Rediscovering China

by Li, Cheng

This evocative exploration of the profound changes overtaking China examines the major dilemmas the country confronts: official corruption, growing disparities between rich and poor, the halting reform of state-owned enterprises, transportation and infrastructure bottlenecks, and environmental degradation. Shanghai-born and Western-educated, Cheng Li provides the unique dual perspective of a local resident and a political scientist who returned to his homeland to observe its remarkable social transformations. His first-hand account shows how broad changes in rural industrialization, urban privatization, and internal migration have deeply influenced people's lives and ways of thinking. In rediscovering his native country, full of energy, irony, and contradiction, Li challenges some mainstream perceptions of China and presents the reader with the sounds and smells, tastes and textures of a country enduring the pangs of rapid reform.