China today in figures

Although our aim is to provide a historical and cultural background to each civilisation presented in this book, the characteristics of modern-day China are also worth mentioning. China is known to be the world’s most populated country with over 1.4 billion inhabitants, which is 140 times more than the population of Hungary. Although the population of India is likely to overtake in the 2020s, China’s vast manpower will continue to represent a significant resource.

2.1.2. Geography

With an area of over 9.6 million km², the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is the largest country in East Asia and the third or fourth biggest country in the world, which makes it over twice the size of the European Union, and a hundred times bigger than Hungary. The uncertainty in ranking is due to deliberation of disputed territories. Western ranking disregards these territories (e.g. Taiwan, some parts of Kashmir), which makes the PRC somewhat smaller than the United States of America; China’s raking, naturally mindful of these territories, makes it slightly bigger than the USA. Regardless of political standing, the area of the continental United States without Alaska measuring 1.5 million km² is signifi-cantly smaller than that of China. China’s enormous size and varied topography have determined climatic conditions, which in turn have influenced agricultural potential, with an ultimate impact on Chinese history and culture (Map 1).

4 The author hereby wishes to thank Sándor Kusai, former Ambassador of Hungary to China for his assistance and advice in finalising this chapter. Special thanks to sinologist Judit Bagi for standardising the transcription of Chinese names and providing illustrations.

Map 1: The geographical location and natural conditions of China Source: Edited by ÁGNES VARGA

The dominant geographical feature that determines the history, progress and still standing geostrategic considerations of China is the country’s naturally isolated position. For a better understanding, let’s take an imaginary trip around the borders of China. Due to the fact that most countries of the Indochinese Pen-insula had been separated from Northeast Asia by dense rainforest-covered mountains, communications between the historical states occupying modern-day Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar respectively the Chinese Empire were restricted, except for the Ancient Tea Horse Road that fostered regular trading.

The only, although significant exception was Vietnam, whose coastal location made it easily accessible, leading to lively cultural and political interactions with China. As an additional point of interest, the above described isolation is also identifiable in the languages and, in particular, the writing systems developed across Asia. While the Thai, Cambodian and other Southeast Asian writing sys-tems differed significantly, Vietnam had used Chinese characters until the nine-teenth-century French colonisation and changed to the Latin alphabet under pres-sure from Europe.

Progressing further in a southwesterly direction, the Himalayan mountain range, one of the world’s most spectacular natural borders separates China from another ancient surviving civilisation: India. The several thousand kilometres

long mountain range proved a highly effective barrier; although the Tibetan Plateau fell into Chinese hands on multiple occasions, interactions between China and India remained relatively limited, in fact, the two giants had not even engaged in war against each other until the twentieth century.

Perhaps even more obvious is the vast distance, and the enormous wilder-ness that separates China and the West. From the core territory of the empire, i.e.

modern-day Eastern China the nearest main civilisations that the ancient caravans met comprised Europe towards the west and Persia and the Ottoman Empire to-wards south-east, each one separated from another by vast barren lands stretching for thousands of kilometres dotted with deserts and nomadic tribes. The Silk Road itself presented several months’ or even a year’s worth of dangerous journeying, which makes it hardly surprising that cultural interactions between the Roman Empire and the subsequently evolved European and Western Asian states respec-tively China were rather insignificant.

The northern borders were made up of Mongolia’ nomadic tribes and the East Siberian wastelands, while China’s eastern coastal position had brought iso-lation until the start of European invasion in the late eighteenth century, thus lim-iting civilisational impact to the easily accessible territories, such as Korea, Japan and the Southeast Asian islands.

China’s topography is greatly varied; the Tibetan Plateau at an average altitude of 4,000 metres above sea level represents the highest topographical level. Towards the east the altitude decreases gradually; the next level includes the Kunlun Mountains, the Tianshan Mountains and the Yunnan Plateau, fol-lowed by the Taklamakan Desert, the Gobi Desert and the Sichuan Basin in Cen-tral and Northwest China, and finally the coastal lowlands that represent the core of Chinese civilisation. The vast expanse and the topographical features deter-mine the climatic conditions as well; projecting the map of China over Europe would indicate the northeastern regions of the PRC overlapping the northern range of the Ural Mountains, the western Xinjiang autonomous region overlap-ping Iceland, and Hainan Island in the south overlapoverlap-ping Sicily. Consequently, the northern regions of former Manchuria experience Siberian winter climate, while the southerly Canton (Guangdong) and Hainan enjoy subtropical condi-tions. At the same time, the Tibetan Plateau measuring over one million square kilometres in the Himalayan range is often termed the Third Pole of the Earth due to its ice fields containing the largest reserve of fresh water outside the polar re-gions. However, as precipitation fails to spread to Central Asia, the regions of Qinghai, Xinjiang, Ningxia and Central Mongolia covering in total almost three million square kilometres are dry, bare and often desertlike.

In terms of civilisational development, the three great rivers crossing China have been particularly important. The almost 5,500 km long Yellow River

(Huanghe) runs in the north, and the 6,380 km long Yangtze (Chang Jiang), the third longest river in the world, runs in Central China. The Pearl River (Zhujiang) is another extensive river system in southern China.

