved. Beijing's Central committee ordered Hu's subordinate, the local government chairman, to declare martial law in Lhasa. This was the first such order in the history of the People's Republic, setting a precedent for the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.

According to the Hong Kong-published book The Fourth Generation, “Hu told a friend at this time that he felt pessimistic about his future. It seemed that he had reached a dead end in his career and would never rise beyond the level of provincial Party secretary.” As in Guizhou, he made no lasting impact on Tibet. He found it difficult to get used to the altitude and spent an average of five months of the year in Beijing.

His tenure at Tibet, however, allowed him to keep in touch with his patron, Song Ping.

Before the opening of 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1992, the Party's senior leaders, including Deng and Chen Yun, were to select candidates for the Politburo Standing Committee to ensure a smooth transition of power from the so-called second-generation leaders (Deng, Chen, Li Xiannian, Wang Zhen, etc.) to third-generation Communist Party of China leaders (Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, Qiao Shi etc.). Deng also proposed that they should consider another candidate for a further future transition, preferably someone under fifty to represent the next generation of leaders. Song, as the organization chief, recommended Hu as an ideal candidate for the prospect of a future leader. As a result, shortly before his 50th birthday, Hu Jintao became the youngest member of the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, and the second youngest Politburo Standing Committee member ever since the CCP had seized power in 1949.

In 1993, Hu took charge of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, which oversaw day-to-day operations of the Central Committee, and the Central Party School, which was convenient for him to bring up his own supporters among senior CPC cadres. Hu was also put in charge of the ideological work of the CPC. Although Hu was considered heir apparent to Jiang, he always took great care to ensure that Jiang be at the center of the spotlight. In late 1998, Hu promoted Jiang's unpopular movement of the "Three Stresses" – "stress study, stress politics, and stress healthy trends" – giving speeches to promote it. In 2001, he publicized Jiang's Three Represents theory, which Jiang hoped to place him on the same level as other Marxist theoreticians. As a result, he left the public with an impression of being low-key, courteous, and adept at forming coalitions. In 1998, Hu became Vice-President of China, and Jiang wanted Hu to play a more active role in foreign affairs. Hu became China's leading voice during the US bombings of China's embassy in Belgrade in 1999.

When the transition finally took place in the 16th National Congress of the CPC in 2002, Jiang was reluctant to leave the center of power. It was widely believed that he staffed the Politburo with many members of the so-called "Shanghai Clique", including Wu Bangguo, Jia Qinglin, Zeng Qinghong, Huang Ju and Li Changchun, which could ensure Jiang's control behind the stage. Jiang held on to the position of Chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Since taking over as Party General Secretary at the Sixteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Hu and his premier, Wen Jiabao, proposed to set up a Harmonious Society which aims at lessening the inequality and changing the style of the "GDP first and Welfare Second" policies. They focused on sectors of the Chinese population that have been left behind by the economic reform, and have taken a number of high profile trips to the poorer areas of China with the stated goal of understanding these areas better. Hu and Wen Jiabao have also attempted to move China away from a policy of favouring economic growth at all costs and toward a more balanced view of growth that includes factors in social inequality and environmental damage, including the use of the green gross domestic product in personnel decisions. Jiang's clique, however, maintained control in most developing areas, therefore Hu and Wen's measures of macroeconomic regulation faced great resistance.

The first crisis of Hu's leadership happened during the outbreak of SARS in 2003. Following strong criticism of China for initially covering up and responding slowly to the crisis, he dismissed several party and government officials, including the health minister, who supported Jiang, and the Mayor of Beijing, Meng Xuenong, widely perceived as Hu's protégé. Meng's dismissal was sometimes seen as a yielding compromise to erode Jiang's support in the party. Hu and Wen took steps to increase the transparency of China's reporting to international health organizations, indirectly dealing a blow to Jiang's stance on the issue.

Another test of Hu's leadership was Beijing's low key response to protests against the implementation of Article 23 of the Basic Law in Hong Kong in 2003. In an unprecedented move, the legislation to implement the Article was withdrawn by the Hong Kong government, after a large popular protest on 1 July 2003. At the same time, Hu gave a public show of support to Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-Hwa after gauging public mood in Hong Kong.

On 15 November 2002, a new Hu Jintao-led Politburo nominally succeeded Jiang Zemin. Although Jiang, then 76, stepped down from the powerful Politburo Standing Committee to make way for a younger fourth generation of leadership, there was speculation that Jiang would retain significant influence because Hu was not associated with Jiang's influential Shanghai clique, to which six out of the nine members of the all-powerful Standing Committee were believed to be linked. However, later developments show that many of its members have shifted their positions. Zeng Qinghong, for example, moved from a disciple of Jiang to serving as an intermediary between the two factions. In 2003, Jiang was also reelected to the post of Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the CPC, a post from which Deng Xiaoping was able to wield power from behind the scenes as paramount leader, thus retaining military power.

Western observers attribute a sense of caution to Hu's philosophies, citing China's recent history of fallen heirs. Deng Xiaoping appointed three party secretaries, all designed to be successors, and was instrumental in the ousting of two of them, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. His third and final selection, Jiang Zemin, won Deng's continued, although ambiguous backing and was the only party secretary in Communist Chinese history to voluntarily leave his post when his term ended.

Although many believe Hu was originally hand-picked by Deng as the youngest member of China's top leadership and a leading candidate to succeed Jiang, he had exercised a great deal of political skills between 1992 and 2002 to consolidate his position, and eventually emerged as Jiang's heir apparent in his own right. Hu also benefited from the slow but progressive institutionalization of power succession within the Party. As a result, attempts to draw parallels with regards to Hu's succession is unreasonable. Since the early 1980s, the People's Republic of China has been marked by progressive institutionalization and rule by consensus, and moved away from the Maoist authoritarian model. Although a western-style legal institution and rule of law remain to be put in place, Hu's power succession was conducted in a fairly orderly and civil manner, which was unprecedented in Communist China's history. This trend is expected to continue and an institutionalized mechanism of power transition is expected to emerge, first perhaps within the Party. In fact, it has been one of the Party's stated major goals to create an orderly system of succession and mechanism to prevent informal rule and a cult of personality.

The rivalry between Jiang and Hu after Jiang stepped down from his posts was, arguably, an inevitable product of China's tradition of succession. Some analysts argue that although Jiang has consolidated power by the time he retired, his ideological stature within the Communist Party remains shaky at best, thus Jiang had to buy time to ensure that his ideological legacy such as the Three Represents, is enshrined in China's socialism doctrine. Jiang resigned as Chairman of the Central Military Commission in September 2004, his last official post. Whether this is the result of pressure from Hu or a personal decision is up for speculation. Since then Hu has officially taken on the three institutions in the People's Republic of China where power lie, the state, the party, as well as the military, thus informally, has become the paramount leader. The Hu-Jiang split, however, remains. Officially, Hu has been promoting Jiang's legacy by beginning a mass campaign in August 2006 promoting the Selected Works of Jiang Zemin, a collection of speeches and essays documenting Jiang's philosophies. Hu had corruption charges brought against Shanghai's leader to get rid of Jiang's man.

Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao inherited a China wrought with internal social, political and environmental problems. One of the biggest challenges Hu faces is the large wealth disparity between the Chinese rich and poor, for which discontent and anger mounted to a degree which wreaked havoc on communist rule. Furthermore, the cronyism and corruption plaguing China's civil service, military, educational, judicial and medical systems sought to destroy the country bit by bit. In the beginning of 2006, however, Hu launched the "8 Honours and 8 Disgraces" movement in a bid to promote a more selfless and moral outlook amongst the population. China's increasingly fragile environment has caused massive urban pollution, sandstorms and the destruction of vast tracts of habitable land. It remains to be seen if Hu, usually cautious in nature, is capable of managing the continued peaceful development of China while avoiding international incidents, at the same time presiding over an unprecedented increase in Chinese nationalist sentiment.

At the 11th National People's Congress, Hu was re-elected as President on 15 March 2008. He was also re-elected as Chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Observers indicate that Hu distinguishes himself from his predecessor in both domestic and foreign policy. President Hu Jintao's overarching vision, his political philosophy is summarized by three slogans — a “Harmonious Society” domestically and a “Peaceful Development” internationally, the former generated by a “Scientific Development Perspective,” which seeks integrated sets of solutions to arrays of economic, environmental and social problems, and recognizes, in inner circles, a need for political reform (though studied, cautious and controlled). The role of the Party has changed, as formulated by Deng Xiaoping and implemented by Jiang Zemin, from a revolutionary party to a ruling party. Hu continues the Party’s modernization, calling for both "Advancement" of the Party and its increasing transparency in governance.

