171-581: Shina is a largely archaic name for China . The word was originally used in Japanese and had a neutral connotation, but came to be perceived as derogatory by Chinese people during the course of the First and Second Sino-Japanese Wars . As a result, it fell into disuse following World War II and is now viewed as offensive, with the standard Japanese name for China being replaced by 中国 ( Chūgoku ). The Sanskrit word चीन] ( Cina ), meaning "China",
342-577: A failed war in northern Korea provoked widespread unrest. Under the succeeding Tang and Song dynasties , Chinese economy, technology, and culture entered a golden age. The Tang dynasty retained control of the Western Regions and the Silk Road, which brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and the Horn of Africa , and made the capital Chang'an a cosmopolitan urban center. However, it
513-559: A pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has
684-627: A superiority complex influenced by Hong Kong's economic and cultural prominence during the Cold War , and nostalgia toward British rule. Some protesters choose to express their frustrations on ordinary mainlanders instead of the Chinese government. With rising tribalism and nationalism in Hong Kong and China, xenophobia between Hong Kongers and mainlanders is reinforced and reciprocated. Some critics of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement argue that
855-637: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down
1026-693: A celebration poster was put up on the Democracy Wall of the University of Hong Kong , glorifying the Japanese invasion while advocating for democracy in Hong Kong. Hong Kong journalist Audrey Li noted the xenophobic undertone of the widespread right-wing nativism movement, in which the immigrant population and tourists are used as scapegoats for social inequality and institutional failure. In Hong Kong, some people consider hate speech and even discrimination toward mainland Chinese morally justified by
1197-752: A census document called the "Hong Kong Shinajin Magnate Survey" ( Japanese : 香港在住支那人有力者調查表 , romanized : Honkon zaijū Shinajin yūryokusha chōsahyō ). In 2016, a Hong Kong reporter was called Shinajin by Japanese nationalist politician Shintaro Ishihara . In Hong Kong , " Cheena ", the Cantonese pronunciation of " Shina ", is used in a derogative sense under the backdrop of ongoing tensions between Hong Kong and mainland China , even in official capacity, for example by Hong Kong localist politicians Yau Wai-ching and Sixtus Leung during their controversial oath swearing as elected members of
1368-401: A climate very suitable for agriculture and the country has been the world's largest producer of rice, wheat, tomatoes, eggplant, grapes, watermelon, spinach, and many other crops. In 2021, 12 percent of global permanent meadows and pastures belonged to China, as well as 8% of global cropland. China is one of 17 megadiverse countries , lying in two of the world's major biogeographic realms :
1539-538: A complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )
1710-473: A corruption of the Taiwanese Hokkien pronunciation of Chinese : 清國奴 ; Pe̍h-ōe-jī : Chhing-kok-lô͘ ; lit. ' Qing dynasty 's slave', used to refer to any " chinaman " or " chink ". Despite interchangeability of Chinese characters , Japan officially used the term Shina Kyōwakoku ( 支那共和國 ) from 1913 to 1930 in Japanese documents, while Zhōnghuá mínguó ( 中華民國 )
1881-532: A cultural identity among its populace still remembered in the ethnonym of the modern Han Chinese . The Han expanded the empire's territory considerably , with military campaigns reaching Central Asia, Mongolia , Korea , and Yunnan , and the recovery of Guangdong and northern Vietnam from Nanyue . Han involvement in Central Asia and Sogdia helped establish the land route of the Silk Road , replacing
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#17327757283902052-440: A dish which originates from China. Many Japanese are not fully aware of Chinese feelings towards the term, and generally find Shina merely old-fashioned and associated with the early and mid-20th century, rather than derogatory and racist. This difference in conception can lead to misunderstandings. The term is a slur when used toward Ryukyuans by mainland Japanese people. Sinologist Joshua A. Fogel mentioned that, "Surveying
2223-634: A disputed land border with India and Bhutan . China is additionally involved in maritime disputes with multiple countries over territory in the East and South China Seas , such as the Senkaku Islands and the entirety of South China Sea Islands . The People's Republic of China is a one-party state governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP is officially guided by socialism with Chinese characteristics , which
2394-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )
2565-730: A far-reaching popular uprising (the May Fourth Movement ). In the late 1920s, the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek was able to reunify the country under its own control with a series of deft military and political maneuverings known collectively as the Northern Expedition . The Kuomintang moved the nation's capital to Nanjing and implemented "political tutelage", an intermediate stage of political development outlined in Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of
2736-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as
2907-475: A high density of plant species including numerous rare endemics. Tropical and seasonal rainforests , though confined to Yunnan and Hainan , contain a quarter of all the animal and plant species found in China. China has over 10,000 recorded species of fungi . In the early 2000s, China has suffered from environmental deterioration and pollution due to its rapid pace of industrialization. Regulations such as
3078-484: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it
3249-497: A major focus, special economic zones (SEZs) were created. Inefficient state-owned enterprises (SOEs) were restructured and some closed. This marked China's transition away from planned economy. China adopted its current constitution on 4 December 1982. In 1989, there were protests such those in Tiananmen Square , and then throughout the entire nation. Zhao Ziyang was put under house arrest for his sympathies to
3420-521: A more politically correct name. Some terms that translate to words containing the "Sino-" prefix in English retain Shina within them, for example シナ・チベット語族 ( Sino-Tibetan languages ) and シナントロプス・ペキネンシス ( Sinanthropus pekinensis , also known as Peking Man ). Meanwhile, one of the Chinese names for Indochina is yìndù zhīnà ( 印度支那 ). Even so, it is still sometimes seen in written forms such as Shina soba ( 支那そば ) , an alternative name for ramen ,
