The Chinese view of the child is in the process of changing from the dependent child of traditional Chinese society to the child as an active learner in contemporary China. The view of the child as an active learner forces early childhood practitioners to rethink the features of the child's learning and development, individuality, and needs and rights, and of the teachers' roles in the process of children's learning in kindergarten. The multi-layer support system underpinning this practice of the view of the child as an active learner is identified as teachers' emotional support, teachers' appropriate perceptions of their roles in children's learning, and the kindergarten-family-community partnership. However, some barriers, such as the lingering traditional view of the child as dependent upon adults, the lack of broad social support for child care and early education, and the established training system for kindergarten teachers, are still present. In this article, the author highlights how the project approach, what has become one of the most popular teaching approaches in the contemporary Chinese kindergarten since the mid-1990s, is implemented in kindergartens in the coastal cities of Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Xiamen, in order to illustrate and analyze how the child is recognized as an active learner.