What emerges in the view of President Hu is the "China Model," a systematic approach to national structure and development that combines dynamic economic growth, a free market energized by a vigorous “nonpublic” (i.e., private) sector, unrelenting political and media control, personal but not political freedoms, concern for the welfare of all citizens, cultural enlightenment, and a synergistic approach to diverse social issues (the Scientific Development Perspective) that lead, in Hu’s vision, to a Harmonious Society. Beijing sees its China Model as an alternative to Washington’s Democracy Model, particularly for developing countries. In Hu’s words, "A harmonious society should feature democracy, the rule of law, equity, justice, sincerity, amity and vitality." Such a society, he says, will give full scope to people's talent and creativity, enable all the people to share the social wealth brought by reform and development, and forge an ever closer relationship between the people and government.

Western criticism of Hu, particularly regarding human rights, exposes his hypersensitivity to social stability but misses his fresh commitment to address China’s multi-faceted problems. Hu’s pragmatic, non-ideological agenda has two core values—maintaining social stability to further economic development and sustaining Chinese culture to enrich national sovereignty. In domestic policy, he seems to want more openness to the public on governmental functions and meetings. Recently, China's news agency published many Politburo Standing Committee meeting details. He also cancelled many events that are traditionally seen as communist extravagances, such as the lavish send-off and welcoming-back ceremonies of Chinese leaders when visiting foreign lands. Furthermore the Chinese leadership under Hu has also focused on such problems as the gap between rich and poor and uneven development between the interior and coastal regions. Both party and state seem to have moved away from a definition of development that focuses solely on GDP growth and toward a more balanced definition which includes social equality and environment effects.

In 2004, Hu gave an unprecedented showing and ordered all cadres from the five major power functions to stop the tradition of going to the Beidaihe seaside retreat for their annual summer meeting which, before, was commonly seen as a gathering of ruling elites from both current and elder cadres to decide China's destiny, and also an unnecessary waste of public funds. The move was seen by the Chinese public as symbolic of Hu's attitude towards corruption.

In June 2007, Hu gave an important speech at the Central Party School that was indicative of his position of power and his guiding philosophies. In the speech Hu used a very populist tone to appeal to ordinary Chinese, making serious note of the recent challenges China has been facing, especially with regards to income disparity. In addition, Hu noted the need for "increased democracy" in the country. Although the term has different meanings in the party than it does in the general Western sense, it shows that Hu's administration has placed political reform as an important part of the agenda in the coming years, a tone that was nonexistent during the Jiang era.

Despite initial expectations that Hu was a "closet liberal", Hu has shown a fairly hard-line approach to liberalisation of the media.

The media has been given greater latitude in reporting many topics of popular concern, such as the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, as well as into malpractices at the local level. The government has also been responsive to criticism of its media policy, for example in response to the SARS epidemic, and in regard to public commemorations of popular, but deposed, former leader Hu Yaobang.

Hu has been very cautious with regards to the Internet, choosing to censor politically sensitive material to a degree stricter than the Jiang era. In February 2007, Hu embarked on further domestic media controls that restricted primetime TV series to "morally correct" content—he objected to lowbrow programming including some reality shows—on all Chinese TV stations, and listed "20 forbidden areas" of coverage on news reporting.

Early in his presidency, Hu faced an independence supporting counterpart in the form of then-President of the Republic of China Chen Shui-bian. Chen called for talks without any preconditions, repudiating the 1992 consensus. Chen Shui-bian and his party had continued to express an ultimate goal of Taiwanese independence, and make statements on the political status of Taiwan that the PRC considers provocative. Hu's initial response was a combination of "soft" and "hard" approaches. On the one hand, Hu expressed a flexibility to negotiate on many issues of concern to Taiwan. On the other hand, he continued to refuse talks without preconditions and remained committed to Chinese reunification as an ultimate goal. While Hu Jintao gave some signs of being more flexible with regard to political relationships with Taiwan as in his May 17 Statement where he offered to address the issue of "international living space" for Taiwan, Hu's government remains firm in its position that the Mainland side will not tolerate any attempt by the Taiwanese government to declare de jure independence from China.

After the re-election of Chen Shui-bian in 2004, Hu's government changed tactics. Hu's government has conducted a no contact policy with the then Taipei administration due to Chen Shui-Bian and the DPP's independence leanings and repudiation of the 1992 consensus. The government maintained its military build-up against Taiwan, and pursued a vigorous policy of isolating Taiwan diplomatically. In March 2005, the Anti-Secession Law was passed by the National People's Congress, formalising "non-peaceful means" as an option of response to a declaration of independence in Taiwan.

Hu's government increased contacts with the Kuomintang (KMT), then the opposition party in Taiwan. The relationship between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Kuomintang dates back before the Chinese civil war when the two parties twice co-operated in the Northern Expedition and the war against Japan. The increased contacts culminated in the 2005 Pan-Blue visits to mainland China, including a historic meeting between Hu and then-Kuomintang chairman Lien Chan in April 2005.

On 20 March 2008, the Kuomintang won the presidency in Taiwan. It also has a majority in the Legislature. Compared to his predecessors, who often dictated conditions to Taiwan, Hu has been proactive in seeking ties with Taiwan, especially with the pro-unification Kuomintang party.

A series of historical meetings between the CPC and KMT have followed. On 12 April 2008, Hu Jintao held a historic meeting with ROC's then vice-president elect Vincent Siew as chairman of the Cross-strait Common Market Fundation during the Boao Forum for Asia. On 28 May 2008, Hu met with KMT chairman Wu Po-hsiung, the first meeting between the heads of the CPC and the KMT as ruling parties. During this meeting, Hu and Wu agreed that both sides should re-commence official dialogue under the 1992 consensus. Wu committed the new government in Taiwan against Taiwanese independence. Hu committed his government to addressing the concerns of the Taiwanese people in regard to security, dignity, and "international living space", with a priority given to allowing Taiwanese participation in the World Health Organisation.

As well as the party-to-party channel, the semi-governmental dialogue channel via the Straits Exchange Foundation and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits is scheduled to re-open in June 2008 on the basis of the 1992 Consensus, with the first meeting held in Beijing. Both Hu and his new counterpart Ma Ying-jeou agree that the 1992 Consensus is the basis for negotiations between the two sides of the Taiwan strait. On 26 March 2008, Hu Jintao held a telephone talk with the US President George W. Bush, in which he as the leader of CPC for the first time admitted that "1992 Consensus" sees "both sides recognize there is only one China, but agree to differ on its definition." The first priority for the SEF-ARATS meeting will be opening of the three links, especially direct flights between mainland China and Taiwan.

In response to the great number of social problems in China, in March 2006, Hu Jintao released the "core Socialist moral system" entitled the "Eight Honors and Eight Shames" as a set of moral codes to be followed by the Chinese people, and emphasized the need to spread the message to youth. Alternatively known as the "Eight Honors and Disgraces", it contained eight poetic lines which summarized what a good citizen should regard as an honor and what to regard as a shame. It has been widely regarded as one of Hu Jintao's ideological solutions to the perceived increasing lack of morality in China after Chinese economic reforms brought in a generation of Chinese predominantly concerned with earning money and power in an increasingly frail social fabric.

It has become a norm for Chinese communist leaders to make their own contributions to Marxist theory. Whether this is Hu's contribution to Marxist theory is debatable, but its general reception with the Chinese public has been moderate. Its promotion, however, is visible almost everywhere: in classroom posters, banners on the street, and electronic display boards for the preparation of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. The codes differ from the ideologies of his predecessors, namely, Jiang Zemin's Three Represents, Deng Xiaoping Theory, and Mao Zedong Thought in that the focus, for the first time, has been shifted to codifying moral standards as opposed to setting social or economic goals.

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People's Republic of China

The People's Republic of China (PRC) (simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国; traditional Chinese: 中華人民共和國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó listen (help·info)), commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the most populous in the world with over 1.29 billion people, approximately a fifth of the world's population. It is a socialist republic ruled by the Communist Party of China under a single-party system and has jurisdiction over twenty-two provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two largely self-governing Special Administrative Regions. China's capital is Beijing.

