As the market economy becomes more and more a part of Chinese society the wish and need for political pluralism will become more evident and education is one of the key factors.  People will have to need more education in order to catch up and thus climb the ladder of social mobility reaching for the even larger pot of Gold standing on the shelf above.  This pared with the Chinese workers and students abroad coming back with different experiences and possibly different political views will be important in the development of Chinese political pluralism. But as the middle-class in China is still to small this will not happen in a while.

But one paradox this open policy leads to is the withering away of the Communist party's Power base and thus the legitimacy of the Central authority. That is why the emphasise on patriotism has been so important and stronger the last few decades.  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) realize that in order to keep the society together one ideology has to be replaced with another and the best way of doing that is to keep the nationalist flame burning, emphasising and focusing on conflicts with outside nations.  

China's biggest problems have historically been its internal affairs.  Mr. Lee of Singapore once had a chat with Deng Xiao Peng over Chinese policy in the 1980's and learned that the CCP's nationalist project had a 40-50 years perspective, (I have tried to find that interview with Mr. Lee done by der Spiegel in 2004, but haven't found it yet). Still the patriotism seems to flourish and grow stronger as China progresses. For as one Chinese says: One gets online: if one cries patriotism, then one becomes a patriot; if one condemns someone else as being unpatriotic, then one is a patriotic fighter.  This is reminds me a great deal about the big character posters that used to be all over the place during the Cultural Revolution.  The CCP is on a mission whether it involves democracy no won will know for certain in a while.  

Now, here's quit an amusing story of East meeting West through the eye's of a rather bewildered American: http://www.thingsasian.com/goto_article/tell_story.3015.html

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