[[quoteright:312:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chung_kuo.png]]
[[caption-width-right:312:The first entry in the series]]

A science-fiction series by Hugo Award-winning author David Wingrove, where Earth in the 22nd century is in the iron grip of a Chinese empire run by the Seven T'ang. This world is called the Chung Kuo, the Middle Kingdom. Mankind's 36 billion people live in one vast City, which is actually seven cities: City Europe, City West Asia, City East Asia, City Africa, and so on. The lowest city levels, called the Net, are cut off and run by Triad mafia. Famine and poverty loom in the near future, while a group of wealthy Hung Mao (whites) in Europe plan to bring Change back to the world. The result is a back-and-forth war of assassinations that increasingly weakens the City financially and politically. And that is only the beginning.

The series is known for being a rich and complex vision of a Byzantine future where no sides are completely good or bad; for having a long list of characters on both sides of the conflict; and for its graphic descriptions of both sex and violence. It was reissued from 2010 to 2014 including two new prequels and a plan for a total of twenty volumes. After ''The White Mountain'' was published as volume 8, however, [[http://www.ofgiftsandstones.com/past-present-and-future/ the publishers stated]] that poor sales were the reason for releasing no more. In 2017 the series was relaunched with a new publisher, Fragile Books (owned by Wingrove and Susan Oudot), and book 9, ''Monsters of the Deep'', was released on 19 October 2017. Wingrove has issued short stories on the website ''[[http://www.ofgiftsandstones.com/ Of Gifts and Stones]]''.

!!''Chung Kuo'' provides examples of:
* AfterTheEnd: The world-spanning Chung Kuo was built after a global war that ended the old way of life.
** It's revealed in one of the redone novels that it was due to the collapse of a heavily-digitized world economy TwentyMinutesInTheFuture followed by full-scale war, shattering societies around the globe. [[spoiler:And it's also heavily implied that the Chinese instigated the whole thing to facilitate their eventual takeover. The reader will be further confused by the idea that it was ''all'' [=DeVore's=] fault, as stated in ''Marriage of the Living Dark''.]]
*** A bit of a RetCon. The original books heavily imply that there was also ethnic strife within Western nations, to the point where many Russians and North Europeans viewed the Chinese conquerors as the better alternative.
* AMillionIsAStatistic: A ColonyDrop occurs and exterminates hundreds of millions in City North America, but we're shown almost none of it. The question of how anyone on the planet survived a catastrophe of this magnitude is ignored. Later, ''ninety percent'' of the people of City Europe die, and the city falls, and it's brushed off in one or two lines, and we're back to Li Yuan's court intrigue. Still later, ''seven billion'' Han die in North America (that is, more than the world population in 2015) and it's brushed off in a line.
* AndIMustScream: The workers trapped in 'ice' on more than one occasion.
* AnyoneCanDie: Don't get too attached to a character
* ArrangedMarriage: Jelka Tolonen is arranged to marry the son of her father's lifelong friend, not a happy thought.
** Also the norm for all members of the High and Low Families.
* ATasteOfTheLash: Being a maid to a sadistic prince has its disadvantages, as Little Bee discovers.
* ArtificialHuman: Servants created by the Gen Syn Corporation.
* ArtisticLicenseBiology: Gen Syn's "ox-men" have huge penises and love sex. In fact, oxen are castrated bulls.
* AttemptedRape: Really not the right trope to try on Jelka.
* BigBad: Howard [=DeVore=] is the RebelLeader who manipulates the T'ang and Chung Kuo civilizations into war with each other so he can KillAllHumans and replace them with his perfect race, "The Inheritors".
* BilingualBonus: Though you have to be able to read Mandarin in Wade-Giles romanization to benefit. This borders on the obnoxious: tea is always referred to as ''cha'', and when a character is called ''lao jen'', when means simply "old man", why not use English?
* BlackIsBiggerInBed: Catherine and Dogu, though Wingrove tastefully avoids giving us length and circumference.
* BookBurning: All books, artifacts, etc, not allowed into Tsao Chun's City were destroyed, except in the Shepherd family's Domain. And on Kalevala. And Mars. And so on.
* BreakTheCutie: Sweet Flute, a young and inexperienced prostitute in a high-end brothel, is sold as a concubine to a man who does not have her best interests at heart.
* BrotherSisterIncest: Ben Shepherd and his sister.
* BuryYourGays: Edmund Wyatt is bisexual and taken to a brothel where he sires Kim; he has male lovers and is later killed. Likewise, An Sheng is gay and is a traitor who is later killed. The joke that Haaviko or Hans Ebert are gay is taken as insulting. More than once, threats of buggery are used as torture, and I Ye, an evil creep, rapes men and boys routinely as sadistic torture. Chu Po, another of Pei Kung's creeps, is an evil bisexual; both I Ye and Chu Po are beheaded. In fact, ancient Chinese society was quite relaxed on the point of bisexuality.
