China's visibility in the world has increased dramatically in the past decades. Chinese society and culture, however, are often seen as an antipode to Western societies. A mirror image of this Western "orientalism" that aims to identify as many differences as possible between "us" and the "others" can also be found in China. "Cultural relativism", meanwhile, negates the possibility of studying such differences in a critical or analytical way. Reality, however, is much more multi-faceted: there are many examples for relevant cultural differences that justify such studies. Moreover, there are also many instances of cultural transmissions and transitions, both in China and the West, that lead to interesting phenomena and developments that are ripe for insightful analytic research.

This Research Topic collects works that describe and explain the intriguing interplay of differences and interactions between Chinese and Western societies. It contributes to the question to what degree China becomes “more Western”, the West becomes “more Chinese” or the interaction of both cultures leads to new cultural forms. It also helps to understand the underlying courses that foster or inhibit cultural transmissions. Research on this topic may also enhance the understanding of socio-cultural processes and ways of improving cross-cultural communication. The applied aspects of this research topic aim at being useful for a variety of cultural applications in the fields of international relations, social sciences, economics, and many more.

The scope of this Research Topic will entail the following topics, but remain open to other relevant contributions:

• differences between societies in China and Western countries, caused by differences in cultural, political, economic or social factors;
• cultural transmission from China to the West, in particular traditional “high culture”, but also pop culture;
• cultural transmission from the outside world to China, in the present, but also throughout history;
• transmissions of political, economic or legal ideas, and their interactions with the Chinese society;
• cultural transitions in modern China as well as in the Chinese diaspora in other countries;
• interactions and tensions between sociology studying China and sinology studying sociological phenomena.

We welcome as contributions original research articles, particularly quantitative empirical works, but also qualitative studies, theoretical or conceptual articles, and literature surveys.

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