China is one of the world's oldest civilizations with a chronicled history of more than 5,000 years. China has gone over a long history of primitive society, slavery society, feudal society and semi-feudal semi-colonial society and the present socialist society.

In 221 BC, Qinshihuang established the Qin Dynasty, the first feudal autocracy in Chinese history, thereby unveiling a 2,000-year period of feudalism which was to last through a succession of dynasties such as the Han, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing, a period which finally met its demise in the bourgeois democratic Revolution of 1911 by Dr. Sun Yat-sen. October 1, 1949 saw the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Archaeological evidence suggests that China is one of the cradles of the human race. The earliest known human in China, whose fossilized skull was unearthed in Shanxi Province in 1963, is believed to date back to 6000,000 BC.

The remains of Sinanthropus pekinensis, known as Peking Man and dating back to 400,000 BC, were excavated in 1923 at Zhoukoudianzhen near Peking. Pecking Man was closely related to Pithecanthroupus of Java and lived during the Old Stone Age.

In the upper caves of Zhoukoudianzhen are found artifacts of a late Old Stone Age man who ranks in age with the Cro-Magnon of Europe. This was an early form of Homo sapiens, or modern man, who made tools out of bones as well as stones, made clothes out of anima hides, and knew how to make fire.

Chinese had mastered the technology of smelting bronze approximately 5,000 years ago and iron tools came into use during the Shang Dynasty, 3,000 years ago. White pottery and glazed pottery were produced. Silk production was considerably developed and the world's first figured inlaid silk weaving technique appeared.

During the Spring and Autumn Period steel production technologies made their debut. During the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods, there was a great upsurge of intellectual activity, producing many famous philosophers, such as Lao Zi, Confucius, Mencius and Mo Zi, and the well-known military scientist Sun Wu.