In 1977, a complete set of chime bells were unearthed from the tomb of Marquis Yi, who lived during the Warring States Period (475 to 221 BC). These chimes were older than the Qin Dynasty’s famous Terra Cotta warriors (221 to 206 B.C.) were.
The sixty-five chime bells weighed about 5 tons.
When the chimes were discovered in Hubei Province, a plot of land was being leveled to build a factory. The Red Army officer in charge of the work had an interest in archeology.
The officer discovered that the workers were selling the ancient bronze and iron artifacts they were digging up. He convinced local authorities there might be an ancient tomb buried below the site.
When the tomb was unearthed, the bells were discovered. These musical instruments were an important part of ritual and court music from ancient China. An American professor in New York City called these chimes the eighth wonder of the ancient world.
No other set of chimes like this had been discovered in China, and this set was in excellent condition.
A project in 1979 duplicated four sets of these chimes. More than a hundred scientists and technicians were recruited. In 1998, twenty years after the discovery of the original chimes, the project was completed, and one set was sent to Taiwan as a gift.
China was a regional superpower in East Asia for about two-thousand years starting with the Han Dynasty in 206 B.C. How did China influence those countries?
China’s Sphere of Influence Japan, Korea, Vietnam AP World History
From Global Security.org we learn “During the T’ang (Thang) dynasty China (in the 7th to the 9th century AD) the two peoples of China and the Philippines already had relatively close relations and material as well as cultural exchanges.”
The Chinese exchanged silk, porcelain, colored glass, beads and iron ware for hemp cloth, tortoise shells, pearls and yellow wax of the Filipinos.
The Chinese became the dominant traders in the 12th and 13th centuries during the Sung Dynasty (960-1279 AD). The shift in the commerce between China and Southeast Asia saw Butuan send a tribute mission to the Sung emperor.
Ethnic Chinese sailed around the Philippine Islands from the 9th century onward and frequently interacted with the local Filipinos. Some datus, rajahs, and lakans (indigenous rulers) in the Philippines were themselves a product of the intermarriage between the Chinese merchant-settlers and the local Filipinos
There is a significant number of Thai-Chinese in Thailand. Fourteen percent of Thais may have Chinese origins. Significant intermixing has taken place such that there are few pure ethnic Chinese, and those of partially mixed Chinese ancestry account for as much as a third to a half of the Thai population.
In Vietnam, approximately 1 million ethnic Chinese, constitute one of Vietnam’s largest minority groups.
Cambodia has more than 152,000 citizens who are Chinese.
Laotian Chinese number about 185,000. Most Laotian Chinese are descendants of older generations who moved down from the Southern China provinces starting in the 19th century.
Chinese Singaporeans make up 76.2% of that country’s citizens – approximately three out of four Singaporeans – making them the largest ethnic group in Singapore.
In Malaysia more than 23-percent of the population is Malaysian Chinese forming the second largest community of Overseas Chinese in the world, after Thailand. Within Malaysia, they represent the second largest ethnic group after the ethnic Malay majority.
Culturally, most Malaysian Chinese have maintained their Chinese heritage including their various dialects, although the descendants of the earliest Chinese migrants who arrived from the 15th to 17th century have assimilated aspects of the Malay culture and they form a distinct subethnic group known as the Peranakan or Baba-Nyonya.
There has been a recognizable community of Chinese people in Korea since the 1880s. Most early migrants came from China’s Shandong province. It’s estimated that about 780,000 live in South Korea today with another 10,000 in North Korea.
According to the latest population census in 2010, there are 2.8 million ethnic Chinese living in Indonesia, accounting for 1.2% of the total population. Observers say this number is much higher because many Indonesians are still reluctant to admit they are of Chinese descent, fearing discrimination.
Even Japan has its share of Chinese. In 1990, there were about 150,000 Chinese living in Japan. Today, that number is more than 700,000.
In Myanmar (Burma), 2.5-percent of the population is Chinese. Due to deposits of jade, Chinese merchants have been involved in mining and trade there for more than two thousand years. In fact, during the Qing Dynasty, there were four major invasions (1765-1769) of Burma by China’s Manchu emperors. In 1784, the long struggle between Burma and China ended and regular trade started up again.
Overseas Chinese Make Their Mark
In November 1885, Sir Robert Hart favored a proposal that China, as Burma’s overlord, stand aside and allow the British Empire to pursue her own course there provided that Britain allow Burma to continue her decennial tribute (once every ten years) missions to China.
Instead, the British Empire made Burma a province of India in 1886.
Since independence from the British Empire, Burma/Myanmar has generally been impartial to world affairs but was one of the first countries to recognize Israel and the People’s Republic of China.
Territories such as the autonomous regions of Tibet, Xinjiang and countries like North Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, Burma, Vietnam and others along China’s long borders were considered vassal states by some Chinese dynasties, and to maintain cordial relations and keep the peace, these vassal states often sent lavish gifts and delegations to China’s emperors on a regular schedule.
