In 1980 the People's Daily reported that 200 million Chinese peasants were living below the poverty line, while in 1982 Vicepremier Wan Li admitted the “for many years in the past, more than 150 million peasants had not solved the problem of not having enough to eat.” To enrich the rural economy, Party leaders called on peasants to pursue numerous private roads to prosperity. The new policy, highlighted by the phrase “permit some peasants to get rich first” (rang yixie nongmin xian fuqilai), allows households who are more industrious, more innovative and, of course, those with better personal and economic ties, to utilize their skills, personal relationships, excess labour power, and comparative advantages to accrue wealth quickly.

The following analysis of China's foreign economic policy-making will focus particularly on the decision of 1980–81 to suspend contracts with foreign countries, taking Baoshan and the petrochemical complexes as specific examples. I discuss this issue in terms of Sino-Japanese relations because Japan was the main target of the cancellations and because the relevant Japanese materials are plentiful. The decision-making process of Chinese foreign economic policy has barely been touched upon in previous research. However, recently there has been some study of the decision-making process in domestic economic policy. For example, Michel Oksenberg, relying on personal interviews, has published two perceptive articles that have been of great use to this study.

Analysts and observers expect a faster pace and a greater magnitude of change in China's economic system in the post-Mao era than was achieved in earlier decades. Yet contrary to this view researchers have found that reform between 1978 and 1983, in the genuine sense of the word, was limited. Moreover, changes that have occurred appear to have resulted from proposals made in the 1950s to 1960s. Additionally, it took eight years (from 1976 to 1984) for Chinese policy-makers to advocate reforms of any significance. In fact the Party's resolution on the reform of the economic system was not put forward until the Third Plenum of 12th Party Congress in October 1984.

The Radio and Television Universities of China, better known there as dianda, are now well established and growing rapidly. Dianda have been the subject of a number of articles, but, although the amount of comment on their operation has grown over the years, the focus has been on describing this operation. No attempt has been made to relate in detail the developments to the whole of higher education in China. Dianda warrant detailed consideration, not only because of their importance to the development of higher education in China, but also because they form the largest distance education system4 in the world. The size is indicated in the figures for student enrolment in three-year full-time degree programmes (at zhuanke level) since the founding of dianda, shown in Table 1. These programmes are offered in all provinces except Tibet, relying mainly on television lectures, backed up by text-books and face-to-face teaching. It is an extremely decentralized system, largely confined to urban areas, with local centres being responsible for student administration. (The central administration in Beijing has no individual student records.) The degree programme in the first four years was offered only by the science and technology department and included electrical and mechanical majors, and less commonly physics and mathematics. In 1982 over 78,000 students graduated. Social science courses in economic management started in 1983 and in future years it is hoped to introduce a wide variety of courses, shifting the balance away from science and technology.

Xiang Jingyu was executed in 1928 at the age of 33 and has since been enshrined as a communist martyr in China. Historically her life is of interest both as the record of an individual woman and of a specific group within a particular generation who embraced Marxism-Leninism as the solution to warlord–imperialist power in China. As a result of her martyrdom, however, it is not easy to separate the actual record of her life from her posthumous persona. This consideration is especially significant with regard to her position in the early Chinese Communist Party, and since she was charged with responsibility for building a communist women's movement, it is equally important in understanding aspects of the woman question in relation to early Party history. Careful examination of Xiang's activities tends to support the conclusion that the women's movement was accorded a low priority and that Xiang's position in the Party reflected this in spite of her posthumous elevation to high status.

The National Conference of Delegates of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which met in Beijing from 16 to 23 September 1985, was a rare, but not a unique, event. According to official pronouncements, both before and after the conference, it was convened to consider two major issues. The first was the draft proposals for the Seventh Five-Year Plan to be introduced in 1986. The second was described as “organizational re-adjustment” – the question of changes in the membership of the CCP's leading political and administrative organizations.