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Chinese history

Chinese history
The latest news, analysis and opinion on Chinese history. In-depth analysis, industry insights and expert opinion.
Horse models are seen at an exhibition titled “The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: The Great Unity - Civilisation of the Qin and Han Dynasties in Shaanxi Province” at the Hong Kong Museum of History in Tsim Sha Tsui. China’s need for strong warhorses for its cavalry ranks drove the creation of the Silk Road trade network. Photo: Nora Tam
Chinese culture

Why Asia’s historic Silk Road should have been called the ‘Horse Road’

It was China’s desperate need for good warhorses that spawned history’s most famous trade network, animals it paid for in silk and then tea.

Interiors

This refurbished home is a love letter to old Shanghai

Chinese culture

World’s first Chinese rosewood cello stars in Hong Kong exhibition

Chinese culture

This remote Chinese minority uses horsetail hair to create beautiful embroidery

A craft passed down for thousands of years, the horsetail embroidery of China’s Shui people is deemed a local intangible cultural heritage.

A Shui minority woman embroiders with horsetail in Sandu Shui Autonomous County in China’s Guizhou province. Shui minority women can spend months or even years making a piece of horsetail embroidery, which is used as decoration on clothes, shoes, wallets and more. Photo: Visual China Group via Getty Images
Science

Chinese team restores legendary Tang dynasty ‘golden’ armour from Tibetan tomb

Tomb’s occupant confirmed to be a Tuyuhun king and the golden armour is likely to have been among his prized possessions, conservators say.

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Lessons from China's history

Reflections | What a Chinese hero’s fatal love of raw fish warns us about uncooked food

The recent sale of the most expensive tuna in Tokyo reflects sushi’s popularity, but an episode in Chinese history shows raw food’s dangers.

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Chinese culture

7 horse-themed Chinese idioms to use during the Year of the Horse

Horses symbolise strength, speed and health in Chinese culture. Here are seven sayings based on the animal, with Cantonese pronunciations.

Horses are the subject of many Chinese idioms. Here are seven of the most popular horse-related expressions in Chinese, how to pronounce them in Cantonese and the stories behind them. Photo: Shutterstock
Chinese culture

What the Chinese surname Ma, meaning ‘horse’, symbolises and how it spread

Ma is one of mainland China’s most common surnames and is interestingly even prevalent among Chinese Muslims. We look at its history.

Lessons from China's history

Reflections | How ancient Chinese dental practices were often similar to those used today

From gargling with medicinal concoctions to chewing sticks, people in China addressed dental health with considerable ingenuity.

Legacy of war in Asia

Opinion | Amid historical tensions with Japan, Hong Kong must engage for the future

Remembering the pain of the Nanking massacre does not preclude engagement, but ensures lessons of the past strengthen our shared commitment to peace.

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Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu and government officials at the ceremony of the Nanking massacre memorial held at the government’s headquarters on December 13. Photo: Jonathan Wong
Fashion

History of Chinese-style ‘frog buttons’, seen on viral Adidas jacket

Used in China for centuries, frog buttons are a key feature of a limited-edition Adidas jacket that has become a huge hit on social media.

A model wears Adidas’ “Tang-style” jacket that combines streetwear cool with Chinese details including “frog buttons”. The jacket has become a viral hit on social media. Photo: Adidas Power of Three
US-China relations

US poet laureate Arthur Sze on slowing down to translate poetry across cultures

As the first Asian-American poet laureate, Sze reflects on Chinese cultural inheritance and poetry’s role beyond borders.

Science

Could 2,000-year-old machine from tomb in China be earliest binary computer?

Silk-weaving loom dating to Western Han is world’s oldest known ‘computer hardware’ with corresponding ‘software’, China science body says.

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China economy

Opinion | As history makes clear, a powerful China is not expansionist

China was an unmatched power in the Song and Ming dynasties, with greater concentrated authority. But it consolidated, rather than colonised.

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Illustration: Craig Stephens
Chinese culture

The Chinese cowboys challenging narratives of the American Old West

Whether through art or immersion in the rancher lifestyle, these Asian men are redefining what it means to be a cowboy in the American West.

