Chances are, if it exists in the West, it came from the East. From printing, calligraphy and ceramics to golf, the compass, gun powder, paper, architecture and philosophy, the Chinese were casting bronze around 5000 years ago, and much like the ancient Roman and Egyptian empires, China led much of the world in the arts and sciences for hundreds of years. Then, in the 19th Century, China experienced debilitating civil unrest, significant food shortages, military defeats, and foreign occupation. Today, political controls still remain tight, but more and more economic controls continue to be relaxed. China's economy is booming and its influence is growing worldwide.

China, with a recorded history of 5,000 years, was one of the world's earliest civilizations. Six to seven thousand years ago, the people living in the Yellow River valley supported themselves primarily with agriculture, while also raising livestock. More than 3,000 years ago these people began smelting bronze and using ironware. In the 21st century B.C., China established a slave society with the founding of the Xia Dynasty, thereby writing a finale to long years of primitive society.

In 221 B.C., Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, established a centralized, unified, multi-national feudal state. During these 2,000 years, China's economy and culture continued to develop, bequeathing a rich heritage of science and technology, literature and the arts. Chinese civilization peaked during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) when Tang people traded with people from all over the world. The four great inventions of ancient China during this period - paper-making, printing, the compass and gunpowder - have proved an enormous contribution to world civilization.

This period of feudal society continued until after the Opium War in 1840 when Britain anxious to continue its opium trade in China, started the Opium War. After this war, the big foreign powers forcibly occupied "concessions" and divided China into "spheres of influence"; thus, China was transformed into a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society.

In 1911, the bourgeois democratic revolution (the Xinhai Revolution) led by Sun Yat-sen abolished the feudal monarchy and established the Republic of China, ending over 2,000 years of feudal monarchy and is regarded as the start of the modern history of China.

In 1949, the Chinese Communist Party established the People's Republic of China, driving Kumingtang Party to Taiwan Island and in 1978; China adopted the Open Door policy and thereby ending a history of self seclusion.