1 00:00:04,280 --> 00:00:08,640 The story of modern China begins here in Canton in the south. 2 00:00:11,560 --> 00:00:15,640 In the 1830s, China was still the greatest state on Earth, 3 00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:18,360 but the Europeans were growing in influence. 4 00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:26,480 In Canton, the new ideas of the West were mingling 5 00:00:26,480 --> 00:00:30,480 with the culture of old China - 6 00:00:30,480 --> 00:00:34,560 traders selling opium, missionaries preaching Christ. 7 00:00:37,600 --> 00:00:40,240 At this time, a chance meeting took place between 8 00:00:40,240 --> 00:00:44,600 an American missionary and a Chinese student, whose name was Hong. 9 00:00:47,480 --> 00:00:50,400 This, in the 1830s, was the dividing line between 10 00:00:50,400 --> 00:00:54,640 the European quarter and the old Chinese city of Canton. 11 00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:57,680 And here, Hong meets the American missionary, 12 00:00:57,680 --> 00:01:01,320 the Reverend Edwin Stevens - Yale educated, 13 00:01:01,320 --> 00:01:04,120 wearing Chinese clothes - long-sleeved coat, 14 00:01:04,120 --> 00:01:08,160 his hair in a bun - and he's handing out Christian pamphlets illegally. 15 00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:13,080 And he stops Hong and he says to him, 16 00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:18,360 "Follow the Christian God and you will reach the highest glory." 17 00:01:18,360 --> 00:01:20,840 And he gives him one of the pamphlets 18 00:01:20,840 --> 00:01:26,000 and in it, Hong sees the story of Noah and the flood. 19 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:28,360 And he reads his own name - 20 00:01:28,360 --> 00:01:34,400 "Hong", literally, the flood - God's instrument to punish humanity 21 00:01:34,400 --> 00:01:37,800 for failing to follow the path of righteousness. 22 00:01:41,600 --> 00:01:44,240 Believing himself to be God's Chinese son, 23 00:01:44,240 --> 00:01:47,240 Hong set out to overthrow the Qing Empire... 24 00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:52,040 ..unleashing the first of three huge upheavals 25 00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:54,560 out of which modern China would emerge. 26 00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:57,280 Aargh! 27 00:01:57,280 --> 00:01:58,600 DEEP RUMBLING 28 00:02:29,320 --> 00:02:34,560 'In 1841, here in the Pearl River, the British blasted the Chinese 29 00:02:34,560 --> 00:02:37,400 'to defeat in the First Opium War.' 30 00:02:43,400 --> 00:02:48,000 The Chinese coastal forts were useless - 31 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:51,520 their junks no match for ironclads and rocket launchers. 32 00:02:59,360 --> 00:03:03,000 The British forced the Chinese to give them trading concessions - 33 00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:06,240 treaty ports, like Canton and Shanghai. 34 00:03:09,960 --> 00:03:13,280 And here they began to build European-style villas, 35 00:03:13,280 --> 00:03:15,400 warehouses and churches. 36 00:03:17,560 --> 00:03:22,360 So, the Qing Government gave way to the British brand 37 00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:24,760 of international politics. 38 00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:28,680 And, as you can see, the British started to make themselves at home. 39 00:03:38,440 --> 00:03:42,120 'In the strange, unsettling aftermath of the Opium War, 40 00:03:42,120 --> 00:03:44,440 'the student Hong headed to the hills.' 41 00:03:45,680 --> 00:03:49,760 He became a village teacher out in the wild countryside of the south. 42 00:03:53,200 --> 00:03:55,280 And here, the Bible texts 43 00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:57,320 began to work on his mind... 44 00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:01,360 ..especially the prophet Isaiah. 45 00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:03,400 "Your country is desolate. 46 00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:08,160 "Strangers are devouring your land before your eyes. 47 00:04:08,160 --> 00:04:11,160 "Why be downtrodden any more? 48 00:04:11,160 --> 00:04:13,120 "Rise up and revolt." 49 00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:20,560 The Taiping Rebellion began deep in the mountains, 50 00:04:20,560 --> 00:04:25,480 beyond Guiping. Very isolated places that, in the 19th century, 51 00:04:25,480 --> 00:04:27,600 were only joined by walking tracks. 52 00:04:29,280 --> 00:04:30,680 Really out of the way. 53 00:04:34,800 --> 00:04:37,400 Here was fertile ground for revolution. 54 00:04:38,920 --> 00:04:43,240 Since the 1600s, China's population had nearly trebled. 55 00:04:43,240 --> 00:04:47,520 A stagnating economy brought mass poverty and unemployment, 56 00:04:47,520 --> 00:04:49,160 the rulers were oppressive. 57 00:04:51,400 --> 00:04:54,560 And Hong's preaching on social justice 58 00:04:54,560 --> 00:04:56,080 found a willing audience. 59 00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:02,320 May we go and have a look at the place where Hong stayed? 60 00:05:02,320 --> 00:05:03,840 - Before the rising. - Yeah. 61 00:05:03,840 --> 00:05:06,680 - Yeah. - Yeah. - Look at this. 62 00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:07,920 Fantastic. 63 00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:12,120 Isn't that wonderful? 64 00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:14,920 So, this was a family house, was it, once upon a time? 65 00:05:14,920 --> 00:05:20,440 THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE 66 00:05:20,440 --> 00:05:25,960 - Yeah, it was used to people staying here. - Ah. 67 00:05:25,960 --> 00:05:28,920 TRANSLATION: 68 00:05:44,080 --> 00:05:47,640 Hong and his disciples started to organise village meetings. 69 00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:53,520 Here in Old Wood Village, they infused the local people 70 00:05:53,520 --> 00:05:55,680 with their revolutionary ideas. 71 00:05:55,680 --> 00:05:57,040 Hello! 72 00:05:58,400 --> 00:05:59,480 Hi! 73 00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:04,760 'Hong and his close friend, Feng, were educated men 74 00:06:04,760 --> 00:06:07,160 'and with their traditional respect for learning, 75 00:06:07,160 --> 00:06:09,120 'the illiterate villagers listened.' 76 00:06:11,320 --> 00:06:12,440 Hello. 77 00:06:14,840 --> 00:06:17,120 So, we've come to look for the Taiping. 78 00:06:50,880 --> 00:06:53,360 'Hong had identified the Christian God 79 00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:56,760 'with the High God of ancient China and he wanted to create 80 00:06:56,760 --> 00:06:59,880 'heaven's kingdom on Earth by overthrowing 81 00:06:59,880 --> 00:07:03,400 'the corrupt Qing Empire to make a golden age 82 00:07:03,400 --> 00:07:08,120 'when society lived in harmony, when justice was for the poor too.' 83 00:07:09,280 --> 00:07:13,320 'For families like the Zengs, it was a powerful message.' 84 00:07:13,320 --> 00:07:17,480 We get kind of mesmerised by the religious background 85 00:07:17,480 --> 00:07:19,720 to the Taiping and it is incredible, isn't it? 86 00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:21,520 God's Chinese son! 87 00:07:21,520 --> 00:07:26,320 But you mustn't forget, it's a great peasant uprising. 88 00:07:26,320 --> 00:07:31,680 This is the poor, rural, agrarian workforce who are rising up 89 00:07:31,680 --> 00:07:35,400 against their traditional enemies - the landlords and the rich. 90 00:07:39,120 --> 00:07:41,680 Through the 1840s, the movement grew 91 00:07:41,680 --> 00:07:44,680 and they gathered thousands of followers. 92 00:07:44,680 --> 00:07:47,360 The Qing Government ordered troops to put them down, 93 00:07:47,360 --> 00:07:51,240 but in such out of the way places, it was too late. 94 00:07:53,960 --> 00:07:57,400 They created revolutionary cells in hundreds of villages. 95 00:07:59,200 --> 00:08:01,520 This is Rushing Water Village. 96 00:08:01,520 --> 00:08:05,480 Hong's right-hand man, Feng, stayed here till the eve of the uprising. 97 00:08:12,240 --> 00:08:14,160 This is the site of the school where Feng 98 00:08:14,160 --> 00:08:16,520 taught and spread the Taiping ideology. 99 00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:21,120 You could say, THIS is where the great rebellion started. 100 00:08:21,120 --> 00:08:22,160 Ah! 101 00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:29,400 The school was on this site, then? Is that right? 102 00:08:29,400 --> 00:08:32,360 - The school started here... - Yeah. - ..and amongst somewhere there 103 00:08:32,360 --> 00:08:34,640 - and then they're not really sure. - Ah. 104 00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:38,720 'Back then, today's Zeng family remember 105 00:08:38,720 --> 00:08:40,560 'their ancestors were illiterate. 