The Chinese people have come through … A new mandate: so long the greatest civilization on Earth, China is rising again. ibid.
In his own lifetime Confucius was a complete failure. ibid.
China: a global superpower, eyes set on the future, its arrival on the world stage greeted like the appearance of a new planet. But it’s not the first time. Michael Wood, The Story of China II
In the golden age of China we’ve reached the Tang Dynasty … The silk road – a series of land routes linking the Mediterranean and India. ibid.
It’s a place rich in culture, rich in trade and merchants, and interested in foreigners. ibid.
In the tenth century China almost broke apart for ever in civil war … Things cannot go on like this for ever. Michael Wood, The Story of China III
A new dynasty … In the Song renaissance the Chinese set out to make the most enlightened society on Earth, with the best governance, housing and food. ibid.
In the thirteenth century the world was turned upside down by the Mongols. ibid.
Sometimes in history the rebels become the heroes … When he became emperor he gave himself the title – Hongwu … Utterly ruthless but a creative genius. Michael Wood, The Story of China IV
The great Ming code – it drew on a thousand years of war but its severity has never been forgotten. ibid.
The invaders were Manchus from the north – people the Chinese saw as barbarians. The Ming emperor committed suicide. Michael Wood, The Story of China V
Three great Ching emperors – father, son and grandson – who ruled for a hundred and thirty-three years. They built China’s largest empire, and created the essential shape of China today. ibid.
The key to the opium trade was British control of India where the opium was grown. ibid.
The Qing government gave way to the British brand of international politics. Michael Wood, The Story of China VI
In Beijing you can still trace the European quarter on the ground. ibid.
The Nationalists and the Communists now fought a bitter civil war. ibid.
There were real achievements especially in public health, in education and literacy. There was also a great improvement in the role and status of women. All of this has helped shape today’s China. ibid.
Over the last 40 years China has been transformed out of all recognition. The scale of its growth and the speed of change is astonishing. Nothing like this has ever happened before. But as China rises others will fall. In the 21st century the balance of power in the world is changing. So how did an impoverished and backward communist country become an engine of capitalism? Michael Wood, How China Got Rich, Endevr films 2021
The ordinary people of China wanted change. ibid.
1978: 200 delegates from all over China met here in this room to discuss the economy and the commune system of agriculture. ibid.
Thousands of small businesses were now allowed to spring up all over China. ibid.
Tiananmen Square June 1989: In the wake of a crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators one solitary man defied the awesome power of the Chinese state. But who was he and what happened to him? Frontline: The Tank Man, PBS 2006
The atmosphere here is edgy … soldiers, policemen, men in plain clothes all demand our papers. ibid.
On a June night in 1989 Tiananmen Square was a war zone. The people’s liberation army fought its way into Beijing from four directions with orders to converge on the Square. Unarmed citizens and students faced armoured personnel-carriers, tanks and soldiers with semi-automatic weapons. ibid.
‘In Beijing one in ten of the population was joining in.’ ibid. witness
‘Uprisings occurred all over China in at least four hundred cities.’ ibid. Jonathan Mirsky
There is an undeniable, a demonstrable build-up of diplomatic, financial and military tensions between the Nato powers on one side and China and its allies on the other. The Corbett Report: China and the New World Order, James Corbett online
‘A New World Order – that’s what this is about, and that’s the sort of dialogue the Chinese are generally good at, and so a partnership between us is essential.’ ibid. Kissinger
Claimed that the CIA was covertly supporting Mao … Yale News 1972: ‘Yale Group Spurs Mao’s Emergence … William F Buckley was not the only Yale figure connected with the presidential trip to China. Without Yale’s support Mao Tse Tung may never have risen from obscurity to command China. ibid. Yale News article
‘The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao’s leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history’. ibid. David Rockefeller
‘The 1979 visit of Deng Xiaoping to the US was followed in June 1980 by the equally significant encounter in Wall Street of Rong Yiren, chairman of CITIC [China International Trust & Investment Corporation], and David Rockefeller. The meeting, held in the penthouse of the Chase Manhattan Bank complex, was attended by senior executives of close to 300 major US corporations. A major agreement was reached between Chase, CITIC and the Bank of China, involving the exchange of specialists and technical personnel to ‘identify and define those areas of the Chinese economy most susceptible to American technology and capital infusion’. ibid. Michel Chossudovsky, Towards Capitalist Restoration? Chinese Socialism After Mao
It’s China’s most stunning palace – the Forbidden City, the greatest wonder of the medieval world and the biggest wooden structure on Earth. Home to China’s emperors, a place of staggering wealth and power filled with dazzling treasures. It was closed to the outside world for centuries. Secrets of China’s Forbidden City, Channel 4 2017
Three great halls dominate the outer court towering over a three-tiered marble terrace. ibid.
