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What Everyone Needs To Know About China: The Answers

Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is a Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. His new book, China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, covers everything form Confucius and Mao to Internet censorship. Yesterday we posted a China quiz.  Below are the answers.  For more China questions check out another quiz by Wasserstrom that appeared on The China Beat.

Q: Which country is most like China in internet usage?

A: The USA.

Q: Which country’s population is most like China’s?

A India.

Q: Which country follows China in overall Greenhouse Gas emissions (China is number one, this country is number two)?

A: The USA.

Q: When China hosted the Summer Games in 2008 was it the first, second, third or fourth Asian country to do so?

A: Third, after Tokyo in 1964 and Seoul in 1988.

Q: Has Confucius always been revered in China?

A: No. In the 20th century alone, he was out of favor (at least among intellectuals) in the 1910s-1920s and then again for several decades following 1949 (and subject of a mass campaign criticizing his “feudal” thought in the early 1970s).

Q: When did Mao’s face begin to appear on Chinese banknotes?

In 1949 (when the PRC was founded)
In 1966 (when the Cultural Revolution began and the Mao cult peaked)
In 1976 (when Mao died)
In 1999 (the 50th anniversary of the founding of the PRC)

A: 1999. Before that, the PRC used the faces of anonymous representatives of social groups (e.g., farmers, workers, etc.) on the money.

Q: What replaced his face on some 2008 banknotes?

A: Symbols of the Olympics.

Recent Comments

  1. alexb

    What exactly does this mean?

    “B. Which country is most like China in internet usage?

    A: The USA.”

    Size, or what?

  2. […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by China Beat and Lauren, Rebecca. Rebecca said: Did you know that the USA follows China in overall Greenhouse Gas Emissions? http://bit.ly/afS7qO […]

  3. Jeff Wasserstrom

    Response to Alexb:
    Yes, that question’s answer (and the one dealing with China’s population) were thought of with size in mind. There are many ways, some of which I describe in the book, in which the ways that Chinese web surfers can use and choose to use the Internet differs from the ways that their American counterparts do. And certainly, in terms of censorship and strategies to avoid it, you could say that Chinese Internet users might have more in common with, say, their counterparts in in Iran or Saudi Arabia than in the U.S.

  4. Emily

    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by China Beat and Lauren, Rebecca. Rebecca said: Did you know that the USA follows China in overall Greenhouse Gas Emissions? http://bit.ly/afS7qO […]

Comments are closed.