Dynastic cycle Like the
three ages of the Greek poet
Hesiod, the oldest Chinese historiography viewed mankind as living in a fallen age of depravity, cut off from the virtues of the past, as
Confucius and his disciples revered the
sage kings
Emperor Yao and
Emperor Shun. Unlike Hesiod's system, however, the
Duke of Zhou's idea of the
Mandate of Heaven as a rationale for dethroning the supposedly divine
Zi clan led subsequent historians to see man's fall as a
cyclical pattern. In this view, a new dynasty is founded by a morally upright founder, but his successors cannot help but become increasingly corrupt and dissolute. This immorality removes the dynasty's divine favor and is manifested by natural disasters (particularly
floods), rebellions, and foreign invasions. Eventually, the dynasty becomes weak enough to be replaced by a new one, whose founder is able to
rectify many of society's problems and begin the cycle anew. Over time, many people felt a full correction was not possible, and that the
golden age of Yao and Shun could not be attained. This
teleological theory implies that there can be only one rightful sovereign
under heaven at a time. Thus, despite the fact that Chinese history has had many lengthy and contentious periods of disunity, a great effort was made by official historians to establish a legitimate precursor whose fall allowed a new dynasty to acquire its mandate. Similarly, regardless of the particular merits of individual emperors, founders would be portrayed in more laudatory terms, and the last ruler of a dynasty would always be castigated as depraved and unworthy – even when that was not the case. Such a narrative was employed after the fall of the empire by those compiling the
history of the Qing, and by those who justified the attempted restorations of the imperial system by
Yuan Shikai and
Zhang Xun.
Multi-ethnic history Traditional Chinese historiography includes states ruled by other peoples (Mongols, Manchus, Tibetans etc.) in the dynastic history of China proper, ignoring their own historical traditions and considering them parts of China. Two historiographic traditions: of unity in East Asia as a historical norm for this region, and of dynasties successively reigning on the Son of Heaven's throne allowed Chinese elites describing historical process in China in simplified categories providing the basis for the concept of modern "unitary China" within the borders of the former Qing Empire, which was also ruled by Chinese emperors. However, deeper analysis reveals that, in fact, there was not a succession of dynasties ruled the same unitary China, but there were different states in certain regions of East Asia, some of which have been termed by later historiographers as the Empire ruled by the Son of the Heaven. As early as the 1930s, the American scholar
Owen Lattimore argued that China was the product of the interaction of farming and pastoral societies, rather than simply the expansion of the
Han people. Lattimore did not accept the more extreme
Sino-Babylonian theories that the essential elements of early
Chinese technology and
religion had come from
Western Asia, but he was among the scholars to argue against the assumption they had all been indigenous. Both the
Republic of China and the
People's Republic of China hold the view that Chinese history should include all the
ethnic groups of the lands held by the Qing dynasty during its
territorial peak, with these ethnicities forming part of the
Zhonghua minzu (Chinese nation). This view is in contrast with
Han chauvinism promoted by the Qing-era
Tongmenghui. This expanded view encompasses internal and external tributary lands, as well as
conquest dynasties in the history of a China seen as a coherent multi-ethnic nation since time immemorial, incorporating and accepting the contributions and cultures of non-Han ethnicities. The acceptance of this view by ethnic minorities sometimes depends on their views on present-day issues. The
14th Dalai Lama, long insistent on Tibet's history being separate from that of China, conceded in 2005 that Tibet "is a part of" China's "
5,000-year history" as part of a new proposal for Tibetan autonomy.
Korean nationalists have virulently reacted against China's application to
UNESCO for recognition of the
Goguryeo tombs in Chinese territory. The absolute independence of
Goguryeo is a central aspect of Korean identity, because, according to Korean legend, Goguryeo was independent of China and Japan, compared to subordinate states such as the
Joseon dynasty and the
Korean Empire. The legacy of
Genghis Khan has been contested between China, Mongolia, and Russia, all three states having significant numbers of ethnic
Mongols within their borders and holding territory that was conquered by the Khan. The
Jin dynasty tradition of a new dynasty composing the official history for its preceding dynasty/dynasties has been seen to foster an ethnically inclusive interpretation of Chinese history. The compilation of official histories usually involved monumental intellectual labor. The
Yuan and Qing dynasties, ruled by the
Mongols and
Manchus, faithfully carried out this practice, composing the official Chinese-language histories of the Han-ruled
Song and
Ming dynasties, respectively. Recent Western scholars have reacted against the ethnically inclusive narrative in traditional and
Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-sponsored history, by writing
revisionist histories of China such as the
New Qing History that feature, according to James A. Millward, "a degree of 'partisanship' for the indigenous underdogs of frontier history". Scholarly interest in writing about Chinese minorities from non-Chinese perspectives is growing. So too is the rejection of a unified cultural narrative in early China. Historians engaging with archaeological progress find increasingly demonstrated a rich amalgam of diverse cultures in regions the received literature positions as homogeneous.
