The Entire History of Ancient China. It Was Always Going to Rule the World.
Right now, every port in the Western world is moving Chinese goods. Every government is debating Chinese trade policy. Every defence ministry is watching Chinese military expansion. And most people asking the hardest question, where did all of this come from, are getting answers that start in 1978 with Deng Xiaoping's reforms. That is the wrong starting point by about five thousand years.
Ancient china history is not background reading for what is happening today. It is the explanation for it. China is not a rising power. It is a returning one. For most of recorded history, China was the largest economy on earth. According to economist Angus Maddison's landmark historical data, China accounted for a third of global economic output as recently as 1820, before a single Western outsourcing decision had ever been made. The trade war, the manufacturing dominance, the geopolitical rivalry with the United States: none of this is new. It is the resumption of something very old.
This documentary tells the complete history of Chinese civilisation from its origins. It covers the ancient origins of the Chinese people, the Yellow River civilization that demanded the world's first centralised state, and the Bronze Age dynasties that produced the oldest surviving Chinese writing. It follows Confucius, the First Emperor who unified six kingdoms into one, and the Han dynasty that named the ethnic group 1.4 billion people still belong to. It traces the Tang golden age, the Song dynasty's technological revolution, the Mongol conquest whose rulers became more Chinese than the people they governed, and the Ming dynasty that launched the greatest fleet in human history and then dismantled it by choice.
It follows the history of Chinese civilization through the Opium Wars and the Century of Humiliation that China's leadership invokes in every major foreign policy decision today, and ends in the present, with Xi Jinping's use of a three-thousand-year-old political philosophy to describe China's rightful place in the world. If you have searched for an ancient china documentary that explains what China actually is and why it behaves the way it does, this is that film.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
01:25 The Geography That Built an Empire
12:22 The Ancient Origins of the Chinese People
23:43 Xia, Shang and Zhou: The Dynasties That Made China
35:18 Confucius, Legalism and the Ideas That Ran an Empire
48:10 Qin Shi Huang: The Emperor Who Unified China
1:00:48 The Han Dynasty: How China Defined Itself for 2,000 Years
1:15:26 Tang, Song and the Mongols: China Broken and Remade
1:28:55 The Ming Dynasty: The Superpower That Chose to Close Its Doors
1:41:27 Opium, Empire and the Century That China Will Not Forget
1:55:28 From the Yellow River to the World: Why Ancient China Explains the Present
SOURCES & REFERENCES
Geography and Origins: Britannica (Yellow River, China physical geography); Wikipedia (Zhongyuan, Han Chinese, Yangshao culture, Longshan culture); PNAS (early millet cultivation Yellow River valley); Scientific American (modern human origins China, Out of Africa genetics); Fudan University Y-chromosome study (Chinese genetic origins)
Ancient Dynasties and Philosophy: Britannica (Shang dynasty, Qin dynasty, Han dynasty, Tang dynasty); World History Encyclopedia (Zhou dynasty, Mandate of Heaven, Han achievements); Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Confucius, Legalism, Han Feizi); National Geographic (Qin Shi Huang, Terracotta Army, Zheng He voyages); Wikipedia (Fu Hao tomb, oracle bones, Warring States period)
Economics and Trade: Angus Maddison, The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective (OECD, 2001) (China share of global GDP); Wikipedia (historical GDP estimates by country); World History Encyclopedia (Silk Road, Song dynasty commercial revolution)
Ming Dynasty and Maritime History: Columbia University Asia for Educators (Zheng He treasure fleet, Ming voyages); Wikipedia (Zheng He, Ming dynasty haijin sea ban, Forbidden City construction)
Century of Humiliation and Modern China: Wikipedia (Century of Humiliation, Chinese Dream, Tianxia, Opium Wars, Treaty of Nanjing); Council on Foreign Relations (China under Xi Jinping); Finnish Institute of International Affairs (Xi Jinping foreign policy, Tianxia); US Naval Institute (Tianxia as Chinese political philosophy); Angus Maddison historical data (China GDP vs Britain 1839)
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