Modern Chinese History
Righteous Fists 1898-1901 The Boxer rebellion came in the final stages of decline of the Qing dynasty. Dowager Empress Cixi used the widespread hatred of foreigners taking unfair advantage of China's weakness to support the grassroots revolt. It did not end well. Read more…
China's Space Mission China is putting a great deal of money and effort in building a space exploration program . Already missions have put people into orbit around the Earth and landed robots onto the Moon. Plans exist for a large space lab and manned landings on the Moon and even missions to Mars. In a race to put people on Mars it could well be China that gets there first. Read more…
China's Neighbors The countries that surround China have an interesting history. Wars, conquest and religion have defined the current boundaries of the Peoples' Republic. India, Russia, Pakistan, Myanmar and Afghanistan all have important borders with China. Read more…
Chinese Universities We include a comprehensive guide to the top Universities in China giving details of student numbers, location, ranking and a bit about their history. Read more…
News about China Our news page covers subjects you probably won't have spotted elsewhere. We tend to avoid politics and economics to concentrate more on stories of traditions and culture. We try to choose good, positive news stories when we can find them. Read more…
Cracking China book
Your A-Z key to understanding China
We are proud to announce a printed book all about China based loosely on this web site. It is a set of sixty topics in A-Z order covering everything from hair to kiwifruit, clapping to rhubarb, eunuchs to dragons. Buying a copy will help support Chinasage . Now available as a Kindle eBook for just $3.90.
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Relations with Taiwan - the One China Policy An exploration into the current debate about the status of Taiwan. A look into the complex history and some thoughts on the future. Read more…
Book: Chinese Thought A great survey of all the main strands of Chinese thought: Confucius, Daoism, Legalism, Mohism. Even though written by a Cambridge professor it is very accessible and easy to follow. Explore the Chinese beliefs in the ancestors and the central place of the family in all things.Amazon details... ➚
Foreigners in China China was exploited by foreign powers from the end of the Qing dynasty to the foundation of the PRC in 1949. The establishment of foreign enclaves within most Chinese cities one hundred years ago led to many frictions with the foreign powers, particularly Britain. The treaty port system forcibly opened up cities to foreign trade in late Qing dynasty China. Read more…
Foot binding The custom of binding the feet of girls from a very early age lasted from the Sui to the Qing dynasty and was at times inflicted on half of all girls. It was seen as a badge of wealth of a household because it implied that the family was rich enough to not need women to carry out physical work and kept them house-bound. When not too poor, families would have their girls' feet bound and so live out their lives indoors, bringing up the family. Read more…
甲 jiǎ first in list; armor plating; shell or carapace Made up of [田 tián field radical 102]Origin A picture of a turtle shell, originally just a cross then encased in a square with a tail to distinguish it from 'field' Full information for 甲
Japan and China History of the often difficult relations between China and Japan. The Japanese occupation of China 1937-45 and continued U.S. support for Japan has led to continuing frictions between governments and peoples. Read more…
Convert measurements Our handy measurement convertor will not only do Chinese units to/from Metric/Imperial/U.S. measures but also between meters and feet; liters and pints. Just type in the measurement in length, volume, weight, area and let China sage calculate the accurate conversion. Read more…
Imperial servants - the eunuchs For over two thousand years the Chinese Emperor was served by a large number of Imperial servants who had been castrated as young boys. With no possibility of having children themselves they were seen as having more loyalty to the Emperor than the, often scheming, Imperial family. Some eunuchs became fabulously rich as a result of their control of access to the Emperor. Read more…