HIS 251:  Making of Modern Asia        TRADITIONAL CHINA:  An Introduction  (Compiled by Professor John Leung)

Major Aspects and Characteristics of "Traditional China"

• Thought and Culture

The substance of Confucianism: Essential teachings and values (pp. 5-6)

Confucianism and traditional Chinese social and political institutions (pp. 5-7)

The Confucian School and other philosophies/value systems, and the evolution of Confucianism (pp. 6, 8-9)

The making of orthodoxy and a "universal" moral order (pp. 9-10)

• Traditional Chinese Politics

Monarchy and dynasties

Bureaucracy (pp.7, 12-14) 

Centralism and regionalism (pp. 2-3)

Ethnic contestation (pp. 3, 10-11)

• Traditional Chinese Society

Hierarchy: Bureaucratic and landed gentries, peasants and other classes (pp. 10-11) 

Patriarchy (pp. 5-6)

Urban vs. rural China

Regional Development (p. 3)

Ethnic division