As a Chinese, it is difficult for us to gain an overall insight into our motherland with its vast territory, diverse culture, different groups with widening wealth gap, isolated urban and rural communities, various political appeals and even discordant social conflicts. Chunyun, or the Spring Festival travel season, is such an intrinsic problem in China's transformation from a traditional society to a modern one and a window through which observers all over the world can view social changes in China.

Along with the pace of the reform and opening-up, chunyun has begun to enter the daily lives of ordinary Chinese people, deriving a special kind of social and political implication. China's economic reform and opening-up has released countless rural young labor forces, making the large-scale and cross-regional flow of human capital a normal social behavior.

The most essential problem, here, is that the frequent population flow is impacting the original social structure and management, which has evolved into an issue for China's modernism. Jrgen Habermas, a public intellectual, interpreted the connotation of modernity as an unfinished cause. Indeed, China's modernity is a great national undertaking with constant progress, reflecting the ultimate pursuit of the Chinese nation.

The essence of the Spring Festival travel season is a problem of social management caused by the periodically massive traveling of China's migrant workers. If the government could grant migrant workers the identity of urban residents and truly protect the legitimate rights of these new citizens, the problem of the Spring Festival rush could be gradually alleviated and finally resolved.

But it would bring other problems that demand a highly efficient and incorruptible government, a strong rule of law and a severe executive accountability system. It may even spawn high democratic aspirations of civil society. This is the social and political significance of the Spring Festival rush: On the one hand, it acts as a bridge connecting the government and civil society; on the other, it is a curve depicting China's transitional process toward a modern society.

Some scholars argue that the Spring Festival rush is caused by the monopoly of the transit sector. Only if the national monopoly is abolished and more private capital is infused into the transportation industry can the problem be resolved.

State monopoly indeed contributes to the plight of a Spring Festival rush, but an instant breakup will not necessarily solve the problem and could even lead to other problems. In reviewing previously promoted market-oriented reforms in China, we have put too much credit in market forces.

We should recognize that under the existing political model, any reform without the involvement of the government would amount to nothing, while only when the government benefits from its involvement at a relatively low cost and without altering the current model of governance, the government's participation could become a major driving force for China's progressive reform.

The pilot ID train-ticket system launched in Guangzhou and Chengdu during the 2010 Spring Festival travel season signals hard-won social progress under the current government management. Some that ignore China's special national conditions have argued that progress is too limited and that the government should move faster.

They, however, don't realize that Chinese intellectuals, step by step within their power, are promoting China's social progress and modernity. In retrospect of China's development history, it is not difficult to understand that China's transition to a modern society subjects it to not only the inherent governing model but also the traditional social thoughts of the Chinese people.

The Spring Festival rush not only embodies the political significance of social stability but also gestates a driving force for China's transformation to modernism. Whenever the Spring Festival travel season occurs, it is a test for both local authorities and ordinary travelers that, on the one hand, are afraid of such large-scale allocation of social resources, and on the other, expect a more effective system. The day when the Spring Festival rush completely vanishes from people's lives is the time when China's transition into modernity blossoms.  

         本文发表在2010-2-12《中国日报（英文版）》page8上，相关链接：http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2010-02/12/content_9466264.htm。