China

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

Michael Loewe looks at the dynastic, administrative and intellectual background of the Qin empire, which defined how China would be run for more than 2,000 years, and at the life and achievements of the First Emperor Shi Huangdi, one of the greatest state-builders of history, whose tomb was guarded by the famous terracotta army.

For centuries Tiananmen Square has been at the heart of China. Named for the Tiananmen – the Gate of Heavenly Peace – its history has been anything but.

Looking back on the sixtieth anniversary of the surrender of Japan, Rana Mitter finds the political background to the demonstrations in China against Japanese history textbooks are full of complexities.

Rana Mitter recalls the career of a man who once ruled an area larger than France and Germany, but who spent forty years in Chiang Kai-shek’s gaols.

Steve Smith shows that those who control the present are sometimes able to control interpretations of the past.

What led Li Zhengsheng, a Chinese newspaper photographer, to preserve vivid images of the Cultural Revolution, even at enormous personal risk?

Michael Lynch introduces the controversial career of a gargantuan figure in Chinese and modern world history.