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      Chairman Mao Zedong greeting US President Richard Nixon in Beijing on February 21, 1972, an important step in paving the way for normal relations between China and the United States.

      MAO ZEDONG AND THE FOUNDING OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

      Mao Zedong was born to wealthy parents in Shaoshan, Hunan Province, in 1893. The revolution of 1911 and other movements during the early republican period had a significant impact on him. These incidents contributed to his adoption of Chinese nationalist and anti-imperialist views. He adopted Marxism-Leninism while working at Peking University. He was an early member of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and soon rose to a senior position. He helped to create a revolutionary peasant army and organized rural land reform. Mao was in charge of the CCP when the Japanese were defeated in 1945. He led the Communists to victory against the Nationalists in 1949. On October 1, 1949, Mao stood at the front gate of the Forbidden City overlooking Tiananmen Square and proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China, a one-party socialist state.

      Under Mao’s leadership, radical land reform was instituted, overthrowing feudal landlords, confiscating their huge land holdings and dividing up the land into communes worked by peasants. He was instrumental in industrializing the country, reforming Chinese script, raising the status of women, improving education and health care and providing universal housing. The population of China doubled during his leadership. Mao is not without his critics. Although he is considered to be one of the most important individuals in modern world history, many of his reforms resulted in widespread famine, political chaos and systematic human rights abuses.

      Soldiers from the Chinese Communist People's Liberation Army taking over Fuzhou from the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) on August 17, 1949.

      SUN YAT-SEN: THE FATHER OF MODERN CHINA

      Sun Yat-sen (1886–1925) was an early revolutionary and was instrumental in the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. He was the first president and the founding father of the Republic of China (nationalist China). Revered by both Communists and nationalists, Sun Yat-sen was a co-founder of the Kuomintang (KMT), organized shortly after the 1911 revolution, and served as its first leader. He is considered the father of modern China and one of its greatest leaders. He is best known for developing a political philosophy known as the Three Principles of the People: nationalism, Democracy and the People’s Livelihood. He died of liver cancer at the age of 58 before his political ideals could be realized. He is buried in a large mausoleum in the hills outside nanjing, in Jiangsu Province.

      DENG XIAOPING AND CHINA’S ECONOMIC MIRACLE

      Deng Xiaoping (1904–97) was an early member of the Communist Party of China and a reformist leader. After Mao’s death, he rose to power and implemented economic reforms that led China toward a market economy. He was the paramount leader of China from 1978 to 1992. He implemented what is known as ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’. His economic theory and plan became known as a ‘socialist market economy’. He brought foreign investment, limited private enterprise and global marketing to China. He is credited with developing China into one of the major world economies and raising the standard of living of hundreds of millions of Chinese.

      US President Gerald Ford in an informal meeting with Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping in Beijing in 1975.

      CHINA’S PRESIDENT

      Xi Jinping (1953–) is the current President of China and Head of State, a figurehead under the National People’s Congress. More importantly, he has served as General Secretary of the Central Committee since November 2012. This is the highest position within China’s Communist Party structure and is widely considered the most powerful position in the country. He also serves as Commander in Chief of the joint battle command center, which ensures that he enjoys the support of China’s military. He is originally from Beijing and studied engineering and law at the prestigious Qinghua University.

      Xi Jinping, China’s current President and Head of State since 2013. He served as Vice President from 2008 to 2013.

      The Oriental Pearl Radio and TV Tower by the side of the Huangpu River in Pudong, opposite the Bund, is another distinctive landmark.

      Three mega skyscrapers in the Pudong district of Shanghai: The Shanghai World Financial Center, Jinmao Tower and Shanghai Tower.

      THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

      To an outsider, the written Chinese language may seem like indecipherable chicken scratchings, but a language that has been in continuous use for thousands of years certainly makes sense to 1.3 billion Chinese. It is true that Chinese is vastly different from Western languages and it does take rigorous study to master. But it is a fascinating language to learn, spoken by more people than any other language.

      THE WORLD’S FIRST WRITING

      China has the world’s oldest writing system still in use. There are older systems, such as Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Sumerian Cuneiform script, but they fell out of use long ago. The Chinese writing system that we can trace back to 1200 BCE is still recognizable to those who know Chinese. Although the system has evolved over time, it is still based on Chinese characters.

      The earliest Chinese characters were written on the shoulder bones of oxen and on turtle shells. These early characters were used in divination ceremonies to predict the future. They are commonly referred to as ‘oracle bones’. The vast majority of these bones date to the Shang Dynasty (1650–1045 BCE). Most of the characters are pictographs, stylized pictures of an object such as a tiger, a table, an eye or a horse.

      By the Zhou Dynasty (1045–256 BCE), Chinese characters were being cast onto bronze vessels. The earliest Chinese books consisted of bamboo slats with a row of Chinese characters written on them vertically. These slats were then lashed together to form a book. Later, Chinese was written on silk scrolls, then finally on paper.

      Oracle bone writing or jiaguwen. This is the earliest form of writing in China dating to as early as 1045 BCE. These characters were carved on the shoulder bones of oxen and on turtle shells.

      CLASSICAL CHINESE

      Early in Chinese history, the language already consisted of various spoken dialects. When the writing system was developed, a standard written form was promoted from as early as the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE) in an attempt to unite the various kingdoms of the time. This writing system evolved into a written form called ‘literary’ or ‘classical’ Chinese. It was based on a spoken dialect but was not associated with any particular one. Over time, the written language and spoken varieties of Chinese grew apart until the situation was similar to the use of Latin in ancient Europe, where Latin was used for written documents but people continued to speak different languages. Classical Chinese was the written standard that all educated people used for written communication and literature of all kinds, but which no one spoke. This classical language was commonly used until the early part of the 20th century.

      This literary language became canonized with the introduction of the Confucian Classics. These writings consisted of works that were associated with a classical education. Originally, they consisted of five books that were promoted by scholars as the most important works of literature with the power to improve the common man. We don’t

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