China History

‎2,000 Years of Chinese History! The Mandate of Heaven and Confucius: World History

Hi, I’m John Green, this is Crash Course: World History, and today we’re going to talk about China, which these days is discussed almost constantly on television and in newspapers—wait, are they still a thing? So, we used to print information on thinly sliced trees and then you would pay someone to take these thinly sliced trees and throw them onto your front lawn, and that’s how we received information. No one thought this was weird, by the way. [music intro] [music intro] [music intro] [music intro] [music intro] [music intro] Right but anyway you hear a lot about how China is going to overtake the U.S. and bury us under a pile of inexpensive electronics, but I don’t to address those address those fears today. Instead, I want to talk about how the way you tell a story shapes the story. China was really the first modern state--by which I mean it had a centralized government and a corps of bureaucrats who could execute the wishes of that government. And it lasted, in pretty much the same form, until 150 BCE to 1911 CE, which is technically known as a long-ass time. The Chinese were also among the first people to write history. In fact, one of the Confucian Classics is called the Shujing, or Classic of History. This is great for us, because we can now see the things that the Chinese recorded as they were happening, but it is also problematic because of the way the story is told. So even Me From The Past with his five minutes of World History knows that Chinese History is conveniently divided into periods called Dynasties. Mr. Green, I didn’t even say anything. That doesn’t seem very fair- Sshh! What makes a dynasty a dynasty is that it’s ruled by a king, or as the Chinese know him, an emperor, who comes from a continuous ruling family. As long as that family produces emperors, and they are always dudes, and those emperors keep ruling, the dynasty gets to be a dynasty. So the dynasty can end for two reasons: either they run out of dudes (which never happened thanks to the hard work of many, many concubines), or the emperor is overthrown after a rebellion or a war. This is more or less what happened to all the dynasties, which makes it easy for me to go over to camera two and describe them in a single run-on sentence: Hi there-- --camera two. Leaving aside the Xia dynasty, which was sadly fictional, the first Chinese dynasty were the Shang, who were overthrown by the Zhou, which disintegrated into political chaos called the Warring States period, in which states warred over periods—oh, no, wait, it was a period in which states warred, which ended when the Qin emperor was able to extend his power over most of the heretofore warring states, but the Qin were replaced by the Han, which was the dynasty that really set the pattern for most of China’s history and lasted for almost 400 years after which China fell again into political chaos – which only means there was no dynasty that ruled over all of China – and out of this chaos rose the Sui, who were followed quickly by the Tang, who in turn were replaced, after a short period of no dynasty by the Song, who saw a huge growth in China’s commerce that was still not enough to prevent them from being conquered by the Yuan, who were both unpopular and unusual… because they were Mongols, which sparked rebellions resulting in the rise of the Ming, which was the dynasty that built the Great Wall and made amazing vases but didn’t save them from falling to the Manchus who founded a dynasty that was called the Qing, which was the last dynasty because in 1911 there was a rebellion like the ones in, say, America, France or Russia, and the whole dynastic system which at this point had lasted for a long-ass time came to an end. The concept of the Mandate of Heaven dates from the Zhou Dynasty, and current historians think that they created it to get rid of the Shang. Before the Zhou, China didn’t even have a concept of “Heaven” or T’ian, but they did have a “high god” called Shangdi. But the Zhou believed in T’ian, and they were eager to portray the idea of heaven as eternal so they ascribed the concept of the Mandate of Heaven back to a time even before the Shang, explaining that the Shang were able to conquer the Xia only because the Xia kings had lost the Mandate of Heaven. (This of course would have been impossible, partly because the Xia kings had no concept of “heaven”, and partly because, as previously noted, they didn’t exist, but let’s just leave that aside.) The Shujing is pretty specific about what caused the Xia kings to lose the Mandate, by the way, explaining: “The attack on Xia may be traced to the orgies in Ming Tiao.” Sadly the Shujing is woefully short on details of these orgies, but orgies are the kind of behavior that is not expected of a ruler, and thus Heaven saw fit to remove the Mandate, and therefore heaven saw fit to come in, remove the Mandate, and allow the Shang to take power. But then the Shang lost the Mandate. Why? Well, the last Shang emperor was reported to have roasted and eaten his opponents, which, you know, bit of a deal breaker as far as the Mandate of Heaven is concerned. Of course, that might not actually have happened, but it would explain why Heaven would allow the Zhou to come to power. So basically the fact that one dynasty falls and is replaced by another in a cycle that lasts for 