106 00:08:40,560 --> 00:08:43,640 'That's why they first brought Feng in to teach them.' 107 00:09:08,960 --> 00:09:10,720 It's hard to imagine, isn't it? 108 00:09:10,720 --> 00:09:14,440 Such earth-shaking historical events beginning 109 00:09:14,440 --> 00:09:16,800 in such out of the way places. 110 00:09:19,680 --> 00:09:24,160 But by 1849, these little villages under Thistle Mountain 111 00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:28,320 were just humming with omens and visions and prophecies. 112 00:09:29,520 --> 00:09:34,360 Jesus was making regular descents down to Earth to bring Hong 113 00:09:34,360 --> 00:09:37,040 messages from heaven in his dreams. 114 00:09:40,720 --> 00:09:45,680 Angels in golden robes were giving succour to the Taiping teachers 115 00:09:45,680 --> 00:09:51,040 and God himself, in his great black dragon robe with his golden beard, 116 00:09:51,040 --> 00:09:57,200 was showing Hong in his trances, the demon armies which he must overcome. 117 00:09:59,440 --> 00:10:05,600 Then in spring 1850, Hong put on the yellow robe of the empire 118 00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:11,160 and gave the command for all the Taiping worshippers of God 119 00:10:11,160 --> 00:10:14,440 to gather together and descend into the plain. 120 00:10:14,440 --> 00:10:16,600 The revolution was about to begin. 121 00:10:20,520 --> 00:10:23,520 Soon, Hong had an army of 100,000 men 122 00:10:23,520 --> 00:10:27,160 and they defeated the Qing forces in the south. 123 00:10:27,160 --> 00:10:30,320 The tale is long told by the traditional storytellers. 124 00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:10,280 On March 19th 1853, Nanjing fell and Hong was enthroned 125 00:11:10,280 --> 00:11:14,880 as ruler of God's heavenly kingdom in his new Jerusalem. 126 00:11:18,360 --> 00:11:22,760 'So, the Taiping had gained power, but what would they do with it? 127 00:11:22,760 --> 00:11:26,320 'It's a question faced by all China's revolutionaries.' 128 00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:31,240 There's the throne of the Heavenly King. 129 00:11:31,240 --> 00:11:36,480 Once God's kingdom here on Earth had been established in Nanjing, 130 00:11:36,480 --> 00:11:39,480 a blizzard of ideological pronouncements came 131 00:11:39,480 --> 00:11:41,720 pouring from this throne. 132 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:46,560 They had printing presses here, they had a whole workshop 133 00:11:46,560 --> 00:11:49,480 for woodblock cutting for their publications - 134 00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:52,560 their translations of the Old and New Testament. 135 00:11:52,560 --> 00:11:55,600 They banned opium, tobacco, alcohol, 136 00:11:55,600 --> 00:11:59,160 foot binding, prostitution, gambling, 137 00:11:59,160 --> 00:12:01,000 they separated the sexes, 138 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:04,320 there was the death penalty for sex between men. 139 00:12:04,320 --> 00:12:06,440 Most important of all, 140 00:12:06,440 --> 00:12:09,000 China was to be classless. 141 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:12,160 Private ownership of property, private ownership of land 142 00:12:12,160 --> 00:12:13,560 were abolished. 143 00:12:13,560 --> 00:12:17,320 All land would be owned by the State and distributed by the State. 144 00:12:18,480 --> 00:12:21,800 And this would be accompanied by a purging of the language 145 00:12:21,800 --> 00:12:24,680 of its foreign elements, which had been brought in 146 00:12:24,680 --> 00:12:28,240 by the alien Manchu conquerors. 147 00:12:28,240 --> 00:12:31,600 A new world of words for a new time. 148 00:12:38,040 --> 00:12:40,400 The Taiping State spread its power across 149 00:12:40,400 --> 00:12:42,520 the rich heartland of the south. 150 00:12:42,520 --> 00:12:44,880 And here in Nanjing, the people got used to 151 00:12:44,880 --> 00:12:47,680 a new kind of fundamentalist rule, 152 00:12:47,680 --> 00:12:50,640 with new laws condemning old pleasures. 153 00:12:59,280 --> 00:13:02,000 In the backstreets, you can still find traces 154 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:05,120 of the Taiping's 16-year rule. 155 00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:07,600 This was the house of one of their leaders. 156 00:13:15,040 --> 00:13:17,400 'This house belonged to the Li family 157 00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:20,960 'before the Taiping rebels took over the city. 158 00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:22,800 'They fled into the countryside 159 00:13:22,800 --> 00:13:26,840 'and a leading Taiping prince took this over as his own residence.' 160 00:13:28,360 --> 00:13:33,680 And he has the house painted with Taiping themed murals. 161 00:13:35,560 --> 00:13:38,320 No representation of the human form. 162 00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:39,520 They were iconoclasts. 163 00:13:39,520 --> 00:13:44,640 They destroyed images and human representations of Daoist temples, 164 00:13:44,640 --> 00:13:47,840 Buddhist and Confucian shrines, wherever they'd gone. 165 00:13:47,840 --> 00:13:51,960 So, the images from nature of birds, horses, landscapes, 166 00:13:51,960 --> 00:13:56,200 over there the five-storey wooden watchtower, 167 00:13:56,200 --> 00:13:59,160 were the kind that the Taiping armies constructed. 168 00:14:00,560 --> 00:14:04,840 In one of the inner halls, the Taiping prince had had 169 00:14:04,840 --> 00:14:09,640 the Chinese symbol for long life painted on the wall. 170 00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:14,800 But long life, the Taiping leaders would not achieve. 171 00:14:20,960 --> 00:14:23,680 So, China now had rival dynasties - 172 00:14:23,680 --> 00:14:28,040 the Qing in the north in Beijing, and the Taiping in the south. 173 00:14:28,040 --> 00:14:30,000 But for the British and the other foreigners, 174 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:33,440 their stake in China was too big to jeopardise, 175 00:14:33,440 --> 00:14:36,200 so they lent the Chinese Government advisors 176 00:14:36,200 --> 00:14:39,000 and the latest weaponry to help crush the rebels. 177 00:14:40,920 --> 00:14:44,040 Eventually, the Qing massed a million men against them 178 00:14:44,040 --> 00:14:49,240 and in 1864, nearly 16 years after they left Thistle Mountain, 179 00:14:49,240 --> 00:14:52,760 the Taiping were forced back behind the walls of Nanjing. 180 00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:06,080 Soon the rebels inside the city were decimated by disease and starvation. 181 00:15:06,080 --> 00:15:08,720 And then Hong himself fell ill and died. 182 00:15:44,440 --> 00:15:48,720 By the end, over 20 million people had died of famine, 183 00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:50,360 disease and fighting. 184 00:15:53,360 --> 00:15:56,680 The Qing thought they'd weathered the storm. 185 00:15:56,680 --> 00:16:00,160 The war-shattered city of Nanjing was rebuilt 186 00:16:00,160 --> 00:16:02,920 and, at that point, the Qing could still see themselves 187 00:16:02,920 --> 00:16:04,440 as the centre of the world. 188 00:16:06,960 --> 00:16:09,800 But the Taiping Rebellion was a dire warning. 189 00:16:13,560 --> 00:16:15,160 Just before he was executed, 190 00:16:15,160 --> 00:16:19,320 one of the Taiping leaders gave this advice to the Chinese Government - 191 00:16:20,760 --> 00:16:25,080 "Buy from the foreigners their very best cannon 192 00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:30,240 "and get the very best Chinese craftsmen to replicate them exactly 193 00:16:31,320 --> 00:16:34,360 "and get them to teach other craftsmen, 194 00:16:34,360 --> 00:16:38,320 "so the one will teach ten and the ten will teach 100 195 00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:42,160 "until all China knows how to make them, 196 00:16:42,160 --> 00:16:45,760 "because if you will fight the foreign devils, 197 00:16:45,760 --> 00:16:50,680 "you will need the best cannon and to be very well-prepared. 198 00:16:50,680 --> 00:16:54,400 "For a war with the foreigners will certainly take place." 199 00:17:01,560 --> 00:17:05,320 Towards the end of the Taiping, in a Second Opium War, 200 00:17:05,320 --> 00:17:08,200 the British and the French had forced more concessions 201 00:17:08,200 --> 00:17:10,160 from the Chinese - 202 00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:11,640 more treaty ports, 203 00:17:11,640 --> 00:17:13,800 eventually over 80 of them. 204 00:17:21,400 --> 00:17:24,440 With their banks and villas, parts of Chinese cities began to look 205 00:17:24,440 --> 00:17:28,000 like corners of Europe now and the infrastructure came 206 00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:32,360 with them - the telegraph and banking, railways and trams. 