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dragoncharmerEDIT (5/17/15): The reason this stops at 2008 is because I pulled China just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics when I applied him to Distant Skies.
(Because the wiki leaves out a lot of stuff and Hetalia doesn’t show much of China’s ancient history in canon, I’ll go ahead and break down the significant events of China’s history.)
<fanon>According to Chinese fans, China was born in the spring.</fanon> When he was born, the country was not yet united under one ruler and the different tribes often fought each other, so even as a child, China saw his fair share of violence. This point in time is known as the Warring States Period, which is believed to have spanned from the Iron Age period (in about 475 BC) to the unification of the country under the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC. <headcanon>Because of the lack of unity, China’s body remained that of a small child’s, but not his mind. He matured mentally. It wasn’t until the country was finally united that he began to grow physically.</headcanon>
With one country, came one language that could help keep the unity together (though states still kept their own dialogue amongst their own people). Chinese characters were also made to help strengthen the unity and China spent most of his childhood studying these characters along with the arts, fighting skills, and the teachings of some of his country’s most famous philosophers.
Speaking of the Qin Dynasty, it was also the first imperial dynasty of China and it brought several improvements to the country. Increased trade, improved agriculture and military security, the latter due to the abolition of landowning lords whom peasants had to align themselves with. The central government could finally control things by the masses and now had power over a larger workforce. What this meant for Yao was good health and a great amount of new energy thanks to the improvements. This era was also when the Great Wall of China was built. However, it also had its negative sides, such as the infamous “burning of books and burying of scholars” incident, where they tried to erase the history of the older dynasties. On a brighter note, the military was using the latest technology at the time.
Unfortunately, the Qin Dynasty didn’t last long, for after the first emperor died in 210 BC, his advisors argued amongst themselves which led to their deaths along with the death of the emperor’s heir. This was a blow to China’s health, for he soon grew weak with no leader to help him and also because a revolt broke out a few years later. The rule eventually fell to the hands of a lieutenant from the State of Chu and thus began the Han Dynasty.
The Han Dynasty is considered a golden age in Chinese history because of the economic prosperity, which means China’s health was restored once again. Science and technology continued to advance including papermaking, the introduction of the rudder, the use of negative numbers in mathematics, and the hydraulic powered armillary sphere for astronomy. This era is also when the famous Silk Road was beginning to be established. The Silk Road would bring China even more power and money thanks to the expansion of trade.
Then came the Three Kingdoms Period, which is also one of the bloodiest periods in Chinese history, because there were three emperors all claiming legitimate succession from the Han Dynasty. All the conflicts resulted in a decline in the population.
Skipping to the Tang Dynasty, which was another prosperous era in Chinese history. It was at this time that China was at his peak, for he was the most powerful and wealthy country in the world. The Tang Dynasty was an era of progress and stability. His economy, culture, and politics were all doing very well and his culture was influencing that of Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. The Tang Dynasty is also considered the greatest age for Chinese poetry, which means China found himself studying the arts once again, except more vigorously than he did before; writing and reading poems, and playing all sorts of Chinese musical instruments.
Again, I skip… to the Qing Dynasty, the last dynasty of China, which lasted from 1644 to 1912. This was the era where everything was going wrong for China and where he suffered several wounds, both physically and mentally. It was basically nothing but war for him. First came the First Opium War, in which he fought against England and lost. It was with this defeat he lost his little brother Hong Kong to England, and he would not be reunited with him until 1997. China lost thousands of more men than England did. This war was fought because China wanted to control imports coming from Great Britain, one of those imports being opium (he wanted to control the spread of opium in his country). Great Britain didn’t like that, though, and decided to test out its new military power to enforce violent redress upon China and his people. Through the Treaty of Nanking, he had to hand over Hong Kong and most of his trading ports, which ruined his economy. It was with the First Opium War that the “century of humiliation” began.
However, a Second Opium War began little more than a decade after the first one, except this time China was fighting against both Britain and France, along with British India. Again, China lost, and was forced to sign another unfair treaty with the Western powers, which cost him more of his territory.
Then came the Sino-French War, in which China and France fought for control over Tonkin, northern Vietnam. France won the war and got what he wanted, forcing China to sign yet another treaty, stating that he and his country would recognize France’s new control over Tonkin.
The most painful event for China, however, was the First Sino-Japanese War. In the Hetalia canon, it is this war where Japan gives China the scar on his back. China had always thought of Japan as his younger brother and had raised him as such, but this war changed the relationship between the two of them forever. China suffered a great loss in this war and that great loss included his prestige as Japan became the new strongest Asian power. It made China realize just how weakened his military had become during the 19th century. He also lost his influence over Korea and all of Taiwan to Japan.
The Qing Dynasty finally ended with the dethroning of the last emperor of China, Puyi, only an infant at the time, in 1912. <headcanon>During all this political chaos, China had no idea who to turn to. His own family had betrayed him and he no longer had an emperor to follow. However, as time went by, he realized that he could not just stop, he had to keep moving forward, because that’s what Nations do. They could look back at their past to learn from past mistakes, but they could never go back exactly to how things used to be.</headcanon>
As the Republic of China, he suffered much civil war as things were politically unstable after the fall of the Qing Dynasty. Though he didn’t fight in World War I, after America joined the Allies in 1917, he decided to no longer be neutral and broke relations with the Central Powers, declared war against Germany, and sent a large labor force to France to help with the war effort with things such as the factories, or cleaning up the rubble. He did this in hopes that President Woodrow Wilson would free his country from the unfair treaties he’d been forced to sign during the 19th century, as well as help get his territory back from the Japanese. In the end, he was greatly disappointed and angry, for at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the US and Japan strengthened the latter’s control over Chinese territory.
