ABSTRACT
China’s official accession to the World Trade Organization in December 2001 marked a turning point in the country’s decades-long search for acceptance into the international community, and a historic landmark in the accelerated globalization movement in the world. As one-fifth of the world’s population thrusts itself, with mixed feelings, into an international trade and economic regime that is governed by the rule of the jungle, driven mostly by multinational capital, and dominated by economic and political powers that operate largely under the principles of democratic liberalism, what it faces is not only an array of expected and unanticipated opportunities and challenges but also a fundamental question: Where does the “socialism with Chinese characteristics” go? Translated into operational terms of the country’s gigantic media industry, the question is: Where does the mouthpiece that serves a Communist party and a bureaucratic capitalist market go?
