Beijing history

Beijing became China's capital in 1421 and remained so until the imperial regime collapsed in 1911. From 1911 to 1949, Beijing suffered, as did the rest of China, from destructive factionalism. The Japanese invasion in 1931 was followed by civil war. In 1949, Mao Zedong's communists prevailed and the People's Republic of China was founded with Beijing as the capital.

The first decade or so of Mao's rule stabilised a fearful, humiliated nation, and strong advances were made in industry, agriculture, education and health care. Beijing’s Old Town suffered, though, as most of its walls, gateways and decorative arches were levelled to make way for new roads.

From the late 1950s to the early 1970s, it was the turn of the people to suffer as Beijing's ill-fated political programmes such as the Hundred Flowers Movement, the Great Leap Forward and, most infamously, the Cultural Revolution, saw persecution, violence and famine spread like wildfire across the country.

Many Chinese art forms dating back centuries struggled to survive. Artists were organised into associations, which meant that Mao Zedong's Communist Party controlled every aspect. Travelling theatre, music and dance groups were created to project the party's message to the masses via carefully managed stage plays and ideological films. Plays written before the 1950s, films with human interest and the Beijing Opera were suppressed, and their creators persecuted.

Mao's death in 1976 saw the first shoots of nascent political freedom, but they culminated in the tragic events at Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Any hint of political freedoms were swiftly curtailed, but new leader Deng Xiaoping continued in his quest to open China up to the world economy until his death in 1997.

Today China's economy - now the world's second largest - continues to grow at an incredible rate.