They say China is a typical centralized country on its political power, but you will find a lot of phenomena unlike a centralized country in the bottom sphere of its society. It is an ironical paradox that the strongly centralized one--party system there cause many deviant behaviors by local authorities. It seems that since the beginning of Chinese economic reform, such a paradox is getting more and more serious. In this course, we will analyse such a paradox from the viewpoints of ethnicity, history, culture and system and so on, and study on the relationship between state and society in China.