Breaking Feminist Waves is an important and distinct contribution to the understanding of feminism and, in particular, feminist scholarship in China. Feminist scholars in the West and in the People's Republic of China (PRC) have a partial understanding of Chinese feminism – Western feminist scholars are inclined to equate Chinese feminism with Asian American or Chinese American forms of feminism while PRC feminist scholars have to tendency to imply that the PRC form of feminism represents feminism in the entire Chinese cultural realm. Chen argues that Chinese feminism should include within its scope studies or activism about women or gender issues in as many periods and places as possible: pre-historical through Imperial China, Republican China, colonial and post-colonial Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet and other Chinese-speaking areas.

In this book, Chen examines the diversity of, and differences within, Chinese feminism in the 1990s through interviews with 50 feminist scholars in the PRC and Taiwan and through an analysis of journal articles related to Chinese women and feminism in prestigious academic journals in Asian studies and women's studies. She focuses on the decade of the 1990s for several reasons. Firstly, this decade followed the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident and included the United Nations' Fourth World Conference on Women and Feminist NGO Forums (1995). This decade also followed the lifting of martial law in Taiwan (July 1987) and the resumption of the traffic between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait (November 1987), included the rise of Taiwan localism and the change of rules of college teachers' promotion, and preceded the Democratic Progressive Party's defeat of the Nationalist Party in the presidential election (March 2000).

Chen first illustrates how feminist scholars in the Chinese cultural realm deliberated upon their knowledge about Western feminism in order to resolve various gender problems in the late Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), the Republican and Nationalist era (1911–49), the PRC (1949–present), Taiwan and Hong Kong. She emphasizes that not all feminist rhetoric, initiatives and strategies in the Chinese cultural realm came only from the West, because for many decades Chinese feminists in the PRC, Taiwan and Hong Kong had been developing local forms of feminist ideology and discourses based upon their own understandings and interpretations of Western feminism.

Chen then offers a comprehensive insight into Chinese feminism in the 1990s. She compares the reception of feminism and feminist scholars by academia in the mainland and in Taiwan, the survival strategies that feminist scholars adopted in order to be accepted in various research fields by the academy, and internal conflicts among feminist scholars. Of significance is Chinese feminist scholars' preference for French feminist theorists Luce Irigaray, Hélène Cixious, and Julia Kristeva, despite the majority being unfamiliar with the French language. She discusses how French feminism was localized, applied and advanced in order to ensure academic survival for feminist scholars in the PRC and Taiwan, and at the same time corresponded to local historical developments and socio-political environments.

Chen's concluding chapter is an analysis of prestigious English-language academic journals, to examine how non-Chinese, English-speaking scholars understand women and feminism in the Chinese cultural realm. She reiterates that Chinese feminism is diverse and multifaceted, combining local and Western influences, and therefore, is a subject that can be endlessly explored but never conclusively defined.

Through her interviews with feminist scholars and her analysis of journal articles, Chen reaches an understanding of feminism in China that is deeper than existing scholarship which focuses on feminism in the PRC, while neglecting Taiwan, Hong Kong and other Chinese-speaking areas in the Chinese cultural realm. This makes this book a timely study of Chinese feminism that considers the capricious cross-Strait relations between the PRC and Taiwan and the uncertain future of Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region. Chen's contribution provides us with a thoughtful and meticulous analysis, opening up new avenues to the study of feminism in China. As such, this book will be a useful point of reference for scholars with an interest in gender and women, globalization and social movements in contemporary Chinese societies.