DALIAN - Decades after Chairman Mao declared that "women hold up half the sky," today's Chinese women are surprising the world with their actions and ambitions, turning an age-old image of Chinese women as gentile and virtuous homemakers on its head.

The evolving role of women in China is a hot topic at the ongoing 2011 World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of the New Champions, also known as the Summer Davos Forum, in Dalian, a coastal city in northeastern Liaoning province.

Modern Chinese women are becoming a new engine powering China's booming economy. They are fashionable, brave, ambitious and in control of family finances, said delegates at the meeting.

China's women are open to the changing world and have adapted to varying opinions thanks to their broad worldviews, said Ma Junting, a Davos Young Global Leader.

"Now, more Chinese women are shifting their focus from family life to careers," Ma said.

Ma added that in the past most of a woman's work was with her family, but now family and career pursuits are becoming more balanced, and some successful career women even spend more time at work than at home.

China's younger generations of women are ready to show off their talent and potential, enabling them to be leaders and overturn traditional views of what a woman's role is, said Sakena Yacoobi, a Davos delegate with the Afghan Institute Of Learning.

The results of a survey published by Newsweek in August 2010 showed that women in China appeared to be far more ambitious than their counterparts in the United States.

Just over one-third of all college-educated women in America describe themselves as very ambitious, while in China that figure is close to two-thirds. Moreover, more than 75 percent of women in China aspire to hold senior management positions, compared to just over half in the United States, according to the survey.

In China, there are fewer institutional barriers for women pursuing successful careers, Judi Kilachand, executive director of the Asia Society, told Newsweek.

It is common to see women in China holding active leadership roles in various levels of governments, institutions and companies. Women occupy over one-fifth of the deputies to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's parliament.

Moreover, about three-fourths of women are family "treasurers," and play major, active roles in decisions regarding family finances.

However, some critics worry that China's younger generations of women are too frank and outspoken in discussing their ambitions and anxieties over wealth, which even influence their marriage pursuits.

Despite some women preoccupied with materialistic pursuits, the majority are taking on more social and filial responsibilities in addition to preserving aspects of traditional culture, said Daniel A. Bell, a delegate of the Summer Davos and professor at Tsinghua University.

These changes have happened gradually over the past twenty years. China's women have gained higher social and economic status thanks to the country's reform and opening up policies, as well as equal access to education and their own self-realization efforts, he said.