Dynastic Period
China is the oldest continuous major world civilisation with records dating back about 3 500 years. Successive dynasties developed a system of bureaucratic control which gave the agrarian-based Chinese an advantage over neighbouring nomadic and hill cultures. Chinese civilisation was further strengthened by the development of a Confucian (Kongzi) state ideology and a common written language that bridged the gaps among the country's many local languages and dialects. Whenever China was conquered by nomadic tribes as it was by the Mongols in the 13th century the conquerors sooner or later adopted the ways of the "higher" Chinese civilisation and staffed the bureaucracy with Chinese.
The last dynasty was established in 1644 when the nomadic Manchus overthrew the native Ming dynasty and established the Qing dynasty with Beijing as its capital. At great expense in blood and treasure the Manchus over the next half century gained control of many border areas including Xinjiang, Yunnan, Mongolia, and Taiwan. The success of the early Qing period was based on the combination of Manchu martial prowess and traditional Chinese bureaucratic skills. :]
During the 19th century Qing control weakened and prosperity diminished. China suffered massive social strife economic stagnation explosive population growth and Western penetration and influence. The Taiping and Nian rebellions along with a Russian-supported Muslim separatist movement in Xinjiang drained Chinese resources and almost toppled the dynasty. Britain's desire to continue its illegal opium trade with China collided with imperial edicts prohibiting the addictive drug and the First Opium War erupted in 1840. China lost the war; subsequently Britain and other Western powers including the United States forcibly occupied "concessions" and gained special commercial privileges. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanjing and in 1898 when the Opium Wars finally ended Britain executed a 99-year lease of the New Territories significantly expanding the size of the Hong Kong colony. -- NASTY!!
As time went on the Western powers wielding superior military technology gained more economic and political privileges. Reformist Chinese officials argued for the adoption of Western technology to strengthen the dynasty and counter Western advances but the Qing court played down both the Western threat and the benefits of Western technology.
Early 20th Century China
Frustrated by the Qing court's resistance to reform young officials military officers and students--inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yat-sen--began to advocate the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and creation of a republic. A revolutionary military uprising on October 10 1911 led to the abdication of the last Qing monarch. As part of a compromise to overthrow the dynasty without a civil war the revolutionaries and reformers allowed high Qing officials to retain prominent positions in the new republic. One of these figures General Yuan Shikai was chosen as the republic's first president. Before his death in 1916 Yuan unsuccessfully attempted to name himself emperor. His death left the republican government all but shattered ushering in the era of the "warlords" during which China was ruled and ravaged by shifting coalitions of competing provincial military leaders.
In the 1920s Sun Yat-sen established a revolutionary base in south China and set out to unite the fragmented nation. With Soviet assistance he organized the Kuomintang (KMT or "Chinese Nationalist People's Party") and entered into an alliance with the fledgling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After Sun's death in 1925 one of his proteges Chiang Kai-shek seized control of the KMT and succeeded in bringing most of south and central China under its rule. In 1927 Chiang turned on the CCP and executed many of its leaders. The remnants fled into the mountains of eastern China. In 1934 driven out of their mountain bases the CCP's forces embarked on a "Long March" across China's most desolate terrain to the northwest where they established a guerrilla base at Yan'an in Shaanxi Province.

The People's Republic of China

In Beijing on October 1 1949 Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China. The new government assumed control of a people exhausted by two generations of war and social conflict and an economy ravaged by high inflation and disrupted transportation links. A new political and economic order modeled on the Soviet example was quickly installed.