What China Has Going For It

China's history goes back about five thousand years and the present government is solidly rooted in that history. It is widely considered that Imperial China, with it's successive dynasties, came to an end in 1911. But a dynastic history that has been going on for thousands of years isn't going to just end suddenly like that.

China's dynasties are usually divided into Early, Middle and, Late Imperial China, with three successive dynasties each. We might call the era that China is in now "Post-Imperial", but the same rules will apply.

The first Post-Imperial "Dynasty" was the Nationalist Dynasty, from 1911 to 1949 and led by Sun Yat-Sen and Chiang Kai-Shek. The second Post-Imperial "Dynasty" is the present Communists, ruling since 1949.

What the present leadership has going for it is that in each of the first two imperial eras, Early and Middle Imperial China, the first dynasty was a rather brief one but was important in that it reunited the country after the collapse of the previous dynasty, thus bringing in a new era. 

These previous dynasties were the Qin, from Early Imperial China, and the Sui, from Middle Imperial China. In Post-Imperial China these correspond to the Nationalists, who indeed dealt with the warlords and fragmentation that occurred after the end of the Qing Dynasty, in 1911.

The good news for the present Communist "Dynasty" is that the brief Qin and Sui Dynasties were followed by two of the most glorious periods in Chinese history. These are the Han Dynasty, of Early Imperial China, and the Tang Dynasty, of Middle Imperial China. The present Communist "Dynasty" corresponds to these glorious eras of the past.

So we are expecting great things from China.

Just an idea for China. There is an Eighteenth Century scroll painting called "Prosperous Suzhou", about the city by that name near Shanghai and Hangzhou. It shows daily life across the city. A scroll painting is the long-ago version of a movie. How about making it into a modern movie?

Again the capital city of China has moved so many times, I wonder if it will ever move again. Xian was the first capital, and also served as capital at other times since then. I remember, from when I was very young, the news of the discovery of the Terra Cotta Army that had been buried with the first emperor of Imperial China. How about Xian if the capital ever moves again?