207 00:17:33,880 --> 00:17:37,400 Swelled by merchants fleeing the Taiping, Shanghai was 208 00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:40,840 launched on its path to become the world's greatest city. 209 00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:47,800 Behind me, the old headquarters of the HSBC - 210 00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:51,400 the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. 211 00:17:51,400 --> 00:17:53,640 Today, one of the richest banks in the world, 212 00:17:53,640 --> 00:17:57,920 but founded here in China by a British trader in 1865. 213 00:18:01,080 --> 00:18:04,000 So, China had begun to open up. 214 00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:07,280 But in that, lay a profound threat to the way China had 215 00:18:07,280 --> 00:18:08,880 seen the world for so long. 216 00:18:12,240 --> 00:18:15,920 Remember this is very striking in Asia, right? The architecture. 217 00:18:15,920 --> 00:18:19,280 It's almost like inserting a completely alien 218 00:18:19,280 --> 00:18:23,160 structural civilisation on Asian territory. 219 00:18:23,160 --> 00:18:25,280 So, it has remarkable impact, 220 00:18:25,280 --> 00:18:27,680 in a sense, on people's psyche. 221 00:18:32,160 --> 00:18:35,240 But in the countryside, it was a very different story. 222 00:18:38,440 --> 00:18:40,720 It is important to emphasise, 223 00:18:40,720 --> 00:18:44,360 actually vast parts of China is not Shanghai. 224 00:18:44,360 --> 00:18:47,440 This is the part of China that's the dominant part of China. 225 00:18:47,440 --> 00:18:52,280 That is very important in explaining the rise of political forces. 226 00:18:52,280 --> 00:18:54,640 Sparked by drought and famine, 227 00:18:54,640 --> 00:18:57,600 more peasant risings were flaring across the land. 228 00:18:58,720 --> 00:19:01,520 And then in 1895... 229 00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:03,160 BANG 230 00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:06,480 ..China was humiliated in a disastrous war with Japan. 231 00:19:09,080 --> 00:19:12,120 And now the colonial powers gathered like vultures. 232 00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:16,960 The Russians, Japanese and Germans in the north, 233 00:19:16,960 --> 00:19:18,920 the French and British in the south. 234 00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:24,400 And in 1899, came the second great explosion - 235 00:19:24,400 --> 00:19:25,720 the Boxer Rising. 236 00:19:29,560 --> 00:19:33,240 The Boxers swept on Beijing with a strange mix of martial arts 237 00:19:33,240 --> 00:19:36,080 and mysticism, calling for the killing of foreigners 238 00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:38,400 and the wiping out of foreign influence. 239 00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:42,760 The court fled the capital 240 00:19:42,760 --> 00:19:44,920 and in the European quarter in Beijing, 241 00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:48,800 the colonials were trapped in a 55-day siege. 242 00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:55,080 A relief army of 20,000 men drawn from the eight foreign powers 243 00:19:55,080 --> 00:19:56,680 marched from the coast. 244 00:19:58,560 --> 00:20:01,280 HE SHOUTS IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE 245 00:20:05,200 --> 00:20:08,280 And they took revenge in a rampage of looting and killing. 246 00:20:18,520 --> 00:20:20,680 The Boxers were crushed mercilessly 247 00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:24,160 and huge financial reparations imposed on China. 248 00:20:25,800 --> 00:20:29,200 The Boxer Rebellion was a horrendous disaster for China 249 00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:31,120 and for the people of Beijing 250 00:20:31,120 --> 00:20:34,200 who'd never seen looting and massacres and killings 251 00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:35,960 like this for centuries. 252 00:20:37,440 --> 00:20:39,080 To make matters worse 253 00:20:39,080 --> 00:20:42,280 the foreigners also demanded that this area of Beijing, 254 00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:45,240 the Legation Quarters, should be turned over to them. 255 00:20:45,240 --> 00:20:49,560 They would wall it and administer it themselves. 256 00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:53,280 This was the French post office here, built in 1901. 257 00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:02,560 In central Beijing 258 00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:06,360 you can still trace the European quarter on the ground. 259 00:21:09,320 --> 00:21:11,160 If you look at the map of Beijing 260 00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:13,800 you can see what that meant in practice. 261 00:21:13,800 --> 00:21:16,240 This is the Legation Quarter here. 262 00:21:16,240 --> 00:21:20,400 It's, like, a mile long, nearly half a mile wide. 263 00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:23,440 As big as the Forbidden City, it's incredible, isn't it? 264 00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:25,080 And right next to it. 265 00:21:27,480 --> 00:21:31,280 It is another Forbidden City - the Chinese aren't allowed in it. 266 00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:37,840 No wonder Chinese people were outraged. 267 00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:41,840 The indemnity imposed on the Qing government 268 00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:45,680 was the equivalent today of 60 billion. 269 00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:01,000 What the Chinese people felt about it all 270 00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:03,480 can be seen through an incredible source - 271 00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:08,920 the 200-volume diary of an ordinary man in a small town. 272 00:22:08,920 --> 00:22:11,800 His name...Liu Dapeng. 273 00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:15,320 Today, back at his old home, 274 00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:17,560 his family friends and neighbours have gathered 275 00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:20,280 to celebrate an unlikely local hero. 276 00:22:24,400 --> 00:22:28,960 A Chinese everyman who gave voice to the feelings of the people. 277 00:22:47,520 --> 00:22:50,880 A provincial degree holder who never held office, 278 00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:54,000 a teacher, farmer and mine manager, 279 00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:55,560 Liu was loyal to the emperor 280 00:22:55,560 --> 00:22:58,600 and a pillar of the traditional Confucian morality. 281 00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:04,880 Not the sort to support fanatics, 282 00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:06,680 but as his writings show 283 00:23:06,680 --> 00:23:09,320 he understood the root causes of the Boxer rising. 284 00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:28,040 And For Liu and his neighbours, 285 00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:31,200 the very existence of the empire was now at stake. 286 00:23:34,040 --> 00:23:37,120 He wrote in his diary, "I fear that revolts will break out 287 00:23:37,120 --> 00:23:39,720 "all over the provinces of the empire. 288 00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:43,320 "When the people have no security, they will rise up - 289 00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:47,880 "it's natural and inevitable, but where will it end?" 290 00:23:51,360 --> 00:23:53,600 Revolution was in the air. 291 00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:58,000 And among women, too. 292 00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:05,200 Now recast as a kung fu heroine, 293 00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:09,240 the feminist poet Qiu Jin joined the republican movement in exile 294 00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:12,120 and founded a radical journal for women's voices. 295 00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:15,800 Brilliant and courageous, 296 00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:20,240 she was the tragic star of the failed revolution of 1907. 297 00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:22,320 15th July 1907, 298 00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:25,520 four days before the planned armed uprising 299 00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:27,440 that would overthrow the dynasty, 300 00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:30,600 Qui Jin was executed by beheading 301 00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:33,800 here in the middle of her hometown - Shaoxing. 302 00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:35,520 That monument marks the spot. 303 00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:00,280 She was 31. 304 00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:04,920 And at that moment the empire itself entered its death throes. 