Yuan Shikai was a Chinese emperor, general, statesman and warlord, famous for his influence during

the late Qing dynasty, his role in the events leading up to the abdication of the last Qing Emperor,
his autocratic rule as the first formal President of the Republic of China, and his short-lived attempt
to restore monarchy in China, with himself as the Hongxian Emperor.

Xinhai Revolution 1911 also known as the Chinese Revolution or the Revolution of 1911, was a
revolution that overthrew China's last imperial dynasty (the Qing dynasty) and established the Republic of
China(ROC). The revolution was named Xinhai (Hsin-hai) because it occurred in 1911, the year of the
Xinhai (辛亥, metal pig) stem-branch in the sexagenary cycle of the Chinese calendar. The revolution
consisted of many revolts and uprisings. The turning point was the Wuchang uprising on 10 October 1911,
which was the result of the mishandling of the Railway Protection Movement. The revolution ended with
the abdication of the six-year-old Last Emperor, Puyi, on 12 February 1912, that marked the end of 2,000
years of imperial rule and the beginning of China's early republican era (1912–16).

Empress Dowager Cixi of the Manchu Yehenara clan, was a Chinese empress dowager and regent who
effectively controlled the Chinese government in the late Qing dynasty for 47 years from 1861 until her
death in 1908. When Cixi returned to Beijing from Xi'an, where she had taken the emperor, she became
friendly to foreigners in the capital and began to implement fiscal and institutional reforms that began to
turn China into a constitutional monarchy. The death of both Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908 left
the court in the hands of Manchu conservatives, a child on the throne, and a restless, rebellious public.
Historians both in China and abroad have long portrayed her as a despot responsible for the fall of the Qing
dynasty. However, there is a minority that excuse Cixi as being a victim to factors which were beyond her
control.

Cohong was a guild of Chinese merchants or hongs who operated the import-export monopoly in
Canton (now Guangzhou) during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). During the century prior to the First
Opium War of 1839, trade relations between China and Europe were exclusively conducted via
the Cohong, which was formalised by imperial edict in 1760 by the Qianlong Emperor. The Chinese
merchants who made up the Cohong were referred to as hangshang (行商) and their foreign counterparts
as yanghang.

Neo-Confucianism is a moral, ethical, and metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced

by Confucianism, and originated with Han Yu and Li Ao (772–841) in the Tang Dynasty, and became
prominent during the Song and Ming dynasties. Neo-Confucianism was an attempt to create a more
rationalist and secular form of Confucianism by rejecting superstitious and mystical elements
of Taoism and Buddhism that had influenced Confucianism during and after the Han Dynasty.Although the
Neo-Confucianists were critical of Taoism and Buddhism,[2] the two did have an influence.

Sun Yat-sen a Chinese physician, writer, philosopher, calligrapher and revolutionary, the first president
and founding father of the Republic of China. As the foremost pioneer and first leader of a Republican
China, Sun is referred to as the "Father of the Nation" in the Republic of China (ROC) and the "forerunner
of democratic revolution" in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Sun played an instrumental role in the
overthrow of the Qing dynasty (the last imperial dynasty of China) during the years leading up to the Xinhai
Revolution. He was appointed to serve as Provisional President of the Republic of China when it was
founded in 1912. He later co-founded the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party of China), serving as its first
leader.

Treaty of Nanking or Nanjing was a peace treaty which ended the First Opium War(1839–42) between
the United Kingdom and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese
later called the unequal treaties on the ground that Britain had no obligations in return.
Hundred Days' Reform was a failed 104-day national, cultural, political, and educational reform
movement from 11 June to 22 September 1898 in late Qing dynasty China. It was undertaken by the
young Guangxu Emperor and his reform-minded supporters. Following the issuing of the reformative
edicts, a coup d'état ("The Coup of 1898", Wuxu Coup) was perpetrated by powerful conservative
opponents led by Empress Dowager Cixi.