3000 years is explained, in the eyes of early Chinese historians, by divine intervention based on whether the ruler behaves in a proper, upright manner. It’s an after-the fact analysis that has the virtue of being completely impossible to disprove, as well as offering a tidy explanation for some very messy political history. And even more importantly, it reinforces a vision of moral behavior that is a cornerstone of Confucianism, which I’ll get to momentarily. But first, let’s see an example of the mandate of heaven in action. The Qin dynasty on lasted only 38 years, but it is one of the most important dynasties in Chinese history, so important in fact that it gave the place its name, “Chin- uh.” [chalkboard joke] Hahahaha. Can I just tell you guys that we literally just spent 20 minutes on that shot. We shot it like 40 times. Stan, you are in love with puns. The accomplishment of the Qin was to re-unify China under a single emperor for the first time in 500 years, ending the warring states period. As you can imagine, the making of that particular omelette required the cracking of quite a few eggs, and the great Qin emperor Qin Shihuangdi, and his descendants developed a reputation for brutality that was justified. But it was also exaggerated for effect so that the successor dynasty, the Han, would look more legitimate in the eyes of Heaven. So when recounting the fall of the Qin, historians focused on how a bunch of murderous eunuchs turned the Qin emperors into puppets, not literal puppets, although that would have been awesome. And these crazy eunuchs like tricked emporers into committing suicide when they started thinking for themselves, et cetera. So the Mandate of Heaven turned away from these puppet emperors, which set up a nice contrast for historians of the early Han emperors, such as Wen, who came to power in 180 BCE and ruled benevolently, avoiding extravagance in his personal behavior and ruling largely according to Confucian principles. Under Wen, there were no more harsh punishments for criticizing the government, executions declined, and, most importantly for the Confucian scholars who were writing the history, the government stopped burning books. Thus, according to the ancient Chinese version of history, Emperor Wen, by behaving as a wise Confucian, maintains the Mandate of Heaven. So who is this Confucius I won’t shut up about? Let’s go to the Thought Bubble. Confucius was a minor official who lived during the Warring States period and developed a philosophical and political system he hoped would lead to a more stable state and society. He spent a great deal of his time trying to convince one of the powerful kings to embrace his system, but while none ever did, Confucius got the last laugh because his recipe for creating a functioning society was ultimately adopted and became the basis for Chinese government, education, and, well, most things. So Confucius was conservative. He argued that the key to bringing about a strong and peaceful state was to look to the past and the model of the sage emperors. By following their example of morally upright behavior, the Chinese emperor could bring order to China. Confucius idea of morally upright behavior boils down to a person’s knowing his or her place in a series of hierarchical relationships and acting accordingly. Everyone lives his life (or her life, but like most ancient philosophical traditions, women were marginalized) in relationship to other people, and is either a superior or an inferior. There are five key relationships—but the most important is the one between father and son, and one of the keys to understanding Confucius is filial piety, a son treating his father with reverential respect. The father is supposed to earn this respect by caring for the son and educating him, but this doesn’t mean that a son has the right to disrespect a neglectful father. Ideally, though, both father and son will act accordingly: The son will respect the father, and the father will act respectably. Ultimately the goal of both father and son is to be a “superior man” (chunzi in Chinese). If all men strive to be chunzi, the society as a whole will run smoothly. This idea applies especially to the emperor, who is like the father to the whole country. Oh, it’s time for the Open Letter? Alright. [scoots to throne] God, that’s good. But first, let’s see what’s in the Secret Compartment today. Oh, an iPhone? Stan, this doesn’t factor into Chinese history until much later. An Open Letter to the Xia Dynasty: Dear Xia Dynasty, Why you gotta be so fictional? You contain all of the most awesome emperors, including my favorite emperor of all time, Yu the Engineer. There are so many The Greats and The Terribles among royalty and so few The Engineers. We need more kings like Yu The Engineer: Peter The Mortgage Broker; Danica The Script Supervisor; Stan The Video Editing and Producer Guy. Those should be our kings! I freakin’ love you, Yu The Engineer. And the fact that you’re not real- it breaks my heart, in a way that could only be fixed by Yu The Engineer. The circularity actually reminds me of the Mandate of Heaven. Best wishes, John Green But back to the chunzi: So how do you know how to behave? Well, first you have to look to historical antecedents particularly the sage emperors. The study of history, as well as poetry and paintings in order to understand and appreciate beauty, is indispensable for a chunzi. The