305 00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:14,960 The next year, 1908, 306 00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:18,640 a two-year-old boy came to the dragon throne. 307 00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:21,960 And he was the last emperor. 308 00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:29,840 Caught between its Confucian past and a western future, 309 00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:31,680 the empire was doomed. 310 00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:37,920 MAN SHOUTS ORDERS 311 00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:43,720 On October 10th 1911, 312 00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:47,000 a coalition of the army, bankers and the urban bourgeoisie 313 00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:49,000 declared China a republic. 314 00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:53,680 In early 1912, the boy emperor was forced to abdicate. 315 00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:56,840 MAN SHOUTS ORDERS 316 00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:05,440 It was 2,000 years since the first emperor, 317 00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:09,120 3,000 since the Zhou proclaimed the Mandate of Heaven 318 00:26:09,120 --> 00:26:13,640 and now that vast universe of ritual and symbol was gone. 319 00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:30,440 But what would the Chinese people put in its place? 320 00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:37,520 China's first elected president 321 00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:40,560 was the Hawaiian educated Sun Yat-sen, 322 00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:42,960 who had led the republican movement in exile 323 00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:46,280 and long dreamed of a free, democratic China. 324 00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:17,920 But from the start, Sun had to deal with the old powers - 325 00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:21,440 the army, the warlords and the foreigners. 326 00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:26,000 And in its brief life, the republic never knew peace. 327 00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:34,240 In the First World War, China joined the Allies 328 00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:39,080 and provided nearly 150,000 labourers on the Western Front. 329 00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:48,760 But at the end of the war, they were in for a shock... 330 00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:53,680 When the Treaty of Versailles was signed, 331 00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,600 China's youth were shocked to find that the territory 332 00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:59,200 that had originally been given to Germany as a colony 333 00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:01,600 in the late-19th century up in Shandong Province 334 00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:03,880 wasn't going to be handed back to China. 335 00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:07,280 Instead, it would become part of a Japanese territory 336 00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:09,480 and this was regarded as outrageous. 337 00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:16,320 On May 4th 1919, 338 00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:19,360 using their newfound rights to freedom of speech, 339 00:28:19,360 --> 00:28:23,480 a huge student demonstration was organised in the capital. 340 00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:27,480 Student protest that hot Sunday here in Beijing 341 00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:29,800 has come to be seen as a powerful symbol 342 00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:33,920 of the Chinese people's struggle for liberation in the 20th century. 343 00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:40,720 There were 3,000 students and they gathered right here 344 00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:43,720 in front of the gates of Peking University, 345 00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:46,360 the old library, the red building as they called it. 346 00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:50,160 They had banners made out of bamboo and cloth 347 00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:52,120 and they wanted the world to know. 348 00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:54,480 They'd even prepared English language statements, 349 00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:57,520 which they hoped to hand in to the embassies 350 00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:00,960 of the colonial occupying powers. 351 00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:05,600 The Chinese people's struggle was about to open to the world. 352 00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:16,400 The May 4th demonstration here in Tiananmen Square 353 00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:18,880 was a key moment for modern China. 354 00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:24,920 In a culture that gave such respect to the old, 355 00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,280 the young had spoken. 356 00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,000 And their ideas spread like wildfire. 357 00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:42,040 Writers and journalists now called for a wholesale renewal 358 00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:45,360 of Chinese society and politics. 359 00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:48,720 They wanted to sweep away the old 360 00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:50,600 and create a new culture 361 00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,360 based on Western democracy and science. 362 00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:57,160 A key voice was modern China's greatest writer - Lu Xun. 363 00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:01,400 Lu Xun was born in 1881. 364 00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:05,280 So by the time of May 4th Movement came about he was pushing 40, 365 00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:07,800 long past the idealism of youth. 366 00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:12,600 He trained as a doctor. 367 00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:14,920 And although he became a writer, 368 00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:18,720 through his whole life he kept that bedside manner 369 00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:23,400 of a world-weary, ironical but humane physician. 370 00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,800 But a pessimist - not one to let hope run away with him 371 00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:28,840 with all the defeats of the time. 372 00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:32,600 And in 1920s China, 373 00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:35,840 after the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles, 374 00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:37,920 that was the voice. 375 00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:01,160 "The republic has failed us," he wrote. 376 00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:02,680 "We've been cheated. 377 00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:05,720 "We were slaves before and now we're ruled by slaves. 378 00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:08,280 "We must renew the spirit of China." 379 00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:44,360 "Hope is like a path in the countryside," he wrote. 380 00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:46,280 "At first there is no path, 381 00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:50,720 "but if enough people walk in the same direction, the path appears." 382 00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:00,600 But which path would China take? 383 00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:06,000 The May 4th Movement had electrified 384 00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:08,760 the political and cultural debate in China, 385 00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:11,840 a flood of ideas from which there would be no going back. 386 00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:15,480 And among those ideas was a Western political philosophy, 387 00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:18,560 a communist philosophy - Marxism. 