The last of the Chinese Labour Corps, Zhu Guisheng
Some 140,000 Chinese men served in the Allied effort in World War I as part of the Chinese Labour Corps. This Week in China's History takes a look back at the contributions of these volunteers.
This Week in China’s History
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The 228 Incident and the ambiguities of Taiwanese identity
Recent debates over Taiwan’s identity as Chinese, or part of China, focus on the awkward arrangement by which governments in Taipei and Beijing both claim sovereignty over the island. In 1947, questions of national identity were also rampant in Taiwan, but the fault lines were very different.
Xuanzang’s journey to the West — and back to Chang’an
The Buddhist monk Xuanzang covered 10,000 miles on foot and horseback, from China to India, and passed through parts of what are today Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nepal. When he returned home, he received a hero's welcome.
The ‘necessary lessons’ of the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War
If Chinese commanders had observed the experiences of French and American forces in Vietnam, they seem to have learned few lessons.
An anti-American protest during the Chinese Civil War
At the end of World War II, more than 100,000 American soldiers were stationed in China, and tens of thousands still remained by 1947. One newspaper alleged that American forces were responsible for one Chinese death every day. And then there was the Shen Chong rape case, which galvanized popular opinion against the American presence.
The Tatsu Maru incident in the waning years of the Qing
In 1908, Qing customs officials boarded the Japanese steamship Tatsu Maru to seize weapons allegedly earmarked for revolutionaries. The ship's captain objected. The drawn-out diplomatic dispute that followed made international headlines.
The death of woman Wang and the life of Jonathan Spence
An extraordinary book by an extraordinary historian.
The last voyage of famed Chinese admiral Zheng He
At its height, the Ming dynasty had more than a thousand ocean-going vessels, including large "treasure ships" equipped with luxury cabins and weaponry. At the helm was Zheng He, an admiral who has fascinated historians in recent decades.
Zunyi: The three-day meeting that pushed the CCP toward Mao
On January 15, 1935, a warlord’s palace in the remote mountains of Guizhou was the setting for a meeting that, over the course of three days, changed China’s political course for decades.