At 9.6 million square kilometres, the People's Republic of China is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area, and fourth largest by land area. Its landscape is diverse with forest steppes and deserts (the Gobi and Taklamakan) in the dry north near Mongolia and Russia's Siberia, and subtropical forests in the wet south close to Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar. The terrain in the west is rugged and high altitude, with the Himalayas and the Tian Shan mountain ranges forming China's natural borders with India and Central Asia. In contrast, China's eastern seaboard is low-lying and has a 14,500-kilometre long coastline bounded on the southeast by the South China Sea and on the east by the East China Sea beyond which lies Korea and Japan.

Ancient Chinese civilization—one of the world's earliest—flourished in the fertile basin of the Yellow River which flows through the North China Plain. For 4,000 years, China's political system was based on hereditary monarchies (also known as dynasties). The first of these dynasties was the Xia but it was later the Qin Dynasty who first unified China in 221 BC. The last dynasty, the Qing, ended in 1911 with the founding of the Republic of China (ROC) by the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT). The first half of the 20th century saw China plunged into a period of disunity and civil wars that divided the country into two main political camps – the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Communists. Major hostilities ended in 1949, when the People's Republic of China (PRC) was established in mainland China by the victorious Communists. The KMT-led Republic of China government retreated to Taipei, its jurisdiction now limited to Taiwan and several outlying islands. As of today, the PRC is still involved in disputes with the ROC over issues of sovereignty and the political status of Taiwan.

China's importance in the world today is reflected through its role as the world's third largest economy nominally (or second largest by PPP) and a permanent member of the UN Security Council as well as in other multilateral organizations including the WTO, APEC, East Asia Summit, and Shanghai Cooperation Organization. In addition, it is a nuclear state and has the world's largest standing army with the second largest defense budget. Since the introduction of market-based economic reforms in 1978, China has become one of the world's fastest growing economies and the world's second largest exporter and the third largest importer of goods. Rapid industrialization has reduced its poverty rate from 53% in 1981 to 8% in 2001. However, the PRC is now faced with a number of other problems including a rapidly aging population due to the one-child policy, a widening rural-urban income gap, and environmental degradation.

Major combat in the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949 with the Communist Party of China in control of the mainland, and the Kuomintang (KMT) retreating to Taiwan. On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China. Red China was a frequent appellation for the PRC (generally within the Western Bloc) used from the time of Communist ascendance until the mid-late 1970s with the improvement of relations between China and the West.

Following a series of dramatic economic failures caused by the Great Leap Forward, Mao stepped down from his position as chairman in 1959, with Liu Shaoqi as successor. Mao still had much influence over the Party, but was removed from day-to-day management of economic affairs, which came under the control of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.

In 1966, Mao and his allies launched the Cultural Revolution, which would last until Mao's death a decade later. The Cultural Revolution, motivated by power struggles within the Party and a fear of the Soviet Union, led to a major upheaval in Chinese society. In 1972, at the peak of the Sino-Soviet split, Mao and Zhou Enlai met Richard Nixon in Beijing to establish relations with the United States. In the same year, the PRC was admitted to the United Nations, replacing the Republic of China for China's membership of the United Nations, and permanent membership of the Security Council.

After Mao's death in 1976 and the arrest of the Gang of Four, blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping quickly wrested power from Mao's anointed successor Hua Guofeng. Although Deng never became the head of the Party or State himself, his influence within the Party led the country to economic reforms of significant magnitude. The Communist Party subsequently loosened governmental control over citizens' personal lives and the communes were disbanded with many peasants receiving multiple land leases, which greatly increased incentives and agricultural production. This turn of events marked China's transition from a planned economy to a mixed economy with an increasingly open market environment, a system termed by some "market socialism". The PRC adopted its current constitution on 4 December 1982.

In 1989, the death of pro-reform official, Hu Yaobang, helped to spark the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, during which students and others campaigned for several months for more democratic rights and freedom of speech. However, they were eventually put down on 4 June when PLA troops and vehicles entered and forcibly cleared the square, resulting in numerous casualties. This event was widely reported and famously videotaped, which brought worldwide condemnation and sanctions against the government.

President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji, both former mayors of Shanghai, led post-Tiananmen PRC in the 1990s. Under Jiang Zemin's ten years of administration, the PRC's economic performance pulled an estimated 150 million peasants out of poverty and sustained an average annual GDP growth rate of 11.2%. The country formally joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Although the PRC needs economic growth to spur its development, the government has begun to worry that rapid economic growth has negatively impacted the country's resources and environment. Another concern is that certain sectors of society are not sufficiently benefiting from the PRC's economic development. As a result, under current President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, the PRC has initiated policies to address these issues of equitable distribution of resources, but the outcome remains to be seen. For much of the PRC's population, living standards have seen extremely large improvements, and freedom continues to expand, but political controls remain tight.

At the time of the global financial crisis of 2008, China had come to occupy a position as a major source of financing for public and private overseas borrowing by the United States, occupying a position of trust, support, and importance to the United States in contrast to a situation of public apprehension and, at times, antagonism in the United States towards China's acquisition of status as a major power in other respects. The PRC is regarded by many political scientists as one of the last five Communist states (along with Vietnam, North Korea, Laos and Cuba), but simple characterizations of PRC's political structure since the 1980s are no longer possible. The PRC government has been variously described as communist and socialist, but also as authoritarian, with heavy restrictions remaining in many areas, most notably on the Internet, the press, freedom of assembly, reproductive rights, and freedom of religion. However, compared to its closed-door policies until the mid-1970s, the liberalization of the PRC is such that the administrative climate is much less restrictive than before, though the PRC is still far from the full-fledged democracy practiced in most of Europe or North America, according to most observers internationally. The PRC's incumbent President is Hu Jintao and its premier is Wen Jiabao.

The country is run by the Communist Party of China (CPC), which is guaranteed power by the Constitution. There are other political parties in the PRC, referred to in China as "democratic parties", which participate in the People's Political Consultative Conference and the National People's Congress. There have been some moves toward political liberalization, in that open contested elections are now held at the village and town levels, and that legislatures have shown some assertiveness from time to time. However, the Party retains effective control over government appointments: in the absence of meaningful opposition, the CPC wins by default most of the time. Political concerns in the PRC include lessening the growing gap between rich and poor and fighting corruption within the government leadership. The level of support that the Communist Party of China has among the PRC population in general is unclear since there are no consistently contested national elections. According to a survey conducted in Hong Kong, where a relatively high level of freedom is enjoyed, the current CPC leaders have received substantial votes of support when residents were asked to rank their favorite leaders from mainland China and Taiwan.

The People's Republic of China maintains diplomatic relations with most major countries in the world. Sweden was the first western country to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic on 9 May 1950. In 1971, the PRC replaced the Republic of China as the sole representative of China in the United Nations and as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. It is considered a founding member of the UN, though the PRC was not in control of China at the time. The PRC was also a former member and leader of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Under its interpretation of the One-China policy, the PRC has made it a precondition to establishing diplomatic relations that the other country acknowledges its claim to Taiwan and severs official ties with the Republic of China government. The government opposes publicized foreign travels by former and present ROC officials promoting Taiwan's independence, such as Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian, and other politically controversial figures, such as Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama of Tibetan Buddhism, in an official context.

The PRC has been playing an increasing role in calling for free trade areas and security pacts amongst its Asia-Pacific neighbors. In 2004, the PRC proposed an entirely new East Asia Summit (EAS) framework as a forum for regional security issues that pointedly excluded the United States. The EAS, which includes ASEAN Plus Three, India, Australia and New Zealand, held its inaugural summit in 2005. The PRC is also a founding member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), with Russia and the Central Asian republics.

Much of the current foreign policy is based on the concept of China's peaceful rise. Conflicts with foreign countries have occurred at times in its recent history, particularly with the United States; for example, the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo conflict in May 1999 and the U.S.-China spy plane incident in April 2001. Its foreign relations with many Western nations suffered for a time following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, though they have since recovered. The relationship between China and Japan has been strained at times by Japan's refusal to acknowledge its wartime past to the satisfaction of the PRC; take for instance revisionist comments made by prominent Japanese officials and in some Japanese history textbooks. Another point of conflict between the two countries is the frequent visits by Japanese government officials to the Yasukuni Shrine. However, Sino-Japanese relations have warmed considerably since Shinzo Abe became the new Japanese Prime Minister in September 2006. A joint historical study to be completed by 2008 of WWII atrocities is being conducted by the PRC and Japan.