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Self-professed Chinese cowboy Bruce Wang Shibo stands with a horse. The Chinese national is one of those rewriting narratives of the American West. Photo: Bruce Wang Shibo
Horoscopes

What’s your luck like in 2026, the Fire Horse year? Horoscopes for every Chinese zodiac sign

What are your lucky numbers and months in 2026? Here’s how you fare in terms of wealth, career and relationship prospects.

Hong Kong Voices

A fifth-gen shop owner on closing the business despite his umbrella obsession

The 73-year-old owner of Sun Nga Shing Umbrella Store in Sham Shui Po recently announced that he would be closing the family business, which dates back to the Qing dynasty.

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Lessons from China's history

Reflections | Chinese historical myths that are accepted as fact, and why they’ve endured

Like Singapore’s ‘ejection’ from Malaysia, Chinese history contains fallacies, including ones about Sun Yat-sen and Empress Dowager Cixi.

Sun Yat-sen, widely regarded as the founding father of modern China, is credited with “leading” the 1911 Revolution that overthrew the Qing dynasty, but in fact he was not even in China at the time of the Wuchang Uprising, the trigger of the revolution, and only learned about it afterwards. Photo: Getty Images
Chinese culture

How the horse paintings of Xu Beihong have galloped through history

Known as the father of modern Chinese art and famed for his horse paintings, Xu Beihong blended Western techniques with Chinese tradition.

Science

Bronze Age cemetery offers clues on how ancient Chinese brewed red rice wine

Vessels found in tombs at Mogou in modern-day Gansu contain traces of a fermentation starter of the type still used to make sake today.

Science

China urged to sue over Japanese royal’s role in Unit 731 crimes

Emperor Hirohito should be held accountable, according to scholars who say the wartime ruler was shielded from prosecution by US policy.

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A Chinese scholar says that before Japan’s surrender in the second world war, evidence of crimes by its Unit 731 was systematically destroyed on the instruction of Emperor Hirohito. Photo: Xinhua
China’s Communist Party

Fall of Ming dynasty has ignited controversy online – and China has weighed in

Oversimplified discourse on Ming, Qing dynasties risks slide into ‘narrow, Han-centric nationalism’, Zhejiang authorities warn.

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The “1644 perspective” that frames the Ming dynasty as a golden age of prosperity and advancement has been widely shared on China’s social media. Photo: Handout
Science

Well-preserved section of China’s 2,200-year-old four-lane highway discovered

Stretch of Qin Straight Road reveals sophisticated construction techniques including rammed-earth slope reinforcements and filled valleys.

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Trending in China

Explainer | China Santa Claus: Qing dynasty military figure ‘cutified’ into ‘Father Christmas’

Oboi has become a new pop culture icon in China, with related videos exceeding 1 billion views on Douyin.

Lessons from China's history

Reflections | Malaysia’s unusual creation still affects it today. China mulled doing similar

Malaysia was born as a federation in 1963, with some states considered ‘special’. China also once toyed with federal ideals.

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A view of the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, including the Petronas Twin Towers. Today, the states of Sabah and Sarawak want to regain the special status they were granted during the formation of Malaysia in 1963. Photo: Reuters
Chinese culture

Explainer | What is the winter solstice? History, food and how Hong Kong celebrates

Known as dung zi in Cantonese and dongzhi in Mandarin, the winter solstice is one of the most important celebrations for Chinese families.

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A luxury poon choi from Hong Kong restaurant Duddell’s. Poon choi is a popular meal for family gatherings during the winter solstice in China. Photo: Nicholas Wong / Sixteen Photography
China-Japan relations

Tower of peace or sin? Why China says a Japanese wartime monument must be razed

Chinese state media decries tourist attraction as ‘symbol of militarism’ as Beijing’s diplomatic row with Tokyo continues.

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Books and literature

Hidden histories of China revealed at rare book fair in Hong Kong

At Firsts Hong Kong, several rare book exhibits gave visitors the chance to peruse first-hand accounts of China’s complex past.

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