Anyone who deals with China today is dealing with the future of humanity. The year I made my first trip to China, in 1978, marked the beginning of a new era defined by Deng Xiaoping (1905-1997). My second trip took place twenty-eight years later (2006). And the third when three decades were completed (2008). The time that elapsed allows for the study and presentation of those issues that are reflected by China in the world. Such issues include Chinese incremental democracy, the treatment of political freedoms, the state's attitude towards human rights, the geopolitical significance of Eurasia, China's leadership role in developing countries, the role of Confucianism, the similarities and differences with emerging economies such as India, the development of Shanghai and Guangzhou, investments in education and technology. These are issues that combine, overlap, and, like a seismic wave, pass through the ground of our certainties, leading towards a new world. The reader therefore does not have a travel diary in his hands, but the recording of this flow towards that tomorrow, which we all would like to be more humane and just.

S.M.X.