Under Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976), China suffered after he became its leader in 1949, but that isn’t the whole story. During Mao’s Great Leap Forward; what’s known as Mao’s Great Famine (1958 – 62), and the Cultural Revolution, millions died from starvation and purges. What we don’t hear is that China is known as the land of famines. Imperial records show that China has had droughts and famines in one or more of its provinces annually for more than two-thousand years, but there is no mention of the fact that there has not been any famines since the last one in 1962.
In addition, when Mao came to power in 1949, the average lifespan in China was 35. When Mao died, the average lifespan was in the 50s and today it’s in the 70s.
On June 30, 1984, Deng Xiaoping said, “Given that China is still backward, what road can we take to develop the productive forces and raise the people’s standard of living? … Capitalism can only enrich less than 10 percent of the Chinese population; it can never enrich the remaining more than 90 percent. But if we adhere to socialism and apply the principle of distribution to each according to his work, there will not be excessive disparities in wealth. Consequently, no polarization will occur as our productive forces become developed over the next 20 to 30 years.”
Deng Xiaoping was right. Bruce Einhom writing for Business Week, Countries in the Biggest Gaps Between Rich and Poor, October 16, 2009, listed the top countries with the biggest gaps. America was number #3 on the list. China wasn’t on the list.
What does capitalism, Chinese style, look like? Under Deng Xiaoping’s economic policies, China became the world’s factory floor.
Prior to 1979, the year China opened its doors to world trade, it was rare to find anything made in China.
In the last thirty years, something happened that Mao thought he had destroyed. China grew a consumer middle class and that growth hasn’t finished. During a trip to China in 2008, we saw the Chinese middle class everywhere we went. Instead of the majority of tourists being foreigners, they were Chinese traveling to discover their own country.
A middle-class family in China usually owns an apartment, a car, eats out regularly, and takes vacations. National Geographic Magazine in May 2008 said, “They owe their well-being to the government’s (Deng Xiaoping’s) economic policies …”
Current estimates show China’s GDP growth will continue to grow. Since 2000, China’s GDP has grown at an annual average of 9.66 percent. Compare that to the U.S. with a GDP that never breaks 4 percent and was 2.43 percent in 2015. – Google Public Data
This might come as a surprise to some. China is planning to go where no human has gone before and get there second or in some cases first. After all, only a few Americans have walked on the moon and nowhere else in the solar system, and it shouldn’t be a surprise because many Chinese are into UFOs and science fiction too.
The Indian Express.com reports, “China plans to become first country to land on dark side of the moon.” China announced that it will launch a lunar probe in 2018 to achieve the world’s first soft landing on the far side of the moon to showcase its ambitious space programme.
In March 2017, China Daily reported on China’s next goal in space, to ride an asteroid. A similar program was approved by President Obama but the Malignant Narcissist in the White House Donald Trump wants to cancel those plans. After sending a probe to Mars in 2020, China plans to explore three asteroids and land on one of them to conduct scientific research, according to a Chinese asteroid research expert.
Late in 2017, China’s first space station, Tiangon-1 will be falling to Earth, but China has already launched its second space lab Tiangon-2 into orbit and plans a larger space station in 2020.
NBC News reports, “With the current U.S.-led International Space Station expected to retire in 2024, China could be the only nation left with a permanent presence in space. China is ‘on the rise and the U.S. is in very real danger of falling behind in the future,’ warned Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut and veteran of four space flights, one of which included commanding the International Space Station. … China is building its own capability and their aim is clearly to become the world leader in space exploration,” Chiao told NBC News. He was the first American allowed into the Astronaut Center of China in 2006 and has visited several times since.
Popular Science.com says, “After years of investment and strategy, China is well on its way to becoming a space superpower—and maybe even a dominant one. … There are plans (in China) for heavy-lift rockets, manned space stations, and one of the world’s largest satellite-imaging and -navigation networks. Meanwhile the U.S. —particularly where human spaceflight is concerned—is hardly moving at all.”
The wide array of ceramics and Chinese porcelains that made their way to George Washington‘s residence at Mount Vernon were a testament not only to his own personal taste but also reflected a popular fashion among the American elite.
Mount Vernon.org says, George Washington received his first shipment of porcelains from England in 1758 from a London merchant named Richard Washington. Although the journey across the Atlantic was often unforgiving for fragile ceramics, Washington happily reported that he received his order “without any breakage.”
Chinese porcelain originated in the Shang Dynasty (16th century BC). Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province is a well-known Chinese city where porcelain has been an important production center in China since the early Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD).
From China, caravans carried popular Chinese porcelains west: ceramic lusterware, lacquerware – snow-white vases, bowls, glasses, and dishes with sophisticated patterns. It was solely the Chinese who knew the secret of making the thinnest and resonant porcelain, making it very expensive in European markets. – Silk Road Encyclopedia.com and Gotheborg.com
This hunger for Chinese products like porcelain, while the Chinese found little in the West to buy, led to the Opium Wars, which Britain and France started and won to force China to level the trade imbalance.
After the Opium Wars, China sold the West silk, porcelain and tea while the West sold the Chinese opium.
Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644) vase sells at Auction for $21.6 million.
Sotheby’s Masterpieces of Qing Dynasty Imperial Porcelain (1644 – 1912)
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse 
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