China

Official name

People's Republic of China^[1]

Capital

Beijing^[2]

Largest city

Shanghai, by urban population^[2]

Population

1,404.89 million at the end of 2025 (official count)^[3]

Area

About 9.6 million square kilometers, third-largest in the world^[2]

Government

One-party state led by the Chinese Communist Party^[2]

Top leader

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the party since 2012 and state president^[2][4]

GDP

140.19 trillion yuan (official, preliminary) or about US$19.5 trillion (World Bank)^[3][5]

GDP growth

5.0%^[3][5]

Life expectancy

78 years at birth^[5]

China, officially the People's Republic of China, is a country in East Asia with an official population of about 1.405 billion at the end of 2025.^[3] It was long the most populous country on Earth until the United Nations projected that India would pass it in April 2023, the same period in which UN demographers said China's own numbers had peaked and begun to fall.^[6] The Chinese Communist Party has governed the mainland since 1949, while the rival Republic of China government it defeated retreated to Taiwan, an island Beijing claims and does not control.^[1]

Geography

China's land borders touch 14 countries and run for about 22,117 kilometers in total.^[2] Its western ranges, the Himalayas among them, separate it from South and Central Asia, and Mount Everest, on the border with Nepal, reaches 8,848 meters, the highest point in the world.^[2] Two great rivers, the Yangtze and the Yellow, begin on the Tibetan Plateau and cross the country eastward.^[2]

The World Bank recorded forest on 24.0% of the land in 2024 and greenhouse gas emissions of 9.3 tons of CO2 equivalent per person that year.^[5] Official figures put the urban share of permanent residents at 67.89% at the end of 2025.^[3]

History

Traditional histories begin with the Xia, a dynasty that Columbia University's chronology dates to roughly 2100 to 1600 BCE, though written records confirming it are lacking.^[7][2] The Shang left a writing system and bronze technology, and Confucius lived under the long Zhou era that followed.^[7] The Qin created a unified, centrally run state in 221 BCE, standardizing script, weights and measures, and under the Han (206 BCE to 220 CE) Confucianism became state orthodoxy.^[7]

4:01 Opium and the British attack on Canton How opium smuggled into China led to the destruction of British stocks and to war.

Centuries of division gave way to the Sui and the cosmopolitan Tang.^[7] The Song (960 to 1279) brought a monetized economy, maritime trade and technical invention, before the Mongol Yuan moved the capital to the site of present-day Beijing.^[7] The Ming ruled from 1368 to 1644 and the Manchu Qing from 1644 to 1912, the Qing presiding over territorial expansion and population growth but struggling against Western pressure.^[7] The First Opium War of 1839 to 1842 was an early blow in that struggle.^[2]

The 1911 Revolution ended the Qing, and the Republic of China was declared in 1912.^[2] Nationalists and Communists fought on and off from the 1920s, Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931 and invaded the rest of the country in 1937, and all-out civil war resumed by 1946.^[8][2] Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic on Oct 1, 1949, as Chiang Kai-shek's forces fled to Taiwan.^[8]

14:08 The last emperor abdicates Puyi, 6 years old, gives up the throne in 1912, and the general Yuan Shikai takes the power.

The Mao era and reform

Mao launched the Great Leap Forward in 1958, a mass industrialization drive that produced a catastrophic famine.^[2] No agreed death toll exists. The journalist Yang Jisheng, working from official documents, estimated 36 million deaths, while the historian Frank Dikötter puts the figure at 45 million; Yang's book is banned in China.^[9][10] The Cultural Revolution, begun in 1966, lasted until Mao's death in 1976, and Columbia's chronology counts both campaigns as disasters.^[2][7]

29:15 The Great Leap Forward Collectivized land, a campaign against sparrows, backyard furnaces and a famine.

Deng Xiaoping, paramount leader from 1978 to 1989, moved the country toward what the party calls a socialist market economy.^[2] A one-child policy ran from 1979 to 2015, followed by a two-child rule, and family size limits were removed in July 2021.^[2] China joined the World Trade Organization on Dec 11, 2001, as its 143rd member.^[11]

35:52 After Mao: Deng Xiaoping's pragmatism DW's documentary on Mao's death in 1976, Deng's rehabilitation of the persecuted and the opening to foreign technology and investors.

In the spring of 1989 student-led protests in Beijing ended in an armed crackdown on Tiananmen Square. The toll is still unknown: Chinese authorities have given a figure of about 200 to 300 dead, soldiers included, and other estimates range from 400 to more than 2,000.^[12] In June 2026 U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said censorship could not erase that past, and foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning accused Washington of distorting history and interfering in China's affairs.^[12]

37:18 Tiananmen, spring 1989 From a tribute to Hu Yaobang to a movement demanding democratic reforms. The documentary covers the order to clear the square soon after.

