4 ideas
He finds the foreign concessions returned, extraterritoriality ended, a constitutional parliament sitting, a tunnel and bridge crossing the Huangpu to a developed Pudong, and Shanghai hosting an international exposition. At the end he wakes and learns it was a dream, which he insists on reading as a forecast rather than a fantasy.
In the novel, China's revival hinges on medicines invented by the doctor Su Hanmin. One cures moral corruption, and an 'awakening technique' rouses people from apathy. The mechanism is that constitutions, railways and industry take root only after the population's inner torpor and self-interest are treated. Institutional change without that inner change is presented as a shell that cannot hold.
The novel imagines foreign concessions and consular jurisdiction ending without military defeat of the powers. China first adopts constitutional government and modern law, which strips the foreigners of their justification for special privileges. Humiliation is read as a symptom of internal backwardness, so the remedy is to become a legally and economically modern state that makes the privileges indefensible.
The novel builds its vision of the future from concrete, dated items rather than abstract ideals. These include a river tunnel, a bridge to Pudong, a world's fair, and the year 1951. That specificity turns the dream into promises that later history can verify, and it is why the book was revived as 'prophecy' when Shanghai hosted the 2010 Expo in Pudong. Tying national aspiration to visible engineering and spectacle makes hope measurable.