Department of Economics Ball State University, Indiana

China's socioeconomic structure has undergone dramatic changes since the inception of economic reform and open-door twenty four years ago. The reform has touched every aspect of Chinese society. It not only dismantled the highly centralized plan system by returning to a market economy but fundamentally reshaped China from a self-imposed isolated country to an outward-oriented open society. Both the reform and open-door policies exerted profound influences on China's social and cultural life involving the emergence of a middle class, the rise of consumerism, the discard of Marxism and the revival of the Chinese traditional culture. All of these dramatic changes have occurred in the short-span of a quarter of a century without fanfare and turmoil and could be referred to as a quiet revolution. The paper highlights the process of the revolution, analyzes and assesses the socioeconomic consequences of this historic transformation.