other important aspects to chunzi-ness are contained in the Confucian ideas of ren and li. Ren and Li are both incredibly complex concepts that are difficult to translate, but we’re going to do our best. Ren is usually translated as “propriety”. It means understanding and practicing proper behavior in every possible situation, which of course depends on who you’re interacting with, hence the importance of the five relationships. Li is usually translated as “ritual” and refers to rituals associated with Chinese religion, most of which involve the veneration of ancestors. Which brings us back, in a very roundabout way to the fundamental problem of how early Chinese historians wrote their history. Traditional Chinese historians were all trained in the Confucian classics, which emphasized the idea that good emperors behaved like good Confucians. Would-be historians had to know these Classics by heart and they’d imbibed their lessons, chief among which was the idea that in order to maintain the Mandate of Heaven, you had to behave properly and not engage in orgies or eat your enemies or eat your enemies while engaging in orgies. In this history the political fortunes of a dynasty ultimately rest on one man and his actions, whether he behaves properly. The Mandate of Heaven is remarkably flexible as an explanation of historical causation. It explains why, as dynasties fell, there are often terrible storms and floods and peasant uprisings... If the emperor had been behaving properly, none of that stuff would have happened. Now, a more modern historian might point out that the negative effects of terrible storms and floods, which includes peasant uprisings, sometimes lead to changes in leadership. But that would take the moral aspect out of history and it would also diminish the importance of Confucian scholars. Because the scholars can tell you that one of the best ways to learn how to be a good emperor, and thereby maintain the Mandate of Heaven is to read the Confucian Classics, which were written by scholars. In short, the complicated circularity of Chinese history is mirrored by the complicated circularity of the relationship between those who write it and those who make it. Which is something to think about no matter what history you’re learning, even if it’s from Crash Course. Next week we’ll talk about Alexander the Grape—really, Stan, for an entire episode? That seems excessive to me. They’re just like less sour, grapy-er lemonheads—ohh Alexander the GREAT. That makes more sense. Until then, thanks for watching. Crash Course is produced and Directed by Stan Muller. Our script supervisor is Danica Johnson. Our graphics team is Thought Bubble and the show is written by my high school history teacher Raoul Meyer and myself. Last week’s phrase of the week was "Right Here In River City". If you wanna guess at this week’s phrase or suggest future ones you may do so in comments where you can also ask questions about today’s video that'll be answered by our team of historians. Thanks for reading Crash Course and as we say in my hometown, don’t forget to be awesome.

Communists, Nationalists, and China's Revolutions: Crash Course World History

Hi, I’m John Green, and this is Crash Course World History and today we’re going to return— sadly for the last time on Crash Course— to China. By the way, Stan brought cupcakes. That’s good. I wish I could draw some parallel between this and China, but I got nothing. It’s just delicious. I’ll sure miss you, piece of felt Danica cut out in the shape of China using blue because we felt red would be cliché. Mr. Green, Mr. Green, Mr Green! You don’t get to talk until you shave the mustache, Me From The Past. So the 20th century was pretty big for China because it saw not one but two revolutions. China’s 1911 revolution might be a bigger deal from a world historical perspective than the more famous communist revolution of 1949, but you wouldn’t know it because 1. china’s communism became a really big deal during the cold war, and 2. Mao Zedong, the father of communist China, was really good at self-promotion. Like, you know his famous book of sayings? Pretty much everyone in China just had to own it. And I mean, HAD TO. [makes sense; staff only allowed to read John Green books] [best] [intro music] [intro music] [intro music] [intro music] [intro music] [ever] So as you know doubt recall from past episodes of Crash Course, China lost the Opium wars in the 19th century, resulting in European domination, spheres of influence, et cetera, all of which was deeply embarrassing to the Qing dynasty and led to calls for reform. One strand of reform that called for China to adopt European military technology and education systems was called self strengthening, and it was probably would have been a great idea, considering how well that worked for Japan. But it never happened in China-- well, at least not until recently. Instead, China experienced the disastrous anti-Western Boxer Rebellion of 1900, which helped spur some young liberals, including one named Sun Yat Sen, to plot the overthrow of the dynasty. Oh, it’s already time for the Open Letter... [unscoffingly skids across unscoured set] An open letter to Sun Yat Sen. Oh, but first, let’s see what’s in the secret compartment today. Oh, more champagne poppers? [seriously, more champagne poppers?] Stan, at this point aren’t we sort of belaboring the fact that China invented fireworks? Wow! That