China emerged as one of the world's earliest civilizations, in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the

North China Plain. For millennia, China's political system was based on hereditary monarchies, or
dynasties, beginning with the semi-legendary Xia dynasty in 21st century BCE.[17] Since then, China has
expanded, fractured, and re-unified numerous times. In the 3rd century BCE, the Qin reunited core
China and established the first Chinese empire. The succeeding Han dynasty, which ruled from 206 BC
until 220 AD, saw some of the most advanced technology at that time, including papermaking and the
compass,[18] along with agricultural and medical improvements. The invention of gunpowder and
movable type in the Tang dynasty (618–907) and Northern Song (960–1127) completed the Four Great
Inventions. Tang culture spread widely in Asia, as the new Silk Route brought traders to as far as
Mesopotamia and Horn of Africa.[19] Dynastic rule ended in 1912 with the Xinhai Revolution, when a
republic replaced the Qing dynasty. The Chinese Civil War resulted in a division of territory in 1949,
when the Communist Party of China established the People's Republic of China, a unitary one-party
sovereign state on Mainland China, while the Kuomintang-led government retreated to the island of
Taiwan. The political status of Taiwan remains disputed.

Since the introduction of economic reforms in 1978, China's economy has been one of the world's
fastest-growing with annual growth rates consistently above 6 percent.[20] According to the World
Bank, China's GDP grew from $150 billion in 1978 to $12.24 trillion by 2017.[21] Since 2010, China has
been the world's second-largest economy by nominal GDP[22] and since 2014, the largest economy in
the world by purchasing power parity (PPP).[23] China is also the world's largest exporter and second-
largest importer of goods.[24] China is a recognized nuclear weapons state and has the world's largest
standing army and second-largest defense budget.[25][26] The PRC is a permanent member of the
United Nations Security Council as it replaced the ROC in 1971, as well as an active global partner of
ASEAN Plus mechanism. China is also a leading member of numerous formal and informal multilateral
organizations, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), WTO, APEC, BRICS, the BCIM, and
the G20. In recent times, China has been widely characterized as a global superpower.[27][28][29]