China has undergone several periods of revolution and reform in this century, constantly redefining itself within certain parameters. The major revolution of the era was that in 1949 after a long period of conflict. This was a major break with the past, shifting from the imperial history of China to a new era under Communism, but even then the past was not simply cast out and ties remained to older philosophies. Since that time, Chinese communism has been redefined in several waves, with the most recent being labeled economic reform as China follows the rest of the world into a form of tentative capitalism unlike anything attempted since 1949. It is too early to be certain how successful this effort will be. Clearly, much of the West hopes that such moves will be followed naturally by democratization, and in the United Stats, much of the recent argument over most-favored-nations trade status for china was based on the administration's view that open trade would lead to democracy. James and Ann Tyson spent five years in the new China, and they use stories told by the people themselves at the grassroots level to illustrate some of the changes taking place and to speculate about how successful reform will be in the long run.
China made an intellectual journey from Confucianism to Communism in the century between the middle of the nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth century. In the Taiping era, Confucianism prevailed, while by the middle of the next century Confucianism was rejected in favor of a new and foreign (though modified to the Chinese situation) ideology, that of Marxism. Confucianism was long the primary influence in Chinese thought, challenged by different strains of religious and philosophical thought at different times, but hardy enough to persist. It would be a major target for the Communist regime after 1949, being seen then as an unnecessary remnant from the past and as an ideology that conflicte...