“It is insufficient to explain China’s current economic and political rise solely through the reforms of the last forty or fifty years. Modern China rises upon the foundation of a far older civilizational memory, profound historical ruptures, and a state tradition that has been continuously reconstructed.”
On September 5, 2026, Academic Solidarity e.V. hosted historian Dr. Tuba Yalınkılıç for an online lecture titled “Chinese Civilization: From Ancient Cosmology to Global Power.” Covering approximately five thousand years of Chinese history in a single evening was, undoubtedly, no easy task. Rather than presenting a standard chronological account of dynasties, Dr. Yalınkılıç focused on how Chinese civilization maintained strong continuity despite major political upheavals, foreign invasions, and the shocks of modernization. This article summarizes Dr. Yalınkılıç’s presentation.
Dr. Tuba Yalınkılıç
Dr. Tuba Yalınkılıç is a historian specializing in Chinese social history and the Chinese language. Her academic work focuses particularly on the northern tribes of medieval China, the history of ethnic minorities in China, nationalism, and Turkish-Chinese relations. She conducted academic research in Beijing for approximately 14 years and completed her doctoral studies at Peking University. Her doctoral thesis, completed in 2018, focused on the research and classification of the Yenisei inscriptions.
The roots of Chinese civilization: Heaven, Earth, and Order
The presentation began with China’s early periods—the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. Key elements of early Chinese civilization included ancestor worship, bronze craftsmanship, and the earliest examples of writing found on oracle bones.
However, one of the most significant concepts to influence Chinese political thought for millennia was the “Mandate of Heaven”—Tianming (天命)—which emerged during the Zhou period. According to this concept, the ruler’s right to govern was not an absolute birthright but was contingent upon his responsibility toward the cosmic order. The ruler was regarded as *Tianzi* (Son of Heaven), while the country was viewed as Zhongguo, or the “Central Country.”
This concept illustrates how early the relationship between politics and cosmology was established in Chinese history. The state order was envisioned not merely in terms of military might or law, but as an earthly reflection of cosmic harmony.
Chinese thought: From warfare to philosophy
During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770–221 BCE), the Zhou central authority collapsed, and China became the stage for prolonged warfare among numerous rival states. This era also witnessed major transformations in military technology and strategy; Sun Tzu’s military philosophy is associated with this historical context.
Yet, this chaos did not yield only warfare. It also gave rise to the era of the “Hundred Schools of Thought,” one of the most creative periods in the history of Chinese thought.
Three great pillars of the Chinese mindset
Confucianism advocated establishing social order through moral leadership, education, and ritual, rather than through harsh punishments.
Daoism views the human being as part of the greater cosmic order of nature and emphasizes wu wei—action without forced effort—as well as the balance of yin and yang. Legalism, on the other hand, emphasized strong state capacity, clear rules, and a strict legal framework.
In later periods of Chinese history, these three approaches continued to coexist in varying proportions rather than completely eliminating one another: Confucianism for moral order, Daoism for cosmic and natural balance, and Legalist mechanisms for the functioning of the state.
Qin Shi Huang: Unification, standardization, and a harsh state
In 221 BCE, Qin Shi Huang politically unified China. The standardization of the writing system, currency, and measurements laid the groundwork for the future Chinese state. However, this unification was also associated with harsh Legalist rule, the burning of books, and the suppression of scholars.
This period also illustrated a recurring tension in Chinese history: the balance between unity and pluralism, state capacity and individual freedom, and order and flexibility.
The Silk Road: The era of China’s opening to the world
During the Han and Tang dynasties, China increasingly became a central actor in the Eurasian system. Dr. Yalınkılıç interpreted the Silk Road not merely as a network of trade routes but as a system of balance established among empires, nomadic communities, and diverse cultures.
While products and technologies such as silk and paper spread outward from China, systems of belief and thought—such as Buddhism and later Islam—reached China. Thus, the Silk Road was not a channel for one-way “Chinese exports,” but a sphere of two-way cultural exchange.
The travels of Zhang Qian, who was sent westward by Emperor Wu of Han around 138 BCE, marked a symbolic beginning of this process. Zhang Qian’s travels expanded China’s knowledge of Central Asia, helped establish new trade routes, and connected China to a much wider Eurasian world.
Cosmology in art, not just in thought
One of the conference’s notable aspects was the examination of Chinese cosmology not only through philosophical texts but also through mirrors, trigrams, animal symbols, calligraphy, and paintings.
Bronze mirrors were interpreted not merely as everyday objects but as cosmological artifacts believed to forge a connection between *yin* and *yang*. Over time, the inscriptions and symbols upon them became associated with moral teachings and personal cultivation.
Motifs such as the eight trigrams, the four sacred animals, the phoenix, and the twelve-animal zodiac system were integral to the Chinese worldview, establishing a continuous relationship between nature, cardinal directions, time, and humanity.
