The article explores the socio-political and historical development of the great debate on aesthetics and the aesthetic fever in China during the 20th century. It introduces the main figures of the aesthetic movement and their aesthetic theories. It introduces the period of appropriation of the aesthetic debates to Marxist ideology that prevailed in China after 1949 and lasted until the end of 1970s. The 1980s and 1990s represent a shift in the Chinese aesthetic debate which focused on the adoption of Western aesthetic concepts and paradigms in a more scientific way. The article tackles the problem of Chinese society on the verge of the millennium, and problematizes the consumerism of art and attitudes towards aesthetics in general.