China is the largest country located entirely within Asia, covering over 3.7 million square miles. The greater part of the country is mountainous. Its principal ranges are the Tien Shan, the Kunlun chain, and the Trans-Himalaya. In the southwest is Tibet, which China annexed in 1950. The Gobi Desert lies to the north. China proper consists of three great river systems: the Yellow River (Huang He), 2,109 mi (5,464 km) long; the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang), the third-longest river in the world at 2,432 mi (6,300 km); and the Pearl River (Zhu Jiang), 848 mi (2,197 km) long. It has an extensive coastline on the Pacific Ocean.
Since 1949, China has been constituted as the People’s Republic of China, and is officially a unitary one-party socialist republic. Although the country openly promotes Communism, the ideology of China is “socialism with Chinese characteristics”; after leadership of the country passed from Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping, the country thoroughly revised its Marxist-Leninist policies to suit the material conditions of China. This has resulted in subsequent leaders of the country expounding their own takes on communism, such as Deng Xiaoping Theory and Xi Jinping Thought. The country abandoned the Soviet model, and instead pursued the idea that, per Classical Marxist thought, they country needed to improve its economy and markets before it could pursue egalitarian communism. The country has invited more and more market influence, and has been the world’s fastest growing economy for decades.
As a unitary one-party system, the governing party (the Communist Party of China) handles all government functions. Elections are held only for members of the Local People’s Congress, who in turn vote for members of the legislative groups above them, such that only prominent legislators elect the members of the National People’s Congress. Although other parties are allowed some representation at the local level, the dominance of the Communist Party is written into the Chinese constitution. Regional party leaders exercise substantial authority, which further decentralizes the governing process.
Credit : Infoplease
Picture Credit : Google
