Early childhood education (ECE) has made a long reform from imitation to innovation that lasted almost one century. It included four stages: the first and the second were a learning process from Japan and the United States, the third was a copy of the Soviet model with collectivist education and direct instruction, while the fourth was rather American and European liberalism. Only since 2006 a new strategic adjustment aimed at building up an innovation has been mapped in order to modernize the country. Accordingly, the Chinese ECE has to find a new way of innovation, i.e. the Chinese way, which may be able respond to the global world and to the needs of the Chinese.