Twenty-One Demands were a set of demands made during the First World War by the Empire of
Japan under Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu sent to the government of the Republic of China on January
8, 1915. The demands would greatly extend Japanese control of Manchuria and of the Chinese economy,
and were opposed by Britain and the United States. In the final settlement Japan gained a little but lost a
great deal of prestige and trust in Britain and the US. The Chinese people responded with a spontaneous
nationwide boycott of Japanese goods; Japan's exports to China fell 40%. Britain was affronted and no
longer trusted Japan as a partner. With the First World War underway, Japan's position was strong and
Britain's was weak. Nevertheless, Britain (and the United States) forced Japan to drop the fifth set of
demands that would have given Japan a large measure of control over the entire Chinese economy and
ended the Open Door Policy. Japan obtained its first four sets of goals in a treaty with China on May 25,
1915.

May Fourth Movement was an anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement growing out of student
participants in Beijing on 4 May 1919, protesting against the Chinese government's weak response to
the Treaty of Versailles, especially allowing Japan to receive territories in Shandong which had been
surrendered by Germany after the Siege of Tsingtao. These demonstrations sparked national protests and
marked the upsurge of Chinese nationalism, a shift towards political mobilization and away from cultural
activities, and a move towards a populist base rather than intellectual elites. Many political and social
leaders of the next decades emerged at this time.

Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China
between 1928 and 1975. Chiang was an influential member of the Kuomintang(KMT), the Chinese
Nationalist Party, as well as a close ally of Sun Yat-sen's. Chiang became the Commandant of the
Kuomintang's Whampoa Military Academy and took Sun's place as leader of the KMT following
the Canton Coup in early 1926. Having neutralized the party's left wing, Chiang then led Sun's long-
postponed Northern Expedition, conquering or reaching accommodations with China's many warlords.

Gang of Four was a political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party officials. They came to
prominence during the Cultural Revolution(1966–76) and were later charged with a series of treasonous
crimes. The gang's leading figure was Mao Zedong's last wife Jiang Qing. The other members were Zhang
Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen. The Gang of Four controlled the power organs of the
Communist Party of China through the later stages of the Cultural Revolution, although it remains unclear
which major decisions were made by Mao Zedong and carried out by the Gang, and which were the result
of the Gang of Four's own planning.

People's commune was the highest of three administrative levels in rural areas of the People's Republic of
China during the period from 1958 to 1983 when they were replaced by townships. Communes, the
largest collective units, were divided in turn into production brigades and production teams. The communes
had governmental, political, and economic functions.

Red Guards were a student mass paramilitary social movement mobilized by Mao Zedong in 1966 and
1967, during the Cultural Revolution. According to a Red Guard leader, the movement's aims were as
follows: Chairman Mao has defined our future as an armed revolutionary youth organization...So if
Chairman Mao is our Red-Commander-in-Chief and we are his Red Guards, who can stop us? First we will
make China Maoist from inside out and then we will help the working people of other countries make the
world red...And then the whole universe. Despite being met with resistance early on, the Red Guards
received personal support from Mao, and the movement rapidly grew. Mao made use of the group as
propaganda and to accomplish goals such as destroying symbols of China's pre-communist past, including
ancient artifacts and gravesites of notable Chinese figures. However, the government was very permissive
of the Red Guards, who were even allowed to inflict bodily harm on people viewed as dissidents. The
movement quickly grew out of control, frequently coming into conflict with authority and threatening
public security until the government made efforts to rein the youths in. The Red Guard groups also suffered
from in-fighting as factions developed among them. By the end of 1968, the group as a formal movement
had dissolved.

Mao Zedong was a Chinese communistre volutionary who became the founding father of the People's
Republic of China, which he ruled as the Chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment
in 1949 until his death in 1976. His theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known
as Maoism. He had a Chinese nationalist and anti-imperialist outlook early in his life, and was particularly
influenced by the events of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and May Fourth Movement of 1919. He later
adopted Marxism–Leninism while working at Peking University, and became a founding member of
the Communist Party of China (CPC), leading the Autumn Harvest Uprising in 1927. During the Chinese
Civil War between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the CPC, Mao helped to found the Chinese Workers' and
Peasants' Red Army, led the Jiangxi Soviet's radical land policies, and ultimately became head of the CPC
during the Long March. Although the CPC temporarily allied with the KMT under the United Front during
the Second Sino-Japanese War(1937–1945), China's civil war resumed after Japan's surrender and in 1949
Mao's forces defeated the Nationalist government, which withdrew to Taiwan.

