Personnel changes in the party and government in communist systems are typically politicized and personalistic. Changes occur as the result of natural death, political error or consolidation of personal power from the top. Cadres able to manoeuver around the vagaries of politics enjoy de facto lifelong tenure. In 1978, the experience in the People's Republic of China (PRC) was no different in that regard: lifelong tenure, barring political error, had existed since the consolidation of power in the 1950s. Purge had been the dominant form of exit from office in the PRC. And because purge had not meant physical liquidation in the Chinese case, veteran revolutionaries had survived and reappeared to dominate the Party and government bureaucracies for decades.

During the National Salvation Movement of the mid-1930s, the Shanghai Party forged its most workable alliance not with members of the proletariat but with progressives from the city's middle and upper classes. Making use of multi-class patriotism, Party leaders established a co-operative relationship with members of the elite that became a crucial part of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) resistance work against Japan. In many cases, the relationship continued into the post-war years and contributed significantly to the CCP's easy takeover of the city in May 1949.

As is well known, the Great Leap Forward (GLF) of 1958–59 was the most intense mobilizational phase in the history of the People's Republic of China and the most concentrated expression of the Utopian Maoist developmental model. Yet the adoption of an alternative development strategy to the Stalinist model by decentralization did not bring about material abundance; it led directly to an economic depression from which the country did not recover until 1965. Therefore, the “leap” is worthy of more scholarly attention than it has received. Of particular interest is the role played by the provinces in the policy-making process, the bureaucratic behaviour of the provincial authorities, the way policies were implemented, and the environmental constraints and how they affected policy-making.

China's year of upheaval, 1989, was full of incongruities. For example, students invoked the historic struggle of intellectuals to “revive China,” while at the same time erecting statues modelled after the symbol of a foreign power with a long history of objectionable conduct toward their country. One of the most interesting incongruities, however, emerged not in the streets, but in the pages of Chinese journals. Highly-placed intellectuals debated the theory of neo-authoritarianism, a doctrine new to the People's Republic, but one which reflects the policy prescriptions of pre-revolutionary Chinese leaders and contemporary Third World strongmen. Advocates of the doctrine were ideologically and, in some cases, organizationally, close to Zhao Ziyang, then the general secretary of the world's largest Communist Party, but their theory was classically conservative. The debate, moreover, was waged without reference to Marxism by either proponents or opponents.

The Geneva Conference of 1954 represented an important event in the development of China's foreign policy. For the first time, Beijing's diplomacy became the focus of attention in an international meeting. Despite American opposition and delaying tactics, the conference was a diplomatic triumph for China. It greatly enhanced Beijing's international status. China's leaders clearly perceived their role in global rather than in regional terms. Their pride and confidence were best expressed by the Renmin ribao (People's Daily) editorial of 22 July 1954:

For the first time as one of the Big Powers, the People's Republic of China joined the other major powers in negotiations on vital international problems and made a contribution of its own that won the acclaim of wide sections of world opinion. The international status of the People's Republic of China as one of the big world powers has gained universal recognition. Its international prestige has been greatly enhanced. The Chinese people take the greatest joy and pride in the efforts and achievements of their delegation at Geneva.

Alone among the great powers, Beijing identified itself as a member of the Afro-Asian camp of newly independent nations. The Chinese leadership perceived China as the champion of the Afro-Asian cause against the oppression and exploitation of the west. It was within this context that China had played the major part in fashioning a new set of principles for world politics-the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.” This emphasis on Afro-Asian solidarity would culminate in the Bandung Conference of 1955.

Zhou Enlai played an important role in the Geneva Conference. He excelled in playing British and French realism off against the rigidity and inflexibility of American Cold War policies. His diplomacy epitomized the “United Front” strategy which has been a distinct feature of the PRC's foreign policy: to unite with all possible forces to isolate China's most dangerous enemy. Zhou's performance at Geneva suggests that he was a shrewd practitioner of diplomacy of the possible.