Equally bordering the most countries in the world alongside Russia, the PRC was in a number of international territorial disputes. China's territorial disputes have led to localized wars in the last 50 years, including the Sino-Indian War in 1962, the Sino-Soviet border conflict in 1969, and the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979. In 2001, the PRC and Russia signed the Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship, which paved the way in 2004 for Russia to transfer Yinlong Island as well as one-half of Heixiazi to China, ending a long-standing Sino-Russian border dispute. Other territorial disputes include islands in the East and South China Seas, and undefined or disputed borders with India, Tajikistan, and North Korea.

While accompanying a rapid economic rise, the PRC since the 1990s seeks to maintain a policy of quiet diplomacy with its neighbors. It does so by keeping economic growth steady and participating in regional organizations and cultivating bi-lateral relations in order to ease suspicion over China's burgeoning military capabilities. The PRC has started a policy of wooing African nations for trade and bilateral co-operation. There are some discussions about whether China will become a new superpower in the 21st century, with certain commentators pointing out its economic progress, military might, very large population, and increasing international influence but others claiming it is headed for economic collapse.

With a population of over 1.3 billion, the PRC is very concerned about its population growth and has attempted, with mixed results, to implement a strict family planning policy. The government's goal is one child per family, with exceptions for ethnic minorities and flexibility in rural areas, where a family can have a second child if the first is a girl or physically disabled. The government's goal is to stabilize population growth early in the 21st century, though some projections estimate a population of anywhere ranging from 1.4 billion to 1.6 billion by 2025. Hence, the country's family planning minister has indicated that China will maintain its one-child policy until at least the year 2020.

The policy is resisted, particularly in rural areas, because of the need for agricultural labour and a traditional preference for boys (who can later serve as male heirs). Families who breach the policy often lie during the census. Official government policy opposes forced sterilization or abortion, but allegations of coercion continue as local officials, who are faced with penalties for failing to curb population growth, may resort to forced abortion or sterilization, or manipulation of census figures.

The decreasing reliability of PRC population statistics since family planning began in the late 1970s has made evaluating the effectiveness of the policy difficult. Estimates by Chinese demographers of the average number of children for a Chinese woman vary from 1.5 to 2.0. The government is particularly concerned with the large imbalance in the sex ratio at birth, apparently the result of a combination of traditional preference for boys and family planning pressure, which led to the ban of using ultrasound devices for the purpose of preventing sex-selective abortion.

While economic and social controls have been greatly relaxed in China since the 1960s, political freedom is still tightly controlled by both central and local governments. The Constitution of the People's Republic of China states that the "fundamental rights" of citizens include freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, universal suffrage, and property rights. However, these provisions do not afford significant protection in practice against criminal prosecution by the State.

Censorship of political speech and information is openly and routinely used to silence criticism of government and the ruling Chinese Communist Party. In particular, press control is notoriously tight: Reporters Without Borders considers the PRC one of the least free countries in the world for the press. The government has a policy of limiting groups, organizations, and beliefs that it considers a potential threat to "social stability" and control, as was the case with the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The Communist Party has had mixed success in controlling information: a very strong media control system faces very strong market forces, an increasingly educated citizenry, and cultural change that are making China more open, especially on environmental issues.

A number of foreign governments and NGOs routinely criticize the PRC, alleging widespread civil rights violations including systematic use of lengthy detention without trial, forced confessions, torture, mistreatment of prisoners, restrictions of freedom of speech, assembly, association, religion, the press, and labor rights. China leads the world in capital punishment, accounting for roughly 90% of total executions in 2004. Civil rights issues are one of the factors driving independence movements in Tibet and Xinjiang. In the Reporters Without Borders' Annual World Press Freedom Index of 2005, the PRC ranked 159 out of 167 places. Chinese journalist He Qinglian in her 2004 book Media Control in China documents government controls on the Internet and other media in China.

The PRC government has responded by arguing that the notion of human rights should take into account a country's present level of economic development, and focus more on the people's rights to subsistence and development in poorer countries. The rise in the standard of living, literacy, and life expectancy for the average Chinese in the last three decades is seen by the government as tangible progress made in human rights. Efforts in the past decade to combat deadly natural disasters, such as the perennial Yangtze River floods, and work-related accidents are also portrayed in China as progress in human rights for a still largely poor country.

The People's Republic of China has administrative control over twenty-two provinces and considers Taiwan to be its twenty-third province. There are also five autonomous regions, each with a designated minority group; four municipalities; and two Special Administrative Regions that enjoy considerable autonomy. The twenty-two provinces, five autonomous regions, and four municipalities can be collectively referred to as "mainland China", a term which usually excludes Hong Kong and Macau.

China is the second largest country in Asia by area after Russia, and is considered the third largest in the world in respect to land and sea area. The uncertainty over size is related to (a) the validity of claims by China on territories such as Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract (both territories also claimed by India), and (b) how the total size of the United States is calculated: The World Factbook gives 9,826,630 km², and the Encyclopedia Britannica gives 9,522,055 km². A recent change in the method used by the United States to calculate its surface area adds to the confusion as to the actual size of the United States. China borders 14 nations (counted clockwise from south): Vietnam, Laos, Burma, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia and North Korea. Additionally the border between PRC and ROC is located in territorial waters.

The territory of China contains a large variety of landscapes. In the east, along the shores of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, there are extensive and densely populated alluvial plains, while on the edges of the Inner Mongolian plateau in the north, grasslands can be seen. Southern China is dominated by hill country and low mountain ranges. In the central-east are the deltas of China's two major rivers, the Yellow River and Yangtze River (Chang Jiang). Other major rivers include the Xi, Mekong, Brahmaputra and Amur.

To the west, major mountain ranges, notably the Himalayas, with China's highest point at the eastern half of Mount Everest, and high plateaus feature among the more arid landscapes such as the Taklamakan and the Gobi Desert.

A major issue is the continued expansion of deserts, particularly the Gobi Desert. Although barrier tree lines planted since the 1970s have reduced the frequency of sandstorms, prolonged drought and poor agricultural practices result in dust storms plaguing northern China each spring, which then spread to other parts of East Asia, including Korea and Japan. Water, erosion, and pollution control have become important issues in China's relations with other countries.

China has some relevant environmental regulations: the 1979 Environmental Protection Law, which was largely modeled on U.S. legislation. But the environment continues to deteriorate. While the regulations are fairly stringent, they are frequently disregarded by local communities while seeking economic development. Twelve years after the law, only one Chinese city was making an effort to clean up its water discharges. This indicates that China is about twenty years behind the U.S. schedule of environmental regulation.

Part of the price China is paying for increased prosperity is damage to the environment. Leading Chinese environmental campaigner Ma Jun has warned that water pollution is one of the most serious threats facing China. According to Ma the drinking water of 300 million peasants is unsafe and water quality in one fifth of the cities is not up to standard. This makes the crisis of water shortages more pressing, with 400 out of 600 cities short of water.

With 2.3 million active troops, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the largest military in the world. The PLA consists of an army, navy, air force, and strategic nuclear force. The official announced budget of the PLA for 2007 was $45 billion. However, the United States claims China does not report its real military spending. The DIA estimates that the real Chinese military budget for 2007 could be anywhere from US$85 to US$125 billion.

The PRC, despite possession of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, is widely seen by military researchers both within and outside of China as having only limited power projection capability; this is, among other things, because of the limited effectiveness of its navy. It is considered a major military regional power and an emerging military superpower.

Much progress has been made in the last decade and the PRC continues to make efforts to modernize its military. It has purchased state-of-the-art fighter jets from Russia, such as the Sukhoi Su-30s, and has also produced its own modern fighters, specifically the Chinese J-10s and the J-11s. It has also acquired and improved upon the Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, which are considered to be among the best aircraft-intercepting systems in the world, albeit Russia has since produced the new generation S-400 Triumf, which has been reported to at least have been semi developed with China. The PRC's armored and rapid-reaction forces have been updated with enhanced electronics and targeting capabilities. In recent years, much attention has been focused on building a navy with blue-water capability.

