Unlike other critics, Liu argues that globalization is not simply a new conceptual framework through which cultural change in China can be understood; it is a historical condition in which the country's gaige kaifang (reform and opening up) has unfolded and a set of values or ideologies by which it and the rest of the globe are judged. In five clear and concise chapters, Liu examines China's current ideological struggles in political discourse, intellectual debate, popular culture, avant-garde literature, the news media, and the internet. He constructs an original understanding of post-revolutionary Chinese culture, making the case that revolutionary culture is still important despite the fact that Mao's ideology has been gutted and arguing for its value in providing China with its own cultural identity, curbing the excesses of capitalism, and putting forward an alternative model of modernization.
Globalization and Cultural Trends in China makes use of a broad range of up-to-date literary, scholarly, journalistic, policy, and popular cultural sources. It will be of considerable value for its insights into contemporary intellectual and cultural politics and debates about modernity, and for making material that is inaccessible to many widely available.