* CallToAgriculture: A police major, Kao Chen, fits this trope, as he moves from the City to the farming fields in Eastern Europe with his wife.
* CharactersDroppingLikeFlies: The series includes the deceased characters in the list of characters as a separate section. It's by far the longest one.
* TheChessmaster: Howard [=deVore=] - although he is actually a ''Go master'', explicitly comparing being a leader to placing pieces on the board.
* ChinaTakesOverTheWorld: The basis for the series
* TheCityNarrows: The levels below the walls called the Net
* CivilWar: [[spoiler:Eventually the T'ang of City Africa launches a scheme too obvious to be blamed on terrorists, and Africa is invaded.]]
* TheConspiracy: The secret and unnamed ''Ministry'' is tasked with hiding the truth about the past by all means necessary
* ConspiracyTheorist: Kim in his teens turns out to be the world's most successful conspiracy theorist
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Several, and no one bats an eye
* CulturalPosturing: From early in the first novel:
--> Three thousand years of unbroken civilisation - that was the heritage of the Han. Against that these large-nosed foreigners could claim what? Six centuries of chaos and ill-discipline.
* {{Cyberspace}} An entertainment system called the Shell; the webdancers in the prequels also fit this trope. The sims and the Shell are more VirtualReality than they are Cyberspace as such.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Wang Sau-leyan
* DeathIsDramatic: While [[spoiler:Wang Sau-Ieyan, T'ang of City Africa]] is a bastard, he knows how to die. Since he so naturally acts [[spoiler:like a T'ang]] until the very end, the enemy soldiers find it almost impossible to fire at him. Another example is an early gang leader, who honorably commits suicide as the enforcers breach his sanctum (and even the enforcers agree his death had such dignity, they will be forced to lie about it to paint him as a coward in their reports).
** Subverted, in some cases - the military rebels tend to die with much more realistic "heat of battle" deaths. [[spoiler: [=DeVore's=]]] first apparent death and [[spoiler: Stefan Lehmann's]] actual death both feature a single blow to the head that kill them outright, with minimal drama or climactic fight scenes. In both cases, this comes after months or years of protracted urban fighting between full-sized armies.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: So, so much. Holding up a frozen human head to your business associates to reminisce? They will only be bothered that you are stalling the meeting.
* DepravedBisexual: An Sheng, Chu Po, I Ye and others.
* DividedWeFall: So much. The ''Ping Tiao'' rebels, the splinter-faction ''Yu'' rebels, the group of businessmen in Europe and later the Young Sons in North America, the Black Hand, and of course Howard deVore's operations, and later Stefan Lehmann's going at it himself as he rises in power in Europe's criminal underworld. Then again, it's a big world, so various different groups of rebels is not surprising.
%%* DomedHometown
* TheDragon: Howard deVore, although he later gets a promotion
* DragonAscendant: Several examples, perhaps most notable being Stefan Lehmann - he starts off as Howard [=DeVore's=] lieutenant, and then amasses enough military and technological resources to present a major threat against the T'ang. By the end of his plot arc, the T'ang's forces grudgingly admit he has superior fighter jets.
* DudeLooksLikeALady: Kuei Jen grows breasts and a uterus to bear his child by Egsn.
* {{Dystopia}}: With its dictatorship, overpopulated slum levels and ban on Change this world qualifies as a dystopia, although not as bad as many other examples out there
* ElaborateUndergroundBase: Hidden in the Alps, the only uninhabited part of Europe
* TheEmpire: Chung Kuo
* EndOfAnAge: The last years of the world-spanning empire. Li Yuan, the T'ang of Europe, has made it his life's work to forestall the end.
* TheEvilPrince: Wang Sau-leyan has to wait for his father and three older brothers to die before it is his turn on the throne for City Africa. But why wait?
* EyeScream: In the first novel, a kidnapped child is returned with his eyeballs gouged out, his eyelids sewn shut and the eye sockets filled with maggots.
%%* TheFettered: Marshal Knut Tolonen
* FrenchMaid: Several maids working for the T'ang or their sons
* FreudianExcuse: Wang Sau-leyan, ugly, fat and clumsy, was treated as a poor sequel to his brothers while he grew up. This is not presented as an excuse for his behavior, but it helps explain it.
* GlobalCurrency: Not surprisingly, the Chinese ''yuan'' is now the only currency
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Pei Kung when she gets domineering, horny and nasty.