3591-404: A permanent navy which was supported by the developed shipbuilding industry along with the sea trade. Between the 10th and 11th century CE, the population of China doubled to around 100 million people, mostly because of the expansion of rice cultivation in central and southern China, and the production of abundant food surpluses. The Song dynasty also saw a revival of Confucianism , in response to
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#17327757283903762-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),
3933-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate
4104-509: A smile. The Latin term for China was Sinae , plural of Sina . When Arai Hakuseki , a Japanese scholar, interrogated the Italian missionary Giovanni Battista Sidotti in 1708, he noticed that Sinae , the Latin plural word Sidotti used to refer to China, was similar to Shina , the Japanese pronunciation of 支那 . Then he began to use this word for China regardless of dynasty. Since
4275-457: Is Marxism adapted to Chinese circumstances . The Chinese constitution states that the PRC "is a socialist state governed by a people's democratic dictatorship that is led by the working class and based on an alliance of workers and peasants," that the state institutions "shall practice the principle of democratic centralism ," and that "the defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics
4446-624: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of
4617-609: Is "China" ( 中国 ; 中國 ; Zhōngguó ), from zhōng ('central') and guó ('state'), a term which developed under the Western Zhou dynasty in reference to its royal demesne . It was used in official documents as an synonym for the state under the Qing . The name Zhongguo is also translated as 'Middle Kingdom' in English. China is sometimes referred to as " mainland China " or "the Mainland" when distinguishing it from
4788-448: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,
4959-527: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing
5130-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number
5301-701: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider
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5472-466: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto
5643-856: Is bounded by the Bohai , Yellow , East China and South China seas. China connects through the Kazakh border to the Eurasian Steppe . The territory of China lies between latitudes 18° and 54° N , and longitudes 73° and 135° E . The geographical center of China is marked by the Center of the Country Monument at 35°50′40.9″N 103°27′7.5″E / 35.844694°N 103.452083°E / 35.844694; 103.452083 ( Geographical center of China ) . China's landscapes vary significantly across its vast territory. In
5814-585: Is commonly agreed that pre-modern China's population experienced two growth spurts, one during the Northern Song period (960–1127), and other during the Qing period (around 1700–1830). By the High Qing era China was possibly the most commercialized country in the world, and imperial China experienced a second commercial revolution by the end of the 18th century. On the other hand, the centralized autocracy
5985-414: Is considered socially unacceptable and subject to kotobagari , especially the kanji form; if Shina is used, it is now generally written in katakana ( シナ ) rather than with the kanji ( 支那 ), which in Japanese serves as a way to spell offensive words ( cf. English "f*ck"). As such, the term has survived in a few non-political compound words in Japanese, and even (rarely) in Chinese. For example,
6156-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to
6327-461: Is home to a variety of forest types. Cold coniferous forests predominate in the north of the country, supporting animal species such as moose and Asian black bear , along with over 120 bird species. The understory of moist conifer forests may contain thickets of bamboo . In higher montane stands of juniper and yew , the bamboo is replaced by rhododendrons . Subtropical forests, which are predominate in central and southern China, support
6498-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through
6669-755: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey
6840-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of
7011-498: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and
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7182-451: Is protected by law, and as of 2005 , the country has over 2,349 nature reserves , covering a total area of 149.95 million hectares, 15 percent of China's total land area. Most wild animals have been eliminated from the core agricultural regions of east and central China, but they have fared better in the mountainous south and west. The Baiji was confirmed extinct on 12 December 2006. China has over 32,000 species of vascular plants, and
7353-530: Is the country's capital, while Shanghai is its most populous city by urban area and largest financial center . China is considered one of the cradles of civilization : the first human inhabitants in the region arrived during the Paleolithic . By the late 2nd millennium BCE, the earliest dynastic states had emerged in the Yellow River basin. The 8th–3rd centuries BCE saw a breakdown in
7524-451: Is the direct ancestor of modern Chinese characters . The Shang were overthrown by the Zhou , who ruled between the 11th and 5th centuries BCE, though the centralized authority of Son of Heaven was slowly eroded by fengjian lords. Some principalities eventually emerged from the weakened Zhou and continually waged war with each other during the 300-year Spring and Autumn period . By
7695-401: Is the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party." The PRC officially terms itself as a democracy , using terms such as "socialist consultative democracy", and " whole-process people's democracy ". However, the country is commonly described as an authoritarian one-party state and a dictatorship , with among the heaviest restrictions worldwide in many areas, most notably against freedom of
7866-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and
8037-559: Is the world's leading investor in renewable energy and its commercialization , with $ 546 billion invested in 2022; it is a major manufacturer of renewable energy technologies and invests heavily in local-scale renewable energy projects. Long heavily relying on non-renewable energy sources such as coal, China's adaptation of renewable energy has increased significantly in recent years, with their share increasing from 26.3 percent in 2016 to 31.9 percent in 2022. In 2023, 60.5% of China's electricity came from coal (largest producer in
8208-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have
8379-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns
8550-702: The Encyclopædia Britannica , to 9,596,961 km (3,705,407 sq mi) according to the UN Demographic Yearbook , and The World Factbook . China has the longest combined land border in the world , measuring 22,117 km (13,743 mi) and its coastline covers approximately 14,500 km (9,000 mi) from the mouth of the Yalu River (Amnok River) to the Gulf of Tonkin . China borders 14 nations and covers
