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China
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Formal Name:
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People’s Republic of China
(PRC)
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Location and Area:
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China, located in the east of Asia continent, on the western shore of the Pacific Ocean, has a landmass
of 9,600,000 sq km, and is the fourth-largest country in the world. The borders are above 20
thousand kms with 14 countries.
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Climate:
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Most of the area in china is located
the North Temperate Zone. The four seasons is clearly, and the weather is more
comfortable. The particular weather is continental monsoon. The temperature
different is extremely diverse, tropical in the south to subarctic in the
north. The strong, dry and cold winter airstreams blow from Siberia and Mongol plateau in
September to April, and then the warm, wet summer airstreams blow east and
south oceanic wind in April to September. Rainfall is also extreme diverse,
average 200mm in northwest, while 1500mm is in southeast.
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National Day:
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1st October
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Popular & Religion:
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China is the world’s most populous country with 1.28453 billion at the
end of 2002, one-fifth of the world’s total. The population density is 134
people per sq km. This figure does not include the Chinese living in the Hong Kong and Macao special
administrative regions, and Taiwan.
China is a multi-ethnic
nation with 56 recognized ethnicities. 91.6% of Chinese people are Han. The non-Han population includes
55 ethnic minorities, of which the major groups are the Zhuang, Manchu, Hui,
Miao, Uygur, Yi, Tujia, Mongolian, Tibetan, The population of 18 major ethnic
are over one million in the census of 2000. And China
also practices religious tolerating policy. The number of religious
worshippers in China is estimated at well over 100 million, most of whom follow
Buddhism, Taoism and Traditional religious. Other major religions are Islam
and Christianity in both its Catholic and Protestant forms
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Language:
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Standard Chinese or Mandarin
(Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect) is officially language. And the others local dialects
such as Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghaiese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan
(Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, and Hakka are popular in its own place, as
well as minority languages.
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Administrative Divisions:
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China is made up of 23 provinces, five autonomous regions, four
municipalities (Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai and Tianjin) directly under the Central Government, and the special
administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao. Capital is Beijing, The largest city is Shanghai, The
largest south city of Special
Economic Zones is Zheng
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Brief History:
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China is the world's oldest continuous major civilization, with written
records dating back about 5,000 years. Han Dynasty had established the feudal
society in 5th century B.C. In 2nd century B.C., China had
been union empire with multi-ethnic, full of cultural books and records. In 1st
century B.C., China was one of the most civilization country in the world. In 7th
century A.D., China had became outstanding in cultural, scientific and business
country. Four important invention: compass, paper making, printing and
exploding powder make a great contribution to the world. The advanced agriculture
and artistic handcraft are well known. In 15th century, China
had a crisis from the invading of European. In 1840 the the First Opium War
erupted. China lost the war; subsequently, and got into semi-colonization by Western
powers. Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and the others were
ceded forcibly. The Wuchang Uprising began in 1911.
The provisional government of the Republic of China was formed
After World War II, the Chinese
Civil War between the Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang ended in
1949 with the Communists in control of mainland China the Kuomintang in
control of Taiwan and some outlying islands of Fujian. On October 1, 1949, Mao
Zedong declared the People's Republic of China and established a communist
state. After the death of Mao in 1976, Deng Xiaoping succeeded to power and
mainland China remained under Communist rule. Since then, the government has gradually
loosened governmental control over people's personal lives and engaged in
reforms to transform its planned economy into a market-based one.
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Economy Overviews:
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I Beginning
in late 1978 China has been practiced “Chinese Communism-style market-oriented economy”. This has resulted to move the
economy from a centrally planned economy to a more market-oriented economy
but still within a rigid political framework of government control. To this
end the authorities have switched to increase the authority of local
officials and plant managers in industry, to permit a wide variety of
small-scale enterprise in services and light manufacturing, and to open the
economy to increased foreign trade and investment. The government has emphasized raising personal
income and consumption and introducing new management systems to help
increase productivity. The government also has focused on foreign trade as a
major vehicle for economic growth, for which purpose it set up over 2000 Special Economic Zones (SEZ) where investment
laws are relaxed in order to attract foreign capital. The result has been a
quadrupling of GDP about 7-8% per year. Economic
development is believed to be among the fastest in the world. China’s economy continues to grow rapidly, over 10,000 billion, with a
GDP real growth rate of 8% in 2002, China
stood as the second-largest economy in the world after the US. An
annual industrial production growth rate of 11.6% between 1979 and 2000. The
products include iron and steel, coal, machine building, armaments, textiles
and apparel, petroleum, cement, chemical fertilizers, footwear, toys, food
processing, automobiles, consumer electronics, telecommunications.
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