Good science and good journalism have much in common. They both aim for knowledge generation and knowledge dissemination for the benefit of societies – at least at their best. However, beyond this common ground, there is much room for difference and conflict. In this paper I will draw up an admittedly personal list of ten obvious areas of annoyance about how the media present the results of scientific research – of course, only some of the media and only sometimes! These areas of annoyance all derive from the relentless pressure on all media competing in the marketplace to catch the attention of their customers. However, while listing these ‘sins’, as it were, one readily notices that exactly the same may also be the major strengths of how science can be publicized in the media, and above all in TV, the most powerful of the media in our changing world of global communication. Science reporting will have to change and actively face these challenges. It needs to focus future science presentation in new directions, e.g. by making use of the emotional public appeal connected with science fiction, scandals, public hysteria and the arts. What is most important now and in the future is that whatever is presented about the scientific understanding of the world, should be presented in a way that makes such enlightened understanding accessible, above all, to young – and even very young – people. After all, it is they who are humanity's future and not the ageing war-horses of the sciences or of the media.

The ascendancy of proportional representation as the electoral system of choice, and pervasive concerns with the demographic representativeness of parliaments, both testify to the importance that is attached to ‘descriptive’ or ‘microcosmic’ representation in politics, despite persistent doubts about its desirability. This paper makes three points. First, representation as representativeness presupposes the existence of stable and meaningful social or political collectivities, which can be reflected in the composition of parliament, and this condition is undermined by the general trend towards individualization, which can be observed throughout Western Europe. Second, this trend necessitates a conceptualization of political representation not as a state, but as a dynamic relationship between the citizen and the representative. This relationship can be characterized both by its direction (from below or from above), and by the moment at which popular control is exercised (before or after the representative's period in office). Third, it is argued that both growing uncertainty about citizen preferences and the transformation of political parties into para-statal agencies push towards representation from above; and that both growing unpredictability of the political agenda and European integration push towards ex-post popular control. These developments call for greater attention to mechanisms of accountability in representative democracies.

This Introduction was written in November 2002, when the 16th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was being held where more than 2000 delegates (representing 66 million Party members) decided on future policies and changes in the leadership. The way these decisions were prepared and endorsed reminds us how China differs from Western democracies. However, apart from the political structures, to what extent is China different?

The following five essays, all written by Chinese scholars, allow us a glimpse into contemporary Chinese culture through informative reports on philosophy, cultural studies, fiction, gender construction and women's poetry, and traditional Chinese medicine. Of course, these articles are far from covering all aspects, or even all major aspects, of Chinese culture, yet they offer us views of specific areas by experts who, from their insiders' vantage points, lead us into the heart of the intellectual debate in contemporary China.

Although the authors of these essays, with few exceptions, hesitate to generalize on present conditions and possible future scenarios, their arguments have something in common and suggest, perhaps unknowingly, important clues for understanding Chinese culture. When reading these essays, I am struck by the following, recurrent aspects.

The present state of the study of philosophy in China cannot be understood if the introduction of Western philosophy, including Marxism, in the early decades of the 20th century is ignored. During the first half of the past century, philosophy flourished at Peking University with a heavy emphasis on social and political theory, as well as at Tsinghua University, which focused more on professionalization of the discipline, logic, epistemology and the history of philosophy. From 1957 to 1979, philosophical studies suffered severely under an increasingly unfavourable political climate. It is only recently that departments of philosophy have been reconstructed, not only in Beijing but also in all major universities. Like their colleagues in other disciplines, many philosophers are nowadays struggling with the dichotomy between the old and the new, the Chinese and the Western tradition, and resisting an uncritical absorption of Western ideas. Finally, some observations are made on the lectures that Jürgen Habermas gave in China in 2001.

This essay deals with cultural studies, including elite culture and its products (literature and the performing arts), as well as studies of film and TV and other expressions of popular culture in the mainland of China. It lays particular emphasis on the currently prevailing concept of Cultural Studies introduced from the West at the beginning of the 1990s. The author addresses the following issues: how Cultural Studies was introduced into the Chinese context, how it was integrated with existing practices of cultural history and comparative literature studies, how it was institutionalized in China, and how it was developing into a position from where it can engage in a dialogue with Western scholarship against the background of increasing globalization. According to the author, Cultural Studies has much in common with literary studies, especially in the Chinese context. Therefore, these two branches of learning should not necessarily be seen as opposed to one another. Literary and cultural studies are complementary rather than exclusionary towards each other.

The 25 years of the post-Mao era of Chinese fiction is divided into two distinct stages: the pre-1989 period, and the post-1989 period. If this division is true about almost everything else in China, it is especially true with literature. This is because literature had been used as a lethal weapon for political struggle by Mao before and during his regime, and this tradition, though strongly challenged in the post-Mao era, still lingers, though in very different forms now and much watered down. Even the recent trends of art for art's sake, or for the sake of entertainment, or for the sake of religious consciousness, could also be read as political gestures, and are indeed treated as such by Chinese literary officialdom, and also by Western China experts. Despite the fact that Chinese fiction has been highly politicized, this paper will examine, as much as possible, the development of fiction as an art. Only the artistic quality can support my argument that recent novels from China deserve not only more scholarly attention but also more reader appreciation than they have hitherto received around the world.

Post-Mao gender discourse readjusts a politicized vision of gender based on Maoist ethics. While rejecting revolutionary concepts of sex equality, contemporary Chinese women embrace a notion of femininity through the revision of a traditional conception of womanhood as well as the construction of new role models. Women poets participate in this construction process with a fresh, powerful voice to express their gender consciousness. In their efforts to (re-)define womanhood, they present by poetic means radically gendered perspectives.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is one of the world's oldest medical systems, having a history of several thousands of years. It is a system of healing based upon the Chinese philosophy of the correspondence between nature and human beings. Its theories refer to yin and yang, the Five Elements, zang-fu, channels-collaterals, qi, blood, body fluid, methods of diagnosis, the differentiation of symptom-complexes, etc. TCM has two main features: a holistic point of view and treatment according to a differentiation of syndromes. The therapeutic methods of TCM involve different approaches, such as acupuncture, moxibustion, tuina bodywork, herbal medicine and qi gong, in order to allow the body to heal itself in a natural way. Western medicine was first introduced into China from the middle of the 17th century. During the first two centuries several different views, related to the future of TCM and the relation between TCM and Western medicine, emerged. Some advocated ‘complete westernization’ of Chinese medicine, others were in favour of keeping it intact, whereas again others recommended the ‘digestion and assimilation of TCM and Western medicine’. Nowadays, more and more people realize that each of the two medical traditions has its own merits and advise that the two systems should benefit from each other's strong points. We offer an argument for integrating Western medicine with TCM. In the 20th century China has maintained and developed three kinds of medical science, that is, TCM, Western medicine, and ‘integrated medicine’. Much has been achieved in clinical, experimental and theoretical research. The development of any science can be furthered by cross-fertilization based on absorption and fusion of whatever useful theory and experience. It is our dream that, in the future, diverse modalities – including TCM, Western medicine and possibly other variants – can work in conjunction with each other as part of a unified team rather than in competition. This integrated approach will ultimately lead to safer, faster and more effective health care.