8721-456: The 18th CCP National Congress in 2012. Shortly after his ascension to power, Xi launched a vast anti-corruption crackdown , that prosecuted more than 2 million officials by 2022. During his tenure , Xi has consolidated power unseen since the initiation of economic and political reforms. China's landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts in the arid north to
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#17327757283908892-778: The Cultural Revolution , sparking a decade of political recrimination and social upheaval that lasted until Mao's death in 1976. In October 1971, the PRC replaced the ROC in the United Nations, and took its seat as a permanent member of the Security Council. After Mao's death, the Gang of Four was arrested by Hua Guofeng and held responsible for the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution
9063-694: The Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from
9234-462: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in
9405-636: The Kuomintang and the Communists led to the resumption of civil war. Constitutional rule was established in 1947, but because of the ongoing unrest, many provisions of the ROC constitution were never implemented in mainland China. Afterwards, the CCP took control of most of mainland China, and the ROC government retreated offshore to Taiwan . On 1 October 1949, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong formally proclaimed
9576-710: The Meiji Era , Shina had been widely used as the translation of the Western term "China". For instance, " sinology " was translated as " Shinagaku " ( 支那學 ). At first, it was widely accepted that the term Shina or Zhina had no political connotations in China. Before the Chinese Republican era , the term Shina was one of the names proposed as a "generalized, basically neutral Western-influenced equivalent for 'China ' ". Chinese revolutionaries, such as Sun Yat-sen , Song Jiaoren , and Liang Qichao , used
9747-568: The Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879 , in which between 9 and 13 million people died. The Guangxu Emperor drafted a reform plan in 1898 to establish a modern constitutional monarchy , but these plans were thwarted by the Empress Dowager Cixi . The ill-fated anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1901 further weakened the dynasty. Although Cixi sponsored a program of reforms known as the late Qing reforms ,
9918-620: The Palearctic and the Indomalayan . By one measure, China has over 34,687 species of animals and vascular plants, making it the third-most biodiverse country in the world, after Brazil and Colombia . The country is a party to the Convention on Biological Diversity ; its National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan was received by the convention in 2010. China is home to at least 551 species of mammals (the third-highest in
10089-514: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than
10260-744: The RCEP . It is a member of the BRICS , the G20 , APEC , the SCO , and the East Asia Summit . Making up around one-fifth of the world economy, the Chinese economy is the world's largest economy by PPP-adjusted GDP , the second-largest economy by nominal GDP , and the second-wealthiest country , albeit ranking poorly in measures of democracy , human rights and religious freedom . The country has been one of
10431-573: The Republic of China (ROC) was established the following year. The country under the nascent Beiyang government was unstable and ultimately fragmented during the Warlord Era , which was ended upon the Northern Expedition conducted by the Kuomintang (KMT) to reunify the country. The Chinese Civil War began in 1927, when KMT forces purged members of the rival Chinese Communist Party (CCP), who proceeded to engage in sporadic fighting against
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#173277572839010602-729: The Republic of China or the PRC's Special Administrative Regions . Archaeological evidence suggests that early hominids inhabited China 2.25 million years ago. The hominid fossils of Peking Man , a Homo erectus who used fire , have been dated to between 680,000 and 780,000 years ago . The fossilized teeth of Homo sapiens (dated to 125,000–80,000 years ago) have been discovered in Fuyan Cave . Chinese proto-writing existed in Jiahu around 6600 BCE, at Damaidi around 6000 BCE, Dadiwan from 5800 to 5400 BCE, and Banpo dating from
10773-412: The Silk Road , and the building of the Great Wall , Chinese culture flourished and has heavily influenced both its neighbors and lands further afield. However, China began to cede parts of the country in the late 19th century to various European powers by a series of unequal treaties . After decades of Qing China on the decline, the 1911 Revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty and the monarchy and
10944-404: The South and East China Seas are called Minami Shina Kai ( 南シナ海 ) and Higashi Shina Kai ( 東シナ海 ) , respectively, in Japanese (prior to World War II, the names were written as 南支那海 and 東支那海 ). Shinachiku ( 支那竹 or simply シナチク ), a ramen topping made from dried bamboo, also derives from the term Shina , but in recent years the word menma ( メンマ ) has replaced this as
11115-414: The State Council , China's cabinet, composed of four vice premiers, state councilors , and the heads of ministries and commissions. The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) is a political advisory body that is critical in China's " united front " system, which aims to gather non-CCP voices to support the CCP. Similar to the people's congresses, CPPCC's exist at various division, with
11286-421: The Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in 1989. China is a unitary one-party socialist republic led by the CCP. It is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council ; the UN representative for China was changed from the ROC to the PRC in 1971. It is a founding member of several multilateral and regional organizations such as the AIIB , the Silk Road Fund , the New Development Bank , and
11457-438: The Turpan Depression . China's climate is mainly dominated by dry seasons and wet monsoons , which lead to pronounced temperature differences between winter and summer. In the winter, northern winds coming from high-latitude areas are cold and dry; in summer, southern winds from coastal areas at lower latitudes are warm and moist. A major environmental issue in China is the continued expansion of its deserts , particularly
11628-509: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of
11799-481: The World Trade Organization in 2001. At the 16th CCP National Congress in 2002, Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang as the general secretary. Under Hu, China maintained its high rate of economic growth, overtaking the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan to become the world's second-largest economy. However, the growth also severely impacted the country's resources and environment, and caused major social displacement. Xi Jinping succeeded Hu as paramount leader at
