According to ehistorylib, in 2005, the population of China was estimated to be around 1.3 billion people with the majority being Han Chinese (91.5%), followed by Zhuang (1.2%), Manchu (1.4%) and other ethnicities (6%). The economy of China was largely based on manufacturing and exports, as well as agricultural products such as rice and wheat. It also relied heavily on foreign investment from countries such as the United States, Japan, and Europe. The foreign relations of China were mainly focused on East Asia where it had close ties with its neighbours such as Japan, South Korea, and North Korea. With regards to politics in 2005, China was a one-party socialist republic led by President Hu Jintao who sought to improve the country’s economic situation through investment in infrastructure and education. He also advocated for increased regional integration through the establishment of various free trade agreements with East Asian countries.
Yearbook 2005
China. During the year, the country sought to adapt more to the standards of the Western world in the hope of being admitted into the diplomatic heat – especially important for the 2008 Olympics. “Significant measures” have been taken.
In September, China’s supreme court was given the power to review death sentences following criticism of erroneous executions – a softening after 2004, when 3,400 death sentences were executed. But much criticism for human rights violations remained. A UN reporter said torture still often occurs, despite prohibitions in law. In Xinjiang in the north, Muslim Uighurs were persecuted. Beijing backed the heavily criticized regime in Zimbabwe. Religious freedom was still limited, prompting President George W. Bush to call for increased tolerance in connection with a trip to China in November.
According to countryaah, Beijing is the capital and one of the major cities within the country of China. China’s economic growth was unexpectedly high in 2005 – 9.8% against the predicted 9.4. The trade surplus tripled to the equivalent of US $ 102 billion, compared with “only” US $ 32 billion in 2004. The US and the EU consider the currency yuan to be undervalued. China has made a small adjustment and the yuan also reached a peak, 8.06 yuan per dollar, but the outside world was far from satisfied.
- Also see abbreviationfinder.org for how the acronym CH stands for the country of China and other meanings of this two-letter abbreviation.
- ZHENGSOURCING.COM: a professional China sourcing agent focusing on sourcing of clothing items, including bag, jewelry, watch, shoes, belt and etc.
In May, President Hu Jintao set the target of quadrupling the economy to the equivalent of US $ 4 billion in 2020. Already today, China is the world’s fourth largest economy, and in terms of trade volume, China is third in the world according to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
On January 1, the WTO’s restrictions on textile exports were lifted. The result was a jumble of Chinese clothing across the US and the EU. There, governments were scared and negotiated restrictions to protect their domestic production.
Towards the end of the year, China consolidated its financial capacity by ordering 150 passenger planes for US $ 9.7 billion by Franco-British Airbus.
The need for energy is a growing problem. 70% of the fuel comes from coal. The quarry also caused numerous accidents, the largest on November 27 in the Dongfeng mine with 169 fatalities. During the year, 3,000 fatalities were reported in the mines, despite a sharp decline from 6,000 the year before.
The bird virus in its dangerous H5N1 form required seven casualties in China Millions of birds were slaughtered or vaccinated to prevent the spread of the virus.
The militarization of China was a concern raised by both Japan and the United States. In recent years, China has invested significantly more than before on the armed forces: officially $ 30 billion in 2005, according to the United States in reality $ 90 billion. When US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited China in October, he raised this concern. China objected that its outlay is a fraction of the US $ 440 billion in 2004.
The Shenzhou VI spacecraft returned to Earth on October 16 with its two men on board after five days in space. It was China’s second manned spaceflight. Now a lunar journey and a space station are planned for 2020.
A major diplomatic quarrel between China and Japan characterized almost all of 2005. In April, Chinese youths in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Shenzhen demonstrated against a Japanese history book eroding Japan’s atrocities in the 1932-45 war. Students threw rocks and fire bombs at Japan’s consulate in Shanghai. The regime signaled a break in the protests only after three weeks.
