A new society and economy has blossomed in post-Mao China, but an old state holds it back. The Chinese dynastic state's blend of idealism and realism, attachment to doctrine, paternalism, and obsession with unity has continued to shadow 'revolutionary China'. This book addresses the question central to China today: Is the People's Republic of China, whose politics is a hybrid of Chinese imperial tradition and Western Marxism, willing to become a modern nation or does it insist on remaining an empire?