China Test Terms Sheet

Question 1

Qing Dynasty

Answer 1

The last dynasty of China that ended in 1911 starting with the Opium Wars and ending with the 1911 Revolution.

Question 2

Opium War

Answer 2

Chinese officials wanted to ban British trade of opium to china, and confiscated/destroyed opium from trade warehouses. The Chinese were no match for the British navy which destroyed many costal Chinese forts. The Chinese were forced to surrender and sign the Treaty of Nanjing: extraterritoriality, 5 ports to Britain, most favored nation. Began century of humiliation.

Question 3

Hung Xiuquan and the Taiping Rebellion

Answer 3

Civil war in China between 1850-1864 against the Qing Dynasty. The leader of rebellion was Hung Xiuquan, who believed he was the brother of Jesus. It took the Qing 14 years and foreign aid to suppress the rebellion.

Question 4

The Boxer Rebellion

Answer 4

This violent anti-foreigner movement took place in China between 1899 and 1901. Colonial foreigners and native holders of local power provoked widespread rural violence. The rebels first targeted missionaries and native converts to Christianity. It quickly grew into an all-purpose anti-Christian and anti-foreign war pitting the Qing Dynasty and the rebels against eight foreign powers and their Chinese sympathizers.

Question 5

Empress Dowager Cixi

Answer 5

She was from the Manchu clan, unofficially controlled the Qing dynasty for 47 years. She spent lavishly even as China’s influence waned. By every indication, she had the real emperor poisoned just before she died so that he could not take power when she was gone.

Question 6

Hundred Days Reform

Answer 6

These efforts by the Emperor Guangxu were an attempt to fix the weaknesses of the Chinese government, the last significant attempts by the Qing to make changes to modernize the country.

Question 7

Sun Yatsen and the Three Principles of the People

Answer 7

He founded the Republic of China, developed the Three Principles of the People: (nationalism-of the people, democracy-by the people, and People’s livelihood-for the people), and established the National Party.

Question 8

General Yuan Shikai

Answer 8

A Chinese general and politician, he was born into a military family and thrived in physical fitness. He was the military general who led the Revolution against the Qing Dynasty and quickly succeeded Sun Yatsen as president of the new Republic of China.

Question 9

1911 Revolution

Answer 9

Groups of revolutionaries in southern China, inspired by Sun Yatsen’s ideas, led a successful revolt against the Qing Dynasty. When Yuan Shikai used his military influence to defeat the Qing authorities, the dynasty fell and the Republic of China was established with Sun Yatsen as its leader.

Question 10

The May 4th Movement

Answer 10

An anti-imperialist cultural and political movement led by students in Beijing, specifically protesting the Chinese response to the Treaty of Versailles because the Japanese were allowed to hold on the territories in Shangdong. This protest was the cause of future national protest and marked an increase in Chinese nationalism.

Question 11

Guomindang / Nationalist Party

Answer 11

The only large-scale organized political party that existed in China in the years after the 1911 Revolution. This party was founded on the ideas on Sun Yatsen’s Republican Revolutionary (3 Principles of the People) movement and transformed from a small group of conspirators to a party with a large social base with a modernized army. The party’s political-social base was located in Canton.

Question 12

Warlord Period

Answer 12

1916 to 1928 led by militarist leaders of local areas in China who were determined to maintain their power. After the February Seventh Massacre, which was ordered by and joined by these men, Guomindang and Communist leaders all recognized the need to eliminate these leaders and work to unify China (united front)

Question 13

Northern Expedition

Answer 13

In 1926-1927, the GMD and CCP joined forces in this effort designed to eliminate warlords of the north and unite the country under one central government.

Question 14

Mao Zedong

Answer 14

A Chinese communist revolutionary, founder of the People’s Republic of China from its establishment in 1949, Chairman of the Communist Party of China.

Question 15

Chiang Kaishek

Answer 15

This GMD militarist would later become the leader of a GMD-controlled Chinese state. He led the United Front during the Northern Expedition and then turned on his Communist partners during the “White Terror.”

Question 16

Mao’s wives (Yang Kaihui, He Zizhen, Jiang Qing)

Answer 16

1. Chairman Mao’s first wife, the young daughter of Mao’s favorite professor at Beijing University. She joined the CCP in 1921 and was one of its earliest members. She was held captive and tortured in 1930, and was eventually executed because she would not publicly renounce Mao and the CCP.
2. She was the second wife of Mao Zedong, an advocate of communism, and an active and admired revolutionary. She earned the nickname “the Two-Gunned Girl General.”
3. She was the third and last wife of Mao Zedong. She was also a film actress in China at this time.

