China, along with ancient Egypt, Babylon, and India, is known as one of the four great ancient civilizations of the world. The distinctive culture that arose in China was both far-reaching and highly refined.

In approximately the 21st century BC, a primitive agricultural society first appeared in the areas around China's Yellow and Yangtze rivers, and animal husbandry joined hunting and fishing as a means of human sustenance. Approximately two millennia later, the Xia Dynasty (21st-16th century BC) emerged as China's first dynastic government, followed by the Shang Dynasty (16th-11th century BC) and the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century-771BC), which further refined the national system. The subsequent Spring and Autumn (770-476BC) and Warring States periods (475-221BC) were a time of constant struggle for supremacy among numerous small states.

China's Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods saw a great upsurge in science and technology, as well as in ideology and culture. Much as ancient Greece gave rise to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, China produced a number of great scholars who possessed abundant ideas and extensive knowledge, including Kongzi (Confucius), Laozi, Mozi, Xunzi, and Mengzi (Mencius). The atmosphere of free debate among the different schools of philosophy founded by these Chinese thinkers was characterized by the saying, "Let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend."

Like their contemporaries in ancient Greece, the Chinese philosophers established schools and took on pupils, brilliantly discoursed and debated, pondered military and governmental affairs, and served as strategists and advisors to their country's leaders. They left future generations a valuable legacy in philosophy, politics, education, and the military, and had a profound influence on the culture of China and the entire world. One of these illustrious figures was the military strategist Sun Wu (Sunzi), whose renowned work, Sunzi's Art of War, is still used extensively in the areas of military and economic affairs.

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