Here is an article, from the October 19, 2003 edition of the LA Times, about the significance of the rise of private car ownership in China.

     This year, China became the fourth-largest
market for new-car purchases in the world, behind the U.S., Japan and
Germany but ahead of such automobile-conscious countries as Britain,
Italy and France. The growing prosperity of the burgeoning Chinese
middle class has fueled a spending spree on privately owned cars,
something that was impossible in the ever-more-distant Maoist past.
Though the boom in Chinese auto demand has significant business
implications, it also has cultural ramifications. The rush of new cars
is driving China toward a more individualistic society.

     Think of
the United States. After World War II, with the industrial economy in
full gear, American consumers came into their own. Demand for goods of
all sorts was high, manufacturing kept pace, and Henry Ford’s dream of
mass car ownership was recaptured, after a long hiatus of economic
depression and war. From 1945 to 1955, car registrations in the U.S.
doubled; they grew by an additional 50% in the next decade.

     Cars
brought social mobility and freedom. People moved: from farms to
cities; from cities to suburbs; from east to west. Movement stirred
their sense of freedom. If life was drab here, just hop in the car and
move there. California’s population exploded; it was the utopia yearned
for by people dissatisfied with where they were, and they could get
there cheaply and easily by automobile.

     The cascading cultural
effects of auto mobility have been legion. Cars have opened the road to
fun, fun, fun, at least until Daddy takes the T-bird away. They enable
drive-in and drive-through and drive-up convenience.

     However
frustrated we may be with gridlocked traffic, the speed of cars
influences the way we work and play; their styles shape our personal
identities.

     Not all of this is China’s future, but the upsurge
of private car ownership will weaken collectivist cultural practices.
In fact, it is already happening.

     Beijing is awash in cars.
There are now more than 2 million in the city, which may not sound like
a lot compared with Los Angeles County (where there are more than 5.3
million automobiles registered), but it is the result of double-digit
growth in recent years. Fifteen years ago, privately owned cars were
rare; almost all the autos to be found were the property of the state
or some other collective organization. Parking was not an issue: There
were no specific regulations in the city until 1995. Now, traffic clogs
the wide boulevards as more and more moneyed urban dwellers seek
comfort and privacy in their daily commutes and fight off the
frustration of not being able to find a place to park.

     The
seclusion of the private car, in and of itself, strengthens
individualistic strains within Chinese culture that have long been
limited by officially sanctioned collectivist orthodoxies. People in
cars are making choices to find their own answers to problems they
confront. Take the SARS epidemic, for example. The killer virus
contributed to this year’s record sale of private cars. Looking to
avoid exposure on public transportation, those who could afford to
sought out the isolation of cars. They did not wait for the government
to come up with a solution; they did not depend upon employers to work
it out. They took advantage of the growing auto- finance market and did
something for themselves.

     Not everyone can pursue such
self-interested alternatives. Many people simply do not have the money
to buy a car. The environmental effect of millions upon millions of
vehicles in China is also creating major pollution problems. Yet,
whatever the social and ecological limits, the rise in car ownership is
transforming Chinese society.

     Cars offer all sorts of
entertaining new choices for consumers to craft a personal style, an
individual flair. New highway construction has created open roads for
Chinese drivers. Auto clubs are popping up to provide travel aid for
domestic tourists cruising on weekend trips. Fast-food spots now sport
drive-up windows. And for the young and the restless, makeshift
drive-in movies offer a place to get away from prying parental
oversight.

     It could be argued that the liberating effects of
cars in China will be limited by traditional cultural views that
promote the group — the family, the corporation, the government —
over the individual. After all, Japan and South Korea have absorbed
cars into their societies; they have thoroughly modernized while
preserving certain social hierarchies. Autos are part of the cultural
mix in these countries, but they have not completely overthrown long-
standing collectivist ideas and practices.

     But China’s current
situation is unique in at least two ways. First, traditional values
were irreparably damaged during the Cultural Revolution in the late
1960s, a period of violent, state- sponsored political attack on the
"Four Olds": old habits, old ideas, old customs and old culture. The
idea was to destroy traditional sources of governmental legitimacy and
replace them with socialist ideology. The failure of the Cultural
Revolution, the widespread political chaos and disillusionment it
caused, meant that socialism was not able to fill the vacuum left after
the downfall of tradition. Thus, the way was opened for new ideas,
goods and consumer choices to catch hold and change the way Chinese
defined themselves and their country, particularly among younger
generations.

     Second, the surge in car ownership comes at a time
of intense globalization, the opening of China to world trade and world
cultural flows. The burst of economic and social transformation
sweeping China is more rapid and far-reaching than the earlier and more
gradual modernizations of Japan and South Korea. It is a dizzying time,
when anything seems possible for young Chinese, and the introduction of
private car ownership in this context adds powerful fuel to the mix.

    So, cars are an important part of how China is changing. The key
question is: Can the government steer this trend toward its own
political purposes?

     Or will cars create a new generation of
mobile and restive youth who, if they become alienated from their
elders, might turn into rebels with a cause, willing to hurtle
themselves toward the precipice of political dissent?