Question 17

Changsha Disaster

Answer 17

The result of the reluctant obedience of Mao to follow an order to attack a city held by the Nationalists; the attack failed and communists remaining in the city were captured and, usually, killed, among them Mao’s first wife, Yang Kaihui, and his sister. After this episode, the urban proletariat largely avoided pro-communist political activism.

Question 18

Extermination Campaigns

Answer 18

The CCP attacks on Changsha sparked fear in Chiang Kaishek. He launched the first one 1931 and 3 more afterwards. All were aimed at the “communist bandits” and all of them failed at a great expense to the Nationalist army.

Question 19

Manchukuo

Answer 19

State in northeast china that was captured by Japan. The “puppet” ruler was the last Qing dynasty ruler Puyi.

Question 20

The Long March

Answer 20

After the Nationalists defeated the Jiangxi Soviet, ninety thousand Jiangxi people escaped from the Nationalists encirclement. They proceeded on this trek to find a new place to live. On what ended up to be a yearlong “odyssey,” fewer than 10,000 of the original escapees survived.
(In the game, to Yan’an, Determination and commitment, Suffering and sacrifice, source of pride, hope, peasants protect and guide the revolution, humility, confirmed Mao was to lead CCP)

Question 21

Yan’an

Answer 21

This is where Mao and his army went as a result of the Long March. Here, Mao was able to develop a socialist, non-hierarchal society which became a model of his ideal Chinese society. He incorporated communal agriculture and state-owned industries in order to make Yan’an “self-sufficient”.

Question 22

Xi’an Incident

Answer 22

Even though the Japanese were attacking China, Chiang Kaishek refused to believe that they were a bigger threat than the communists. This disagreement happened when General Zhang kidnapped Chiang and held him hostage until he agreed to focus on the Japanese.

Question 23

Japanese Surrender

Answer 23

In August of 1945, the Chinese prepared themselves to fight against one of their mutual enemies. Rural areas were organized and an alliance between the GMD and CCP was formed (2nd United Front). By using weaponry and their 4,000,000 soldiers, China won the war they were fighting.

Question 24

Chinese Civil War

Answer 24

Two wars from 1927-1936 and 1946-1950 between the Nationalists (backed by Truman) and the Communists (backed by Stalin). They took place in Manchuria after political talks failed due to pressure from outside powers. It ended in a decisive victory for the Communists as Mao began a new era for China.

Question 25

Taiwan

Answer 25

Last surviving members of GMD party flee here after losing the Chinese Civil War, 1949.

Question 26

October 1, 1949

Answer 26

In Tienanmen square Mao declares the official founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Question 27

Maoism

Answer 27

The economic, political, and social communist ideas form by Mao Zedong.

Question 28

One Hundred Flowers Campaign

Answer 28

A period during the PRC (1956) where Mao encouraged critiques of the communist government. Mao wanted a hundred flowers of ideas to bloom and help further China, however Mao became offended by such criticism and cut all hundred flowers. In 1957, he cracked down on opposers to him, communism, and the party’s ideas and named them ‘counter-revolutionaries’ and subjected them to re-education or even exile/death.

Question 29

Great Leap Forward

Answer 29

1958-1960: Mao (attempts) to industrializes the peasants trying to produce iron at an industrial level. It a failure all workers stop doing productive things to make low quality iron and material is wasted. It becomes an awful famine resulting in the death of an enormous population of Chinese citizens .

Question 30

Great Famine

Answer 30

This was the consequence of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward. Crops in large fields were beginning to rot because of falsely stated numbers. This led to a shortage of food and people began to starve.

Question 31

The Little Red Book

Answer 31

Contained a selection of Maoist sayings, compacted into small blurbs. Known to be found with every Chinese citizen

Question 32

The Cult of Mao

Answer 32

The widespread adoration of everything associated with Mao Zedong: Mao’s image and ideas influenced every aspect of Chinese life. Mao’s interpretation of Marxism and Chinese history became required reading for everyone. A uniform ideology was being put into place.

Question 33

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

Answer 33

1966, its stated goal was to enforce communism in the country by removing capitalist, traditional and cultural elements from Chinese society, and to impose Maoist orthodoxy within the Party (eliminate 4 olds: habits, ideas, customs, culture). The revolution marked the return of Mao Zedong to a position of power after the failed Great Leap Forward. The movement paralyzed China politically and significantly affected the country economically and socially. Cult grow to 1 million. Finally in 1976, Mao dies and Reformers led by Deng Xiaoping end the Cultural Revolution.

Question 34

The Red Guard

Answer 34

China’s youth responded to Mao’s appeal by forming Red Guard groups around the country. They were a mass social movement of young people in the PRC (all with the Little Red Book), who were mobilized by Mao Zedong in 1966 and 1967, during the Cultural Revolution ‘to make China red from inside out’, and upsetting any authority (students>teachers and workers>managers).