ABSTRACT
China’s economic reforms have not only been about the growth of an entrepreneurial business sector. The privatization of public debate, intellectual life and cultural activity has also unfolded over the past twenty years. Availing themselves of state resources, which were the product of plunder in the name of nationalization in the 1950s and 1960s, groups and individuals have arrogated to themselves both the matériel and the prerogatives to develop alternative intellectual and cultural activity in China. This culture, projected through the KongTai (that is, the Hong Kong and Taiwan Chinese-language) media and international media, has achieved a global profile, construed as being representative of the latest version of ‘New China’.