From its founding in 1949 to late 1978, the People's Republic of China was a Soviet-style centrally planned economy. Private businesses and capitalism were suppressed. To propel the country towards a modern, industrialized communist society, Mao Zedong instituted the Great Leap Forward which is now widely seen – both within the PRC and outside – as a major economic failure and a great humanitarian disaster. His death and the end of the Cultural Revolution allowed Deng Xiaoping and the new Chinese leadership to reform the economy and move to a market-oriented mixed economy under one-party rule. Collectivization of the agriculture was dismantled and farmlands were privatized to increase productivity. A wide variety of small-scale enterprises were allowed to flourish while the government relaxed price controls and promoted foreign investment. Foreign trade was focused upon as a major vehicle of growth, which led to the creation of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) first in Shenzhen (near Hong Kong) and then in other Chinese cities. Inefficient state-owned enterprises (SOEs) were restructured by introducing western-style management system and the unprofitable ones were closed, resulting in massive job losses.

Since economic liberalization began in 1978, the PRC's investment- and export-led economy has grown 70 times bigger and is among the fastest growing in the world. It now has the world's third largest nominal GDP at 30 trillion yuan (US$4.4 trillion), although its per capita income of US$3,300 is still low and puts the PRC behind roughly a hundred countries. The primary, secondary, and tertiary industries contributed 11.3%, 48.6%, and 40.1% respectively to the total economy. If PPP is taken into account, the PRC's economy is second only to the US at US$7 trillion corresponding to US$5,300 per capita. The PRC is the fourth most visited country in the world with 49.6 million inbound international visitors in 2006. It is a member of the WTO and is the world's third largest trading power behind the US and Germany with a total international trade of US$2.18 trillion - US$1.22 trillion in exports (#2) and US$955.8 billion in imports (#3). Its foreign exchange reserves have reached US$1.9 trillion, making it the world's largest. It is among the world's favorite destination for FDI, attracting more than US$80 billion in 2007 alone. The PRC's success has been primarily due to manufacturing as a low-cost producer. This is attributed to a combination of cheap labor, good infrastructure, medium level of technology and skill, relatively high productivity, favorable government policy, and some say, an undervalued exchange rate. The latter has been blamed for the PRC's bulging trade surplus (US$262.7 billion in 2007) and has become a major source of dispute between the PRC and its major trading partners – the US, EU, and Japan – despite the yuan having been de-pegged and risen in value by 20% against the US dollar since 2005.

The state still dominates in strategic "pillar" industries (such as energy and heavy industries), but private enterprise (30 million private businesses) now accounts for approximately 70% of China's national output, up from 1% in 1978. Its stock market in Shanghai (SSE) is raising record amounts of IPOs and its benchmark Shanghai Composite index has doubled since 2005. SSE's market capitalization reached US$3 trillion in 2007 and is the world's fifth largest exchange. China now ranks 34th in the Global Competitiveness Index. Twenty nine Chinese companies made the list in the 2008 Fortune Global 500. Measured on market capitalization, 3 out of 10 of the world's most valuable companies are in China including #2-PetroChina, #5-China Mobile (world's most valuable telecommunications company), and #6-Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (world's most valuable bank).

Although still relatively poor by the world's standard, the PRC's rapid growth managed to pull hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty since 1978. Today, about 10% of the Chinese population (down from 64% in 1978) live below the poverty line of US$1 per day (PPP) while life expectancy has dramatically increased to 73 years. More than 90% of the population is relatively literate, compared to 20% in 1950. Urban unemployment declined to 4 percent in China by the end of 2007 (true overall unemployment might be higher at around 10%). Its middle class population has now reached 80-150 million. China's retail market is worth RMB8921 billion (US$1302 billion) in 2007 and growing at 16.8% annually. It is also now the world's third biggest consumer of luxury goods with 12% of the global share.

The PRC's growth has been uneven when comparing different geographic regions and rural and urban areas. The urban-rural income gap is getting wider in the PRC with a Gini coefficient of 46.9%. Development has also been mainly concentrated in the eastern coastal regions while the remainder of the country are left behind. To counter this, the government has promoted development in the western, northeastern, and central regions of China. The economy is also highly energy-intensive and inefficient – it uses 20%-100% more energy than OECD countries for many industrial processes. It has now become the world's second largest energy consumer behind the US but relies on coal to supply about 70% of its energy needs. Coupled with a lax environmental regulation, this has led to a massive water and air pollution (China has 20 of the world's 30 most polluted cities). Consequently, the government has promised to use more renewable energy with a target of 10% of total energy use by 2010 and 30% by 2050.

After the Sino-Soviet split, China started to develop its own nuclear weapons and delivery systems, successfully detonating its first surface nuclear test in 1964 at Lop Nur. A natural outgrowth of this was a satellite launching program, which culminated in 1970 with the launching of Dong Fang Hong I, the first Chinese satellite. This made the PRC the fifth nation to independently launch a satellite. In 1992, the Shenzhou manned spaceflight program was authorized. After four tests, Shenzhou 5 was launched on 15 October 2003, using a Long March 2F launch vehicle and carrying Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei, making the PRC the third country to put a human being into space through its own endeavors. With the successful completion of the second manned mission, Shenzhou 6 in October 2005, the country plans to build a Chinese Space Station in the near future and achieve a lunar landing in the next decade.

China has the world's second largest research and development budget, and is expected to invest over $136 billion this year after growing more than 20% in the past year. The Chinese government continues to place heavy emphasis on research and development by creating greater public awareness of innovation, and reforming financial and tax systems to promote growth in cutting-edge industries. President Hu Jintao in January 2006 called for China to make the transition from a manufacturing-based economy to an innovation-based one, and this year's National People's Congress has approved large increases in research funding. Stem cell research and gene therapy, which some in the Western world see as controversial, face minimal regulation in China. China has an estimated 926,000 researchers, second only to the 1.3 million in the United States.

China is also actively developing its software, semiconductor and energy industries, including renewable energies such as hydro, wind and solar power. In an effort to reduce pollution from coal-burning power plants, China has been pioneering the deployment of pebble bed nuclear reactors, which run cooler and safer, and have potential applications for the hydrogen economy.

Transportation in the mainland of the People's Republic of China has improved remarkably since the late 1990s as part of a government effort to link the entire nation through a series of expressways known as the National Trunk Highway System (NTHS). The total length of expressway is 45,000 km at the end of 2006, second only to the United States. Most of the expressways, however, require tolls.

Private car ownership is increasing at an annual rate of 15%, although it is still uncommon because of government policies which make car ownership expensive, such as taxes and toll roads. Private highway driving is becoming more common, being almost nonexistent ten years ago.

Domestic air travel has increased significantly, but remains too expensive for most. Long distance transportation is dominated by railways and charter bus systems. Railways are the vital carrier in China; they are monopolized by the state, divided into various railway bureaus in different regions. At the rates of demand it experiences, the system has historically been subject to overcrowding during travel seasons such as Chunyun during the Chinese New Year.

Cities such as Beijing and Shanghai both have a rapidly expanding network of subway or light rail systems, while several other cities also have running rapid transit. Numerous cities are also constructing subways. Hong Kong has one of the most developed transport systems in the world. Shanghai has a Maglev rail line connecting Shanghai's urban area to Pudong International Airport.

As of July 2006, there are 1,313,973,713 people in the PRC. About 20.8% (male 145,461,833; female 128,445,739) are 14 years old or younger, 71.4% (male 482,439,115; female 455,960,489) are between 15 and 64 years old, and 7.7% (male 48,562,635; female 53,103,902) are over 65 years old. The population growth rate for 2006 is 0.59%. The PRC officially recognizes 56 distinct ethnic groups, the largest of which are the Han Chinese, who constitute about 91.9% of the total population. Large ethnic minorities include the Zhuang (16 million), Manchu (10 million), Hui (9 million), Miao (8 million), Uyghur (7 million), Yi (7 million), Tujia (5.75 million), Mongols (5 million), Tibetans (5 million), Buyei (3 million), and Koreans (2 million).

In the past decade, China's cities expanded at an average rate of 10% annually. The country's urbanization rate increased from 17.4% to 41.8% between 1978 and 2005, a scale unprecedented in human history. Between 80 and 120 million migrant workers work part-time in the major cities and return home to the countryside periodically with their earnings.

Today, the People's Republic of China has dozens of major cities with one million or more long-term residents, including the three global cities of Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Major cities in China play key roles in national and regional identity, culture and economics.

The figures below are from the 2008 census, and are only estimates of the population within administrative city limits; a different ranking exists when considering the total municipal populations (which includes suburban and rural populations). The large floating populations of migrant workers make conducting censuses in urban areas difficult; the figures below do not include the floating population, only long-term residents.