The next conflict involved Japan’s announcement that Japanese drilling for gas would be launched in the East China Sea, in an area that China also claims. On top of this, Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi again visited the Yasukunite Temple in October, honoring 2.5 million war victims, but also Japanese executed for war crimes. In December, China canceled the annual summit between China, Japan and South Korea. “Yasukuni cannot be used as a diplomatic card,” was Koizumi’s comment.
The environmental degradation in China came to fruition in November, when an explosion in a chemical plant in Jilin caused a leak of benzene into the Songhua River. The water must be turned off in the big city of Harbin. China’s highest environmental officer Xie Zhenhua resigned from his post after the accident, which claimed four lives.
Smogen is difficult in big cities and it is wasted with energy; According to official data, 2.5 times more energy per unit of GDP is spent in China compared to the world average. China also has the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emissions.
Hong Kong was pleased in March that Beijing’s loyal Chief of Administration Dong Jian-hua resigned. But popular successor Donald Tsang had problems already in the fall. A quarter of a million Hong Kong residents demonstrated against Beijing’s unwillingness to allow universal suffrage in theoretically self-governing Hong Kong. Donald Tsang was accused of approving an undemocratic reform.
Also in Taiwan, demonstrations were made against Beijing when the People’s Congress in March approved a law that would allow China to intervene forcefully if Taiwan takes steps toward independence.
The political summit – President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao – gently relinquished control of the grief manifestations of popular reform leaders. The 1987 party and the deceased party leader Hu Yaobang’s birthday were celebrated in 1989, despite his tolerance for student protests being thought to have led to the democracy demonstration at Tiananmen Square in 1989. January 17. Zhao, who was believed to have shown too much tolerance for the democracy advocates, was in house arrest until he died. Several hundred mourners were allowed to defile past his stretcher.
The last survivor of the gang of four, Yao Wenyuan, died December 23. Called “the man who kills with the pen,” he led the propaganda during the bloody cultural revolution of 1966-76.
China – Beijing
Beijing
Beijing, capital of China. With surrounding countryside, Beijing is an administrative area equal to the provinces. This area covers 17,000 km2 and has 21. 7 million residents (2016), of which 16. 4 million in the city itself.
Beijing is the country’s second most populous city, only Shanghai is bigger. Correct population data are not officially available, as 1-2 million residents in Beijing live there without a permanent residence permit. The urban area is in the northern corner of the triangular North China Plain, the country’s most extensive agricultural area, and is almost completely surrounded by Hebei Province, except in the southeast, where it borders Tianjin.
The area has a continental, temperate monsoon climate. The winter is long, dry, windy and cold with an average temperature of −4. 8 ° C in January. The summer is humid and warm with an average of 25. 8 ° C in July. The Xi Shan and Yan Shan mountain ranges rise in the northwest and northeast, about 40 km from the city center.
Beijing, located 160 km off the east coast, grew up as a trading town where the roads from the plains of the south beamed together and connected to the caravan roads from the highlands beyond the mountains.
Architecture and cityscape
For 2,700 years, cities of political significance have existed in the place where Beijing is now located. The city’s last walled, square floor plan with nine gates in the four winds received the city in the years 1403-20. The main streets extend right through the city in an organized route system that forms intermediate city blocks, strictly regulated by social function.
The Emperor’s Palace, “The Forbidden City,” is in the center surrounded by a moat and a high wall. Around the palace there is a walled imperial city where the central administration has its seat. Both the city’s square floor plan and the architectural design of its most important buildings and its location in the landscape have their basis in cosmology and speech mysticism (magic squares). The old city walls were demolished after 1949 to make way for modern communication routes.
In and around Tiananmen Square, the new center of the city, is among other things. Mao Zedong’s mausoleum, the south gate to the old imperial city with a small portion of the original wall preserved, the Historical Museum and the National People’s Congress Palace. Important building memories inside and outside Beijing are the Palace Museum, the altar of heaven, the Summer Palace, the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall of China.
