Friends World Program of Long Island University

Hangzhou City

History

When the Venetian merchant, Marco Polo, visited Hangzhou over 700 years ago, he referred to it as "The City of Heaven." First established in the Qin dynasty over 2,200 years ago, Hangzhou began to prosper from silk trade during the Sui dynasty in the 7th century, when it became the southern terminus of the Grand Canal, which was built to link the Yellow River with the Yangzi River and to facilitate travel and trade between the capital in the north and the fertile grain producing regions in the south. In the 10th ct. Hangzhou served as the capital of a powerful Buddhist kingdom called Wuyue during what is referred to by historians as the Five Dynasties period. In the 12th ct., when the Song court fled invading forces from the north and moved its imperial capital to Hangzhou, the city transformed into the political, economic and cultural center of China, a position it held for the next 150 years, until Mongol troops under the command of Kublai Khan sacked the city in 1276 and moved the imperial capital to Beijing. Since then, Hangzhou has stood as the provincial capital of Zhejiang.

On February 26, 1972, the Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai, accompanied the first U.S. President to visit China, Richard M. Nixon, from Beijing to Hangzhou, where they toured its scenic West Lake and attended a banquet together. At this banquet, Nixon began his speech explaining why of all the cities in China he visited only Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai: "When we were planning the schedule for our visit to the People's Republic of China, the Prime Minister determined what cities we would visit. Our time would only permit Peking, of course, and two other cities in this great country. And the Prime Minister naturally said one city must be Shanghai, the biggest city in China. And then, out of all of the other great cities in China, he said the other city must be Hangchow. Now that we have been here, now that we have seen the splendor of this city, we realize why it has been said that heaven is above and beneath are Hangchow and Soochow. I am sure that the proud citizens of this province would say that Peking is the head of China, but Hangchow is the heart of China." It is also over this meal in the "heart of China" that Nixon and Zhou apparently negotiated the terms of the historic Sino-U.S. Joint Communiqué they signed the following day in Shanghai. This important document, the first between the United States and China, represents the normalization of bilateral relations between the two countries. More than three decades later, on September 10, 2005, Former President William Clinton will also make a trip to Hangzhou, this time as the keynote speaker at China Internet Summit at West Lake.

Last updated on Jul 03, 2006

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