In this essay, the author attempts to sketch a picture of Chinese educational transformation in the post-Mao era: its primary impetus, manifestations, and nature of change. The author argues that Chinese educational retrenchment is not a reform without strategy or intended destination as claimed ("cross the river by feeling for stones"). Instead, Deng Xiaoping and his reformers led China onto a road of seeking economic globalization. The educational retrenchment is a part of this scheme. [This article originally appeared in: "Proceedings of Peking University First International Conference of Sociology of Education" (Beijing: Peking University, March 18-19, 2006), pp. 27-42.]