Brève synthèse historique sur la Chine - en anglais

What is China?

The People's Republic of China, commonly known as China, is located in East Asia.

It is the most populous state in the world with a 1.3 billion citizens, while the world's population is 6.8 billion. That means other every 5 people in the world, one is Chinese.

China's made of 56 distinctive ethnic groups with Han Chinese making the 92% of its whole population.

China is a single party state governed by the Communist Party of China, whose power is enshrined in Chinese constitution.

Though China is officially an atheist country, its religious roots lie within Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and from these most social and moral values are derived. There are also a significant number of Chinese Muslims, who arrived via the Silk Road trade route and still retain their distinct culture.

History

China is one of the world oldest civilizations, dating back more than 5 million year and was ruled by successive dynasties until 1912.

During these times, many great discoveries in fields of science and technology were made, including the inventions of printing, paper, gun power and compass.

This period also saw the construction of many landmarks such as the great wall, which stretches over 4000 miles; equals to 30 return travels from London to Paris.

After a period of foreign occupation and civil war, the Communist Party of China led by Mao gained control of Mainland China in 1949 and established PRC.

The modern China of today is as much shaped by its past as its rapidly looking to the future. While many of its big cities are comparable any in the west, the underlying culture is still vastly different. Traveling outside large urban areas also highlights the growing disparity between rich and poor.

Language

Chinese which is the most widely spoken language in the world as well as one of the most impenetrable for foreigners. There are many regional dialects of Chinese although the most widely spoken is Mandarin and Cantonese.

Chinese characters evolved over time from earlier forms of hieroglyphs. Chinese contains over 40,000 characters, but a well-educated person can recognize around 6000 characters, some 3000 are required to read a newspaper.

Chinese calendar

Chinese Zodiac is a scheme that relates each year to an animal. Chinese New Year is the most important of traditional Chinese holidays. Windows and doors will be decorated with red color paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of happiness, wealth, and longevity. On the Eve of Chinese New Year, supper is a feast with families. The family will end the night with firecrackers. Early the next morning, children will meet their parents by wishing them a healthy and happy new year, and receive money in red paper envelopes

Chinese people love red color, which symbolizes prosperity and good luck.

The period around Chinese new year is also the time of the largest human migration and between 150 and 200 million migrant workers in China bring home their earnings and go to have a unit dinner with their families on Chinese new year eve.

Youth

Most married couples in China are subjected to one child policy, which is introduced in 1979 to curb massive population growth. It is believed to have prevented more than 300 million births since then.

Another consequence of the policy has been the emergence of so-called "little emperors”, a generation of self-centered consumers has developed.

While Chinese education system has rapidly developed, there remains a heavy emphasis on passing exams. The upshot of this is that exams dictate the curriculum while Chinese students can master and memorize incredible amounts of knowledge and information, they often lack the ability to critically think, develop their own opinions, and engage in creative activities. Due to the propensity for preferring sons over daughters, China is facing a large population imbalance with currently around 120 boys born for every 100 girls. By 2020,there will be 30 million more men than women.

Economy

Since economic opening up and reform policy began in 1978,China's economy has grown 90 times bigger, and is the fastest growing major economy in the world. China’s annual average GDP growth is predicted to be 9.5 percent for the period of 2011-2015.It is the world's largest exporter and the second largest importer of goods.

It is also known as the world's second biggest consumer of luxury goods.

It now has the world's second largest GDP at about 6 trillion US dollars, 40 percent of the United States.

China's growth has been

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