Perhaps one of the most striking visual expressions of this concept was Wang Ximeng’s famous 12th-century painting, A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains. In Yalınkılıç’s presentation, the work was interpreted as an artistic manifestation of the idea of tian ren he yi—”the unity of heaven and humanity.” The mountains represented yang, while the flowing rivers represented yin; “rivers and mountains” simultaneously served as a symbolic embodiment of the country and the state.
The Song Dynasty: One of China’s early peaks of economic and technological advancement
During the Song Dynasty, a governance model relying on civil Confucian bureaucrats rather than military elites gained prominence. Civil service examinations became central to the selection of the ruling elite. This development underscored the significant role that meritocracy played in the Chinese tradition of statecraft.
This era was also a time of extraordinary growth in trade, urbanization, and technology. The presentation highlighted the compass, gunpowder, paper, and the printing press as China’s “Four Great Inventions”; the construction of the Forbidden City and Zheng He’s maritime expeditions during the Ming era, along with the empire’s territorial expansion during the Qing period, were discussed as subsequent stages in this long trajectory of development.
Song China was also examined in the context of a “pre-industrial economic peak,” characterized by an advanced monetary economy and Jiaozi—an early form of state-issued paper money.
Cultural resistance in the face of occupation
The fall of the Song Dynasty to the Mongols and the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty in 1279 marked a major political rupture. However, the presentation framed this period not merely as a regime change, but also as an era of moral resistance sustained through art and culture.
For instance, some painters depicted plants without roots to protest foreign rule, conveying the symbolic message that “the land has been seized by invaders.” Motifs such as orchids thus became symbols of moral integrity and silent resistance, even when political authority had been lost.
This example offered a compelling answer to one of the conference’s fundamental questions: a civilization endures not only through state institutions but also through symbols, art, rituals, and shared memory.
China: Venturing to sea without becoming a colonial empire
During the Ming era, the massive maritime expeditions led by Zheng He enabled China to establish diplomatic and commercial networks extending across the Indian Ocean to East Africa. In Yalınkılıç’s presentation, these activities were framed as a trade- and prestige-driven approach to foreign policy, rather than colonial conquest. However, in subsequent centuries, the limitations on China’s relations with the outside world coincided with a period of growing military and technological superiority for European states.
The great turning point: The “Century of Humiliation”
One of the most significant parts of the conference for understanding modern China was the period between 1839 and 1949. Known in Chinese historiography as the “Century of Humiliation” (Bainian Guochi), this era was characterized by the Opium Wars, military pressure from Western powers, foreign concessions, internal rebellions, and the fragmentation of the state.
Dr. Yalınkılıç emphasized that the impact of this period was not merely political. The events left a civilizational trauma in China’s collective memory and laid the historical groundwork for the strong modern-day resolve “never to fall behind again and never again to be ruled by foreign powers.”
This point is also crucial for understanding contemporary China’s sensitivities regarding security, sovereignty, technology, and economic independence.
Resurgence from 1949 to the present
The final section of the presentation addressed the post-1949 era under the headings of “modern re-emergence” and “today’s civilizational state.”
Two concepts highlighted by Yalınkılıç in this section were state capacity and collective labor. It was emphasized that the large-scale collective organization models found in traditional Chinese society were redirected into the processes of modern state-building and industrialization. The visuals—ranging from the electrification of villages to massive infrastructure projects, and from industrialization to modern architectural icons like the “Bird’s Nest” in Beijing—complemented a narrative that interpreted China’s modernization not merely as Westernization, but as the fusion of ancient civilizational codes with new technological and institutional forms.
What is the secret behind China’s continuity?
The picture that emerged at the end of the lecture was that Chinese history has not been a story of uninterrupted, seamless ascent. China has fractured multiple times; dynasties have collapsed; it has been ruled by foreign powers, endured civil wars, and suffered severe foreign intervention in the 19th century.
Yet, the distinguishing feature of Chinese civilization was its ability to repeatedly reproduce certain fundamental structures, even as political regimes changed: a shared writing system and historical memory, the concept of a strong state, an educated bureaucracy, Confucian ethics, the Daoist notion of balance, Legalist state capacity, an order centered on family and society, and an identity that views China not merely as a state but as a civilization spanning the ages.
In this regard, Dr. Yalınkılıç’s lecture proposed viewing Chinese history not as a mere sequence of past events but as a long-term history of mindsets and institutions that explains today’s China.
Perhaps the most significant conclusion to be drawn from the lecture is this: China’s current economic and political rise cannot be explained solely by the reforms of the last forty or fifty years. Modern China is built upon a far older civilizational memory, profound historical ruptures, and a state tradition that has been continuously reconstructed.
