China


 * For the small Mexican town, see China, Nuevo León.

China is a large country in Asia, with the highest population on the planet. It is one of the oldest continuous civilizations on the planet, having in its history given several inventions and technological advancements to humanity. An empire until the 20th century, China was ruled by several dynastic movements, culminating the Qing dynasty. Throughout the 19th century, China fell into political and economic decline, and was soon dominated up by several foreign powers, including much of Europe and Japan. Each carved out its own economic sphere of influence within the country. Several wars were fought between China and other foreign powers, and each time China suffered humiliating defeat. In the early 20th century, the Qing Dynasty fell, and China became a republic. However, the republic ineffectually lurched its way through the next few decades until the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War in 1927, when the Nationalists and Communists battled for control of the country. Into this came Japan, which in turn lead to the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II as the two warring Chinese factions officially (if not practically) called a halt to the Civil War. After Japan's defeat, the Civil War began again, with the Communists achieving ultimate victory, and the Nationalists retreating to Taiwan.

Officially there are two countries that may be called "China", the mainland People's Republic of China and the Republic of China, located on Taiwan. Diplomatically, much of the world views the mainland as the "proper" China.

Note
In most of the works of Harry Turtledove, the POD arrives when China is still in its republic phase, and still embroiled in the Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War. A few have PODs set in imperial China, and one or two are set in the PRC. In the Southern Victory series, the type of government (empire? republic? other?) is never discussed.

China in Agent of Byzantium
By the early 14th Century, China was one of the three great powers in the known world. The others were the Byzantine Empire and Persia.

China in "Before the Beginning"
China was one of the first countries to convert to Judaism en masse after it was revealed that the Jews were indeed God's chosen people.

China in Crosstime Traffic
Crosstime Traffic was aware of an alternate in which China had discovered and completely settled North America. In another alternate, China was responsible for starting a devastating nuclear war. In another, the descendants of Alexander the Great ruled half a dozen empires that stretched from Spain to the borders of China. Footage taken in this alternate was shown to Jeremy Solters and his fellow students in US history class.

China in Curious Notions
In the alternate designated as 3477, China, like the rest of the world, was politically dominated by Germany after it emerged victorious from World War I. Its tremendous size and huge population, however, made it nearly impossible to rule to the same extent that Germany ruled other countries.

Although China had overthrown its monarchy in 1911, Germany restored the Emperor, and continued to rule China through the emperor well into the 21st century. China's population, though, made it easy for resistance movements to rise up against German rule and disappear. Organizations like the Triads worked in North America to put their candidate for an emperor and replace Germany with China as the most powerful country in the world.

Given this "wild" status, Lawrence Gomes's claim that Curious Notions purchased its far too advanced merchandise from China was readily accepted by German authorities.

China in The Disunited States of America
China had dissolved into various autonomous provinces in the 20th Century. Two or three of these were considered great powers of the world in the late 21st Century.

China in The Gladiator
In an alternate where the Soviet Union won the Cold War, the People's Republic of China was the only viable rival for the USSR. The PRC had carved out a substantial sphere of influence in the world, most importantly in East Asia, but it was not unheard of for China to meddle in Russia's immediate sphere. Most famously, Albanian leader Enver Hoxha had broken with the USSR and turned to China in the late 20th Century. Though at some later time the Soviet Union reimposed an Albanian regime friendly to itself, there were still pro-Chinese guerrillas fighting the pro-Soviet government in the closing days of the 21st Century.

China in Gunpowder Empire
China was the easternmost in a string of empires stretching all along the Euro-Asian land mass, which also included the Roman Empire, Lietuva, Persia and the two empires sharing the Indian subcontinent, all of which - though having varied historical and cultural backgrounds - possessed gunpowder and artillery and had considerable stability. There was some trade between the Chinese and Romans, but it was not very important to either empire. Scholars noted that these two empires had a similar problem of their shores being the target of pirates, from Japan and Scandinavia respectively.

In another alternate, where Jeremy Solters' friend Michael Fujikawa went with his parents, China was dominated by Japanese warlords - which gave the Fujikawa family, with their Japanese background, a better chance to blend in. In the messages which Michael sent to Jeremy, he made little mention of the history or technological level of the China in whose North he lived, mainly complaining of having to get up very early for long and boring religious ceremonies, as part of keeping the Fujikawas' cover in that alternate.

China in In High Places
China was the richest and most powerful country of an alternate where four in five Europeans were killed in the Great Black Deaths. However, it never filled the void of exploration and technological development that the crippled Europe left, much to the puzzlement of Crosstimers.

China in Days of Infamy
China was the scene of hard and difficult fighting for the Japanese military. Many of the Japanese soldiers who occupied Hawaii were veterans of fighting in China. These veterans found occupying Hawaii to be much easier.

