Changing Chinese values: Keeping up with paradoxes

Abstract

The impact of China’s modernization during the past three decades (1978–2008) on the changes of Chinese behaviours is salient. However, these changes have had an even greater impact on Chinese values. Indeed, China seems to have never given up its single most important cultural characteristic, the ability to manage paradoxes. Ancient Chinese society was an oxymoron melting pot. In the current age of globalization, Chinese society has retained and reinforced this unique feature even in the most significant sociocultural changes. Through the analysis of eight pairs of paradoxical values, referring to business and society at large, the article argues that life in contemporary China has undergone significant cultural change. Nonetheless, in terms of the thinking process, modern Chinese society remains anchored to the classical Yin Yang approach.