is innovation at work right there. We used to not be able to fire off one of these, and now we can fire off six at a time if you count the two secret ones from behind me. [strangest. job. ever.] Dear Sun Yat Sen, you were amazing! I mean the Republic of China calls you the father of the nation, the People’s Republic of China calls you the forerunner of the democratic revolution. You’re the only thing they can agree on. You lived in China, Japan, the United States, you converted to Christianity, you were a doctor, you were the godfather of an important science fiction writer. [not important enough to help "Cordwainer" catch on as a popular baby name, however] But the infuriating thing is that you never actually got much of a chance to rule China, and you would have been great at it. I mean, your three principles of the people, Nationalism, Democracy, and the People’s Livelihood, are three really great principles. I mean the problem, aside from you not living long enough is that you just didn’t have a face for Warhol portraits. [Warhol thought anyone who had $25k had a face for his portraits, but point taken] Huh, it’s too bad. Best wishes, John Green. So the 1911 revolution that led to the end of the Qing started when a bomb accidentally exploded, at which point the revolutionaries were like, “we’re probably going to be outed, so we should just start the uprising now.” The uprising probably would’ve been quelled like many before it except this time the army joined the rebellion, because they wanted to become more modern. The Qing emperor abdicated, and the rebels chose a general, Yuan Shikai, as leader, while Sun Yat Sen was declared president of a provisional republic on Jan 1, 1912. A new government was created with a Senate and a Lower House, and it was supposed to write a new constitution. And after the first elections, Sun Yat Sen’s party, the Guomindang were the largest, but they weren’t the majority. So Sun Yat Sen deferred to Yuan, which turned out to be a huge mistake because he then outlawed the Guomindang party and ruled as dictator. But when Yuan Shikai died in 1916, China’s first non-dynastic government in over 3000 years completely fell apart. Localism reasserted itself with large-scale landlords with small-scale armies ruling all the parts of China that weren’t controlled by foreigners. You might remember this phenomenon from earlier in Chinese history, first during the Warring States period and then again for three hundred years between the end of the Han and the rise of the Sui. So the period in Chinese history between 1912 and 1949 is sometimes called the Chinese Republic, although that gives the government a bit too much credit. The leading group trying to re-form China into a nation state was the Guomindang, but after 1920 the Chinese Communist Party was also in the mix. And for the Guomindang to regain power from those big landlords and reunify China, they needed some help from the CCP. Now if an alliance between Communists and Nationalists sounds like a match made in hell, well, yes. It was. That said, the two did manage to patch things up for a while in the early 1920s, you know, for the sake of the kids. But then Sun Yat Sen died in 1925 and the alliance fell apart in 1927 when Guomindang leader Chaing Kai Shek got mad at the communists for trying to foment socialist revolution, to which the communists were like, “But that’s what we do, man. We’re communists.” Anyway, this turned out to be a bad break up for a bunch of reasons, but mainly because it started a civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists. We’re not going to get into exhausting detail on the civil war but Spoiler alert: the Communists won. But there are a few things to point out: First, even though Mao [pronounced like Maori] emerged victorious, he and the communists were almost wiped out in 1934 except that they made a miraculous and harrowing escape, trekking from southern China to the mountains in the north in what has become famously known as the Long March, a great example of historians missing an opportunity since it could easily have been called the Long Ass March, as it featured donkeys. Second, for much of the time the Gomindang was trying to crush the CCP, significant portions of China were being occupied and/or invaded by Japan. Thirdly, the Communists were just better at fighting the Japanese than the Nationalists were. In spite of the fact that Chiang Kai Shek had extensive support from the U.S. And each time the Nationalists failed against the Japanese, their prestige among their fellow Chinese diminished. It wasn’t helped by Nationalist corruption, or their collecting onerous taxes from Chinese peasants, or stories about Nationalist troops putting on civilian clothes and abandoning the city of Nanking during its awful destruction by the Japanese army in 1937. Meanwhile, the Communists were winning over the peasants in their northwestern enclave by making sure that troops didn’t pillage local land and by giving peasants a greater say in local government. Now, that isn’t to say everything was rosy under Mao’s communist leadership, even at its earliest stages. By the way, That is an actual chalk illustration. Very impressed. [thanks, boss.] In a preview of things to come, in 1942 Mao initiated a “rectification” program. Which basically meant students and intellectuals were sent down into the countryside to give them a taste of what “real China” was like in an effort to re-educate them. We try to be politically neutral here on Crash Course, but we are always opposed to intellectuals doing hard labor. [lolzer] But anyway, within four years of the end of World War II the Communists routed Chiang Kai Shek’s armies and sent them off to Taiwan. and these military victories paved the way for Mao to declare the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949. so once in power, Mao and the PRC were faced with the task of creating a new, socialist state. And Mao declared early on that the working class in China would be the leaders of a “people’s democratic dictatorship.” Oh democratic dictatorships. You’re the BEST. It’s all the best parts of democracy, and all the best parts of dictatorship. You get to vote, but there’s only one choice. It takes all the pesky thinking out it. The PRC promised equal rights for women, rent reduction, land redistribution, new heavy industry and lots of freedoms. Including freedoms of “thought, speech, publication, assembly, association, correspondence, person, domicile, moving from one place to another, religious belief, and the freedom to hold processions and demonstrations.” Yeah, NO. Even putting aside the PRC’s failure to protect any of those rights, Mao’s China wasn’t much fun if you were a landlord or even if you were a peasant who’d done well. Land redistribution and reform meant destroying the power of landlords, often violently. But centralizing power and checking individual ambition proved difficult for the government, and it was made harder by China’s involvement in the Korean War, which helped spur the first mass campaign of Mao’s democratic dictatorship. Designed to encourage support for the War, the campaign was called the “Resist America and Aid Korea campaign,” [name's a bit clunky, innit?] and it resulted in almost all foreigners leaving China. A second campaign, against “counterrevolutionaries” was much worse. People suspected of sympathizing with the Guomindang, or anyone insufficiently communist, was subject to humiliation and violence. Between October 1950 and August 1951 28,332 people accused of being spies or counterrevolutionaries were executed in Guandong city alone. A third mass campaign, the “Three Anti Campaign” w as aimed at reforming the Communist party itself. And the final mass campaign, the Five Anti Campaign was an assault on all bourgeois capitalism, which effectively killed private business in China. Very few of the victims of this last campaign actually died, but capitalism was weakened and state control bolstered. OK, let’s go to the Thought Bubble. Mao and the CCP set out to turn China into an industrial powerhouse by following the Soviet model. We haven’t really talked about this, but under the Soviet system, Russia was able to accomplish massive industrialization-- not to mention tens of millions of deaths from starvation-- through centralized planning and collectivization of agriculture, following what were known as Five Year Plans. The Chinese adopted the model of Five Year Plans beginning in 1953 and the first one worked, at least as far as industrialization was concerned. In fact, the plan worked even better than expected, with industry increasing 121% more than projected. In order for this to work though, the peasants had to grow lots of grain and sell it at extremely low prices. This kept inflation in check, and saving was encouraged by the fact that... ...the Five Year Plan didn’t have many consumer goods, so there was nothing to buy. For urban workers, living standards improved and China’s population grew to 646 million. So far, Mao’s plan seemed to be working, but there was no way that China could keep up that growth, especially without some backsliding into capitalism. So Mao came up with a terrible idea called the Great Leap Forward. Mao essentially decided that the nation could be psyched up into more industrial productivity. Among many other bad ideas, he famously ordered that individuals build small steel furnaces in their backyard to increase steel production. This was not a good idea. First off, it didn’t actually increase steel production much. Secondly, it turns out that people making steel in their backyard who know nothing about making steel… Make Bad Steel. But the worst idea was to pay for heavy machinery from the USSR with exported grain. This meant there was less for peasants to eat— and as a result, between 1959 and 1962, 20 million people died, probably half of whom were under the age of 10. Jeez,Thought Bubble, that was sad. And then in happier news came the Cultural Revolution! Just kidding, it sucked. By the middle of the sixties, Mao was afraid that China’s revolution was running out of steam, and he didn’t want China to end up just a bureaucratized police state like, you know, most of the Soviet bloc. and The Cultural Revolution was an attempt to capture the glory days of the revolution and fire up the masses, and what better way to do that than to empower the kids. Frustrated students who were unable find decent, fulfilling jobs jumped at the chance to denounce their teachers, employers, and sometimes even their parents and to tear down tradition, which often meant demolishing buildings and art. The ranks of these “Red Guards” swelled and anyone representing the so-called “four olds” —old culture, old habits, old ideas, and old customs— was subject to humiliation and