Also known to many westerners as
Canton, Guangzhou has long been one of South Chinas principal cities. Its
position as a local power base and financial and commercial hub stretches back
over two millennia, while the area has been inhabited since Neolithic times.
Throughout history, it functioned, willingly or otherwise, as a point of
contact between China and the outside world, making it a breeding ground for
new ideas, dissent and revolution. After neglect in the early days of the
founding of the Peoples Republic of China, the city has recently re-established
itself as an important national base for industry and trade.
Like any city with a sense of history, Guangzhou has its very own foundation
myth. Legend has it that five gods descended from heaven astride goats,
bringing with them five ears of corn to save the local population from
starvation. Whatever the truth in this tale, it at least helps to explain one
of the old names for the city: "Goat Town."
Folk tales aside, archaeological remains indicate that humans lived in the
region now occupied by Guangzhou as long ago as 5000BC. Settlers from the
Yangtze River valley first introduced agriculture in 8th century BC. In 214BC,
following his campaign of conquest and unification, China's first emperor, Qin
Shi Hang, created the prefecture (an old administrative area) of Nanhai, with
Guangzhou as its administrative seat. By then, the city was already an
important river and seaport. With this official recognition, it grew rapidly
into a major regional center.
During the Tang Dynasty (618-609BC), many foreign visitors to China made their
first stop in Guangzhou, and trade soon developed with Arab, Indian and Persian
merchants. In particular, the Islamic population flourished, and by the end of
the first millennium, the city had a foreign population of about 10,000. The
first Europeans arrived in the early 16th century, with the Portuguese gaining
a trade monopoly in 1511. The British broke this monopoly in the 17th century,
and they were closely followed by the Dutch and the French, all seeking their
share in the lucrative trade of tea, porcelain and silk. After 1760, all
foreign trade in China was restricted to Guangzhou. In effect, the city had a
virtual monopoly.
The popularity of foreign trade (and the foreigners' hunger to profit from it)
sowed the seeds of decline for Guangzhou and eventually for all of imperial
China. As early as the 1770s, the British, alarmed at an increasing trade
deficit, started importing Indian opium through Guangzhou. This had the desired
effect of redressing the balance of trade and slowing the flow of silver into
Chinese hands, but caused widespread social problems inside China. Worried by
these developments, the Qing government banned the opium trade, a decision
British merchants chose to ignore.
In 1839, the Imperial High Commissioner, Lin Ze Xu, started an anti-opium
campaign, impounding and destroying thousands of tons of the drug in Guangzhou.
The British military used this as a pretext to dispatch a fleet, and the
situation rapidly deteriorated into the conflict known as the "Opium War." In
1842, the two countries signed the Treaty of Nanjing (the first of many
so-called "agreements" forced upon the Chinese by foreign powers), under which
the island of Hong Kong was ceded to the British, and Guangzhou became one of
five "treaty ports" open to unrestricted foreign trade.
During this period, Guangzhou established its reputation as a hotbed of
radicalism and rebellion. Hong Xiu Quan, the leader of the extraordinarily
bloody pseudo-Christian, anti-Qing "Tai Ping Rebellion" of the 1850s was a
Guangzhou local. He conducted early revolutionary activities in the city. Sun
Yat-sen, founder of the Chinese Nationalist Party, was also born nearby, and he
launched several failed coup attempts from Guangzhou. He eventually triggered
the protests that resulted in the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the
formation of the Republic of China in 1911.
During the early 1920s, Guangzhou retained this rebellious streak; the city saw
a number of protests led by students and workers against the continued foreign
presence. Some of these demonstrations were met with violence from foreign
troops, and more strikes were called in retaliation. Guangzhou even acquired
the nickname "Red City" among some observers, an uncanny omen since one of the
first communes in China was established here (albeit briefly) under Soviet
guidance in 1927.
Guangzhou's modern history continued to be turbulent. The city emerged as an
important industrial base during the 1930s, but it was seized by Japanese
marines in 1938 and remained under Japanese control during the war. After the
Japanese, Jiang Jie Shi Nationalist forces occupied Guangzhou. In 1949, ruling
powers changed hands once more. This time, the city fell to Communist troops
under Lin Biao. Due to its strategic vulnerability, it was largely ignored in
the central policy written up by Mao Ze Dong. However, in the late 1970s and
early 1980s, Guangzhou was one of the first cities earmarked for open market
reforms under Deng Xiao Ping's economic reform policies. Since then, Guangzhou
has reclaimed its place as one of China's most prosperous and thriving cities.
It is believed that the first city built at the site of Guangzhou was Panyu (the
locals pronounced this in Cantonese as Poon Yu) founded in 214 BC. The city has
been continuously occupied since that time. Panyu was expanded when it became
the capital of the Nanyue Kingdom in 206 BC.
The Han Dynasty annexed Nanyue in 111 BC, and Panyu became a provincial capital
and remains so until this day. In 226 AD, the city became the seat of the Guang
Prefecture Therefore, "Guangzhou" was the name of the prefecture, not of the
city. However, people grew accustomed to calling the city Guangzhou, instead of
Panyu.
Arabs and Persians sacked Guangzhou (known to them as Sin-Kalan) in AD 758, 2
according to a local Guangzhou government report on October 30 758, which
corresponded to the day of Guisi of the ninth lunar month in the first year of
the Qianyuan era of Emperor Suzong of the Tang Dynasty. 3
During the Northern Song Dynasty, a celebrated poet called Su Shi visited
Guangzhou's Baozhuangyan Temple and wrote the inscription "Liu Rong" (Six
Banyan Trees) because of the six banyan trees he saw there. It has since been
called the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees.
In 1711, the British East India Company established a trading post in Guangzhou.
The Qianlong Emperor restricted foreign traders to a district in Guangzhou
under the Canton System in 1760.
Guangzhou was one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened by the Treaty of
Nanking (signed in 1842) at the end of the First Opium War between United
Kingdom and China. The other ports were Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo and Shanghai.
In 1918, "Guangzhou" became the official name of the city, when an urban council
was established in Guangzhou. Panyu became a county's name south of Guangzhou.
In both 1930 and 1953, Guangzhou was promoted to the status of a Municipality,
but each promotion was cancelled within the year. Japanese troops occupied
Guangzhou between October 12, 1938 and September 16, 1945.
After the communist take-over, urban renewal projects in the city improved the
lives of many residents. New housing on the shores of the Pearl River provided
homes for the poor boat people. Reforms by Deng Xiaoping, who came to power in
the late 1970s, led to rapid economic growth due to the city's close proximity
to Hong Kong and access to the Pearl River.
As labor costs increased in Hong Kong, manufacturers opened new plants in the
cities of Guangdong including Guangzhou. As the largest city in one of China's
wealthiest provinces, Guangzhou attracts farmers from the countryside looking
for factory work. Cantonese links to overseas Chinese and beneficial tax
reforms of the 1990s have aided the city's rapid growth.
In 2000, Huadu and Panyu were merged into Guangzhou as districts, and Conghua
and Zengcheng became county-level cities of Guangzhou.
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