Kuomintang of China is a major political party in the Taiwan Area of the Republic of China (ROC). The
predecessor of the KMT, the Revolutionary Alliance(Tongmenghui), was one of the major advocates of the
overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China. The KMT was founded
by Song Jiaoren and Sun Yat-sen shortly after the Xinhai Revolution of 1911. Sun was the provisional
President, but he later ceded the presidency to Yuan Shikai. Later led by Chiang Kai-shek, the KMT formed
the National Revolutionary Armyand succeeded in its Northern Expedition to unify much of China in 1928,
ended the chaos of Warlord Era. It was the ruling party in mainland China until 1949, when it lost
the Chinese Civil War to the Communist Party of China(CPC). Despite retreating to Taiwan and losing
most of its territory, the KMT remained an authoritarian government, which held onto China's UN
seat (with considerable international support) until 1971. In Taiwan, the political reforms started in the
1990s and loosened KMT's grip on power. Since 1987, the Republic of China is no longer a single-party
state, but the KMT remains one of the main political parties.

Deng Xiaoping Theory also known as Dengism, is the series of political and economic ideologies first
developed by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. The theory does not claim to reject Marxism–
Leninism or Mao Zedong Thought but instead seeks to adapt them to the existing socio-economic
conditions of China. Deng also stressed opening China to the outside world, the implementation of one
country, two systems, and through the phrase "seek truth from facts", an advocation of political and
economic pragmatism.

Second United Front was the alliance between the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, or KMT)
and Communist Party of China (CPC) to resist the Japanese invasion during the Second Sino-Japanese War,
which suspended the Chinese Civil War from 1937 to 1941.

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was a Soviet statesman who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold
War as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and
as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was responsible for
the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the early Soviet space program, and
for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy. Khrushchev's party colleagues removed
him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosyginas
Premier.He supported Joseph Stalin's purges, and approved thousands of arrests. In 1938, Stalin sent him
to govern Ukraine, and he continued the purges there. Stalin's death in 1953 triggered a power struggle,
from which Khrushchev ultimately emerged victorious. As Khrushchev took control of the USSR, he
increased aid to China, even sending a small corps of experts to help develop the newly communist country.

Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung is a book of statements from speeches and writings by Mao
Zedong (Mao Tse-tung), the former Chairman of the Communist Party of China, published from 1964 to
about 1976 and widely distributed during the Cultural Revolution. The most popular versions were printed
in small sizes that could be easily carried and were bound in bright red covers, becoming commonly known
in the West as the Little Red Book.

Socialism with Chinese characteristics is a political theory serving as the principal guiding ideology of
the contemporary Communist Party of China. The term entered common usage during the era of Deng
Xiaoping, and was largely associated with Deng's overall program of adopting elements of market
economics as a means to increase productivity and foster growth while the Communist Party retained both
its formal commitment to achieve communism and its monopoly on political power. In the party's official
narrative, Socialism with Chinese characteristics is Marxism–Leninism adapted to Chinese conditions and
a product of scientific socialism. The theory stipulated that China was in the "primary stage of socialism"
due to its relatively low level of material wealth, and needed to engage in economic growth before it pursued
a more egalitarian form of socialism, which in turn would lead to a communist society described in Marxist
orthodoxy.

Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement was a policy instituted in the People's
Republic of China in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As a result of what he perceived to be pro-bourgeois
thinking prevalent during the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong declared certain privileged urban youth
would be sent to mountainous areas or farming villages to learn from the workers and farmers there. In
total, approximately 17 million youth were sent to rural areas as a result of the movement.