violence. Intellectuals were again sent to the countryside as they were in 1942; millions were persecuted; and countless historical and religious artifacts were destroyed. But the real aim of the Cultural Revolution was to consolidate Mao’s revolution, and while his image still looms large, it’s hard to say that China these days is a socialist state. Many would argue that Mao’s revolution was extremely short-lived, and that the real change in China happened in 1911. That’s when the Chinese Republic ended 3,000 years of dynastic history and forever broke the cyclical pattern the Chinese had used to understand their past. I mean at least in some senses, those Nationalist revolutionaries literally put an end to history. That sense of living in a truly New World has made many great and terrible things possible for China but the legacy of China’s two revolutions is mixed at best. China, for instance, made most of the camera we use to film this video. And China made most of the computers we use to edit. [i see what you did there, Stanny] But no one in the People’s Republic of China will legally be able to watch this video, because the government blocks YouTube. Thanks for watching. I’ll see you next week. Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller. Our script supervisor is Meredith Danko. Our associate producer is Danica Johnson. The show is written by my high school history teacher Raoul Meyer and myself, and our graphics team is [not Secretly Canadian] Thought Bubble. Last week’s phrase of the week was "Disco Golf Ball." If you want to guess at this week’s phrase of the week or suggest future ones, you can do so in comments, where you can also ask questions about today's videos that will be answered by our team of historians. If you like Crash Course, make sure you’ve subscribed. Thanks for watching, and as we say in my hometown, Don’tForget The easiest time to add insult to injury is when signing somebody's cast.

Why China And Taiwan Hate Each Other

Since 1949, both Taiwan’s government, The Republic of China, and Mainland China’s government, The People’s Republic of China have claimed validity as the legitimate, and only, “China”. So, what’s going on? Which is the “real” China, and why do the two countries hate each other? A small disclaimer: We use these names to simplify the issue and are not siding with one or the other. So, there used to be a single China under a single government. But in 1949, during the Chinese Civil War, the Communist party forced the ruling government of China to flee. They went to Taiwan, an ex-Japanese owned island separated from Mainland China by the Taiwan Strait. The Communist Party instituted themselves as the new Chinese government the two governments continued their war. The US, NATO, and most Western nations recognized the exiled Taiwanese government as legitimate. Meanwhile, the Soviet Bloc and a few other countries recognized the new Communist government instead. However, in 1979, the United States switched allegiances from the old Chinese government to the new Communist one in order to gain influence against the Soviet Union. Mainland China then reached out to Taiwan with a “Three Links” attempt to normalized relations. The three links were “transportation, commerce, and communication”. In response, Taiwan implemented their “Three Noes” foreign policy with Mainland China, “no contact, no compromise and no negotiation”. But by 1987, Taiwan began allowing residents to visit Mainland China, and both countries established institutions to deal with governmental relations. Interestingly, since there has never been a formal declaration of peace from either side, both countries are technically still at war today. In 1992, the two governments came to a Consensus, acknowledging that there was only one China, and that each believed themselves to be it. Basically, they agreed to disagree, which has let the two discuss negotiations without being bogged down on this primary issue. The opposition to this consensus has been the movement to make Taiwan an independent country with it’s own, separate, national identity. A third solution, called “One Country, Two Systems” would establish Taiwan as one of China’s autonomous regions, like Hong Kong and Macau (ma-COW) However, in 2005, the Mainland Chinese passed a law to prevent Taiwan from “seceding”, by authorizing “non-peaceful” means to unify Taiwan back into Mainland China. Since a number of groups in Taiwan want to establish independence, this law could cause a military showdown between the two countries, something Taiwan is eager to avoid. At the same time, many in Taiwan are content with the status quo of mutually denying each other’s legitimacy. Since then, a 2014 meeting between officials from both countries marked the first direct government contact since 1949. From this meeting, and several high profile negotiations in the late 2000s, the two countries have attempted to increase their economic, trade, healthcare, and travel relations. However the two countries still seems far from reconciliation due to the complicated, and sometimes paradoxical nature of their dispute. Although each region has a unique story, China also has ongoing disputes with both Hong Kong and Tibet. To learn more about these complex issues, check out the videos we made right over here. And make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss a single upcoming video from TestTube! Thanks everyone!