1、THE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF CHINANational FlagThe National flag of the Peoples Republic of China is a rectangular red flag. In the upper left section are five yellow starsone big star in the center and four small stars in a semicircle on its right. The big star symbolizes the Communist Party of China (C
2、PC) and the small ones symbolize the people rallying around the CPC.National EmblemThe national emblem of the Peoples Republic of China is the Tiananmen Gate in the center illuminated by five stars and encircled by ears of grain and a cogwheel. It symbolizes the peoples democratic dictatorship estab
3、lished in New China, led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants On September 20 of the same year, Chairman Mao Zedong ordered the promulgation of the national emblem of the Peoples Republic of China.The Geographical Features of ChinaChina is located in the Eastern Hem
4、isphere, in East Asia on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean. The land area of China is 9.6 million sq. km, making it the largest country in Asia. China is the third largest country in the world after Russia and Canada.Territory of China: China extends from the main channel of the Heilongjiang River
5、 of Mohe, Heilongjiang Province to the Zengmu Reef of the Nansha Islands in the south, a total distance of 5,500 km. It goes from the confluence of the Heilongjiang and Wusuli rivers in the east to the Pamir Plateau in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the west, a distance of 5,200 km. The land bo
6、rder is 22,800 km long and touches 15 foreign countries. The coastline of China is 18,000 km long.The biggest sea area: Chinas sea area includes the Bohai, Yellow, East China, and South China seas. The biggest one is the South China Sea. Its area is 3.6 million sq. km and the average water depth is
7、over 1,200 meters.The largest island: Taiwan is the largest island, with an area of 35,700 sq. km, followed by Hainan Island and Chongming Island.The longest river: The Yangtze River, 6,300 km long, is the longest one in China. The Yellow River, 5,464 km long, is the second longest. The longest cont
8、inental river in China is the Tarim River in Xinjiang, 2,137 km long. The largest lake: Qinghai Lake is the largest in China with a total area of 4,583 sq. km. After this are Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province, Dongting Lake in Hunan Province and Lake Tai in Jiangsu Province.The highest mountain: Mount
9、 Qomolangma in Tibet, at 8,848 meters, is the highest mountainChina is home to many famous mountains, such as the “Five Great Mountains”, the four sacred peaks of Buddhism, Huangshan and Lushan. Mountain areas cover two-thirds of the country.China has three major plainsthe Northeast, the North, and
10、the Middle-Lower Yangtze. These plains are primarily the result of alluvial silt build-up from rivers, lakes and seas. These densely populated plains occupy 1.1 million square kilometers, or 11 percent of the nations territory. They are flat and crisscrossed by a network of rivers and lakes, set off
11、 by fertile soil.China has a lot of lakes, among them 2,800 lakes larger than one square kilometer and 13 lakes larger than 1,000 square kilometers, with a total area of 71,230 square kilometers. Besides natural lakes, there are many reservoirs Chinas three large deltas are those of the Yangtze, Yel
12、low and Zhujiang rivers.China has over 1,500 large rivers, including the Heilong, the Yellow River, the Huaihe, the Yangtze, and the Zhujiang. Seventy-nine of these rivers have a catchment area of over 10,000 square kilometers.Climate:China is situated on the eastern part of the Eurasian continent,
13、the largest continent in the world. The countrys east coast faces the Pacific Ocean, the worlds largest ocean. Chinas climate is influenced by strong monsoons that cause a northwestern wind in winter and a southeastern wind in summer.Chinas Flora and FaunaChina has some of the most diverse wildlife
14、in the world. Its 2,091 varieties of landbound animals account for 10 percent of all the worlds species. There are about 600 kinds of freshwater fish, and more than 1,500 varieties of saltwater fish in and around Chinese waters, 10 percent of the worlds marine life. China has as many as100 of the pl
15、anets rarest animals, including the giant panda, the golden monkey, the white-lipped deer, the Yangtze River dolphin, and the Chinese white sturgeons.By 1996, China had set up 799 nature reserves covering 7 percent of the nations land. Of these, 106 are state-level reserves, including Wolong Nature
16、Reserve in Sichuan Province, Baishuijiang in Gansu Province, Foping in Shaanxi Province, Mount Wuyi in Fujian Province, Huaping in Guanxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and Changbai Mountains in Jilin Province. The Wolong, Changbai Mountains, Dinghushan, and nine other nature reserves have been recognize