From 1949 until 1986 the Kuomintang (KMT) ruled Taiwan and adjoining island territories (Republic of China or ROC on Taiwan) without organized political opposition. This party was led by two powerful leaders, a father and son: Chiang Kai-shek served as party chairman and the government's president until March 1978, and then Chiang Ching-kuo held both positions until his death in January 1988.

The formation of the anti-Japanese national united front between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Guomindang (GMD), and Moscow's role in it, has attracted much historical inquiry. Our knowledge about it is enriched with the appearance of John Garver's and Kui-Kuong Shum's recent works. However, there are some important issues raised by them worth further discussion, and some factual evidence which needs more study.

Sheng and I are in essential agreement that between mid-1935 and late 1936 repeated interventions by the Comintern induced changes in CCP policy which brought it successively closer to a united front with Chiang Kai-shek. We disagree about whether there were significant discrepancies between CCP and Comintern line on this issue at specific points. I argue there were. Sheng argues there were not. The Comintern did not itself adopt a true policy of a united front with Chiang until late 1936, Sheng implies. The Comintern's policy of a united front with Chiang evolved slowly, and as it inched towards this goal it communicated the ideas to Mao who adopted them fully and promptly. “Mao was amenable to Stalin's advice,” Sheng says; he was “sensitive and responsive” to Comintern directives. Any discrepancies between Comintern and CCP lines were differences emphasis, not of substance, according to Sheng. I, on the other hand, argue that Mao's policy was consistently more anti-Chiang than the Comintern's.

In my view, the fundamental disagreement between Garver and me i, the estimation of the nature of the CCP-Moscow relationship, personalized in the relations between Mao and Stalin. Garver believe, that Stalin regarded Mao as a “dissident communist” who frustrated Stalin's intention to sacrifice the CCP's revolutionary interest; in order to meet the need for Soviet security. In the decade after 1935, Garver continues to argue in his comment, Mao “repeatedly deviate[d] from Comintern line and ultimately emancipate[d] the CCP from Moscow's control.” Therefore, Stalin had good reason to distrust Mao. If the CCP-Moscow radio communication had not been disrupted, Stalin could have prevented Mao from launching a successful coup at the Zunyi Conference, Garver says in his China Quarterly article. After finding some evidence of Stalin's willingness to supply the CCP with weapons, Garver states that “our estimates of Mao's willingness to antagonize Stalin must be adjusted.” To Garver, the Mao-Stalin relations were utilitarian in nature, just like those between Stalin and Chiang Kai-shek – they were all each other's “fishes.” Given the discrepancy between the Soviet security need and the CCP's revolutionary interests, Garver's depiction of the relationship between Mao and Stalin leaves the impression that they were adversaries, rather than comrades.

Over the past 20 years, studies of grain production and use in China have figured prominently in debates concerning economic efficiency, income disparities and the contours of the Maoist development strategy. Virtually all analysts now agree that grain production in China exhibited a strong tendency toward provincial self-sufficiency and that the inter-provincial grain trade declined during the Maoist era (from the 1950s to 1978), that provincial self-sufficiency obstructed efficient allocation of agricultural resources and contributed to the persistence of poverty, and that the tendency toward selfsufficiency is attributable partly to a policy of “grain first,” which promoted concentration upon grain production in every province regardless of comparative advantage. Recent studies point to significant changes in the pattern of grain production and trade since 1978 and trace these changes to relaxation of “grain first” and introduction of institutional reforms affecting the grain sector.

The elections held on 21 December in Taiwan for seats in the National Assembly were unprecedented in a number of respects. But they prolonged the more than 40 years of overwhelming dominance of the island's politics by the ruling Kuomintang (KMT). They represented a huge leap towards a genuinely pluralist political system in Taiwan, but were marred by electoral malpractice, and distorted by the prominence of the “independence” issue, and the intervention of Beijing leaders.