It all covers 178 acres. ibid.
A hotbed of decadence and betrayal. ibid.
There is no record of how it was created. ibid.
In 1974 some Chinese farmers made one of the world’s greatest archaeological discoveries: by chance they’d found the Terracotta Warriors. Secret History: New Secrets of the Terracotta Warriors, Channel 4 2015
By autumn 1916, two years into the First World War, the British army had lost over a quarter of a million soldiers. As more and more men were drafted into frontline duty, the vital supply-lines they had manned started drying up leaving the allies teetering on the brink of defeat. At this crucial point in the war a distant ally sent a secret army of 140,000 men to the western front – that army was Chinese. Secret History: Britain’s Forgotten Army, Channel 4 2017
China was ready to support the allies in the hope they would receive a sympathetic hearing in their bid for sovereignty. ibid.
Conditions were so poor that over 700 died from sickness and disease on the journey. ibid.
The labourers were recruited as civil contractors and not military personnel. ibid.
‘In that year the contribution of the Chinese was far more important than the American contributions.’ ibid. military expert
‘They painted over the far-East allies.’ ibid. art expert
Chairman Mao Tse-tung created the people’s republic in 1949. Secrets of War s1e43: Mao’s Secrets
Nationalist Chinese forces under Chiang Kai-Shek received the goodwill and financial support of the Allies … Mao Tse-tung led a battle-hardened band of guerrillas battling to create a communist China. ibid.
The villagers are told that these men, members of the Boxers United in Righteousness, are possessed by powerful gods. Many join the Boxers in the belief that they too will become invincible. In Search of History s2e2: China’s Boxer Rebellion, History 1997
On the eve of the twentieth century are sown the seeds of bloody insurrection: the Boxer Uprising. ibid.
They have allowed the barbarians to invade the middle kingdom … Destroy the Europeans: the Boxers post their cry in every village square: Death to the Barbarians! ibid.
A mystical society which is a highly combustible mixture of religion, politics, secrecy and idealism. ibid.
‘A huge volley of shots just as I left the front line caused panic.’ I Was There: Kate Adie on Tiananmem Square, Kate’s news report, BBC 2018
June 3rd 1989: I was in the Chese capital, Beijing reporting on the long-running crisis in Tiananmem Square. I could see soldiers on the lorries firing. The world watched in horror as the Chinese army fired on demonstrators demanding greater political freedom from the country’s communist leadership. ibid.
Communist regimes in power since World War II were being challenged. ibid.
No-one seems sure what became of the tank man. ibid.
Within days the Peking Spring withered. ibid.
Small acts of courage were still emerging. ibid.
The destruction of Chinese culture under the impact of Western Civilization was considerably later than the similar destruction of Indian Culture by Europeans. Carroll Quigley, Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time ch4
The only man-made object on earth the astronauts could see from outer space was the Great Wall of China. Although it is one of the most astounding accomplishments of man it failed to keep out wave after wave of barbarian invaders. In Search of s5e15 … The Great Wall of China, 1981