17、d by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as parts of the world biosphere preservation zones.The eight listed geoparks in China are: Lushan (mountain) in Jiangxi Province, Stone Forest in Yunnan Province, Danxia Shan (mountain) in Guangdong Province, Yuntai S
18、han and Songshan (mountains) in Henan Province, Huangshan (mountain) in Anhui Province, Wudalianchi Volcanoes in Heilongjiang Province and Zhangjiajie Sandstone Peak Forest in Hunan.Geopark, which is short for geological park, is an international program created by the UNESCO referring to territorie
19、s that encompass one or more sites of scientific importance, not only for geological reasons but also for its archaeological, ecological or cultural values.Chinas Administrative DivisionsThe State Structure of ChinaAccording to the Constitution of Peoples Republic of China, the administrations of Ch
20、ina are as follows: The country is divided into provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government. Provinces and autonomous regions are divided into autonomous prefecture, counties, autonomous counties and cities. Counties and autonomous counties are divided into
21、 townships, ethnic townships and towns. Municipalities directly under the central government and other large cities are divided into districts and counties. Autonomous prefectures are divided into counties, autonomous counties, and cities. All autonomous regions, autonomous prefectures and autonomou
22、s counties are autonomous areas of ethnic groups. At present China has 23 provinces, 5 autonomous regions (Tibet Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region) and 4 municipalities directly under the central government (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongq
23、ing).Chinas constitution stipulates: “The National Peoples Congress (NPC) of the Peoples Republic of China is the highest organ of state power.” The NPC is composed of deputies elected by the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government, and by the armed for
24、ces. The law stipulates that the number of deputies cannot exceed 3,000 and the assignment of the number of deputies is decided by the Standing Committee of the NPC which has broad representation. The NPC is elected for a term of five years and reelected every five years.POLITICAL CONSULTATION POLIC
25、Y In China, besides the Communist Party of China (CPC), which is the ruling party, there are eight democratic parties which participate in the state and government affairs led by the CPC. They were formed and developed gradually in the struggle against imperialism and the reactionary Kuomintang regi
26、me. In 1949 these parties and CPC participated in the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), and established the Peoples Republic of China.Dongyuanxincun is the first community in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, to have direct elections, which took place in January. To date, all c
27、ommunities in the city have introduced this practice. The elections include such procedures as the establishment of an electoral committee, registration of voters, nomination of candidates, and secret voting. Each candidate must have at least 10 signatures of local residents in support of his or her
28、 candidacy. Names of formal candidates are published fives days before the voting date. Three rounds of elections are conducted. Voting is done by secret ballot, votes are counted openly, and results are announced on the spot.Any ruling party or government inevitably faces the challenge of fighting
29、corruption while in power.Anti-Corruption: A Long-term TaskChinas Economy and ReformAs you know , we began our economic reform in 1978. After that we get a rapid progress in economy. Now China rank the first economic developing speed in the world. Especially the economic industry ,as the basic techn
30、ology, had gotten a well development.Chinas Roadmap to Sustainable DevelopmentIN 2004, China used computer testing as a requirement for employing and appraising professional personnel for the first time. Domestically produced WPS Office was selected as one of the software programs used in the test.T
31、he use of domestically produced software in a national test indicates that the Chinese Government is paying more attention to the software industry, and that Chinas software quality has improved. However, experts noted that although Chinas software industry has initially taken shape, the gap between
32、 China and world leading software developers, such as India, has not been obviously narrowed, and some unsatisfying factors, therefore still exist. Related Chinese departments have set a goal for its software production: Catching up with India in two years.One of the Chinese Governments goals is to
33、increase the rate of urbanization, with an aim to promote sustainable development through urbanization. The After a decade of work, sustainable development strategies have been applied in various sectors in China. This has allowed economics development to progress in harmony with the nations resourc