In 1986, China set the long-term goal of providing compulsory nine-year basic education to every child. As of 1997, there were 628,840 primary schools, 78,642 secondary schools and 1,020 higher education institutions in the PRC. In February 2006, the government advanced its basic education goal by pledging to provide completely free nine-year education, including textbooks and fees, in the poorer western provinces. As of 2002, 90.9% (male: 95.1%; female: 86.5%) of the population over age 15 are literate. China's youth (age 15 to 24) literacy rate is 98.9% (99.2% for males and 98.5% for females) in 2000. In March 2007, China announced the decision of making education a national "strategic priority", the central budget of the national scholarships will be tripled in two years and 223.5 billion Yuan (28.65 billion US dollars) of extra funding will be allocated from the central government in the next 5 years to improve the compulsory education in rural areas.

Many parents are highly committed to their children's education, often investing large portions of the family's income on education. Private lessons and recreational activities, such as in foreign languages or music, are popular among the middle-class families who can afford them.

The Ministry of Health, together with its counterparts in the provincial health bureaus, oversees the health needs of the Chinese population. An emphasis on public health and preventative treatment characterized health policy since the early 1950s. At that time, the party started the Patriotic Health Campaign, which was aimed at improving sanitation and hygiene, as well as attacking several diseases. This has shown major results as diseases like cholera, typhoid, and scarlet fever were nearly eradicated.

With economic reform after 1978, the health of the Chinese public improved rapidly because of better nutrition despite the disappearance, along with the People's Communes, of much of the free public health services provided in the countryside. Health care in China became largely private fee-for-service. This was widely criticised by the Islamic Hui populations of the North West, who were often unable to obtain medical support in their remote communities. By 2000, when the World Health Organization made a large study of public health systems throughout the world, The World Health Report 2000 Health Systems: Improving Performance the Chinese public health system ranked 144 of the 191 UN member states ranked.

The country's life expectancy at birth jumped from about 35 years in 1949 to 73.18 years in 2008, and infant mortality went down from 300 per thousand in the 1950s to about 23 per thousand in 2006. Malnutrition as of 2002 stood at 12 percent of the population according to United Nations FAO sources.

Despite significant improvements in health and the introduction of western style medical facilities, China has several emerging public health problems, which include respiratory problems as a result of widespread air pollution and millions of cigarette smokers, a possible future HIV/AIDS epidemic, and an increase in obesity among urban youths. Estimates of excess deaths in China from environmental pollution (apart from smoking) are placed at 760,000 people per annum from air and water pollution (including indoor air pollution). China's large population and close living quarters has led to some serious disease outbreaks in recent years, such as the 2003 outbreak of SARS (a pneumonia-like disease) which has since been largely contained.

China does allow a limited degree of religious freedom although the state is officially Atheist. However, official tolerance is only extended to members of state-approved religious organizations and not to those who worship underground, such as house churches. An accurate number of religious adherents is hard to obtain due to a lack of official data, but there is general consensus that religion has been enjoying a resurgence over the past 20 years. A survey by Phil Zuckerman on Adherents.com found that in 1998, 59% (over 700 million) of the population was irreligious. Meanwhile, another survey in 2007 found that there are 300 million (23% of the population) believers as opposed to an official figure of 100 million.

Despite the surveys' varying results, most agree that China's traditional religions – Buddhism, Taoism, and Chinese folk religions – are the dominant faiths. According to a number of sources, Buddhism in China accounts for between 660 million (~50%) and over 1 billion (~80%) while Taoists number 400 million (~30%). However, the number of adherents to these religions can be overcounted because one person may subscribe to one or more of these traditional beliefs simultaneously, and the difficulty in clearly differentiating Buddhism, Taoism, and Chinese folk religions. In addition, subscribing to Buddhism and Taoism is not necessarily considered religious by those who follow the philosophies in principle but stop short of subscribing to any kind of divinity. Most Chinese Buddhists are nominal adherents because only a small proportion of the population (over 8% or over 100 million) may have taken the formal step of going for refuge. Even then, it's still difficult to estimate accurately the number of Buddhists because they do not have congregational memberships and often do not participate in public ceremonies. Mahayana (大乘, Dacheng) and its subsets Pure Land (Amidism), Tiantai and Zen are the most widely practiced denominations of Buddhism. Other forms, such as Theravada and Tibetan, are practiced largely by ethnic minorities along the geographic fringes of the Chinese mainland.

Christianity in China was first introduced during the Tang period in the 7th century with the arrival of Nestorianism in 635 CE. This was followed by Franciscan missionaries in the 13th century, Jesuits in the 16th century, and finally Protestants in the 19th century, during which time Christianity began to make significant foothold in China. Of the minority religions, Christianity has been particularly noted as one of the fastest growing (especially since the last 200 years) and today may number between 40 million (3%) and 54 million (4%) according to independent surveys, while official estimates suggested that there are only 16 million Christians.

Islam in China dates to a mission in 651, eighteen years after Muhammad's death. Muslims came to China for trade, dominating the import/export industry during the Song Dynasty. They became influential in government circles, including Zheng He, Lan Yu and Yeheidie'erding. Nanjing became an important center of Islamic study. The Qing Dynasty waged war and genocide against Muslims in the Dungan revolt and Panthay rebellion. The number of Muslims in China today is estimated between 20 and 100 million by one source while most estimates figures that there are 20 to 30 million Muslims (1.5% to 2% of the population).

There are also followers of minority religions including Hinduism, Dongbaism, Bon, and a number of new religions and sects (particularly Xiantianism).

In July 1999, the Falun Gong spiritual practice was officially banned by the authorities, and many international organizations have criticized the persecution of Falun Gong that has occurred since then. According to official estimates, 50–70 million Chinese practised Falun Gong in 1998. Other estimates have varied, however: Falun Gong itself claims to have as many as 100 million practitioners, while the China's Ministry of Civil Affairs later claimed that there were as few as 2 million. As there is no official membership or lists, current global numbers are unknown.

The first leaders of the People's Republic of China were born in the old society but were influenced by the May Fourth Movement and reformist ideals. They sought to change some traditional aspects of Chinese culture, such as rural land tenure, sexism, and a Confucian education, while preserving others, such as the family structure and obedience to the state. Many observers believe that the period following 1949 is a continuation of traditional Chinese dynastic history, while others say that the CPC's rule has damaged the foundations of Chinese culture, especially through political movements such as the Cultural Revolution, where many aspects of traditional culture were labeled 'regressive and harmful' or 'vestiges of feudalism' by the regime and thus, were destroyed. They further argue that many important aspects of traditional Chinese morals and culture, such as Confucianism, Chinese art, literature, and performing arts like Beijing opera, were altered to conform to government policies and propaganda at the time. One example being Chinese character simplification, since traditional characters were blamed for the country's low literacy rate at the time. However, simplified Chinese characters are not used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.

Today, the Chinese government has accepted a great deal of traditional Chinese culture as an integral part of Chinese society, lauding it as an important achievement of the Chinese civilization and emphasizing it as vital to a Chinese national identity. Since the Cultural Revolution ended, various forms of traditional Chinese art, literature, music, film, fashion and architecture have seen a vigorous revival, and folk and variety art in particular have gained a new found respectability, and sparked interest nationally and even worldwide.

China has one of the oldest sporting cultures in the world, spanning the course of several millennia. There is, in fact, evidence that a form of football was played in China in ancient times. Besides football, some of the most popular sports in the country include martial arts, table tennis, badminton, swimming, and basketball. Board games such as Go (Weiqi), and Xiangqi (Chinese chess) and recently chess are also commonly played and have organized competitions.

Physical fitness is widely emphasized in Chinese culture. Morning exercises are a common activity and often one can find the elderly practicing qigong and tai chi chuan in parks or students doing stretches on school campuses. Young people are especially keen on basketball, especially in urban centers with limited space and grass areas. The NBA has a huge following among Chinese youths, with Yao Ming being the idol of many. The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, were held in Beijing.

Many traditional sports are also played. The popular Chinese dragon boat racing (龙舟) occurs during the Dragon Boat Festival. In Inner Mongolia, sports such as Mongolian-style wrestling and horse racing are popular. In Tibet, archery and equestrianism are a part of traditional festivals.

For dependent and other territories, see Dependent territory.

