Beijing is a city of contrasts, vast neon-lit avenues coexist with narrow hutongs (alleys) and futuristic structures of titanium and glass cast their shadow over ancient palaces. Friendly and hardworking, the city’s population of about 14 million is also diverse. Wizened men with pet songbirds share the streets with laptop-toting executives and foreign investors with migrants from the countryside. Along with its people, historical sights and vibrancy, Beijing’s drawing cards include its mouth-watering cuisine, fabulous shopping and thriving nightlife. In short, a thrilling and unforgettable experience awaits visitors in Beijing.
A BRIEF HISTORY
Local history begins some 500,000 years ago at a time when the north China plain, which encompasses Beijing, was covered in semi-tropical forest and dotted with lakes. Anthropologists digging at Zhoukoudian, a village near modern Beijing, discovered in 1929 the area was inhabited by a previously unknown human ancestor soon dubbed Peking Man. This hominid, the famous dig revealed, had mastered fire and used stone tools.
Modern human beings began to settle in the area around 3000 BC, surviving on rudimen-tary agriculture and animal husbandry. During the Zhou dynasty, a military and administrative center was established near present-day Beijing to protect China’s northeastern border and oversee trade between Chinese farmers and the nomadic ancestors of the Mongols and Koreans.
However, neither the presence of troops nor the construction of the Great Wall by Beijing, which began in the 4th century BC, would permanently repel northern attacks. Indeed, incursions from the north would become a recurring feature of Beijing’s history. During the Song dynasty, a tribe from the Mongolian steppes called the Qidan swept down into north China and founded the Liao dynasty, eventually making their capital, called Yanjing, at what is now Beijing. The name Yanjing survives today as a brand of a popular local beer.
Proving the adage “those who live by the sword, die by the sword,” the Liao were in turn defeated in 1125 by invaders from Manchuria – the Jürchen. The latter founded the Jin dynasty and ruled much of north China from their capital, Zhongdu, which also stood in present-day Beijing. Graced with handsome palaces, Zhongdu had over a million residents – roughly the population size of ancient Rome at its peak in the 1st century AD.
Unfortunately, little remains of Zhongdu since it was burnt to the ground by the armies of Genghis Khan in 1215. Genghis’s grandson, Kublai Khan, completed the Mongol conquest of China, crowning himself emperor in 1260 and founding the Yuan dynasty in 1271. Kublai built his capital, Dadu, on the ruins of Zhongdu. It was the first time that all of China was governed from the city that would become Beijing.
Distrustful of local officials and lacking the administrative know-how and personnel to govern their vast empire, the Mongol rulers never won over the hearts of their Han Chinese subjects. When their grip on power began to weaken, revolts broke out throughout China.
In 1368, a former peasant and rebel leader named Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Yuan dynasty, took Dadu and established the Ming dynasty. He renamed the city Beiping, meaning Northern Peace, and set up his court in Nanjing, which means Southern Capital. The power struggle that broke out after his death in 1398 was resolved in favor of a usurper, the fouth of his 36 sons. A vigorous and capable leader, this son ruled as the Yongle emperor.
Emperor Yongle officially moved the Ming capital back to Beijing in 1421 because his power base was in the north and as the usurper, he felt insecure in the south. The emperor would have a huge impact on Beijing, he gave the city its current name, which means Northern Capital, and rebuilt it on a chessboard pattern that survives to this day. His building program for Beijing begun in 1406 and included the construction of such architectural masterpieces as the Forbidden City, the Bell Tower and the Temple of Heaven. Surrounding the palace was a web of alleyways and gray-hued quadrangle courtyard homes. It should be noted that the Beijing of today, with the imperial gilded roofs and the maze-like neighborhoods are mainly Ming and Qing creations.
Additionally, he chose a beautiful site north of Beijing for a royal cemetery, an area now known as the Ming Tombs. His successors broadened the city; built moats, canals and a massive city wall to protect the capital against attackers from the north. A similar motive was behind their decision to restore and lengthen sections of the Great Wall near Beijing.
These safeguards were ultimately in vain. Weakened by revolts, corruption and banditry, the Ming proved no match for the force from Manchuria, part of northeastern China today. In 1644, the Manchus conquered Beijing. By adopting the Ming administrative system, embracing Confucian values and maintaining a strong army, the Manchus were able to co-opt the scholarly gentry class and remain in power until 1911.
The Qing expanded Beijing’s hutong neighborhoods and commissioned suburban palaces set in luxuriant gardens, the most famous of which was the Old Summer Palace. This pleasure dome was looted and razed by French and British troops during the Second Opium War in 1860. The crippling “Unequal Treaties” imposed by western powers after the Opium Wars coupled with Chinese ferment for political change led to the downfall of the Qing and the foundation by Sun Yat-sen of the Republic of China in 1912.
During much of the 1911 to 1949 Republican period, de facto power resided with powerful warlords who fought for control of the city and country. In 1928, the capital was moved to Nanjing and Beijing was once again renamed Beiping, a name that it held until 1949. During this period, Beijing was the scene of much political upheaval. The Versailles Treaty signed after the First World War, under which the Allied powers gave Germany’s possessions in China (Qingdao for example) to Japan rather than to China galvanized Beijing’s students into organizing a march on May 4, 1919. Their protests – against imperialism and the warlords, would spawn the “May Fourth Movement.” In this intellectual atmosphere, an erstwhile librarian’s assistant at Peking University named Mao Zedong would become a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921.
In 1937, after overcoming Chinese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge (lúgōu qiáo 卢沟桥) on the outskirts of Beijing, the Japanese army occupied the city and began a general invasion of China. The end of the Second World War was followed by a civil war in which the Communist Party would triumph. On January 31, 1949, the victorious People’s Liberation Army entered the city and in Tian’anmen Square on October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China. “We the Chinese people have stood up and our future is infinitely bright,” Mao told a crowd of 300,000.
In Beijing, the new leaders soon embarked on a building program of their own. The old city walls were torn down in 1964 to make way for the roadway that would become today’s Second Ring Road. Tian’anmen Square was dramatically expanded and two modern buildings were erected on its flanks: the Great Hall of the People (home to China’s parliament) and the Chinese History and Revolution Museum. The 1950’s saw the construction of apartment blocks, factories and Beijing’s first subway line.
The economic reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 set the stage for Beijing’s ongoing development boom. Rapid economic growth combined with preparations for events like the 1990 Asian Games and the 50th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China in 1999 fuelled countless construction and infrastructure projects. Avenues were broadened, highways were built, new neighborhoods were created, and towers of steel and glass were erected seemingly overnight. Under Deng and his successors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, foreign investment and new ideas were welcomed, ensuring that Beijing became increasingly outward-looking, technological and prosperous.
