China 2.0: The Transformation of an Emerging Superpower ... and the New Opportunities

Preface

Writing this book about the recent transformation in China has been a much more difficult task than I envisaged. I returned to live in China in 2007, having studied and worked in the West for many years. The abundance of opportunities in such a fast-growing country and the excitement of being a part of its transformation were, no doubt, significant inducements to come back. So too, though, was the nostalgia that I increasingly felt for my home country. However, despite trying to keep myself well-informed about the changes occurring in China—thanks mainly to the Internet and the annual trips required by my research projects in China—I was astounded by what I found on returning home. Besides the more general reentry culture shock I experienced, my first-hand, day-to-day experience of both the scale and the scope of China's transformation almost took my breath away. Beijing is not just the political center of China; it is the human face of China on which many Westerners base impressions of the entire country. In reality, China, at its micro level—at the provincial and local levels, far away from the political power center—often represents a different story of China and its transformation. I could understand now that Westerners might see China as a mysterious, complex, multilayered Eastern giant, but I was not prepared for the challenges that I (a native Chinese) faced in coming to terms with what had occurred during my absence. My main purpose in writing the book has been ...