* GoodScarsEvilScars: Gangster boss Whiskers Lu has had half his face scarred by acid
* TheGovernment: The seven T'ang Lords even seriously discuss wiring the brains of the world's population (all 36 billion of them) in order to achieve total control: track anyone who is present at a riot or rebel attack for example, and send out pain signals as crowd control. Now ''that's'' state power.
* GovernmentConspiracy: The world is led to believe that the Han conquered the Roman Empire and have been in control ever since. Not as impossible as it may seem. The false history was enforced by the death penalty and massive propaganda for two generations, and the City destroyed all physical traces of the old world.
* GreyAndGrayMorality: Both the Council of Seven and the European rebels have their good and bad sides.
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: Hans Ebert]] in book five, after having lost everything
* HonorBeforeReason: Early on, members of the House (the parliament) have the son of the T'ang of Europe killed. Knowing where this could lead, the T'ang decides to let matters be. The leader of his army, Marshal Tolonen, does not obey orders. Instead he marches into the House in session and slits the throat of one of the plotters. This sets the stage for everything that comes after.
* HorsemenOfTheApocalypse: [=DeVore's=] doing, as he invades.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: China in the redone novels weren't immune from the global turmoil that followed the collapse of the global economy. [[spoiler:Subverted in that not only were they responsible for it, but that they had the resources to rebuild themselves, although it took them some time to do so.]]
* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Mu Chua, former prostitute and now Madam of her own high-end brothel, is protective and caring toward her girls, to the point where she will eventually make a great sacrifice for their safety
* HugeHolographicHead: Surveillance system scanning random people in the lower City levels
%%* IDidWhatIHadToDo
* IllegalReligion: Jews and Muslims are simply extinct, as explained in the prequels. Christianity and other religions are illegal, though people call on Kuan Yin all the time, and she is a Buddhist deity. OddJobGods show up sometimes in household shrines; Wang Ti seems to be comforted by her religion.
* InherentInTheSystem: The world is simply a big, corrupt, spirit-crushing prison for both the Europeans and the Han (most of them). The world-encompassing City was created to fulfill the promise of having as many children as you want, a fundamental wish for the clan-oriented Han society. The drawback: you don't get to see the sky and the sun, all birds are in cages, the very nature of the City makes it impossible to improve without physically tearing it down. Which in a world of 36 billion people would mean mass death.
* InterserviceRivalry: A more politicized police detail sometimes shows up to suppress the truth about a terrorist attack (e.g. the message left at the scene of an assassination by the rebels, or the fact that a massacre of higher-ups took place at a depraved orgy establishment), causing no small bitterness among the more honest police.
%%* KickTheDog
* TheLancer: Karr, for the T'ang of Europe, or (early) Howard deVore, depending on how you look at it
** Marshal Knut Tolonen for the T'ang, most of the series
* LoveAtFirstSight: Happens to [[spoiler:Kim Ward]] and [[spoiler:Jelka Tolonen]]
* LoveHurts: Yuan, T'ang of City Europe, falls for the wrong woman early on
* MadeOfPhlebotinum: "Ice," the material by which the City is built
* MadArtist: Ben Shepherd makes excellent drawings but often with disturbing symbolism; this is due to being highly intelligent and also schizophrenic.
* ManchurianAgent: A servant is brainwashed into attacking a high-ranking officer
* TheMentor: Li Yuan's son is saved from softness when an old officer is assigned to training him
* MillionairePlayboy: Tsu Ma, T'ang of City West Asia, fits this trope
* MoralityKitchenSink: One of the T'angs has a whole team of physicians executed when his wife dies in childbirth; many of the rebels, having grown up in this world, are not so much better
* NobleSavage: The Osu, in isolated settlements on Mars
* OldRetainer: Nan Ho, Master of the Inner Chambers to the T'ang of City Europe, remains in the same position for his son Li Yuan. He enjoys considerable trust. He is even tasked with choosing three wives for Li Yuan, who accepts his choices without question.
%%* OneWorldOrder: Chung Kuo
%%* PenalColony: The convenient use for the levels in the Net.
%%* ProfessionalKiller: Jyan and Chen, definitely of the "poor hitman" side of the trope
%%* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: And [=DeVore=] is a special kind of rapist.
%%* RebelliousPrincess: Jelka Tolonen borders on this, because of the ArrangedMarriage trope above
* LaResistance: A group of European businessmen and officers, but also the ''Ping Tiao,'' rebels from the lower city levels
%%* RichBitch: Ebert
%%* RoyalBrat: Also Ebert
* SchizoTech: High-tech spaceships, but no medicine for women in childbirth, then execution for all of Li Shai Tung's doctors, when his wife dies. Huh? Enormous plastic cities, fed by...unmechanized agriculture on plantations? How is that even possible? Where are tractors, trains, trucks to carry the veggies?