1 Partly or significantly in Europe.  2 The Republic of China (Taiwan) is not officially recognized by the United Nations; see Political status of Taiwan. 3 Partly or significantly in Africa.  4 Partly or wholly reckoned in Oceania.

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2005 Pan-Blue visits to mainland China

The 2005 Pan-Blue visits to mainland China, also known as the Third United Front of China (第三次國共合作), were a series of groundbreaking visits by delegations of the Kuomintang (KMT) to mainland China. They were hailed as the highest level of exchange between the Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang since Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong met in Chongqing, China on August 28, 1945.

On March 28, 2005, the Kuomintang's vice chairman Chiang Pin-kung led a delegation in the first official visit to mainland China by a senior leader of the Kuomintang in 60 years. Later, on April 26, 2005, a 70-member delegation led by the Kuomintang's chairman Lien Chan left Taipei for Nanjing via Hong Kong, launching Lien Chan's 8-day Taiwan Strait peace tour, also the first such visit to mainland China in 60 years.

While on the mainland, Lien met with President of the People's Republic of China Hu Jintao and expressed interest in improving cross-strait dialogues. Both also re-affirmed a belief in the "One China principle", which was not acknowledged by Taiwan's then-ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Lien's itinerary also included visits to Xi'an, where he had lived as a child during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II; Nanjing, the former capital of the Republic of China and the site of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum; and Shanghai, China's largest city and site of extensive Taiwanese financial and economic investment in recent years.

In 2004, the KMT first proposed that the former president candidate Lien Chan would visit mainland China as the elected President of the Republic of China, but this was set aside as Lien failed to win the 2004 ROC Presidential Election. In 2005, the KMT suggested initially sending the vice chairman of the party to the mainland, with further visits to follow. This plan was followed through on March 28, when Vice Chairman Chiang Pin-kung led his delegation to the mainland.

As part of the "Ice breaking tour", Chiang started his trip in Guangzhou, China to visit the graves of dozens of KMT members who died during an uprising against the Qing Dynasty in 1911. On the morning of March 30, the delegation visited the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing, then headed for Beijing to meet with CPPCC chairman Jia Qinglin. At the meeting, Jia conveyed Hu Jintao's invitation for Lien to Chiang. On April 1, Lien accepted the invitation at the Aichi Expo 2005.

Lien Chan and his 70-member delegation departed Taipei for Hong Kong on April 26, starting the 8-day "journey of peace" which the mainland Chinese media referred to as a "visit." The Chinese media changed the airport name from CKS airport to "Taoyuan airport" to avoid mentioning the name of former leader of KMT and the late President of the Republic of China, Chiang Kai-shek.

On that morning, about a thousand people gathered at the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, and violent conflict broke out among the supporters and opponents of the tour, resulting in many injuries.

Some Pan-Green supporters illegally brought guan daos, beer bottles, stones, eggs, firecrackers, clubs, and sharpened sugarcanes into the terminals and started beating Pan-Blue supporters and the police, throwing stones and setting off firecrackers in the meantime. Many members of the DPP, the TSU, and the Taiwan Independence Party were arrested, along with the host of a political talk show.

Pan-Blue supporters fought back, swearing "an eye for an eye". There were suspected Triad members clad in black in the mob, picking on Pan-Green's elderly supporters, causing many to be hospitalized. The New Party chairman Yok Mu-ming was arrested, along with other people in the Pan-Blue Coalition.

Outside the airport, Taiwan independence advocate Su Ming led many pan-Green supporters to use taxis to form a blockade on the highway, preventing Lien from reaching the airport, but they were repelled by the police. Su Ming and his followers then tried to light firecrackers in the terminal, and were later arrested.

Lien avoided the trouble entirely having been taken into the airport via a VIP entrance.

Because the Aviation Police Office of Taiwan proved inept in handling the riot, minister Chen Juit'ien was dismissed that evening. The Minister of the Interior Su Chiach'uan offered to resign, and the deputy minister's plea to resign was granted.

On the Internet, teenagers parodied the event with a mock Dynasty Warriors battle.

The delegation transferred onto China Eastern Airlines to Nanjing in Hong Kong, where they were greeted by the PRC Liaison Office of Hong Kong.

Lien and the delegation arrived at Nanjing Lukou International Airport on April 26, at 16:40. Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council head Chen Yunlin was at the airport to welcome the delegation. Lien delivered a short speech upon arrival, saying "Taipei and Nanjing are not too distant, but it still took 60 years to come here. It certainly took too long to make the journey." That night he attended a banquet hosted by the leader of the Jiangsu provincial government and lodged at the Jinling Hotel.

On April 27, the delegation visited the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, where Lien burnt incense for the former President surrounded by the general public and press reporters. Lien quoted Sun Yat-Sen's last words "peace, struggle, save China" to promote a healthy relationship across the strait. Lien was the first KMT chairman to visit the mausoleum for 56 years.

On the same day, Lien visited the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum, the former Republic of China Presidential Palace, Tianfei Gong, and the Fuzi Miao (Shrine of Confucius).

On the morning of April 28, Lien left Nanjing for Beijing.

In the afternoon of April 28, Lien and the delegation arrived in the Beijing Capital International Airport, where he delivered another speech. Then he attended a conference with the Taiwan Affairs Office in the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. Later, the delegation visited the Forbidden City. Lien met the CPPCC Chairman Jia Qinglin at the Great Hall of the People, and then watched a traditional Beijing opera performance.

On April 29, Lien gave a speech and answered questions from students and faculty in Peking University. He mentioned that both Hu Shih and former Taiwan University president Fu Sinian had graduated from Peking University, then worked at Taiwan University and spread liberalism there. "Therefore, in terms of liberalism, both Peking University and Taiwan University are born from the same root. Especially in the mainland, it can be said that it's a bastion of freedom." But a proportion of Taiwanese students disagreed, saying both Hu and Fu were fierce opponents of communism in favour of freedom of education, thus the two universities can't be compared, and protested outside the front gate.

That evening, Lien changed his plan for the night and met with Hu Jintao again. Reportedly, Hu Jintao invited Lien for a politics-free chat as it was Lien's last night in Beijing.

On April 30 at 11:25, the delegation arrived at Xi'an Xianyang International Airport, starting Lien's tour of his birthplace. Welcoming Lien were officials of the Shaanxi provincial government, Taiwanese businessmen in China, and children from Lien's elementary school.

At 3pm Lien returned to Houzaimen Elementary School (then called Beixinjie Elementary), which he had attended 60 years ago. There he gave a speech, and watched several presentations by the schoolchildren, among them the soon-famous "Grandpa You're Back" skit reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution. Lien later donated to the school library, and the school gave him a 7 m long wall scroll in return.

After visiting the school, the delegation visited the Terracotta Army. In the evening, Shaanxi provincial secretary Li Jianguo hosted a Tang Dynasty-style banquet for the delegation in the Tang Paradise theme park. Li presented the delegation with prints from the Stele Forest and ancient copperware, Lien in return gave famous Taiwanese glasswork. Later, the delegation watched the musical "Dream Back to the Tang" in the Fengming Jiutian Theatre.

Lien and his family members visited his grandmother's grave in Xi'an on May 1, and burnt incense at the nearby Qingliang Temple.

At 5pm on May 1, Lien arrived at Shanghai Pudong International Airport.

The next day, Lien cancelled his trip atop the Oriental Pearl Tower and held a press conference at the Shanghai Shangri-la Hotel. He later visited Wang Daohan at Jinjiang Hotel. At nine he toured Xintiandi, and took a harbour cruise to view The Bund at night.

On May 3, 1pm, Lien and his delegation flew back to Taipei, via Hong Kong.

The state media in mainland China covered the visit in great detail and much of the general public welcomed this delegation with enthusiasm.

The United States declared public support for Lien's visit, calling it a "step in the right direction for peace in the Taiwan Strait." However, the US has stressed that it would like to see the Communist Party of China (CPC) have talks with Taiwan's current ruling party, as well as the KMT. Western political analysts have compared the handshake of Lien and Hu Jintao to that of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat.

In Taiwan, public opinion was split. While polls showed that more than half of the people didn't oppose this visit, the DPP argued that the People's Republic of China was attempting to play a divide-and-conquer game with Taiwan and causing a "widening schism" among the Taiwanese. TSU affiliate Lee Teng-hui condemned the visits of Lien and Soong (see below), calling them "mainland sympathizers" who want to undermine Taiwan's sovereignty.