Marxism Most Chinese history that is published in the People's Republic of China is based on a
Marxist interpretation of history. These theories were first applied in the 1920s by Chinese scholars such as
Guo Moruo, and became orthodoxy in academic study after 1949. The Marxist view of history is that history is governed by universal laws and that according to these laws, a society moves through a series of stages, with the transition between stages being driven by class struggle. These stages are: •
Slave society •
Feudal society •
Capitalist society •
Socialist society • The world
communist society The official historical view within the People's Republic of China associates each of these stages with a particular era in Chinese history. • Slave society –
Xia to
Zhou • Feudal society (decentralized) –
Qin to
Sui • Feudal society (bureaucratic) –
Tang to the
First Opium War • Feudal society (semi-colonial) – First Opium War to end of
Qing dynasty • Semi-feudal and Semi-capitalist society –
Republican era • Socialist society –
PRC 1949 to present Because of the strength of the CCP and the importance of the Marxist interpretation of history in legitimizing its rule, it was for many years difficult for historians within the PRC to actively argue in favor of non-Marxist and anti-Marxist interpretations of history. However, this political restriction is less confining than it may first appear in that the Marxist historical framework is surprisingly flexible, and it is a rather simple matter to modify an alternative historical theory to use language that at least does not challenge the Marxist interpretation of history. Partly because of the interest of
Mao Zedong, historians in the 1950s took a special interest in the role of
peasant rebellions in Chinese history and compiled documentary histories to examine them. There are several problems associated with imposing Marx's European-based framework on Chinese history. First, slavery existed throughout China's history but never as the primary form of labor. While the Zhou and earlier dynasties may be labeled as
feudal, later dynasties were much more centralized than how Marx analyzed their European counterparts as being. To account for the discrepancy, Chinese Marxists invented the term "bureaucratic feudalism". The placement of the Tang as the beginning of the bureaucratic phase rests largely on the replacement of
patronage networks with the
imperial examination. Some
world-systems analysts, such as
Janet Abu-Lughod, claim that analysis of
Kondratiev waves shows that capitalism first arose in Song dynasty China, although widespread trade was subsequently disrupted and then curtailed. The Japanese scholar
Tanigawa Michio, writing in the 1970s and 1980s, set out to revise the generally Marxist views of China prevalent in
post-war Japan. Tanigawa writes that historians in Japan fell into two schools. One held that China followed the set European pattern which Marxists thought to be universal; that is, from ancient slavery to medieval feudalism to modern capitalism; while another group argued that "
Chinese society was extraordinarily saturated with stagnancy, as compared to the West" and assumed that China existed in a "qualitatively different historical world from
Western society". That is, there is an argument between those who see "unilinear, monistic world history" and those who conceive of a "two-tracked or multi-tracked world history". Tanigawa reviewed the applications of these theories in Japanese writings about Chinese history and then tested them by analyzing the
Six Dynasties 220–589 CE period, which Marxist historians saw as feudal. His conclusion was that China did not have feudalism in the sense that Marxists use, that Chinese military governments did not lead to a European-style military aristocracy. The period established social and political patterns which shaped China's history from that point on. There was a gradual relaxation of Marxist interpretation after the
death of Mao Zedong in 1976, which was accelerated after the
Tian'anmen Square protest and
other revolutions in 1989, which damaged Marxism's ideological legitimacy in the eyes of Chinese academics.
Modernization This view of Chinese history sees Chinese society as a traditional society needing to become modern, usually with the implicit assumption of Western society as the model. Such a view was common amongst European and American historians during the 19th and early 20th centuries, but is now criticized for being a
Eurocentric viewpoint, since such a view permits an implicit justification for breaking the society from its static past and bringing it into the modern world under European direction. By the mid-20th century, it was increasingly clear to historians that the notion of "changeless China" was untenable. A new concept, popularized by
John Fairbank, was the notion of "change within tradition", which argued that China did change in the pre-modern period but that this change existed within certain cultural traditions. This notion has also been subject to the criticism that to say "China has not changed fundamentally" is
tautological, since it requires that one look for things that have not changed and then arbitrarily define those as fundamental. Nonetheless, studies seeing China's interaction with Europe as the driving force behind its recent history are still common. Such studies may consider the
First Opium War as the starting point for China's modern period. Examples include the works of
H.B. Morse, who wrote chronicles of China's international relations such as
Trade and Relations of the Chinese Empire. The Chinese convention is to use the word
jindai ("modern") to refer to a timeframe for modernity which begins with the Opium wars and continues through the
May Fourth period. In the 1950s, several of Fairbank's students argued that
Confucianism was incompatible with
modernity.
