of Chinese society extend back to 7000 BCE.^49 The documented historical record
began with the Shang Dynasty (1766?–1122? BCE) and continues unbroken to cur-
rent times, making China the world’s oldest continuous civilization.^50 This record of
the past has inculcated in the Chinese an enduring sense of history, a profound pride
in past grandeur, and an acute awareness of Western-perpetrated injustices suffered
during the modern age.
Geography has played a formative role in China’s uninterrupted record of social
and cultural development, serving simultaneously to isolate and to unify the
nation.^51 Slightly larger than the United States when measured in total land area
only, China is surrounded by formidable borders—vast, desolate plateaus and desert
to the north, soaring mountain ranges to the west and southwest, mountains and
deep valleys to the south, and the ocean to the southeast and east. The formidable
barriers to the north, west, and southwest restricted large-scale overland movement.
A paucity of good harbors and unfavorable coastal terrain hindered seaborne access
to the east and southeast. Collectively, these topographical features, coupled with a
strong sense of centrality among Imperial China’s governing elite, ensured a degree
of geographical and cultural remoteness that continued until the development of
modern transportation and communication systems.
This relative geographical seclusion restricted China’s awareness of and contact
with the world’s other early civilizations and facilitated the development of partisan
political, economic, and social systems. With only a limited awareness of lands and
peoples beyond their borders, Imperial Chinese developed a worldview inscribed
with a sense of cultural superiority. Imbued with the belief that they were the fore-
most social order in the known world, the ancient Chinese elite considered their
country to be the center of the world (tianxia), and everything beyond its borders
wasviewedasinferiorandunimportant.^52 They referred to China as the“Central
Country” (simplified ; traditional ),^53 and even today those ideograms
remain a part of the official name of the People’s Republic of China (simplified
; traditional ).
Internally, China’s irregular topography gave rise to regional separation and dif-
ferentiation in customs and dialects, discussed in greater detail below. To overcome
these impediments to unification and to govern the predominantly agrarian popula-
tion, the Chinese instituted a system of imperial rule and a bureaucratic, centralized
administration. The adoption of Confucianism as a state ideology and development
of a written language common throughout the empire facilitated consolidation and
control. Thus, although China presented an outward model of uniformity, inter-
nally it was marked by social and linguistic diversity, which is a continuing
characteristic.
China’s premodern history is an enduring cycle of dynastic successions, led by an
imperial emperor supported by an extensive bureaucracy. The emperor was referred
to as the“Son of Heaven,”and his legitimacy and power were derived from the
“Mandate of Heaven,”the concept that if an emperor were just and virtuous in
governing the people, heaven would permit him to rule the land. However, if the
people rose up over perceived injustices, natural calamities such as famine or flood
occurred, or invading armies breached the borders, the emperor was perceived to
have lost his mandate and would be replaced by a new emperor who had received
the mandate. The concept of a government formed around a centralized bureau-
cracy under the rule of a single leader continues today, as exemplified by the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP).Contemporary Social Issues 173Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).