Arguments for Engaging Contemporary China

Whether it be the 2008 Olympic games or Shanghai‘s 2010 Universal Expo, for several years now China, a country of more than 1.4 billion habitants, is mentioned almost every day in the news. Not a week goes by without hearing about its growth records, its clout in international trade and in raw material consumption, or about the emergence of a middle class, with a consumption level nearing that of the Western world. Far from giving the pretention of proposing a concrete representation of today’s China, what is suggested in this paper are several elements that may shed light on important socio-political processes in contemporary China beyond newsbytes.