Republic of China (ROC) President Chen Shui-bian initially condemned Lien and said that his visit might be in violation of ROC law. However, several days later Chen Shui-bian reversed his opinions and showed a cautious goodwill gesture to Lien's visit. Chen has also altered his stance on Taiwan independence. During the 2004 Taiwan election he stressed his support for Taiwan independence, he now says that "both independence and re-unification are options" for Taiwan's future. Political fallout from Lien's trip is believed to have contributed to this change in rhetoric.

After Lien's visit, the PRC offered three "goodwill gifts" to the ROC: the normalization of tourism, which would allow direct flights across the Taiwan Strait; agricultural trade agreements that would increase sales of Taiwan produce to the mainland; and two pandas for the Taipei Zoo. After much deliberation, authorities in Taiwan declined the final gift, saying that Taipei Zoo was not suited to the task of nurturing pandas. This decision is expected to be overturned following the election of Ma Ying-jeou to the presidency in March 2008.

James Soong, leader of the People First Party, followed Lien's visit on May 5 with a 9-day visit of his own. Like Lien, Soong also met with President Hu Jintao and expressed an interest in increasing cross-strait dialogue.

After Soong's visit, President Chen extended an invitation to Hu Jintao to visit Taiwan so that he "can see with his own eyes that Taiwan is a sovereign nation." However, the CPC continues to show a lack of interest in dealing with Chen and the DPP.

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President of the People's Republic of China

The President of the People's Republic of China (simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国主席; traditional Chinese: 中華人民共和國主席; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó Zhǔxí, literally Chairman of the Chinese People's Republic, or abbreviated Guójiā Zhǔxí 国家主席, literally State Chairman) is the head of state of the People's Republic of China. The office was created by the 1982 Constitution. Formally, the President is elected by the National People's Congress in accordance with Article 62 of the Constitution. In practice, this election falls into the category of 'single-candidate' elections. The candidate is recommended by the Presidium of the National People's Congress.

The term Zhuxi refers to the chairman in a committee, and was translated as such prior to the 1982 constitution (as in Chairman Mao, although Mao's title refers primarily to the position of Party Chairman which he held from 1945 until death). The official translation switched to President after 1982 in conformity with Western terminology. However, Zhuxi stayed in Chinese, and in other contexts still corresponds to chairman in English. Meanwhile, the translation of English term President as the head of other states remained Zongtong (simplified Chinese: 总统; traditional Chinese: 總統; pinyin: zǒng tǒng), causing a bit of confusion with regard to usage.

According to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, the National People's Congress (NPC), in theory China's top law-making body, has the power to elect and force the resignation of the President. By law, the President must be a Chinese citizen of 45 years of age or older. The President cannot serve for over two successive terms, a term being the equivalent of one session of the NPC, which is five years.

The President promulgates statutes adopted by the NPC and NPCSC. Academically, the President also has the power to appoint the Premier, Vice-Premiers, State Council members and Ministers of all departments upon the nomination of the Premier, all ambassadors to foreign countries, and all legislative committee chairs, treasurers and secretaries. The President has the power to give Special Presidential Decrees, and can declare State of Emergency, and declare War. The President is assisted by the Vice-President.

In the event that the President dies or leaves office, the Vice-President automatically assumes presidential powers. In the event that they both are unable to perform normal duties, the Chairman of the National People's Congress will perform the duties of the President as Acting President until the NPC can elect a new President.

As the President is legally China's head of state, he is responsible for China's foreign affairs. Since the early 1990s, the President has also been the General Secretary of CPC, who has generally responsible for establishing general policy and direction for the state and leaves responsibility for the implementation details to the Premier of the People's Republic of China, who is the head of government. The Chinese Presidency has grown to be quite a powerful position since it combines with the General Secretary, who is the head of the Party.

Also since the 1990s, it has been general practice for the President to also serve as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China.

It is key for the general secretary to seal his diplomatic power by adding the presidency to his powerful collection of titles. This effectively removes any power tension between the top Communist leader and the Head of State.

The relationship between the President and the military is a bit more murky. The potential for conflict is lessened when, as during the Jiang era, the President is also chairman of the state Central Military Commission. However, there is a source of potential conflict when this is not the case, shown by the situation in 2003 when top Communist leader Hu Jintao was elected President without being elected the CMC Chair. In addition, most of the members of both the Party and the State Central Military Commission are uniformed senior generals, giving the People's Liberation Army a degree of autonomy. This autonomy, however, is limited by the existence of political officer.

In principle, when the President is also party general secretary, he could order the Party Central Military Commission to order the state Central Military Commission to do something, however how this would work in a crisis is unclear.

There have been proposals to constitutionally change the system of command to form a National Security Council, modelled after the National Security Council of the United States, which would give the President undisputed command of the military which would then be just another ministry. These proposals were not actively discussed because of opposition from senior generals. In September 2004, Jiang stepped down as Chairman of the commission, and President Hu Jintao became the Commander-in-Chief of the People's Liberation Army.

After the implementation of the Constitution of People's Republic of China in 1954, Mao Zedong, who had served as the Chairman of the Central People's Government since 1949, was selected Chairman of the People's Republic of China. Mao, who was also Chairman of the Communist Party of China and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, was clearly the most powerful person in China. In the Constitution of 1954, the President (officially translated as "Chairman") of the PRC was intended to be very powerful, serving both as the Head of State, and the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The president had special powers to call upon emergency meetings during a crisis or concerns of national security.

After his failures in the Great Leap Forward, Mao decided to give up the State presidency in 1959. He was succeeded to this post by Liu Shaoqi, who along with Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, took on a more active role in government to curb the excesses of the Great Leap Forward and restore Soviet-based centrally planned economy. However, in 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution to re-assert his personal power and overthrow the Liu government. The state and party apparatus broke down and in 1968, Chairman Liu Shaoqi was arrested and humiliated by the Red Guards.

Chairman Liu died in prison and he was not replaced. Mao concentrated powers centrally into the hands of the Party Chairman, and the CMC Chairman, which were further exercised by various Revolutionary Committees. The ceremonial duties associated with the Head of State were subsequently passed to the Chairman of the National People's Congress, the national legislature. The exact reason why Mao Zedong refused to reinstate the presidency was unclear, however it is now known that Mao did not want his political struggle with Liu Shaoqi to be remembered as his attempt to claim the title of the presidency for himself. Lin Biao, then China's number-two figure, advocated for the reinstatement of the position of President, with Mao taking the position and himself becoming Vice-President. Mao later considered this to be a threat to his power, as the Vice-President can legally succeed the President in the event of the latter's death. But during the early 1980s, it became clearer that China needed a person to serve as the Head of State, albeit completely ceremonial. Soong Ching-ling, the widow of Sun Yat-sen and former vice-chairwoman of PRC, was named to be the Honorary President of the PRC before the passage of the Constitution of 1982.

In the Constitution of 1982, the President was conceived of as a figurehead head of state with actual state power resting in the hands of the Premier of the People's Republic of China and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, both of which were conceived of as being separate people; the President will only hold the office of the President, and not intervene directly in matters of the State Council or the Party. The President therefore held minor responsibilities such as greeting foreign dignitaries, and signing the appointment of embassy staff. In the original 1982 Constitution plan, the Party would develop policy, the state would execute it, and the power would be divided to prevent a cult of personality from forming as it did with the case of Mao Zedong. Thus in 1982, China perceivably had four main leaders: Hu Yaobang, the Party General Secretary; Zhao Ziyang, the Premier; Li Xiannian, the President; and Deng Xiaoping, the "Paramount Leader", holding title of the Chairman of the CMC.

Subsequent events, however, caused the office to have much larger powers than was originally intended. In 1989, then President Yang Shangkun was able in cooperation with the then Chairman of the Central Military Commission Deng Xiaoping to use the office of the President to declare martial law in Beijing and order the military crackdown of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. This was in direct opposition to the wishes of Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang and probably a majority of the Politburo Standing Committee.

In the 1990s, the experiment of separating party and state posts, which led to bitter division, was terminated, and in 1992, the post of President was taken by Jiang Zemin, who as General Secretary and chief of the Central Military Commission continued to make the office of the President a powerful position. When Jiang Zemin stepped down in 2003, the offices of General Secretary and President were once again both given to one man, then Vice-President Hu Jintao.

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