ABSTRACT
Three decades may seem to be a long time in an individual’s life. However, it hardly counts as a moment in human history. And yet, in just such a moment of history, dramatic changes can take place, transforming millions of people’s lives. China serves as a vivid illustration of such a social drama. Since the end of the 1970s, when China began reforms and opened up to the world with its pronounced goals of modernization, the world has witnessed a range of rapid, profound and interrelated changes in that society. These include, inter alia, the shift from a planned to a market economy, fast economic growth, rapid popularization of the new information and communication technologies (ICTs), increased socio-geographical mobility, fragmentation and individualization of society and the emergence of a whole generation of only-children (due to the one-child policy fi rst implemented in 1979). Accompanying these changes is China’s increased interaction with the world, which has been intensifi ed by its inauguration into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 and its hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games. The social and cultural forces generated by these changes contend with the continuing authoritarian rule by the one-Party regime and with the rejuvenation of some traditional values in the reform era, making the Chinese conundrum all the more complicated. Where this huge country is heading and what implications its transformation (in any form) may have for both Chinese society and the rest of the world have aroused much public debate over the past three decades.