388 00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:25,880 And the first meeting of a Chinese communist party 389 00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:30,680 was held here in this room, around this table, in July 1921. 390 00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:33,680 There were 12 people present. 391 00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,960 Among them the Hunan peasant's son Mao Zedong. 392 00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:41,760 They were attracted by it's anti-feudal, 393 00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:44,520 anti-imperialist message 394 00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:47,720 and also by it's claim to be scientific. 395 00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:51,800 That it held the key not only to history, but to the future. 396 00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:59,720 The 12 people sitting here were the representatives of just 57 members. 397 00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:04,040 At that point the party had no significance at all. 398 00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:10,600 399 00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:13,920 400 00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:18,040 Just round the corner, the jazz age was in full swing. 401 00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:20,920 China's politics were in chaos, 402 00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:24,040 but the '20s were a dynamic time - for some. 403 00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:26,960 The economy was growing in cities like Shanghai. 404 00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:31,320 A young Brit who came out here in 1919 from Lancashire 405 00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:33,160 after the First World War, 406 00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:36,040 with no jobs at home, he joined the police and said, 407 00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:38,560 'It's the best city I've ever seen. 408 00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:41,240 "The most cosmopolitan place in the world 409 00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:46,800 "and in time it will leave every English city 100 years behind." 410 00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:49,320 411 00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:51,360 412 00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:54,960 But westernisation was not just about material life, 413 00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:59,040 it was about China learning to be modern. 414 00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:05,800 These treaty and concession ports like Shanghai and Hong Kong, 415 00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:10,160 with their Western hotels, Western banks 416 00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:11,880 and department stores, 417 00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:16,560 they were pointers to the future for the new Republic of China. 418 00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:18,920 And adverts from the time 419 00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:21,520 show us that people were strongly encouraged 420 00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:24,040 to do what the radicals in the May 4th Movement 421 00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:26,600 and the New Culture Movement had been saying, 422 00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:28,800 "Do away with the old. 423 00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:31,840 "From now on, let's wear Western suits 424 00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:35,320 "with a collar and tie and a fedora." 425 00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:41,040 So all this was a million miles away from the vast rural hinterland 426 00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:46,920 in which most of China's nearly 500 million people lived in the 1920s. 427 00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,440 But even there...history was on the move. 428 00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:58,840 In the late '20s, ravaged by floods and famines and armed conflict, 429 00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:01,160 peasants were selling their children, 430 00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:04,480 dying in their thousands of disease and starvation. 431 00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:12,440 And in these desperate times arose a man of destiny - 432 00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:15,120 Mao Zedong. 433 00:35:16,240 --> 00:35:21,160 Mao was born in 1893, the son of a well-off peasant in Hunan. 434 00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:25,200 He left high school at 25, having trained as a primary school teacher. 435 00:35:26,600 --> 00:35:29,160 He was haunted by childhood memories 436 00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:32,680 of the killing of famine-stricken protesters in his home town. 437 00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:35,360 And then he discovered communism. 438 00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:36,880 And then look at this... 439 00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:38,720 These are the early struggles, 440 00:35:38,720 --> 00:35:41,840 the early mobilization of the peasants. 441 00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:47,120 His voracious reading had first led him to European socialism 442 00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:49,360 and then to violent revolution. 443 00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:53,240 He began as a guerrilla leader in a failed communist rising 444 00:35:53,240 --> 00:35:54,880 in his native Hunan 445 00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:59,200 and then in setting up independent communist enclaves - Soviets - 446 00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:01,880 deep in the countryside. 447 00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:07,320 With that, the nationalist government, 448 00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:09,800 now under Prime Minister Chiang Kai-shek, 449 00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:12,360 decided to wipe out the communists. 450 00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:16,240 Thousands were killed, including Mao's wife and sister. 451 00:36:18,720 --> 00:36:23,920 In 1934, the survivors embarked on what became known as the Long March, 452 00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:27,400 a 6,000-mile trek to northwest China. 453 00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:31,480 Only 8,000, about a tenth of them, survived. 454 00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:34,480 And they made their base at Yan'an 455 00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:40,000 A nowhere place in a bleak countryside, 456 00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:43,000 it must have seemed at that point that the communist movement in China 457 00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:44,720 had reached a dead end. 458 00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:50,040 But then, in 1937, 459 00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:52,760 the Japanese launched a full-scale invasion of China. 460 00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:57,280 - MAN ON NEWSREEL: - The Japanese - now seek total conquest, 461 00:36:57,280 --> 00:36:59,200 not just another chunk of territory. 462 00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:08,720 A century since Britain first blasted China open, 463 00:37:08,720 --> 00:37:12,000 a generation since the bloodshed of the Boxers, 464 00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,520 babies have grown to manhood without a year of peace. 465 00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:20,680 For 25 years, China has lived with warlords, guns and terror. 466 00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:23,920 But now it must drink deeper of the cup of bitterness. 467 00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:29,800 That December in a six-week reign of terror, 468 00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:34,680 the Japanese army massacred more than 250,000 people in Nanjing. 469 00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:40,680 How old were you when Japanese invaded China? 470 00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:43,560 SHE REPLIES IN HER OWN LANGUAGE 471 00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:46,280 14? 