Beijing: A Cultural History

Abstract

The city of Beijing has evolved from a frontier town 3000 years ago to China’s capital and a cosmopolitan center of world renown. Such a remarkable growth owes much to the cultural dynamics created by the intermingling of cultures and the peoples in Northern China. Interestingly, it was the Khitans, the Jurchens and the Mongols, rather than Han Chinese, that made Beijing the political and the cultural center of China. The city of Beijing at the current site, with the Forbidden City in the middle,was ordered by the Mongol emperor Kublai and designed by a Chinese according to the Confucian tradition. From the 13th century onwards, imperial decisions made in Beijing not only affected China but also influenced the world. The anti-traditional May 4th Movement took place in the city that made China into a modern nation, and incidentally imported Marxism. Except briefly losing its capital status between 1928 and 1949, China’s center of gravity still remains here. The political and social convulsions of the 1960s, known as the Cultural Revolution nearly ruined the city and the country; the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s put China on a trajectory regaining its pre-industrial status of a world power. Culturally diverse and the technologically advanced, Beijing today promises a leading role in a rapidly changing 21st century world.