Formal teacher education in China is only about 85 years old. Indeed, prior to the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, education was largely ig nored. In recent years, however, educa tion has been given a priority almost equal to that of modern industrializa tion. Teacher education has been sig nificantly impacted as a result of the broader education emphasis. Teacher education reforms evidenced in China include building respect for teachers, revising the curriculum content and the admission and exit standards of teacher education, providing inservice training for 8 million teachers, and establishing an extensive network of educational research societies. The authors describe the reforms and outline the challenges still confronting Chinese teacher educators.