Abstract

This paper traces the history of thinking about the `future' in China from the late 19th to the late 20th centuries with a view to identifying China's particular `end of history'. At the turn of this century, the future of New China was prefigured in a variety of scenarios - from statist to liberal - that implied competing goals and strategies for realizing the future. These strategies were shaped by a utopian vision of Great Harmony (datong), which shaped in turn everyday forms of political and cultural practice. The paper explores what has become of this ideal at the close of the century, and what its demise implies for political and cultural practice