ABSTRACT
In introducing this book in the preface, I wrote that after the Cultural Revolution it looked as if in China, state, the party, economy and society (i.e. people) had been disconnected from each other, or worse, that they had been put into a kind of permanent contradiction with each other. This was an extremely dangerous situation that could have drawn the People’s Republic of China toward further conflict and disorder, and eventually to a final collapse. To avoid this tragic outcome, it was necessary to reconstruct, and, as history never repeats itself, to reinvent Chinese society, state, and economy; in other words to find the means to reconcile state, market, and society. It was then up to the Chinese leadership to undertake the task of reconstructing Chinese society and to guide the Chinese people toward a brighter future. To what extent has this formidable task been achieved? In the previous chapters I have tried to provide some evidence allowing a reasonable, but well documented, response to this question. There is no doubt that China has gone very far on its journey toward modernization and a prosperous society, at least in terms of overall economic development. But I have also shown that this has been realized at the expense of several negative consequences, such as increasing disparities and a considerable degradation of the environment. In the third chapter I have also presented the various policies that the Chinese leadership has designed (that are also in the process of being implemented) for counter-balancing these negative outcomes. Now, the problem is: how well is the Chinese political system equipped in terms of ideological, economic, societal and political instruments for further improving the life of the Chinese people? And what are the obstacles that may make this task difficult? In trying to answer these questions, we should not forget that for the Chinese leadership modernization is not an end in itself, but a means for restoring China as a world power. Professor He Ping of the University of Sichuan has very well expressed this idea: ‘Modernisation, signifying mainly national wealth and power, as well as a vision of a better society and human existence, again became [after the Cultural Revolution] a paramount social agenda’.1
