China

The historical roots of the dispute between China and Japan over control of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands reveal a great deal about the two countries’ current global standing, says Joyman Lee.

As China reclaims its central role in the world, Robert Bickers appeals to Britons and others in the West to take account of the legacy left by the country’s difficult 19th century.

Frank Dikötter looks at how historians’ understanding of China has changed in recent years with the gradual opening of party archives that reveal the full horror of the Maoist era.

Though they originated in China, it was in the capitals of early modern Europe that fireworks flourished. They united art and science in awesome displays of poltical might, as Simon Werrett explains.

Richard Cavendish commemorates the traumatic but ultimately victorious march of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communists.

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of December 4th, 1959.

This year sees a remarkable coincidence of anniversaries that tell the history of modern China. Some will be celebrated by the authorities on a grand scale, others will be wilfully ignored, but all reveal important aspects of the country’s past, as Jonathan Fenby explains.

The Dowager Empress of China, Tzu-hsi, died on November 15th, 1908, after ruling China for almost fifty years.

Asya Chorley describes the relationship between China, Britain and Tibet in the early twentieth century, and shares the unique experiences of the first European women to be invited to Lhasa by the XIII Dalai Lama.

The Mongolian past has been drawn by both sides into twentieth-century disputes between Russia and China, writes J.J. Saunders.

The treaties that ended the first part of the second Opium War were signed on June 26th and 27th, 1858.

China and Rome were the two great economic superpowers of the Ancient World. Yet their empires were separated by thousands of miles of inhospitable terrain, dramatically reducing the opportunities for direct communication. Raoul McLaughlin investigates.

Author and journalist Jonathan Fenby explains what started him on an endless journey of exploration into China’s past.