Most studies of communication in China or in other Communist states focus on the functions of mass media: as propaganda, organization, mobilization and control. They examine the transmission of messages from state to society and see the news media under the Communist system as a crucial part of the party-state machine. These studies usually emphasize two features. First, mass media and the party-state are seen as identical in essence, as implied in the concept of “propaganda state.” Secondly, they focus on how this “propaganda state” restructures people's opinions and transforms society.

Mao Zedong's key concern in his analysis of the United States was always how to estimate American influence on the survival and security of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and, after 1 October 1949, of the People's Republic of China (PRC). But on 21 February 1972, Richard Nixon, the first American president ever to set foot on Chinese soil, began what he called “the week that changed the world.” This was also perhaps the most significant day in the 200-year history of Sino-U.S. relations. To prepare for it Nixon read extensive background materials on China, listened to specialists' advice on how to deal with his Chinese counterparts, and even practised eating with chopsticks. Nevertheless, he still felt nervous, fearing that he might be subjected to the humiliation previously encountered by Western barbarians who had journeyed to the court of the Chinese Emperor in an earlier age.

In recent years the concept of civil society has gained scholarly attention world-wide. It has found numerous advocates in the West, such as John Keane who suggested democratizing European socialism by defending the distinction between civil society and the state; Michael Walzer who proposed synthesizing socialist, capitalist and nationalist ideals under the rubric of civil society; and Daniel Bell, who called for a revival of civil society in the United States as a protection against the expanding state bureaucracies. In 1992 alone, at least three books on the subject appeared. In Eastern Europe, proponents of the civil society concept – like Vaclav Havel, George Konrad and Adam Michnik – have been credited with developing an extremely useful theoretical tool for overthrowing Stalinist authoritarianism. A volume consisting of case studies of seven former or present socialist countries found that the notion of civil society is generally applicable to the study of Communist systems, as long as the influence of different cultures and traditions of individual countries are fully acknowledged. The civil society paradigm, despite its basic European orientation, has also been recognized as applicable to the study of developing countries.

In the spring of 1957, a strike wave of monumental proportions rolled across the city of Shanghai. The strikes in Shanghai represented the climax of a national outpouring of labour protest that had been gaining momentum for more than a year. The magnitude of the 1957 strike wave is especially impressive when placed in historical perspective. Major labour disturbances (naoshi) erupted at 587 Shanghai enterprises in the spring of 1957, involving nearly 30,000 workers. More than 200 of these incidents included factory walkouts, while another 100 or so involved organized slowdowns of production. Additionally, more than 700 enterprises experienced less serious forms of labour unrest (maoyari). These figures are extraordinary even by comparison with Republican-period Shanghai when the May Fourth Movement of 1919, the May Thirtieth Movement of 1925, the Shanghai Workers' Three Armed Uprisings of 1926–27 and the protests of the Civil War years gave rise to one of the most aggressive labour movements in world history. In 1919, Shanghai experienced only 56 strikes, 33 of which were connected with May Fourth. In 1925, it saw 175, of which 100 were in conjunction with May Thirtieth. The year of greatest strike activity in Republican-period Shanghai, 1946, saw a total of 280.