Politics and government

The Chinese Communist Party, with about 101 million members, is the sole ruling party.^[2] On paper the National People's Congress holds the state's unified powers, and a standing committee acts for it between its annual sessions.^[2] Xi Jinping became party general secretary on Nov 15, 2012, and also chairs the Central Military Commission.^[2]

The legislature abolished the two-term limit on the presidency in March 2018 by 2,958 votes to two, with three abstentions.^[13] On March 10, 2023, it gave Xi a third term as president with all 2,952 votes cast in his favor; Al Jazeera described him as the country's most powerful leader since Mao, and noted that the presidency itself is largely ceremonial.^[4] Li Qiang is premier.^[2] The People's Liberation Army has about 2 million active personnel.^[2]

40:30 One leader, all the offices DW's account of the concentration of power under Xi Jinping. The speakers are the film's commentators.

Contested questions

Taiwan. The Qing ceded the island to Japan in 1895, the Republic of China took it over in 1945, and its government retreated there in 1949; today its elected leaders govern 23.3 million people.^[1] According to a U.S. Congressional Research Service report, leaders of the People's Republic have long said they are determined to take control of Taiwan, peacefully or by force.^[1] Beijing's foreign ministry argued in a paper in September 2025 that UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971, which gave it China's UN seat, confirms the one-China principle.^[14][15] Taiwan's foreign ministry replied that the resolution never mentions Taiwan, and that the People's Republic has never governed it.^[15] The United States switched recognition to Beijing on Jan 1, 1979: it acknowledges the Chinese position that Taiwan is part of China, keeps unofficial ties with Taipei, and has not agreed to take a position on Taiwan's sovereignty.^[1] Al Jazeera counted 12 countries still recognizing Taipei after Nauru switched in January 2024.^[16]

Xinjiang. The UN human rights office concluded on Aug 31, 2022, that serious violations had been committed against Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim communities, and that arbitrary detention there might amount to crimes against humanity.^[17] Researchers and U.S. officials cited by the Council on Foreign Relations estimate more than one million people have been detained since 2017.^[18] The U.S. State Department declared on Jan 19, 2021, that China was committing genocide.^[19] China rejects these findings: it calls the sites vocational centers for de-radicalization that closed in 2019, and it denies forced labor and rights violations on any large scale.^[17][18] In 2022, 60 countries backed its view that Xinjiang is an internal matter.^[18]

Tibet. A 2011 Chinese government white paper says Tibet has been part of China since ancient times, describes the agreement signed in Beijing on May 23, 1951, as a peaceful liberation, and says the suppression of a 1959 rebellion ended a system of serfdom.^[20] The Tibet Autonomous Region was established in 1965.^[20] The Dalai Lama's office gives a different account: on reaching India in April 1959 he declared the agreement signed under duress and void, and he later moved from seeking independence to the Middle Way, which asks for genuine autonomy within the People's Republic.^[21] In July 2025 he said his own trust alone may identify his successor; Beijing answered that any reincarnation must be found in China and approved by the central government.^[22]

Hong Kong. Britain handed the city back in 1997, with Beijing agreeing to leave it considerable autonomy for 50 years under the formula called one country, two systems.^[23] On June 30, 2020, Beijing imposed a national security law that bypassed the city's legislature.^[23][24] Beijing says the law targets a narrow set of activities and preserves that autonomy; pro-democracy activists say it effectively ended the arrangement.^[24]

Economy and society

The National Bureau of Statistics reported preliminary 2025 GDP of 140,187.9 billion yuan, up 5.0%, or 99,665 yuan per person; the World Bank's figure in current dollars is 19.5 trillion.^[3][5] Services made up 57.7% of output, industry and construction 35.6% and agriculture 6.7%.^[3] China is the largest economy in the world when adjusted for purchasing power.^[2] Goods exports reached 26,989.0 billion yuan in 2025, and factories built 16.524 million new energy vehicles.^[3]

A joint report published with the World Bank found that the number of Chinese people below the old US$1.90 a day poverty line fell by close to 800 million over 40 years, nearly three quarters of the global decline.^[25] Clean sources supplied 41.6% of electricity in 2025.^[2]

Population is now shrinking. In 2025 there were 7.92 million births against 11.31 million deaths, and the total fell by 3.39 million.^[3] The state recognizes 56 ethnic groups, Han people made up 91.11% of the population in the 2020 count, and Standard Chinese, based largely on the Beijing dialect, is the national language.^[2]

Timeline

1. 221 BCE The Qin unify China under a centralized state.^[7]
2. 206 BCE Han rule begins; Confucianism becomes state orthodoxy under the dynasty.^[7]
3. 1368 The Ming dynasty is founded.^[7]
4. 1644 The Manchu Qing begin their rule.^[7]
5. 1912 The Republic of China is declared after the 1911 Revolution.^[2]
6. 1949-10-01 Mao Zedong proclaims the People's Republic of China.^[8]
7. 1958 The Great Leap Forward begins.^[2]
8. 1966 The Cultural Revolution begins, lasting until 1976.^[2]
9. 1971 UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 gives Beijing China's UN seat.^[14]
10. 1978 Reform and opening begins under Deng Xiaoping.^[2]
11. 1989 An armed crackdown ends the Tiananmen Square protests.^[12]
12. 1997 Britain hands Hong Kong back to China.^[23]
13. 2001-12-11 China joins the World Trade Organization.^[11]
14. 2023-03-10 Xi Jinping receives a third term as president.^[4]