China 高二 History
Chapters: 2
1. Sel.1 State systems and governance
Political systems (China and West) · Selection and management of officials · Law and moral education · Ethnic relations and international relations · Currency and taxation · Grassroots governance and social security
- Political Systems in China and the West – A political system is the way a state arranges power: who decides, who carries out decisions, and who checks them. Ancient China built a centralised pyramid under the emperor, with officials and later the Three Departments and Six Ministries. Greece and Rome gave citizens a voice in assemblies and senates. Modern Western states divide power among legislature, executive and courts. Modern China works through people's congresses led by the Communist Party. Reforms across history show a long tug between central control and shared power.
- Selection and Management of Officials – Every state needs officials, so every state must decide how to choose and manage them. Han China used recommendation, which could favour friends and rich families. From Sui and Tang times, imperial examinations opened the path to anyone who could study, until they ended in 1905. In the West, the spoils system gave jobs to party supporters, and later merit-based civil services (Britain from the 1850s, the USA in 1883) chose staff by exams. Modern China recruits civil servants by public exam and manages them by trial period, review, training and promotion under law.
- Ethnic Relations and International Relations – Peoples with different ways of life, such as farmers and herders, met through trade, marriage alliances and conflict, and over centuries mixed into larger communities. In Europe after 1648 the idea of equal sovereign states under shared treaties grew into international law. Modern states handle ethnic diversity through equal rights, unity and, in China, regional ethnic autonomy. Diplomacy, from Zhang Qian's journeys to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (1954), keeps relations between states peaceful and productive.
- Currency and Taxation Through History – Money solves the problem of barter. Chinese currency moved from shells to bronze tools-money, the Qin standard round coin, silver, paper money in Song times and the renminbi after 1948. The world used the gold standard, then the Bretton Woods system of 1944 (dollar tied to gold, other money tied to the dollar), and since the 1970s mostly floating exchange rates. Taxes pay for the state; in China they moved from grain, cloth and labour (Tang) to the Two-Tax Law (780), the Single Whip (Ming, 1500s) paid in silver, and the end of the farm tax in 2006.
- Grassroots Governance and Social Security – Grassroots governance means running public life at the smallest level: the village, town or neighbourhood. Two tools matter most. A household register records who lives where, so the state can plan services and know who needs help. A local council, chosen or supported by residents, solves nearby problems such as water, roads and cleaning. Social security is the safety net on top: people and governments pay into a shared fund, and the fund helps people in illness, old age, job loss or when children need schooling. Many countries use these ideas with different names and rules.
2. Sel.2 Economy and social life
Food production · Tools and ways of working · Commerce and daily life · Villages, towns and urbanisation · Transport and social change · Medicine and public health
- Food Production – Food production is how humans grow, raise and catch enough food. Food security means everyone always has enough safe, healthy food. It is threatened by a growing population, changing diets, new pests, climate change, war and cost. We raise output with farming techniques (fertiliser, pest control, irrigation, intensive animal farming), keep fish stocks alive with net-size rules and quotas, and use biotechnology such as mycoprotein and GM crops.
- The Age of Industrialisation – Before factories, merchants gave raw material to peasant families who spun and wove at home (proto-industrialisation). From the 1760s Britain built cotton mills, machines like the spinning jenny and James Watt's improved steam engine. Change was slow: hand labour stayed cheap and common. In India, weavers once supplied world markets; the East India Company controlled them through gomasthas, and Manchester cloth later flooded India. From 1854 Indian mills grew in Bombay and elsewhere, and small workshops also grew. Makers sold goods through labels, calendars and adverts, and swadeshi adverts appealed to national pride.
- Commerce and Daily Life: From Barter to World Market – Early people swapped goods directly (barter), but a deal worked only if each side wanted what the other had. Trade routes by land and sea carried spices, cloth, metals and ideas between far places. Coins and later paper money solved the barter problem and made prices comparable. From about 1500 sailing ships, and later steamships, railways and telegraphs, joined regions into a world market. In the 1900s mass production, refrigeration, shops with fixed prices, containers, cars and later online shopping filled daily life with goods from many places. Trade also brought risks: unequal gains, forced labour in some periods, and shocks such as wars and depressions that broke supply chains.
- Urbanisation: Why Cities Grow and How to Make Them Work – Urbanisation is the rise in the share of a country's or the world's people who live in towns and cities. In 1950 about 30% of the world was urban; since 2007 more than half is, and about 68% is expected by 2050. Cities grow by rural–urban migration (push factors from the countryside, pull factors to the city) and by natural increase. Today the fastest growth is in lower-income and newly emerging countries of Asia and Africa, where megacities of 10 million or more are forming; in many rich countries growth is slow and people also move out to suburbs (suburbanisation and counter-urbanisation). Fast growth brings opportunities (jobs, services) and problems (informal housing, traffic, pollution, waste, flooding, the urban heat island). Sustainable urban development tries to fix these with public transport, green spaces, clean water, recycling, affordable housing and renewable energy.
- Transport and Social Change – Transport decides how far people, goods and ideas can move. Rivers and seas were the first highways: boats carry heavy loads cheaply, so early cities grew near water. On land, people walked, then used pack animals and carts, and built roads, but loads were small and journeys long. In the 1800s steamships and railways made travel faster, cheaper and more reliable; towns grew around ports and stations. In the 1900s cars, trucks, buses and aeroplanes gave door-to-door and very fast travel. Faster transport joined markets, moved workers to cities, spread news and customs, and also brought costs such as pollution, accidents and changes to old trade centres.
- History of Medicine – For hundreds of years (about 1000–1500) most doctors followed old ideas from ancient Greece: illness came from an imbalance of four humours, treated by bleeding and purging, with prayer and herbs. The Renaissance (1500s–1700s) brought careful dissection (Vesalius), the circulation of blood (Harvey) and the first vaccine (Jenner, 1796). In the 1800s germ theory (Pasteur, Koch) showed that microbes cause disease; surgery solved pain (anaesthetics), infection (antiseptics) and later bleeding (blood groups). In the 1900s antibiotics, X-rays, DNA science, wars, new technology and government public-health systems changed medicine again. Change was driven by individuals, science, technology, war, government and communication, and slowed by tradition, religion and lack of knowledge.