14 years old, yeah. 472 00:37:48,120 --> 00:37:54,040 And when the Japanese actually attacked the city in December 1937, 473 00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:55,760 what did you see? 474 00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:58,480 Did you hear stories from people escaping? 475 00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:59,720 Out of such horrors a national resistance was born. 476 00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:05,160 Far away in Yan'an, from a defeated guerrilla army, 477 00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:07,000 the communists now found themselves 478 00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:09,320 part of a liberation struggle. 479 00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:14,200 Mao himself had now gained power over the party 480 00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:17,400 and emerged as a formidable and ruthless revolutionary. 481 00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:23,840 A United Front was formed 482 00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:26,840 with the nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek 483 00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:29,200 and the communists under Mao, 484 00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:32,240 fighting the common enemy - the Japanese. 485 00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:01,760 At that time, Mao lived here in the caves outside Yan'an. 486 00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:05,080 He was even visited by Western journalists. 487 00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:11,440 Among those who came to see him then 488 00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:15,520 was the philosopher and social reformer Liang Shuming. 489 00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:19,080 No lover of Marxism or of Western capitalism, 490 00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:21,040 but a Chinese patriot. 491 00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:22,960 Very different men. 492 00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:26,000 Liang the traditional scholar in his long gown, sipping tea 493 00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:28,720 and Mao the son of a Hunan peasant, 494 00:40:28,720 --> 00:40:31,960 laughing, scratching himself, 495 00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:35,200 chain smoking hand-rolled cigarettes 496 00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:39,280 and knocking back glass after glass of the local white whisky. 497 00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:43,760 Marx and Confucius debating the future of China. 498 00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:47,520 And Liang's portrait of Mao is very attractive. 499 00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:51,800 He says, "He was relaxed and warm and natural. 500 00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:56,200 "Extremely vulgar, but completely unaffected 501 00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:58,240 "and a very sharp mind. 502 00:40:58,240 --> 00:41:01,720 "Head and shoulders above everybody else." 503 00:41:01,720 --> 00:41:03,240 But for all their differences, 504 00:41:03,240 --> 00:41:07,480 they were agreed on the two key problems facing China. 505 00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:10,160 Number one, the rural question. 506 00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:13,640 The terrible poverty of the mass of the population of the country. 507 00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:18,760 And number two, national liberation from the Japanese invasion. 508 00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:20,920 As Mao said to Liang, 509 00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:23,080 "The war has changed everything." 510 00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:31,280 This is a conflict that killed 14 million, possibly more, 511 00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:34,880 civilians and military in China during the war itself. 512 00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:36,720 - 14 million? - 14 million. 513 00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:41,800 80-100 million Chinese 514 00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:45,120 may well have become refugees in their own country. 515 00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:47,760 So in terms of changing the direction 516 00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:49,800 of China's politics and society, 517 00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:52,120 the wartime period is immensely important. 518 00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:57,040 When the Japanese surrendered in 1945, 519 00:41:57,040 --> 00:41:59,480 the National Front fell apart. 520 00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:01,680 And the nationalists and the communists 521 00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:03,680 now fought a bitter civil war. 522 00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:09,760 Backed by the West, and especially the US, 523 00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:12,800 the nationalists had the manpower and equipment. 524 00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:14,840 The communists were outgunned. 525 00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:16,600 But after 12 years in Yan'an, 526 00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:20,440 their land reforms had gathered mass support across the countryside, 527 00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:25,400 boosted by propaganda promising a golden age of social justice. 528 00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:31,320 In one year the Red Army swept down the length of China 529 00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:35,240 and after heavy fighting, the nationalists fled to Taiwan. 530 00:42:35,240 --> 00:42:38,240 The People's Republic was founded. 531 00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:51,320 On 1st October 1949, in Beijing, 532 00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:54,760 Mao announced the birth of a new China. 533 00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:58,840 MAO SPEAKS IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE 534 00:43:05,240 --> 00:43:09,440 There's the Tiananmen Gate, where Mao Zedong made that famous speech. 535 00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:12,680 It was only 38 years after the fall of the empire. 536 00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:15,000 And after all the sufferings of the Chinese people 537 00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:18,760 through the Japanese war and the Second World War and the civil war, 538 00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:21,120 there was widespread optimism 539 00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:23,400 that there might be a completely fresh, new start. 540 00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:27,480 After all, revolution had been a fact of life in the Chinese story, 541 00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:32,200 almost a natural part of the recurring cycles of Chinese history. 542 00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:37,480 But the surprising suddenness with which, in the end, 543 00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:40,200 the communists were able to take power 544 00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:44,240 only added to the enormous burden that they'd inherited. 545 00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:53,520 Mao was, above all, a revolutionary. 546 00:43:54,720 --> 00:43:58,240 He believed that the new world could be born through destruction 547 00:43:58,240 --> 00:44:00,360 and that loss of life was no object 548 00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:03,520 in achieving the goal of China's socialist utopia. 549 00:44:08,240 --> 00:44:10,960 He forged a repressive state. 550 00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,360 Words and thoughts were strictly controlled, 551 00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:16,440 class war was waged. 552 00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:21,080 In early 1950s China, Stalin was a god. 553 00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:34,440 The letters above the arch say, 554 00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:37,400 "The thoughts of Chairman Mao will shine forever." 555 00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:39,880 This is Nanjie village in Hunan, 556 00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:42,920 a tiny pocket of Chairman Mao's socialism 557 00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:46,440 in the great ocean of modern Chinese capitalism. 