Wu Jinglian, one of China's leading economists and a longtime champion of its transition to free markets, says that it faces two starkly contrasting futures: a market economy under the rule of law or crony capitalism.

With the growing importance and influence of China's economy globally, Mandarin instruction is gaining popularity in schools in the USA, and has become an increasingly popular subject of study amongst the young in the Western world, as in the UK.

This turn of events marked China's transition from a planned economy to a mixed economy with an increasingly open market environment, a system termed by some as " market socialism ", and officially by the Communist Party of China as " Socialism with Chinese characteristics ".

China has counseled North Korea ’ s leaders to gradually open the economy to market forces, and it is possible this path will be successfully followed as well as China's policy of keeping political control firmly in the hands of the Communist Party.

Nigeria has since become an important source of oil and petroleum for China's rapidly-growing economy and Nigeria is looking to China for help in achieving high economic growth ; China has provided extensive economic, military and political support.

Similarly, Sun Yat-sen's government wanted a republican constitutional reform, both aiming for the benefit of China's economy and populace.

The current Chinese economy consists of 150 corporatised state-owned enterprises that report directly to China's central government.

Naqqah writes about China's wealthy economy and huge urban markets, its efficient courier system as compared to that in Persia, the hospitality of his hosts at the courier stations in providing comfortable lodging and food, and the fine luxurious goods and craftsmenship of the Chinese.

During the last few years of the Sui Dynasty, the rebellion that rose against it took many of China's able-bodied men from rural farms and other occupations, which in turn damaged the agricultural base and the economy further.

It allows faster trading and improved China's economy.

When the Soviet collapse and China's marketization switched trade to a hard currency, full price basis, North Korea's economy collapsed.

Although the Song Dynasty had lost control of the traditional birthplace of Chinese civilization along the Yellow River, the Song economy was not in ruins, as the Southern Song Empire contained 60 percent of China's population and a majority of the most productive agricultural land.

The Great Leap Forward () of the People's Republic of China ( PRC ) was an economic and social campaign of the Communist Party of China ( CPC ), reflected in planning decisions from 1958 to 1961, which aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a modern communist society through the process of rapid industrialization and collectivization.

The years of the Great Leap Forward in fact saw economic regression, with 1958 through 1961 being the only years between 1953 and 1983 in which China's economy saw negative growth.

Although China's economy in 1976 was three times its 1949 size, this was not an impressive figure considering the rate of growth achieved since the 1990s.

However, due to China's continued rapid economic growth ( in 2010 it became the world's second largest economy ), combined with the respectable international position they hold within political spheres and the power that the Chinese Government exerts over their people ( consisting of the largest population in the world ), there is debate over whether China is now a superpower or a possible candidate in the future.

( The opening policy, brought out by Deng Xiaoping, has been proved as a crucial and brilliant turning point in China's modern history, causing the economy to grow at an astonishing rate during the past decades.

In 1993, Jiang coined the new term " socialist market economy " to move China's centrally-planned socialist economy into essentially a government-regulated capitalist market economy.

A tough administrator, his time in office saw the continued double-digit growth of the Chinese economy and China's increased assertiveness in international affairs.

Contrary to popular opinion, Zhao opposed the idea of expanding China's economy by allowing private individuals to purchase stock.

The Four Modernizations were adopted as a means of rejuvenating China's economy in 1978 following the death of Mao Zedong, and were among the defining features of Deng Xiaoping's tenure as head of the party.

In 1991 there were 2, 000 foreign learners taking China's official Chinese Proficiency Test ( comparable to the English Cambridge Certificate ), while in 2005, the number of candidates had risen sharply to 117, 660 .< ref > " 汉语水平考试中心 ： 2005年外国考生总人数近12万 ",< sup > Gov. cn </ sup > Xinhua News Agency, January 16, 2006 .</ ref >

Because of the cultural influence of China, China's neighbors adopted these titles or had their native titles conform in hanzi.

As part of his efforts to bring Japan into Barbarossa, on 1 July 1941, Ribbentrop had Germany break off diplomatic relations with Chiang Kai-shek and instead recognized the Japanese-puppet government of Wang Jingwei as China's legitimate government.

With relations first established with the PRC in 1980, Kiribati had been the home to a satellite tracking base for China's space program from 1997 until 2003, a week before ties were formally severed.

At the time of the last official census in Burma, 31 March 1983, the population was 35, 442, 972., this was estimated by the CIA World Factbook to have increased to 54, 584, 650 ; however, many other estimates put this much higher, at around 60 million: China's People Daily reported that Burma had a census in 2007, and at the end of 2009 has 59. 2 million people, and growing at 2 % annually, with exception for Cyclone Nargis in 2008, and Britain-based human rights agencies place the population as high as 70 million.

By 1964 such machines had been installed in most of China's major cities.

As of 2004, China's merchant fleet had 3, 497 ships.

As of 2007, China's merchant fleet had 1, 775 ships ( or over ) /

Although the Chinese invented gunpowder, and firearms had been in continual use in Chinese warfare since as far back as the Song Dynasty, the advent of modern weaponry resulting from the European Industrial Revolution had rendered China's traditionally trained and equipped army and navy obsolete.

The earliest proto-birds such as China's Protarchaeopteryx, discovered in the early 1990s, had well-developed feathers but no sign of the top / bottom asymmetry that gives wings lift.

By 2008, these state-owned corporations had become increasingly dynamic and generated large increases in revenue for the state, resulting in a state-sector led recovery during the 2009 financial crises while accounting for most of China's economic growth.

This action reinforced China's impression that the Soviet Union, the United States and India all had expansionist designs on China.

This turns out to be an attempt to sow confusion in the Russian government because of China's designs to annex Eastern Siberia, where geologists had recently discovered a large amount of oil and gold.

In February the following year, China's alleged role in the campaign finance controversy first gained public attention after the Washington Post published a story stating that a U. S. Department of Justice investigation had discovered evidence that agents of China sought to direct contributions from foreign sources to the DNC before the 1996 presidential campaign.

However, in February 1979, following China's limited invasion of Vietnam, Hanoi complained that from 1957 onward China had provoked numerous border incidents as part of its anti-Vietnam policy and expansionist designs in Southeast Asia.

At the end of the century, though still ruled by a communist party, China's economic system had transformed almost completely to capitalism.

* 1132: The Southern Song Dynasty establishes China's first permanent standing navy, although China had a long naval history prior.

But the kingdom's reliance on China's Tang Dynasty had its price.

His rebuilding of China's agricultural base and strengthening of communication routes through the militarized courier system had the unintended effect of creating a vast agricultural surplus that could be sold at burgeoning markets located along courier routes.

On January 15 Deng Xiaoping delivered Zhou's official eulogy in a funeral attended by all of China's most senior leaders with the notable absence of Mao himself, who had grown increasingly critical of Zhou.

Communes were established in the Tibetan Autonomous Region ( Tibet had previously been exempt from China's period of land reform ) and reimposed in other minority areas.

To check the situation on the ground, Bento de Góis, a Portuguese former soldier and explorer who had joined the Jesuits as a Lay Brother in Goa, India, traveled in 1603 – 1605 from India via Afghanistan and one of the routes of the traditional Silk Road ( via Badakhshan, the Pamirs, Yarkand, Kucha, and Turpan to the Ming China's border as Suzhou, Gansu.

Situation in China in 1925: KMT had control over China's southern regions, but the rest of China were under the control of warlords