China in "Getting Real"
By 2117, China was the sole superpower overtaking the United States during the previous century. In addition to its military and economic power, China led the world in technological research and development. The U.S. refused to recognize this change in circumstance leading to trade disputes and minor military skirmishes which accelerated the U.S.'s decline.

China in In the Presence of Mine Enemies
China was an occupied territory of the Empire of Japan in 2010. It was partitioned by the Japanese with a separate puppet state existing in Manchukuo under an emperor. The Japanese made a systematic use of it as a pool of virtually unlimited cheap manpower.

China in "Les Mortes d'Arthur"
By the Twenty-Second Century, China had overthrown Communism and restored its status as an empire. It was wealthy enough to send a large team to Mimas, a moon of Saturn, for the sixty-sixth Winter Olympic Games but not so wealthy as to have them sent early to train in the low-g environment.

China in "Occupation Duty"
inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom had a fundamental difference with the Turks of Babylon over interpretation of the teachings of Buddha. The Chinese like their neighbors in Eastern Asia held to the traditional view that Buddhism is a pacific religion, while the Turks - more recent converts - supported the Sword Buddha who authorized and indeed encouraged violence and killing. Still, the different kinds of Buddhists shared various elements of the religion, such as the uttering the mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum".

China in Southern Victory
China had been an empire, ruled by the Qing Dynasty during the 19th century. Many of its citizens had emigrated to the United States, but had very little rights. The largest concentration of Chinese in the US was in San Francisco.

In 1912, the Qing Dynasty collapsed and China became a republic, and was a minor ally of the Entente when the Great War began in 1914, even though no fewer than four Entente nations (Britain, France, Russia, and its hereditary enemy Japan) had carved out colonial spheres of influence within Chinese territory.

After the Great War ended, China's economy had grown so dismal that the worldwide stock market crash of 1929 did not effect it; it had no wealth to lose.

Japan also gained much influence in Chinese affairs during this period, and at times even resorted to aerial bombings of Chinese cities. This would later lead to all-out war between both countries.

During the Second Great War, Japan intensified its war greatly although China stayed out of the main part of the war and remained neutral.

China in The Guns of the South
Some of the AK-47s delivered to the Army of Northern Virginia by Andries Rhoodie carried marks proclaiming themselves to have been made in the People's Republic of China. The Army's staff officers pored over maps of China in atlases but were unable to find any section of the country known as the "People's Republic."

China in "The Last Article"
By 1947, Japan had total domination over all of China, and was busy negotiating a trade deal with Germany.

China in The Two Georges
China was a British protectorate. Having secured complete control over the Chinese economy and shut out rival colonial powers which sought to carve out Chinese enclaves to themselves was a major source of the British Empire's continuing as a major world power to the end of the 20th Century and beyond.

China in The War That Came Early
China had been fighting a war in earnest against invading Japanese forces for a year when the Second World War broke out in Europe in October, 1938.

China itself was also in the throes of a civil war, as Communists battled the Kuomintang.

In December 1939, with Japanese forces now engaged in a conflict with the Soviet Union, Communists launched a series of terrorist bombing raids on various Japanese positions in all of China's major cities.

Despite the Japanese occupation, the United States, officially a neutral, maintained military garrisons in China to protect its national interests.

China in "Vilcabamba"
Some time after the Krolp arrived and subjugated Earth, China joined Russia and the United States in a massive organized uprising. That uprising failed.

China in Worldwar
When the Race's Conquest Fleet arrived in 1942, China had been locked with Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Race quickly took control of Chinese territory (and first made the acquaintance of ginger) and would continue to hold it throughout their war with the major Tosevite not-empires. However, administering China proved no easy task, as the Race was constantly resisted both before and after the Peace of Cairo by both the Kuomintang and Mao Tse-Tung's Communist forces (with the support of the Soviet Union as well as the United States).

In 1964 the Race was temporarily expelled from many of China's major cities including Beijing by a coalition of Chinese factions. While this rebellion was eventually put down, a second mainly communist rebellion employed anti-tank and anti-air missiles to drive the Lizards from Beijing and other cities in 1966 and hold them for a longer period of time. Though the Lizards eventually retook the rebel controlled-territory, they realized that it would probably be necessary to negotiate with the various factions.

Many Race males, from common infantry males to Fleetlord Atvar, often felt frustrated with China, as it was too densely populated to be settled by colonists, but at the same time had to be kept garrisoned to keep up a strong image to other Tosevite powers. Chinese resistance took a heavy toll on Race forces, and it was these casualties that eventually forced Fleetlord Reffet to seriously consider letting Atvar recruit colonists to be soldiers.

The Chinese flag flew in the palace of the 37th Emperor Risson in Preffilo on Home, among the other flags of conquered Tosevite empires and not-empires and the banners of all the once-independent empires of Rabotev 2, Halless 1, and ancient Home.

Note
China is only addressed in the beginning of Homeward Bound, stating that it is still in rebellion. Its status in 2031 is never said.