11970-433: The Xi , Mekong , Brahmaputra and Amur . To the west sit major mountain ranges, most notably the Himalayas. High plateaus feature among the more arid landscapes of the north, such as the Taklamakan and the Gobi Desert. The world's highest point, Mount Everest (8,848 m), lies on the Sino-Nepalese border. The country's lowest point, and the world's third-lowest, is the dried lake bed of Ayding Lake (−154 m) in
12141-426: The Xinhai Revolution of 1911–1912 ended the Qing dynasty and established the Republic of China . Puyi , the last Emperor, abdicated in 1912 . On 1 January 1912, the Republic of China was established, and Sun Yat-sen of the Kuomintang (KMT) was proclaimed provisional president. In March 1912, the presidency was given to Yuan Shikai , a former Qing general who in 1915 proclaimed himself Emperor of China . In
12312-576: The campaigns against Western Xia by Genghis Khan , who also invaded Jin territories . In 1271, the Mongol leader Kublai Khan established the Yuan dynasty , which conquered the last remnant of the Song dynasty in 1279. Before the Mongol invasion, the population of Song China was 120 million citizens; this was reduced to 60 million by the time of the census in 1300. A peasant named Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew
12483-806: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to
12654-438: The fastest-growing major economies and is the world's largest manufacturer and exporter , as well as the second-largest importer . China is a nuclear-weapon state with the world's largest standing army by military personnel and the second-largest defense budget . It is a great power , and has been described as an emerging superpower . China is known for its cuisine and culture, and has 59 UNESCO World Heritage Sites ,
12825-514: The second-highest number of any country . The word "China" has been used in English since the 16th century; however, it was not used by the Chinese themselves during this period. Its origin has been traced through Portuguese , Malay , and Persian back to the Sanskrit word Cīna , used in ancient India . "China" appears in Richard Eden 's 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of
12996-448: The standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics ,
13167-548: The subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya , Karakoram , Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia . The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, respectively, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 km (9,000 mi) long and
13338-589: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),
13509-440: The 1979 Environmental Protection Law are fairly stringent, though they are poorly enforced, frequently disregarded in favor of rapid economic development. China has the second-highest death toll because of air pollution, after India , with approximately 1 million deaths. Although China ranks as the highest CO 2 emitting country, it only emits 8 tons of CO 2 per capita , significantly lower than developed countries such as
13680-545: The 2010s. In 2020, the Chinese government announced its aims for the country to reach its peak emissions levels before 2030, and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 in line with the Paris Agreement , which, according to Climate Action Tracker , would lower the expected rise in global temperature by 0.2–0.3 degrees – "the biggest single reduction ever estimated by the Climate Action Tracker". China
13851-465: The 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of
14022-453: The 5th millennium BCE. Some scholars have suggested that the Jiahu symbols (7th millennium BCE) constituted the earliest Chinese writing system. According to traditional Chinese historiography , the Xia dynasty was established during the late 3rd millennium BCE, marking the beginning of the dynastic cycle that was understood to underpin China's entire political history. In the modern era,
14193-668: The British under the 1842 Treaty of Nanking , the first of what have been termed as the " unequal treaties ". The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) resulted in Qing China's loss of influence in the Korean Peninsula , as well as the cession of Taiwan to Japan . The Qing dynasty also began experiencing internal unrest in which tens of millions of people died, especially in the White Lotus Rebellion ,
14364-449: The CCP. The NPC is dominated by the CCP, with another eight minor parties having nominal representation under the condition of upholding CCP leadership. The president is elected by the NPC. The presidency is the ceremonial state representative, but not the constitutional head of state. The incumbent president is Xi Jinping, who is also the general secretary of the CCP and the chairman of
14535-638: The Central Military Commission , making him China's paramount leader and supreme commander of the Armed Forces. The premier is the head of government , with Li Qiang being the incumbent. The premier is officially nominated by the president and then elected by the NPC, and has generally been either the second- or third-ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC). The premier presides over
14706-534: The Chinese are subservient to the Japanese, the characters were originally chosen simply for their sound values, not their meanings. In modern Japan, the term Chūka Minkoku ( 中華民国 ) refers to the Republic of China , while Chūka Jinmin Kyōwakoku ( 中華人民共和国 ) refers to the People's Republic of China ; the terms use the same Chinese characters (with Japanese shinjitai simplifications) used officially in both
14877-510: The Gobi Desert. Although barrier tree lines planted since the 1970s have reduced the frequency of sandstorms , prolonged drought and poor agricultural practices have resulted in dust storms plaguing northern China each spring, which then spread to other parts of East Asia, including Japan and Korea. Water quality, erosion , and pollution control have become important issues in China's relations with other countries. Melting glaciers in
15048-774: The Himalayas could potentially lead to water shortages for hundreds of millions of people. According to academics, in order to limit climate change in China to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) electricity generation from coal in China without carbon capture must be phased out by 2045. With current policies, the GHG emissions of China will probably peak in 2025, and by 2030 they will return to 2022 levels. However, such pathway still leads to three-degree temperature rise. Official government statistics about Chinese agricultural productivity are considered unreliable, due to exaggeration of production at subsidiary government levels. Much of China has
