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China Chapter 3. The Social System
CHINA, THE WORLD'S LARGEST SOCIETY, is united by a set of values
and institutions that cut across extensive linguistic,
environmental, and subcultural differences. Residents of the
southern and northern regions of the country might not understand
each other's speech, enjoy each other's favorite foods, or make a
living from each other's land, and they might describe each other
with derogatory stereotypes. Nonetheless, they would regard each
other as fellow Chinese, members of the same society, and different
from the Vietnamese or Koreans, with whom some Chinese might seem
to have more in common.
Chinese society, since the second decade of the twentieth
century, has been the object of a revolution intended to change it
in fundamental ways. In its more radical phases, such as the Great
Leap Forward (1958-60) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), the
revolution aimed at nothing less than the complete transformation
of everything from the practice of medicine, to higher education,
to family life. In the 1980s China's leaders and intellectuals
considered the revolution far from completed, and they intended
further social change to make China a fully modernized country. It
had become increasingly clear that although many aspects of Chinese
social life had indeed undergone fundamental changes as a result of
both political movements and economic development, the
transformation was less than total. Much of the past either lived
on in modified form or served to shape revolutionary initiatives
and to limit the choices open to even the most radical of
revolutionaries.
Data as of July 1987
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