558 00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:54,480 Today, Nanjie is the last communist collective in China. 559 00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:57,360 It's still run as a workers' cooperative 560 00:44:57,360 --> 00:45:02,120 and here you can get a distant feel of Mao's brave new world. 561 00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:06,080 It was to be based on new values, 562 00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:10,200 doing away with centuries of stifling Confucian tradition. 563 00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:14,680 China was to be organised into collective farms and work brigades. 564 00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:18,640 "Our economy will overtake Britain in a few years," Mao said. 565 00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:22,800 All of it was directed 566 00:45:22,800 --> 00:45:26,160 by the rigid and secretive Chinese Communist Party, 567 00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:29,760 with Stalin's advisers controlling the people's lives 568 00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:31,680 from cradle to grave. 569 00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:36,920 But there were real achievements, especially in public health, 570 00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:39,520 in education and literacy. 571 00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:43,840 There was also a great improvement in the role and status of women. 572 00:45:43,840 --> 00:45:46,640 All of this has helped shape today's China. 573 00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:06,280 MAN SINGS IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE 574 00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:10,320 THEY SING IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE 575 00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:16,760 Though out of step with the rest of China today, 576 00:46:16,760 --> 00:46:19,680 the mayor still believes in Mao's vision. 577 00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:40,480 But Maoism went against the very grain of Chinese civilisation. 578 00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:42,520 Its economic ideas were calamitous. 579 00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:46,960 The collectivisation of farming massively disrupted society. 580 00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:53,080 Mao responded to the failures with the Great Leap Forward, 581 00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:56,280 a disastrous drive to industrialise the countryside. 582 00:46:57,240 --> 00:47:00,120 That led to the Great Famine. 583 00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:02,120 Between 1959 and 1961, 584 00:47:02,120 --> 00:47:05,520 it's now thought well over 30 million people died. 585 00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:11,880 By the end of the '50s, 586 00:47:11,880 --> 00:47:15,200 the imposition of Maoism on the Chinese people had clearly failed. 587 00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:19,680 And Mao was sidelined as leader of the party. 588 00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:22,200 But he wouldn't let go. 589 00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:27,520 In 1964, aged 70, he regained control 590 00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:30,360 and launched the Cultural Revolution. 591 00:47:32,680 --> 00:47:36,400 Frustrated by the Chinese people's loyalty to their culture, 592 00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:39,880 Mao urged millions of young people, Red Guards, 593 00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:44,680 to smash old customs, old ideas, Confucian values. 594 00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:52,320 Your name is? 595 00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:54,200 REPLIES IN OWN LANGUAGE 596 00:47:54,200 --> 00:47:55,720 OK, my name is Michael. 597 00:47:55,720 --> 00:47:58,360 Every Chinese family suffered. 598 00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:01,120 The Baos, originally from Tangyue in Anhui, 599 00:48:01,120 --> 00:48:03,200 who we've followed through this story, 600 00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:04,960 were just one. 601 00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:10,600 Loyal village officers in the Ming dynasty, 602 00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:13,320 philanthropic salt merchants in the Qing, 603 00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:16,200 they now faced terror and abuse. 604 00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:19,640 But also the destruction of their treasured past. 605 00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:23,040 So how many generations here? 606 00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:25,000 - WOMAN: - Six generations. 607 00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:26,640 Six generations Ming. 608 00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:29,280 Seven generations Qing. 609 00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:30,960 So Mr Bao is the 30th 610 00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:33,800 and the little boy is the 32nd generation. 611 00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:37,400 During the Taiping Rebellion, 612 00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:39,720 the family had risked their lives 613 00:48:39,720 --> 00:48:43,400 to save this 18th century painting of their ancestors. 614 00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:46,240 And now they went through it all again. 615 00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:15,000 And as Mr Bao told the tale, 616 00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:17,040 it was as if, once more, 617 00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:19,600 the voice of the Chinese people was speaking. 618 00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:24,440 Their love of their history and attachment to their old culture. 619 00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:15,040 Mao died in 1976 aged 83, 620 00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:19,400 corrupted by power and his messianic personality cult. 621 00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:26,880 Today, he's still a hero for many. 622 00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:29,840 Mao memorabilia are everywhere... 623 00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:32,800 photos, magazines and posters 624 00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:34,920 and, of course, The Little Red Book. 625 00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:40,960 The man, who many here still think, for all his mistakes, 626 00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:43,240 made China great again. 627 00:50:43,240 --> 00:50:45,720 It's said that, in his last days, 628 00:50:45,720 --> 00:50:48,400 he was obsessively reading Sima Guang. 629 00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:52,240 Many lessons for rulers for all times in Chinese history 630 00:50:52,240 --> 00:50:56,800 in that famous historian's work with its message to the Emperor 631 00:50:56,800 --> 00:50:59,880 that "here's the history of China unfolding before you 632 00:50:59,880 --> 00:51:02,360 "and you will see that, over the epochs, 633 00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:04,960 "there has been chaos and destruction 634 00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:08,040 "and violence and disorder for most of that period. 635 00:51:08,040 --> 00:51:11,320 "And that the periods of good order and harmony 636 00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:13,800 "have been short in the history of China. 637 00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:17,800 "And this tells you the achievement of harmony in government 638 00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:19,560 "is a very difficult thing 639 00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:22,880 "that needs to be very carefully tendered once you've got there." 640 00:51:25,440 --> 00:51:27,280 There were those who said, of course, 641 00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:28,960 that had he died in 1956, 642 00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:30,920 his achievements would have been remembered 643 00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:33,120 as one of the great rulers of China. 644 00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:38,040 But on what happened afterwards, even the Party admitted, 645 00:51:38,040 --> 00:51:43,920 "Comrade Mao mistook right for wrong and the people for the enemy. 