15219-500: The Hong Kong legislature . Ray Wong , founder of the localist group Hong Kong Indigenous , said that he uses Cheena to refer to mainland China because the Chinese Communist Party is his "personal enemy". On 15 September 2012, a Hong Kong online community organized a protest against mainlanders and parallel traders . During the protest, some demonstrators chanted " Cheena people get out!" On 24 September 2013,
15390-479: The Hong Kong political group Hongkongers Priority breached the front entrance of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Forces Hong Kong Building , the first such incident since the handover of Hong Kong. Billy Chiu, the leader of Hongkongers Priority, later announced on social media that Hongkongers Priority had successfully broken into the " Cheena Army Garrison". In October 2015, an HKGolden netizen remade
15561-486: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,
15732-660: The KMT-led Nationalist government . Following the country's invasion by the Empire of Japan in 1937, the CCP and KMT formed the Second United Front to fight the Japanese. The Second Sino-Japanese War eventually ended in a Chinese victory; however, the CCP and the KMT resumed their civil war as soon as the war ended. In 1949, the resurgent Communists established control over most of the country, proclaiming
15903-768: The Kuomintang and the CCP. Japanese forces committed numerous war atrocities against the civilian population; as many as 20 million Chinese civilians died. An estimated 40,000 to 300,000 Chinese were massacred in Nanjing alone during the Japanese occupation. China, along with the UK, the United States, and the Soviet Union , were recognized as the Allied " Big Four " in the Declaration by United Nations . Along with
16074-636: The National Committee of the CPPCC being chaired by Wang Huning , fourth-ranking member of the PSC. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan , the only country where it is the national language , and within
16245-736: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently
16416-648: The PRC initially allied closely with the Soviet Union , the relations between the two communist nations gradually deteriorated , leading China to develop an independent industrial system and its own nuclear weapons . The Chinese population increased from 550 million in 1950 to 900 million in 1974. However, the Great Leap Forward , an idealistic massive industrialization project, resulted in an estimated 15 to 55 million deaths between 1959 and 1961, mostly from starvation. In 1964, China detonated its first atomic bomb. In 1966, Mao and his allies launched
16587-927: The People program for transforming China into a modern democratic state. The Kuomintang briefly allied with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Northern Expedition, though the alliance broke down in 1927 after Chiang violently suppressed the CCP and other leftists in Shanghai, marking the beginning of the Chinese Civil War . The CCP declared areas of the country as the Chinese Soviet Republic (Jiangxi Soviet) in November 1931 in Ruijin , Jiangxi . The Jiangxi Soviet
16758-586: The People's Republic of China and forcing the Nationalist government to retreat to the island of Taiwan . The country was split, with both sides claiming to be the sole legitimate government of China . Following the implementation of land reforms , further attempts by the PRC to realize communism failed: the Great Leap Forward was largely responsible for the Great Chinese Famine that ended with millions of Chinese people having died, and
16929-535: The People's Republic of China in Tiananmen Square , Beijing . In 1950, the PRC captured Hainan from the ROC and annexed Tibet . However, remaining Kuomintang forces continued to wage an insurgency in western China throughout the 1950s. The CCP consolidated its popularity among the peasants through the Land Reform Movement , which included the state-tolerated executions of between 1 and 2 million landlords by peasants and former tenants. Though
17100-717: The People's Republic of China and the Republic of China. Likewise, in most cases, words previously containing Shina have been altered; for example, the term for sinology was changed from Shinagaku ( 支那学 , " Shina studies") to Chūgokugaku ( 中国学 ) or Chūkagaku ( 中華学 , "Chinese studies") , and the name for the Second Sino-Japanese War has changed from terms such as Shina jihen ( 支那事變 , "The China Incident") and Nisshi jihen ( 日支事變 , "The Japan-Shina Incident") to Nitchū sensō ( 日中戦争 , "Japan-China War") . Writing Shina in Japanese
17271-573: The Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa . Barbosa's usage was derived from Persian Chīn ( چین ), which in turn derived from Sanskrit Cīna ( चीन ). Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahabharata (5th century BCE) and the Laws of Manu (2nd century BCE). In 1655, Martino Martini suggested that the word China is derived ultimately from
17442-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand
17613-540: The South (to say nothing of the highly offensive term in colloquial use by this group) ... By the late 1960s, few if any liberals were still using 'Negro' but had shifted to 'black,' because that was declared the ethnonym of choice by the group so named. Japanese Canadian historian Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi mentioned that there are two classes of postwar Japanese that have continued to use derogatory terms like Shina : poorly educated and/or elderly persons who grew up with
17784-471: The South Korean song " Gangnam Style ", with lyrics calling mainland Chinese "locusts" and " Cheena people", titled "Disgusting Cheena Style" ( Chinese : 核突支那Style ). Inside Hong Kong university campuses, mainland Chinese students are often referred to as " Cheena dogs" and "yellow thugs" by local students. On 18 September 2019, the 88th anniversary of the Japanese invasion of northeast China ,
17955-488: The United States (16.1), Australia (16.8) and South Korea (13.6). Greenhouse gas emissions by China are the world's largest . The country has significant water pollution problems; only 89.4% of China's national surface water was graded suitable for human consumption by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment in 2023. China has prioritized clamping down on pollution, bringing a significant decrease in air pollution in
18126-496: The Xia is the earliest for which there are both contemporary written records and undisputed archaeological evidence. The Shang ruled much of the Yellow River valley until the 11th century BCE, with the earliest hard evidence dated c. 1300 BCE . The oracle bone script , attested from c. 1250 BCE but generally assumed to be considerably older, represents the oldest known form of written Chinese , and
18297-513: The Xia's historicity came under increasing scrutiny, in part due to the earliest known attestation of the Xia being written millennia after the date given for their collapse. In 1958, archaeologists discovered sites belonging to the Erlitou culture that existed during the early Bronze Age ; they have since been characterized as the remains of the historical Xia, but this conception is often rejected. The Shang dynasty that traditionally succeeded
