PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA Official name: Zhonghua Renmin Gonghe Guo (People's Republic of China) Location: East Asia International organisations: The Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum, The United Nations, The World Trade Organisation. Borders: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Burma, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzia, Korea (DPRK), Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakista, Russia, Tajikistan, Vietnam

Coastline: East China Sea, South China Sea, Yellow Sea
Land area: 9,596,960 Km2
Population: 1,284,300,000
Ethnicity: Han Chinese 91.9%, Mongol, Tibetan, Uygur and other nationalities 8.1%
Languages: Standard Chinese (Putonghua, known in the west as Mandarin) is the official language and is almost universally understood. Major regional variants include Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghaiese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan and Hakka. Korean, Mongol, Tibetan and Turkic languages are spoken in outlying regions.
Religion: China is officially an atheist country, but religion is tolerated provided it does not challenge the state. A large but unknown percentage of the population follow Daoist and Buddhist practices. Christian 4%, Moslem 2%.
Form of government: People's Republic (in practice, Communist Party dictatorship). There are 23 provinces and five autonomous regions, but these have no real autonomy. Hong Kong and Macau have become Special Administrative Regions since being returned to China by Britain and Portugal. They have elected assemblies and enjoy considerable autonomy, although Beijing is the ultimate authority.

Capital: Beijing Constitution: The Constitution of the People's Republic of China has been revised many times. The current version was promulgated on 4 December 1982. Since China is officially a revolutionary state, however, the Communist Party reserves the right to act outside the Constitution. Head of state: President, elected by the National People's Congress for a five-year term. The real power of the President depends on the position the incumbent holds in the Communist Party. Head of government: Prime Minister, appointed by the National People's Congress, presides over the State Council.

Legislature: The National People's Congress (Quanguo Renmin Daibiao Dahui) is a unicameral legislature with 2,979 members, who serve five-year terms. Its members are supposedly elected by municipal, regional, and provincial people's congresses. In practice its membership is determined by the Communist Party. The last elections were held in February 1998.
Electoral authority: The Ministry of Civil Affairs administers the election of members of the National People's Congress, under the supervision of the Communist Party.
Freedom House 2005 rating: Political Rights 7, Civil Liberties 6

Political history

When the Chinese monarchy was overthrown in 1912, the new republican government made a brief attempt to establish a western-style democracy. In 1913, there was an election (using a system of indirect voting) for a Parliament consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. In 1918, the franchise was extended and voters elected a new Parliament which lasted until 1923. But full democracy was not attained, and the weak republican government was unable to establish control of the country.

During the 1920s and '30s China slid into warlordism and civil war, aggravated from 1931 onwards by Japanese interference and eventually full-scale invasion. The two parties contending for control of China, the Guomindang (Nationalists) and the Communists, were equally authoritarian. In 1928 Chiang Kai-shek's Guomindang regime established a Legislative Yuan or Parliament, but this was not directly elected.

After the defeat of Japan the Nationalist government regained control of most of the country, and a new constitution was promulgated. Elections were held in November 1947, again using a system of indirect election. The Legislative Yuan elected in 1947 moved to Taiwan in 1949 and was not dissolved until 1992.

Mao Zedong proclaims the People's Republic of China

By 1947 the Communists had launched a new civil war, which was to result in 1949 in the conquest of the whole country except Taiwan and the establishment of the People's Republic, led by Mao Zedong. The Communists established a People's Republic on the Soviet model, in which the Communist Party held all power and no opposition was tolerated. The Communists have retained power ever since, although there has been a certain amount of political liberalisation since Mao's death in 1976. Despite the sweeping economic changes it has carried out under Deng Xiaoping and his successors, the Communist Party remains adamant that there will be no move to multi-party politics or free elections.

Jiang Zemin was President of China and Communist Party leader from 1993. In 2002 he vacated his party position to Hu Jintao, and in 2003 he stepped down as President, but he still wields considerable power from behind the scenes

Human Rights Watch's 2002 Report on China noted that "Concerned with maintaining economic and social stability, leaders in Beijing appeared to calculate carefully when to tread lightly and when to crack down hard. They responded to major, well-coordinated, and sustained worker protests in China's northeast with only minimum force; moderated the response to disclosures of their failure to tackle the HIV/AIDS crisis effectively; and, when accused of abusing psychiatric science by incarcerating political offenders in mental hospitals, expressed some willingness to cooperate with the World Psychiatric Association.

"Chinese authorities continued to reform the legal system and professionalise judicial personnel, and agreed to include human rights training for law enforcement officials as part of a technical cooperation program with the United Nations.

"The leadership moved unequivocally, however, to limit free expression and build a firewall around the Internet, to destroy Falungong even beyond China's borders, and to eliminate dissident challenges. In Tibet, the government welcomed representatives of the exiled Dalai Lama for the first time since 1993, even as it continued to repress religious belief and expression."