For over five thousand years, the Chinese people have created a splendid civilization on land nurtured by the Yellow River and Yangtze River. During this long period of time, dynasties have come and gone, and the Chinese culture has waxed and waned. Grand and moving stories have played out on the historical stage of China.
The year 1840, the year commonly considered by historians as the beginning of China’s contemporary era, marked the start of China’s journey from tradition to modernization. Chinese civilization experienced four major episodes of challenge and response. The first three episodes include the invasion of Beijing by the English-French allied force in the early 1860s, the Sino-Japanese war in 1894, and the Russo-Japanese war in China’s northeast in 1906. To these three episodes of challenge, China responded with the Westernization movement, which was marked by the importation of modern goods and weapons, institutional reforms through the Reform Movement of 1898 and the attempt at the end of the late Qing Dynasty to establish constitutional rule, and later, the Democratic Revolution of 1911.
At the end of the First World War, China, though it emerged victorious, was not listed among the stronger powers at that time. Many Chinese believed that the first three episodes of response had failed. The May-Fourth Movement would lead to the fourth attempt at responding to previous challenges and culminate in the complete westernization of Chinese culture through the communist movement and its extreme revolution.
This article concerns the impact on the civilization of China of the communist movement and the Communist Party. Looking at the history of China’s last 160 years, nearly one hundred million people have died unnatural deaths. After all that has happened to China’s traditional culture and civilization, whether chosen by the Chinese or imposed on China from the outside, what have been the consequences?
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