Due to the above presented geographical features the territories suitable for cultivation are relatively small and concentrated in the east, particularly in the plains of Northeast China. At the same time, the western regions are essentially uncultivable, thus resulting in highly varied population density figures across China. The East-West divide is complemented with a barrier that separates the North from the South. Although rice is believed to be the most important staple food in China, it is only characteristic in the south, while the northern regions mostly rely on cereal crops suited to drier climatic conditions (rye, and more re-cently wheat). According to certain theories these differences have influenced even the mentality of the population. Terraced rice cultivation and irrigation re-quired significant community effort, fostering collective thinking and a more holistic approach in southern China. On the contrary, wheat farming manageable by individual families has led to a more individualistic and analytical approach characteristic in the north. Naturally, the internal migratory processes in recent decades have greatly reduced the differences but, similarly to Europe, the North-South divide in terms of mentality and lifestyle still survives.

2.1.3. Population

Historically China has been one of the world’s most populated regions.

Already two thousand years ago it had an estimated population of seventy million people, roughly the equivalent of the Roman Empire. Over the next centuries the population increased slowly in a wavelike pattern, coming to a period of stagna-tion during the bloody years of the nineteenth century. When the PRC was founded in 1949 it had approximately 500 million inhabitants, but the stabilisa-tion of food supply led to unprecedented growth. In the mid-1960s the populastabilisa-tion of China reached 700 million inhabitants, and increased further to over one billion in 1982, and to approximately 1.4 billion in 2010. The number of inhabitants in certain provinces is nowadays comparable to the population of sizeable countries:

the provinces of Sichuan, Shandong and Canton each hold more inhabitants than Germany. The population distribution, similar to agriculture, is extremely une-ven; 94 percent of the population is concentrated in the east, occupying 45 percent of the total area of China. Consequently, it means that, according to Chinese standards, the larger western part of the country is virtually uninhabited. The Xin-jiang Autonomous Region covering over 1.5 million square kilometres holds a population of barely more than 20 million people, while the Tibet Autonomous

Region covering 1.2 million square kilometres is home to less than three million inhabitants.

Ethnic heterogeneity is another characteristic feature; in addition to the Han Chinese majority there are 55 officially recognised ethnic minority groups in China. Many observers who question the sustainability of the Chinese state argue that holding together a country of 56 ethnic groups is impossible, although they disregard the ratios within the population. Indeed, while the Han Chinese majority constitutes 91.5 percent of the population, the remaining 55 ethnic mi-norities represent a mere 8.5 percent altogether (Figure 4). The majority of China’s society is made up of more than 1.2 billion Han Chinese people; at the same time Zhuang, the largest ethnic minority comprises barely 16 million indi-viduals, while the Tibetan community is officially made up of 6 million people.

China’s ethnic distribution is also uneven. The vast majority of the Han popula-tion is concentrated in the core territory, i.e. the eastern provinces most suited for cultivation with extremely high population density. At the same time, the western regions covering 55 percent of China’s total area are virtually uninhabited; the Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongols and other ethnic groups have very low population numbers compared to the size of their traditionally occupied territories.

Figure 4: Buddhist women of the Bai ethnic community at a festival honouring the elders, Yunnan province.

Source: Photograph by JUDIT BAGI

The ethnogenesis of the Han Chinese people began 4‒5,000 years ago, assimilating numerous ethnic groups throughout history. The process is still on-going; due to technological development the standard Chinese language called Putonghua is becoming increasingly prominent, gradually reducing the regional

differences between Chinese dialects, and assimilating more and more minorities into the mainstream society (Figure 5).

Figure 5: The sacredness of writing. Outdoor calligraphy in Beijing.

Source: Photograph by JUDIT BAGI

All this is connected with the issue of national identity as well, built pri-marily not on a classical ethnic but on a wider civilisational-political foundation that also includes minorities. It should be noted that the name of the country Chung-hua, Zhonghua (Zhongguo) reflects no ethnic identity either, but a per-ception of the world: the ‘Middle Kingdom’.

2.1.4. Language

Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan languages; the different varieties of Chinese are used by the 1.2 billion member Han community. In truth it would be more accurate to speak of Chinese languages; according to some linguists the differences in verbal communication across the country are so great that it would

be more appropriate to identify each version as an individual member of the same language family. The Chinese themselves speak of dialects of the common Chi-nese language, although the differences between the individual dialects are in fact comparable to those between the Latin (Romance) languages. The most widely used dialect, Mandarin Chinese is spoken by approximately 960 million people, based on a northern dialect which has developed into the standard (Putonghua) language. Other main varieties include Wu (80 million people) spoken in the Shanghai region, along the lower Yangtze River; Min (70 million people) spoken in Southeast China; and Yue (60 million people) used in Canton and the southern region. It is important to note that the speakers of different dialects (languages) do not understand each other easily. The northern Chinese dialects, although sim-ilar themselves, greatly differ from the southern dialects, while people in South China often fail to understand one another. The special characteristic of these so-called tonal languages is that there are four major tones to differentiate meaning according to the way the words are pronounced. Fortunately, a standardised system of writing was created during the Qin dynasty to facilitate communication among speakers of different dialects across China, which also explains why the television programmes are subtitled. We should also mention pinyin, the official Romanisation system developed in the 1950s to transcribe Chinese characters into Latin script. One of the linguists developing pinyin, Zhou Youguang died in January 2017, at the age of 111. Nevertheless, different transcriptions of Chinese writing still exist.