646 00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:46,520 "And therein lies his tragedy." 647 00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:56,680 Mao thought his revolution was unfinished. 648 00:51:56,680 --> 00:52:00,400 But after his death, the party turned its back on Marxism. 649 00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:03,840 For help to rebuild China, his successor, Deng Xiaoping, 650 00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:05,720 went to America. 651 00:52:05,720 --> 00:52:10,080 - REPORTER: - The eyes of Texas - were on Deng Xiaoping today. 652 00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:11,920 We learned some new things about Deng. 653 00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:14,640 He likes astronauts, cowboys and basketball 654 00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:18,400 and he's perhaps a new image for communist China's leading man. 655 00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:22,760 For Deng Xiaoping not only went West, but went western. 656 00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:28,480 Deng's great "opening up" would turn China into a capitalist society 657 00:52:28,480 --> 00:52:31,880 and brought the greatest lifting out of poverty in human history. 658 00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:36,840 And just as in the May 4th Movement in 1919, 659 00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:38,960 new freedoms swiftly beckoned. 660 00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:42,200 - REPORTER: - For the first time, - in huge numbers, 661 00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:45,640 the ordinary men and women of Beijing, the old and the young, 662 00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:49,120 professors and taxi drivers, have joined the student protest. 663 00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:54,520 In 1989, another great demonstration in Tiananmen Square 664 00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:56,600 also called for change. 665 00:52:56,600 --> 00:53:00,000 But the party feared the loss of its own monopoly on power. 666 00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:02,840 The protesters were brutally crushed, 667 00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:05,280 their protest dropped from history. 668 00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:14,600 Over the next 25 years, China simply grew richer and richer. 669 00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:19,160 If a historian had been trying to predict what China would look like 670 00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:21,760 in the early 21st century, 671 00:53:21,760 --> 00:53:24,480 he would almost certainly have got it entirely wrong. 672 00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:26,760 They would never have guessed that China would be 673 00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:28,880 one of the most thriving capitalist societies 674 00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:30,200 in the history of the world. 675 00:53:30,200 --> 00:53:32,520 Although one that's still under authoritarian rule. 676 00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:41,800 I think China embarked on what I call "the long march for modernity" 677 00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:43,720 since the Opium Wars. 678 00:53:43,720 --> 00:53:45,920 Because its elite 679 00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:48,520 realised it had to change. 680 00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:52,400 It had to catch up with the West, it has to modernise. 681 00:53:54,920 --> 00:53:57,880 So that "march" is still going on. 682 00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:03,160 And that means embracing history, too. 683 00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:05,320 Good and bad. 684 00:54:05,320 --> 00:54:07,600 For to be open about history, after all, 685 00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:12,280 is a foundation of a better present and a better future. 686 00:54:15,760 --> 00:54:17,760 Here in the city of Wuxi, 687 00:54:17,760 --> 00:54:21,040 the Qin family have gathered for their annual reunion, 688 00:54:21,040 --> 00:54:23,320 to celebrate their history, 689 00:54:23,320 --> 00:54:26,400 the incredible durability of the Chinese family 690 00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:29,640 and its place in the story of the nation. 691 00:54:29,640 --> 00:54:32,880 I think it's remarkable that all of us here today 692 00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:38,600 trace our ancestry through this remarkable poet in the Sung Dynasty, 693 00:54:38,600 --> 00:54:42,000 who was born almost 1,000 years ago. 694 00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:46,400 And today, the descendants can be found all over China. 695 00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:48,240 I'm very happy to be here... 696 00:54:48,240 --> 00:54:50,400 Like all Chinese families, 697 00:54:50,400 --> 00:54:53,680 the Qins have weathered the storms of the 20th century. 698 00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:57,360 They've had rightists and leftists, journalists and calligraphers 699 00:54:57,360 --> 00:54:59,480 and even a hero of the Long March, 700 00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:01,720 whose daughters are here today to remember him. 701 00:55:20,240 --> 00:55:24,280 The wounds of the last century are fading now. 702 00:55:24,280 --> 00:55:28,440 The Chinese people, the real heroes and heroines of our story, 703 00:55:28,440 --> 00:55:31,520 are savouring life to the full again. 704 00:55:35,240 --> 00:55:40,240 It's the festival of the Chinese New Year, everybody's favourite holiday, 705 00:55:40,240 --> 00:55:43,840 when all families try to get back together 706 00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:46,960 and the whole country grinds to a halt for two weeks. 707 00:55:50,360 --> 00:55:53,880 It's a time of auspiciousness and fun. 708 00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:55,840 A time for letting go. 709 00:55:58,120 --> 00:55:59,920 And at the heart of it all 710 00:55:59,920 --> 00:56:03,640 are the old Chinese beliefs about good fortune and prosperity... 711 00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:10,120 ..the old rituals of cooking and eating together. 712 00:56:15,560 --> 00:56:21,120 In every home, as the saying goes, the four generations under one roof. 713 00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:27,120 Just like the rest of us, 714 00:56:27,120 --> 00:56:30,120 the people of China are concerned about the future, 715 00:56:30,120 --> 00:56:33,000 about the environment, the effects of materialism, 716 00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:34,880 about freedom itself. 717 00:56:36,120 --> 00:56:40,360 But they're united, as always, by their common culture and history, 718 00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:43,800 by the things they've valued for so long. 719 00:57:01,720 --> 00:57:04,320 The story of China is part of the history 720 00:57:04,320 --> 00:57:07,560 of all the peoples of our small planet. 721 00:57:07,560 --> 00:57:09,960 And the next chapter, in many ways, 722 00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:13,480 will be more momentous than any that have gone before. 723 00:57:15,280 --> 00:57:17,800 Here at the Altar of Heaven in Beijing, 724 00:57:17,800 --> 00:57:19,680 just over 100 years ago, 725 00:57:19,680 --> 00:57:24,360 the last emperors of China performed the ancient rituals 726 00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:27,120 to maintain harmony between humanity, 727 00:57:27,120 --> 00:57:29,960 the Earth and the cosmos. 728 00:57:29,960 --> 00:57:32,200 Fitting, in this place, isn't it? 729 00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:36,880 You almost feel as is you're suspended between heaven and Earth. 730 00:57:40,240 --> 00:57:45,360 And now that ancient idea is all the more meaningful and urgent 731 00:57:45,360 --> 00:57:48,280 to China and to the world. 732 00:57:55,760 --> 00:57:59,800 The Chinese government has set its goal over the next 30 years 733 00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:04,560 to become a prosperous and democratic socialist society. 734 00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:09,800 In that, the rest of the world can only wish them well. 735 00:58:09,800 --> 00:58:14,080 For after the 4000-year epic of Chinese civilisation, 736 00:58:14,080 --> 00:58:16,920 with all its triumphs and tragedies 737 00:58:16,920 --> 00:58:21,240 and its almost boundless invention and creativity, 738 00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:25,000 the world needs a prosperous and peaceful China 739 00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:26,920 like never before.