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As the world is drawn together with increasing force, our long-standing isolation from - and baffling ignorance of - China is ever more perilous. This book offers an analysis of China and the transformations it has undertaken since 1989. Wang Hui is able to synthesize an insider's knowledge of economics, politics, civilization and Western critical theory. A participant in the Tiananmen Square movement, he is also the editor of an intellectual journal in contemporary China. He goes beyond contemporary debates allowing him to connect the events 1989 witha long view of Chinese history. He argues that the features of contemporary China are elements of the new global order as a whole in which considerations of economic growth and development have trumped every other concern, particularily those of democracy and social justice. At its heart, this book represents an impassioned plea for economic and social justice and an indictment of the corruption caused by the explosion of "market extremism". As Want Hui observes, terms like "free" and "unregulated" are largely ideological constructs masking the intervention of highly manipulative, coercive governmental actions on behalf of economic policies that favour a particular scheme of capitalist acquisition - something that must be distinguished from truly free markets. He sees new openings toward social, political and economic democracy in China as the only agencies by which the unstable conditions thus engendered can be remedied.