18468-681: The Yuan in 1368 and founded the Ming dynasty as the Hongwu Emperor . Under the Ming dynasty, China enjoyed another golden age, developing one of the strongest navies in the world and a rich and prosperous economy amid a flourishing of art and culture. It was during this period that admiral Zheng He led the Ming treasure voyages throughout the Indian Ocean, reaching as far as East Africa. In
18639-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which
18810-451: The authority of the Zhou dynasty , accompanied by the emergence of administrative and military techniques, literature , philosophy , and historiography . In 221 BCE, China was unified under an emperor , ushering in more than two millennia of imperial dynasties including the Qin , Han , Tang , Yuan , Ming , and Qing . With the invention of gunpowder and paper , the establishment of
18981-820: The bulk of East Asia, bordering Vietnam , Laos , and Myanmar in Southeast Asia; India , Bhutan , Nepal , Pakistan and Afghanistan in South Asia; Tajikistan , Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in Central Asia; and Russia, Mongolia , and North Korea in Inner Asia and Northeast Asia . It is narrowly separated from Bangladesh and Thailand to the southwest and south, and has several maritime neighbors such as Japan , Philippines , Malaysia , and Indonesia . China has resolved its land borders with 12 out of 14 neighboring countries, having pursued substantial compromises in most of them. China currently has
19152-610: The earlier path over the Himalayas to India. Han China gradually became the largest economy of the ancient world. Despite the Han's initial decentralization and the official abandonment of the Qin philosophy of Legalism in favor of Confucianism , Qin's legalist institutions and policies continued to be employed by the Han government and its successors. After the end of the Han dynasty , a period of strife known as Three Kingdoms followed, at
19323-537: The early Ming dynasty, China's capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing. With the budding of capitalism, philosophers such as Wang Yangming critiqued and expanded Neo-Confucianism with concepts of individualism and equality of four occupations . The scholar-official stratum became a supporting force of industry and commerce in the tax boycott movements, which, together with the famines and defense against Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598) and Later Jin incursions led to an exhausted treasury. In 1644, Beijing
19494-737: The east, along the shores of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, there are extensive and densely populated alluvial plains , while on the edges of the Inner Mongolian plateau in the north, broad grasslands predominate. Southern China is dominated by hills and low mountain ranges, while the central-east hosts the deltas of China's two major rivers, the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. Other major rivers include
19665-578: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there
19836-656: The end of which Wei was swiftly overthrown by the Jin dynasty . The Jin fell to civil war upon the ascension of a developmentally disabled emperor ; the Five Barbarians then rebelled and ruled northern China as the Sixteen States . The Xianbei unified them as the Northern Wei , whose Emperor Xiaowen reversed his predecessors' apartheid policies and enforced a drastic sinification on his subjects . In
20007-473: The face of popular condemnation and opposition from his own Beiyang Army , he was forced to abdicate and re-establish the republic in 1916. After Yuan Shikai's death in 1916, China was politically fragmented. Its Beijing-based government was internationally recognized but virtually powerless; regional warlords controlled most of its territory. During this period , China participated in World War I and saw
20178-555: The failed Taiping Rebellion that ravaged southern China in the 1850s and 1860s and the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) in the northwest. The initial success of the Self-Strengthening Movement of the 1860s was frustrated by a series of military defeats in the 1880s and 1890s. In the 19th century, the great Chinese diaspora began. Losses due to emigration were added to by conflicts and catastrophes such as
20349-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had
20520-561: The growth of Buddhism during the Tang, and a flourishing of philosophy and the arts, as landscape art and porcelain were brought to new levels of complexity. However, the military weakness of the Song army was observed by the Jin dynasty . In 1127, Emperor Huizong of Song and the capital Bianjing were captured during the Jin–Song wars . The remnants of the Song retreated to southern China . The Mongol conquest of China began in 1205 with
20691-479: The impression of the term Shina as offensive among Chinese people . In 1946, the Republic of China demanded that Japan cease using Shina . In China, the term Shina has become linked with the Japanese invasion and Japanese war crimes , and has been considered an offensive ethnic slur ever since. The Japanese for exclusive use as a racist term, since the character 支 (Japanese shi ; Chinese zhī ) means 'branch' which could be interpreted to suggest that
20862-400: The informal paramount leader . The current general secretary is Xi Jinping , who took office on 15 November 2012. At the local level, the secretary of the CCP committee of a subdivision outranks the local government level; CCP committee secretary of a provincial division outranks the governor while the CCP committee secretary of a city outranks the mayor. The government in China is under
21033-402: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system
21204-401: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of
21375-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,
21546-409: The largest importer of Russian crude oil in 2022. China is the third-largest country in the world by land area after Russia , and the third- or fourth-largest country in the world by total area. China's total area is generally stated as being approximately 9,600,000 km (3,700,000 sq mi). Specific area figures range from 9,572,900 km (3,696,100 sq mi) according to
21717-478: The multiple consultation mechanisms that exist in Chinese government. According to the CCP constitution , its highest body is the National Congress held every five years. The National Congress elects the Central Committee , who then elects the party's Politburo , Politburo Standing Committee and the general secretary ( party leader ), the top leadership of the country. The general secretary holds ultimate power and authority over party and state and serves as
