| This contest is fueled by the following news: |
| | Lenovo Group, which is China's biggest computer maker, has acquired a majority interest in IBM's personal computer business. Lenovo got the stake for $1.75 billion in stock and cash. It is one of the biggest overseas acquisitions in China's history. Lenovo will become the third largest PC company in all of the world. IBM currently holds that spot on the charts. Under the terms of the deal, IBM will keep about a 20% stake in the company.
Constitution of People's Republic of China legally provides three-stage administrative division: provinces (independent territories, cities under central control), districts and volosts. However de facto in continental China there are five levels of local governance.
The climate is subtropical.
Temperature is Average:
In spring (March to middle of May) - +23°C; during summer (from end of May till the middle of September) - +28 °C; in autumn (from the end of September till the beginning of December) - +23 °C; in winter (end of December - February) - + 17 °C. In spring and in summer there is very high humidity in Hong Kong, and in autumn and winter the air is comparatively dry.
Highways (including the rural ones) stretch around 3.5 million km. Total length of modern multi-lane expressways at the end of 2006 was 45.3 thousand km (in 2006 it constructed 4.3 thousand km expressways, in 2007 it planned to build 5 thousand km).
Length of rail lines in China Railways at the end of 2006 was 76.6 thousand km (in 2006 it built 1.2 thousand km). In 2006, the highest-mountainous rail line was commissioned (upto 5072 m above the sea level) in Tibet at a cost of $4.2 billion
As per the census of 2000, the population of China is 1.2 billion people.
Present population: 1,329,349,388 (2007, estimated)
Growth in population: 0.606 % (2007)
Birth rate: 13.45 for 1000 people (2007)
*1.73 children per woman (2006)
Death rate: 7 for 1000 people (2007)
Life expectancy: 72.58 years (2007)
*For men: 70.89 years (2007)
*For women: 74.46 years (2006)
Culture of China
China is the native land of one of the oldest and most complex civilizations in the world, and probably, it is the only one where physically the type of population did not change for 5 millennia. China has a history dating back to 5000 years of artistic, philosophical and political development. Though the regional variations give an impression of diversity, the commonality in language and religious-ethical views integrate the culture of China, within whose frameworks phenomena like Confucianism and Taoism were built, that have a great significance in the world. Confucianism was the official ideology through most part of the history of Imperial China, and the knowledge of Confucian texts was the basic criterion for entry in the imperial bureaucracy.
With the strengthening of economic and military expansion of the western countries to China in the middle of XIX century, they extended in China, in national interpretation, the ideas of social and political organization, which were initiated in Europe.
Founder of Taoism was Lao Tsi (Lao – “teacher”). His actual name is Li Er (Li Boyan, Lao Dan). As per the legends, he was born in the year 604 BC.
Basic concept of Taosim is dao (in Chinese meaning “path”) or “opposite". Dao is an invisible omnipresent law of nature, path on which human and mankind move, it is a faceless substance without any qualities. Dao stays idle, thereby, generating everything, it is eternal and nameless, empty and inexhaustible. Everything came from it and everything will come back to it. Inertia generates inertia, therefore the human activity must be kept to a minimum. There is a principle Yu- wei, principle of deed, “contemplate passiveness”: man studies the world, but does not change, does only that is necessary.
In Taoism, two opposite beginnings interact – yin and yang, which flow one into another and cannot exist without each other. Yin is the negative, passive, female beginning; yang is the positive, active, male beginning.
Confucianism is one of the three main religions of China. Beginning of Confucianism is associated with Confucius ( Chinese “K'ung-fu-tse”)(551-479 BC), however it is quite probable, that his activity differed much more, than it is described by the Chinese scientists, and that only his followers, having reached high positions in the government, tried to elevate the first teacher.
For five-thousand-year history of Chinese civilization, many architectural monuments have survived, many of which are considered as masterpieces in the world. Their variety and originality depict the traditions of ancient times and best achievements of the Chinese architecture.
Traditional Chinese architecture has a number of features which are inherent only in it.
Most of the structures in ancient China were built from wood.
|
|
|
|
|
|