34、es and environment.Over the last five years, China has spent 580 billion yuan ($70.05 billion) on environmental protection and environmental conservation. The volume of discharge of major pollutants nationwide has so been reduced by 10 percent. Meanwhile, 502.7 hectares of hillside and about 2.16 mi
35、llion hectares of cultivated land were reforested. All these efforts have laid a more solid foundation for urban sustainable development.Prior to the mid-1990s, only specialists in China were aware of the relationship between the deteriorating environment and economic growth. Government departments
36、failed to pay enough attention to the ecological issue brought about by economic development. The public also had no sense of seeing the ecological environment as an essential factor of production. Only in 1998 when flood disasters occurred in the Yangtze River Valley, did top government officials h
37、ave a stronger sense of the need for ecological protection. Thereafter, policies concerning environmental protection were formulated, such as restoring cultivated land to forests and grassland. However, the degree of the ecological deterioration is far beyond that of the Yangtze River flood.The rapi
38、d growth of the Chinese economy is facing a “new structural crisis” that is highly short of ecological resources and essential factors for production. Taking exports for example, the price of Chinese-made commodities is very low in international markets, but the low price, to a great extent, is at t
39、he cost of sacrificing the environment. Under the current ecological situation, further economic growth must be oriented toward large-scale “production” of essential factors to protect the ecological environment. This means that we must make up for the huge damage caused to the environment in the pa
40、st several decades, and eliminate economic bubbles caused by its overuse.The non-public economy has played an important role in Chinas economic reforms over the past two decades, bringing about great changes to the economy and society. Since 1982, China has revised its Constitution three times, vali
41、dating and elevating the status of the non-public sector within its system of a socialist market economy. The development of this sector has, however, been hampered by its failure to achieve status equal to that of its “big brother” public-owned sector, or of policy-favored foreign and Sino-foreign
42、joint-venture enterprises.Currently Chinas per-capita income has reached $800, which is the bottom line of a moderate-income country, and its per-capita GDP reaching the income levels of a medium developed country. But these figures cannot reflect the income level of the majority, due to its wide ga
43、p in income distribution as shown by the following data released by the Peoples Bank of China.The richest people, though accounting for only 20 percent of the total population, own 80 percent of the countrys total individual bank savings, while the other 80 percent of the people own the remaining 20
44、 percent bank savings.China has taken a decisive step to gradually reduce the financial burden on farmers, thanks to the governments promise to abolish agricultural tax.On March 5 at the opening of the 2004 session of the countrys top legislaturethe National Peoples Congress (NPC), Premier Wen Jiaba
45、o said the government would scrap the agricultural tax for good. Beginning this year, the 8.4 percent agricultural tax rate will be reduced gradually and eliminated entirely within five years. Today, Chinese farmers pay three major taxesagricultural tax, tax on special farm produce and tax on slaugh
46、tering animals.September 1 this year meant totally different things for Wang Nan, a 12-year-old Beijing girl, and her father Wang Weiqing. For the younger Wang, it was the first day of middle school. But for the older Wang, it was the beginning of new round of heavy financial burdens.“I earn a littl
47、e more than 30,000 yuan ($3,600) a year,” said Wang, “but I have hard time affording my daughters educational fees.”We should not blindly describe the real estate sector as being “overheated.” Certainly, an over-optimistic anticipation of property price has led to blind investment in some places. Bu
48、t that is an isolated phenomenon, which does not tell the whole story.Some would argue that the current supply of houses outweighs the demand, as the countrys idle space has reached 100 million square meters. But can we infer from this figure that the real estate sector is overheated?Pollution In Be
49、ijing during 2001, 185 days, accounting for 50.7 percent of the year, were given a “pollution rating” of “second grade” or “better than second grade”. In Chongqing, a heavy industrial area of southwest China known as the “city of fog”, discharge volumes of smog and sulphur dioxide decreased almost 90 percent and foggy weather accounted for just 30 percent of the previous years average. Shanghais Suzhouhe River, which featured dark, smelly water that no fish or shrimp have lived in it for 80 years, now flows with clean, blue water. The first “experi