World War II… though it began in 1939, China and Japan had already been fighting as early as 1937 (though some Chinese historians claim the two were fighting as early as 1931) in the Second Sino-Japanese War. In the first years of the war, China was in great pain as Japan pushed farther into his lands, slaughtering thousands of people as well. Due to how sensitive this topic is, I’m not going to go into explicit detail, but I will list down certain names that can be looked up on your own if you wish to read about them: Unit 731; Rape of Nanking. Prior to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, China had actually been receiving help from Germany in modernizing his country. However, that support ended in 1938 because of Hitler’s plans to make an alliance with Japan. China also received help from the Soviet Union, a lot of help, including a Soviet volunteer air force. However, Soviet aid ended in 1941 when the USSR signed a neutrality pact with Japan. Hope was not completely lost to China, though, for as Japan became more aggressive toward the Western Allies and word of the Rape of Nanking began to leak out, Western favor swayed in China’s direction, thus he received more support toward the end of the Second World War. The Second Sino-Japanese War ended with the surrender of Japan in 1945, after an atomic bomb was dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But even after the end of WWII and being one of the founders of the UN, China still faced civil war in his country. The civil wars were being fought by the nationalists and communists, who had actually joined forces during WWII to fight their common enemy the Japanese (but they soon returned to their old war once that threat was taken care of). In the end, the communists won and took over mainland China, allowing Mao Zedong to come into power, and the majority of the nationalists, along with Chiang Kai-shek, fled to Taiwan and established a non-communist government there.
On October 1, 1949, China received another new name as Mao proclaimed the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on that day. Ever since then, October first has been considered his birthday. When China became communist, the Soviet Union was one of his biggest supporters and closest ally, until Stalin died, that is. After Stalin’s death, relations between China and the USSR grew sour and were finally severed in the Sino-Soviet Split. Ironically, relations between the two countries did not improve until after the USSR had been dissolved.
At some point during the Cold War, Taiwan took China’s place in the UN, due to all the crises happening in the mainland at the time (Cultural Revolution and the Western world’s fear of growing communism in the world), but he regained his seat by 1971, partly because the US, the UK, and France wanted to better relationships with China now that his relations with Russia were growing sour.
During the Korean War, China didn’t fight at first, he merely gave the UN a warning that if they came too close to his borders he would consider it a threat to his national security and take immediate action. Sure enough, when they did come near his borders, China sided with communist North Korea and fought against South Korea and the UN.
Then, back home, China experienced the Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976. During the Revolution, much of China’s history was destroyed by the hands of his own people. “Destroy the old world, forge the new world” was the battle cry. Mao believed that by erasing the country’s past and making a new one to their liking, it would erase the Western influence out of China and undo his humiliating past he had suffered during the 19th century. <headcanon>During this time, China was brainwashed like many others into believing this was good. However, as the violence escalated, he realized how the Cultural Revolution was doing more harm to him than good and tried his best to hide as many artifacts in his house as he could.</headcanon>
In the Vietnam War, China supported the communist North Vietnam and in 1950 he supplied thousands of weapons, supplies of rice, military advisors, and a large labor force to help repair the damage caused by American bombings. All this support allowed the communist Vietnamese to focus more on fighting than on food shortages or on how to rebuild their cities. However, China’s aid to the communists in Vietnam began to decline due to having his own aid from Soviet Russia being reduced at the end of the Korean War in 1953. In 1962, though, China’s boss, Mao, agreed to supply Hanoi with 90,000 fire arms FREE OF CHARGE. <headcanon>China didn’t like how his boss was making him work harder for free, but he didn’t really have much of a choice. Even so, he couldn’t help but send a glare or two at his sister every now and then.</headcanon>
With the worsening of Sino-Soviet relations, China demanded that North Vietnam cut ties with Moscow, but they refused. As a result, China and his troops began to withdraw from Vietnam in 1968, with the withdrawal being completed by 1970. Also, he began supporting the Khmer Rouge as a counterweight to the Vietnamese communists at the time. However, Vietnam eventually toppled the Khmer Rouge with an invasion and in response, China himself, along with some of his men, invaded Vietnam in 1979. However, both sides claimed victory; China believed that by capturing some of North Vietnam’s cities his goal had been completed, so he and his troops returned to China. Vietnam, on the other hand, claimed victory because she and her own troops managed to remain in Cambodia until 1989 and to her that meant China had failed in his aim of dissuading Vietnam from involvement in Cambodia. Even today, it’s unclear as to who really won this brief Sino-Vietnamese War.
China would eventually grow into a nuclear power as well as one of the world’s three strongest countries in the world by modern times (alongside Russia and the US). Speaking of modern times, he now has the largest population in the world as well as one of the best economies in the world. He’s been through a lot of ups and downs in his health, but today he usually finds himself with a lot of ups (though the bad air quality does give him problems sometimes). He’s also seen much bloodshed since the earliest days of his childhood yet he can still be a caring person. Now, with the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics just around the corner, China’s in very high spirits for it will be his first time hosting the Olympics.
