The recession has concealed from many commentators in the West the overwhelming economic force of the last decade, the inexorable rise of China. Commensurate with this has been the economic and political decline of Europe and especially of the European Union. The European normative strategy in education was always an unrealised ideal. But, if the European moment has passed in education, as in much else, what normative strategies are in the process of emerging into the next phase of globalisation? The rise of Islam offers a firm normative discourse within which education has thrived at many points in the past. America too offers attractive possibilities at least in terms of secularism and diversity. But what of China? The People's Republic has exhumed Confucianism as a normative underpinning over the last decade. How will this effect education in China and beyond? Will it be used to legitimate authoritarianism and patriarchy? Or will women eventually hold up half the sky?