21888-513: The name of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE). Although use in Indian sources precedes this dynasty, this derivation is still given in various sources. The origin of the Sanskrit word is a matter of debate. Alternative suggestions include the names for Yelang and the Jing or Chu state. The official name of the modern state is the "People's Republic of China" ( simplified Chinese : 中华人民共和国 ; traditional Chinese : 中華人民共和國 ; pinyin : Zhōnghuá rénmín gònghéguó ). The shorter form
22059-443: The name of the state of Qin , which founded a dynasty ( 秦 , Old Chinese : *dzin ) that ruled China from 221 to 206 BC, and so Shina is a return of Qin to Chinese in a different form. The Sanskrit term for China eventually spread into China, where its usage was closely related to Buddhism. A Tang dynasty (618–907) poem titled Ti Fan Shu ( 題梵書 , literally "topic of a Sanskrit book") by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang uses
22230-626: The name of the new Republic of China Chūka Minkoku ( 中華民國 ) , with the short form Chūgoku ( 中國 ) . Nevertheless, the term continued to be more-or-less neutral. A Buddhist school called Zhīnà Nèixuéyuàn ( 支那內學院 ) was established as late as in 1922 in Nanjing. In the meantime, Shina was used as commonly in Japanese as "China" in English. Derogatory nuances were expressed by adding extra adjectives, e.g. Japanese : 暴虐なる支那兵 , romanized : bōgyaku-naru Shina-hei , lit. 'cruel Shina soldiers' or using derogatory terms like chankoro ( チャンコロ ) , originating from
22401-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by
22572-420: The other three great powers, China was one of the four major Allies of World War II , and was later considered one of the primary victors in the war. After the surrender of Japan in 1945, Taiwan, including the Penghu , was handed over to Chinese control ; however, the validity of this handover is controversial. China emerged victorious but war-ravaged and financially drained. The continued distrust between
22743-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with
22914-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,
23085-437: The present scene indicates much less sensitivity on the part of Chinese to the term Shina and growing ignorance of it in Japan". He also criticized Shintaro Ishihara , a right-wing nationalist politician who went out of his way to use the expression Shinajin ( 支那人 ) and called him a "troublemaker". He elaborated further: Many terms have been offered as names for countries and ethnic groups that have simply not withstood
23256-417: The press , freedom of assembly , free formation of social organizations , freedom of religion and free access to the Internet . China has consistently been ranked amongst the lowest as an "authoritarian regime" by the Economist Intelligence Unit 's Democracy Index , ranking at 148th out of 167 countries in 2023. Other sources suggest that terming China as "authoritarian" does not sufficiently account for
23427-404: The pressures of time and circumstance and have, accordingly, changed. Before the mid-1960s, virtually every well-meaning American, black or white and regardless of political affinity, referred to blacks as ' Negroes ' with no intention of offense or slight. It was simply the respectful name in use; and it was superior to the openly reviled and offensive term "colored," still in legal use by people in
23598-424: The prevalence of ethnic hatred and xenophobia amongst its supporters is mostly ignored by the media, which often frames the situation as simply a fight between democracy and authoritarianism. China China , officially the People's Republic of China ( PRC ), is a country in East Asia . With a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the second-most populous country after India , representing 17.4% of
23769-428: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as
23940-417: The protests and was replaced by Jiang Zemin . Jiang continued economic reforms, closing many SOEs and trimming down " iron rice bowl " (life-tenure positions). China's economy grew sevenfold during this time. British Hong Kong and Portuguese Macau returned to China in 1997 and 1999 , respectively, as special administrative regions under the principle of one country, two systems . The country joined
24111-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning
24282-563: The sole control of the CCP. The CCP controls appointments in government bodies, with most senior government officials being CCP members. The National People's Congress (NPC), with nearly 3,000-members, is constitutionally the " highest organ of state power ", though it has been also described as a " rubber stamp " body. The NPC meets annually, while the NPC Standing Committee , around 150 members elected from NPC delegates, meets every couple of months. Elections are indirect and not pluralistic, with nominations at all levels being controlled by
24453-495: The south, the general Liu Yu secured the abdication of the Jin in favor of the Liu Song . The various successors of these states became known as the Northern and Southern dynasties , with the two areas finally reunited by the Sui in 581. The Sui restored the Han to power through China, reformed its agriculture, economy and imperial examination system, constructed the Grand Canal , and patronized Buddhism . However, they fell quickly when their conscription for public works and
24624-443: The standardization of Chinese characters, measurements , road widths, and currency . His dynasty also conquered the Yue tribes in Guangxi , Guangdong , and Northern Vietnam . The Qin dynasty lasted only fifteen years, falling soon after the First Emperor's death. Following widespread revolts during which the imperial library was burned , the Han dynasty emerged to rule China between 206 BCE and 220 CE, creating
24795-629: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this
24966-425: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This
25137-534: The subsequent Cultural Revolution was a period of social turmoil and persecution characterized by Maoist populism. Following the Sino-Soviet split , the Shanghai Communiqué in 1972 would precipitate the normalization of relations with the United States . Economic reforms that began in 1978 moved the country away from a socialist planned economy towards an increasingly capitalist market economy , spurring significant economic growth. The corresponding movement for increased democracy and liberalization stalled after
25308-416: The term extensively, and it was also used in literature as well as by ordinary Chinese. The term "transcended politics, as it were, by avoiding reference to a particular dynasty or having to call China the country of the Qing". With the overthrow of the Qing in 1911, however, most Chinese dropped Shina as foreign and demanded that Japan replace it with the Japanese reading of the Chinese characters used as
