By the fall of 1999, there was palpable tension both within the political elite and among intellectuals. The sharp exchange between Wang Xiaodong and Xiao Gongqin, cited at the end of Chapter 7, was all too typical of the relations among disputants, especially those who were identified as liberals and postmodernists (the New Left). The range of opinion among intellectuals was greater than at any time in post-1949 China, but it would be more accurate to say that public opinion was fragmented than to say it had pluralized. If one part of “civil society” is civility, China had not yet reached it. Globalization, including the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, had provided the context for the deepening disputes between postmodernists and liberals; the WTO and the sometimes acrimonious negotiations that accompanied China's quest for accession made globalization a very real issue for intellectuals, enterprises, and bureaucrats alike. Moreover, the embassy bombing heightened emotions behind a nationalism that had been building in the context of American criticism of China, American triumphalism, and the Taiwan Straits crisis. As postmodernists and nationalists became more emotional, liberals worried openly that nationalism would once again bury hopes for democracy.

The political elite was no less divided than the intelligentsia, as suggested by the criticism of Zhu Rongji and by Jiang Zemin's delicate position vis-à-vis the military and other conservatives.