Journal of China in Global and Comparative Perspectives

Abstract: This paper comments on the cultural comparisons between China and the West made in Fei Xiaotong’s book, From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society, and asserts the important significance of Fei’s concept of “differential mode of association” in Chinese sociological and anthropological studies as well as in any attempt at China–West cultural comparisons. On the basis of that, the author revises the contrast between egoism and individualism by pointing out that, as the importance of economic relations is growing rapidly and extensively, a new differential mode of association is evolving to include trust between neighbours, friends and families, and the pursuit of common interests. It is also broadening into a way of conducting business transactions and political coalitions. The author then goes on to raise the question of how rural China, with social egoism as its defining character, should build up the idea of equal rights and individualism as required by the market economy in its transformational period.