25479-432: The term go on using these from force of habit. Some right-wing Japanese appeal to etymology in trying to ascribe respectability to the continued use of Shina, since the term Shina has non-pejorative etymological origins. Wakabayashi disagreed: "The term Jap also has non-pejorative etymological origins, since it derives from Zippangu ( ジパング ) in Marco Polo's Travels ... If the Chinese today say they are hurt by
25650-402: The term in Chinese 支那 ( Zhīnà ) to refer to China, which is an early use of the word in China: 《題梵書》 鶴立蛇形勢未休， 五天文字鬼神愁。 支那 弟子無言語， 穿耳胡僧笑點頭。 " Ti Fan Shu (Topic of a Sanskrit book)" Whether the situation is straight-up or winding is unclear. Texts from India have the ghosts and gods worried. The disciples in Zhina are speechless. The monk with pierced ears nodded with
25821-500: The terms Shina or Shinajin, then common courtesy enjoins the Japanese to stop using these terms, whatever the etymology or historical usage might be." During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong , the Japanese government classified Hong Kong residents as Shinajin ( 支那人 ), as the term was used to refer to all who were ethnically Chinese. Hongkongers that were considered useful to the Japanese government, as well as prominent local figures such as bankers and lawyers , were recorded in
25992-458: The time of the Warring States period of the 5th–3rd centuries BCE, there were seven major powerful states left. The Warring States period ended in 221 BCE after the state of Qin conquered the other six states, reunited China and established the dominant order of autocracy . King Zheng of Qin proclaimed himself the Emperor of the Qin dynasty , becoming the first emperor of a unified China. He enacted Qin's legalist reforms, notably
26163-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,
26334-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of
26505-413: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It
26676-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending
26847-445: The world population. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land . With an area of nearly 9.6 million square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), it is the third-largest country by total land area. The country is divided into 33 province-level divisions : 22 provinces , five autonomous regions , four municipalities , and two semi-autonomous special administrative regions . Beijing
27018-485: The world), 1,221 species of birds (eighth), 424 species of reptiles (seventh) and 333 species of amphibians (seventh). Wildlife in China shares habitat with, and bears acute pressure from, one of the world's largest population of humans. At least 840 animal species are threatened, vulnerable or in danger of local extinction , due mainly to human activity such as habitat destruction, pollution and poaching for food, fur and traditional Chinese medicine . Endangered wildlife
27189-428: The world), 13.2% from hydroelectric power (largest), 9.4% from wind (largest), 6.2% from solar energy (largest), 4.6% from nuclear energy (second-largest), 3.3% from natural gas (fifth-largest), and 2.2% from bioenergy (largest); in total, 31% of China's energy came from renewable energy sources. Despite its emphasis on renewables, China remains deeply connected to global oil markets and next to India, has been
27360-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or
27531-414: Was transcribed into various forms including 支那 ( Zhīnà ), 芝那 ( Zhīnà ), 脂那 ( Zhīnà ) and 至那 ( Zhìnà ). Thus, the term Shina was initially created as a transliteration of Cina , and this term was in turn brought to Japan with the spread of Chinese Buddhism . Some scholars believe that the Sanskrit Cina , like Middle Persian Čīn and Latin Sina , is derived from
27702-453: Was wiped out by the KMT armies in 1934, leading the CCP to initiate the Long March and relocate to Yan'an in Shaanxi . It would be the base of the communists before major combat in the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949. In 1931, Japan invaded and occupied Manchuria . Japan invaded other parts of China in 1937, precipitating the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), a theater of World War II . The war forced an uneasy alliance between
27873-488: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular
28044-406: Was captured by a coalition of peasant rebel forces led by Li Zicheng . The Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide when the city fell. The Manchu Qing dynasty , then allied with Ming dynasty general Wu Sangui , overthrew Li's short-lived Shun dynasty and subsequently seized control of Beijing, which became the new capital of the Qing dynasty. The Qing dynasty, which lasted from 1644 until 1912,
28215-417: Was devastated and weakened by the An Lushan rebellion in the 8th century. In 907, the Tang disintegrated completely when the local military governors became ungovernable. The Song dynasty ended the separatist situation in 960, leading to a balance of power between the Song and the Liao dynasty . The Song was the first government in world history to issue paper money and the first Chinese polity to establish
28386-564: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,
28557-402: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )
28728-408: Was rebuked, with millions rehabilitated. Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978, and instituted large-scale political and economic reforms , together with the " Eight Elders ", most senior and influential members of the party. The government loosened its control and the communes were gradually disbanded. Agricultural collectivization was dismantled and farmlands privatized. While foreign trade became
28899-492: Was strengthened in part to suppress anti-Qing sentiment with the policy of valuing agriculture and restraining commerce, like the Haijin during the early Qing period and ideological control as represented by the literary inquisition , causing some social and technological stagnation. In the mid-19th century, the Opium Wars with Britain and France forced China to pay compensation, open treaty ports, allow extraterritoriality for foreign nationals, and cede Hong Kong to
29070-422: Was the last imperial dynasty of China. The Ming-Qing transition (1618–1683) cost 25 million lives, but the Qing appeared to have restored China's imperial power and inaugurated another flowering of the arts. After the Southern Ming ended, the further conquest of the Dzungar Khanate added Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang to the empire. Meanwhile, China's population growth resumed and shortly began to accelerate. It
29241-455: Was used in Chinese ones. Shina kyōwakoku was the literal translation of the English "Republic of China" while Chūka minkoku was the Japanese pronunciation of the official Chinese characters of Zhōnghuá mínguó . The Republic of China unofficially pressed Japan to adopt the latter but was rejected. Japan rejected the terms Chūka minkoku and its short form 中國 ( Chūgoku ) for four reasons: The Second Sino-Japanese War fixed
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