Nyusi in Nanjing, once the largest city in the world – AIM

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Nyusi in Nanjing, once the largest city in the world – AIM

1:38 CAT | 18 May 2016

City Tours China / Nanjing City Wall

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi arrived in Beijing late on Monday night for the start of a five day state visit to China, at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

His stay in Beijing was brief, for he almost immediately took a flight to the southern Chinese city of Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, where Nyusi’s first engagements of the visit are scheduled for Tuesday.

Nanjing, located in the Yangtse river delta, is a much older city than Beijing, and has at various times been the capital of China. Indeed, the very name of the city translates into English as “southern capital”.

Over its long history, there were times when Nanjing was probably the largest city in the world. It was the country’s capital under several imperial dynasties, notably the Ming dynasty which ruled China from 1368 to 1421.

In the 20th century Nanjing was the capital of the Chinese nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-Shek from 1927 until the Japanese invasion of 1937. Nanjing then became the scene of some of the most horrific brutalities committed by Japanese fascism in its attempt to conquer East Asia. In what become known as the Rape of Nanjing, Japanese forces massacred between 300,000 and 350,000 Chinese civilians (according to the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal).

Chiang Kai-Shek returned to power in Nanjing in 1946, but was driven out three years later when the People’s Liberation Army took the city, as Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party swept to power.

Today Nanjing is a city of 8.2 million people. It boasts one of the world’s largest inland ports, and houses several of China’s major universities and research centres. It has the largest ratio of university students to total population of any Chinese city.

The Nanjing economy is dominated by service industries (notably finance, cultural industries, information technology, and energy saving and environmental protection).

Source: AIM