Joseph Levenson and
Mary C. Wright, and
Albert Feuerwerker argued in effect that traditional Chinese values were a barrier to modernity and would have to be abandoned before China could make progress. Wright concluded, "The failure of the Tongzhi Restoration|T'ung-chih [
Tongzhi] Restoration demonstrated with a rare clarity that even in the most favorable circumstances there is no way in which an effective modern state can be grafted onto a Confucian society. Yet in the decades that followed, the political ideas that had been tested and, for all their grandeur, found wanting, were never given a decent burial." In a different view of modernization, the Japanese historian
Naito Torajiro argued that China reached modernity during its
mid-Imperial period, centuries before Europe. He believed that the reform of the
civil service into a meritocratic system and the disappearance of the ancient
Chinese nobility from the bureaucracy constituted a modern society. The problem associated with this approach is the subjective meaning of modernity. The Chinese nobility had been in decline since the Qin dynasty, and while the exams were largely meritocratic, performance required time and resources that meant examinees were still typically from the
gentry. Moreover, expertise in the
Confucian classics did not guarantee competent bureaucrats when it came to managing public works or preparing a budget. Confucian hostility to commerce placed merchants at the bottom of the
four occupations, itself an archaism maintained by devotion to classic texts. The social goal continued to be to invest in land and enter the gentry, ideas more like those of the
physiocrats than those of
Adam Smith.
Hydraulic despotism With ideas derived from Marx and
Max Weber,
Karl August Wittfogel argued that
bureaucracy arose to manage
irrigation systems. Despotism was needed to force the people into building
canals,
dikes, and
waterways to increase
agriculture.
Yu the Great, one of China's legendary founders, is known for his control of the floods of the
Yellow River. The
hydraulic empire produces wealth from its stability; while dynasties may change, the structure remains intact until destroyed by modern powers. In Europe abundant rainfall meant less dependence on irrigation. In the Orient natural conditions were such that the bulk of the land could not be cultivated without large-scale irrigation works. As only a centralized administration could organize the building and maintenance of large-scale systems of irrigation, the need for such systems made
bureaucratic despotism inevitable in Oriental lands. When Wittfogel published his
Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, critics pointed out that water management was given the high status China accorded to officials concerned with taxes, rituals, or fighting off bandits. The theory also has a strong
orientalist bent, regarding all Asian states as generally the same while finding reasons for European polities not fitting the pattern. While Wittfogel's theories were not popular among Marxist historians in China, the economist
Chi Ch'ao-ting used them in his influential 1936 book,
Key Economic Areas in Chinese History, as Revealed in the Development of Public Works for Water-Control. The book identified key areas of grain production which, when controlled by a strong political power, permitted that power to dominate the rest of the country and enforce periods of stability.
Convergence Convergence theory, including
Hu Shih and
Ray Huang's involution theory, holds that the past 150 years have been a period in which Chinese and Western civilization have been in the process of converging into a world civilization. Such a view is heavily influenced by modernization theory but, in China's case, it is also strongly influenced by indigenous sources such as the notion of
Shijie Datong or "Great Unity". It has tended to be less popular among more recent historians, as postmodern Western historians discount overarching narratives, and nationalist Chinese historians feel similar about narratives failing to account for some special or unique characteristics of Chinese culture.
Anti-imperialism Closely related are colonial and
anti-imperialist narratives. These often merge or are part of Marxist critiques from within China or the former Soviet Union, or are postmodern critiques such as
Edward Said's
Orientalism, which fault traditional scholarship for trying to fit West, South, and East Asia's histories into European categories unsuited to them. With regard to China particularly,
T.F. Tsiang and
John Fairbank used newly opened archives in the 1930s to write modern history from a Chinese point of view. Fairbank and
Teng Ssu-yu then edited the influential volume ''
China's Response to the West'' (1953). This approach was attacked for ascribing the change in China to outside forces. In the 1980s,
Paul Cohen, a student of Fairbank's, issued a call for a more "China-Centered history of China".
Republican The schools of thought on the
1911 Revolution have evolved from the early years of the Republic. The Marxist view saw the events of 1911 as a
bourgeois revolution. In the 1920s, the
Nationalist Party issued a theory of three political stages based on
Sun Yatsen's writings: • Military unification – 1923 to 1928 (
Northern Expedition) • Political tutelage – 1928 to 1947 •
Constitutional democracy – 1947 onward The most obvious criticism is the near-identical nature of "political tutelage" and of a "constitutional democracy" consisting only of the one-party rule until the 1990s. Against this,
Chen Shui-bian proposed his own
four-stage theory.
Postmodernism Postmodern interpretations of Chinese history tend to reject narrative history and instead focus on a small subset of Chinese history, particularly the daily lives of ordinary people in particular locations or settings.
Long-term political economy Zooming out from the dynastic cycle but maintaining focus on power dynamics, the following general periodization, based on the most powerful groups and the ways that power is used, has been proposed for Chinese history: • The aristocratic settlement state (to 550 BCE) • Centralization of power with military revolution ( 550 BCE – 25 CE) • Landowning families competing for central power and integrating the South ( 25 – 755) • Imperial examination scholar-officials and commercialization ( 755 – 1550) • Commercial interests with global convergence (since 1550) ==Recent trends==