* ScienceFiction: On the hard side of the trope.
* ScienceMarchesOn: Tapes? It's 2207 and everything is on "tape", even in the last of the rewritten novels (The White Mountain, 2014).
%%* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Yes, Ebert again.
%%* SendInTheClones: DeVore's invasion from space.
%%* SiblingYinYang: Li Han Ch'in and Li Yuan, sons of one of the T'ang Lords
%%* SinisterSurveillance
* SmartPeoplePlayChess: Or ''Go'', in this case, referred to as wei-chi[=/=]TabletopGame/{{weiqi}}.
* SonOfAWhore: Stefan Lehmann's mother has been the concubine of many wealthy men
%%* SpaceAmish: The Osu
* SplitPersonality: Happens to some of those who were rescued from living as savages in the Clay when under pressure.
* SplitPersonalityTakeover: The fate of some of the unfortunate Clayborn. Followed by swift execution.
* TheTriadsAndTheTongs: Triads rule the Net
* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: A common view among both defenders and rebels in the City, although not all-pervasive
* WhatTheHellHero: The T'ang Li Yuan is one of the main protagonists, seeking to stave off the inevitable end of the empire. His pet idea for doing this is to insert electronics in every citizen's brain, so that they can be easily tracked and punished, even killed, by the push of a button in the case of crime or rioting. Bear in mind that there are 36 billion citizens.
* WorldWarIII: China conquered the world when it was engulfed in conflict
* {{Ubermensch}}: It is revealed that Howard deVore's motivation for seeking the empire's destruction is to a large degree about allowing a stronger and better kind of human to be developed.
* WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide: The whole future of Chung Kuo follows the wholesale murder of the black and brown races of the world: Africans were excluded from the City and simply driven before its construction to die; Latinos and Natives of various kinds were exterminated wholesale. Despite the existence of the Osu on Mars and the handful of surviving Japanese in space, the Chinese and European whites are the only surviving human cultures in the books. This is incredibly disturbing, to say the least.
%%* TheUnfettered: Howard deVore and Stefan Lehmann
* UrbanSegregation: Planned and explicit, with different city levels offering different living conditions
* UsefulNotes/WhyMaoChangedHisName: Chung Kuo is the obsolescent Wade-Giles romanization of 中国. Modern pinyin would be Zhōngguó. Wingrove does at least usually get his Wade-Giles right, including the all-important (and not at all [[PunctuationShaker decorative) apostrophe]].
** David Wingrove explicitly states in the appendix that he knows of the more commonly used pinyin today, the use of which he is well familiar with, but that he prefers the Wade-Giles romanization for this series. Mostly because the Wade-Giles was designed with English speakers in mind and so sounds closer to the actual pronunciation of the words even when the reader tries to pronounce the words with the English pronunciation of the letters. Some of the Pinyin letters are mapped to sounds that would confuse a westerner (i.e. q sounds like ''ch'' and c sounds like ''ts'').
** As for apostrophes, there are 101 names of characters listed in the second novel, of which an overwhelming three (3) have apostrophes. Actually reading the novels helps in finding this out.
%%* WellIntentionedExtremist: Emily and Mach.
* WhiteHairBlackHeart: Stefan Lehmann, who is a person with albinism and also fulfills RedEyesTakeWarning. As an ascendant military rival to the T'ang, he is shown to be ruthless and willing to use brutal methods regardless of the human cost. In one sequence of urban fighting, Lehmann uses a swaddled infant as a noncombatant cover, in order to eliminate an enemy gunman.
* WiseBeyondTheirYears: Some of the characters who start out as children in the first novel
* WomanScorned: The beautiful but volatile Fei Yen is furious after finding out that her husband Li Yuan, the future T'ang of City Europe, has brought back the two servant girls that he slept with as a teenager. It gets worse from there.
%%* WrongSideOfTheTracks: Those born in the Net.
* YellowPeril: One might think this would be the case, but the Chinese are not a peril; the founder of Chung Kuo saved the world from a time of great chaos, which is not questioned by those who know the real history - although his methods were certainly not praised. The peril is in what Chung Kuo has become. Chinese and European dissenters cooperate, and in some cases they belong to the same rebel groups.
** This was made more explicit however in the 2010 reworking, where the Chinese are revealed to be [[spoiler:responsible for causing the complete breakdown of the global economy and subsequent wars. All as part of a plan to TakeOverTheWorld.]]
* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: Especially true for the ''Ping Tiao'' and ''Yu'' rebels, for whom the morality of their actions becomes a big issue both within and without the group.
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