ABSTRACT
The object of this chapter is to explore the performative and discursive claims to legitimacy and authority underpinning the late modern state in Greater China in relation to the complex forces of societal rationalisation and globalisation. In particular, by drawing upon and developing further a largely Habermasian methodology, this conceptually focused study seeks to tease out the potential implications of these forces for fundamental individual and collective existential issues of identity, meaningfulness, self-transcendence and emancipation central to continued motivational support for the late modern state. The continuing centrality of the developmental state to Greater China and the sheer extent of change experienced by these societies over the past twenty years makes it a particularly interesting case study to explore these questions. Although the chapter addresses Greater China as a whole, the analysis focuses particularly upon China as the fulcrum of contemporary transition.1
