The shift in China's economic strategy following the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1978 was an attempt to readjust and reform the economic system. First, reform measures were introduced in the agricultural sector. Secondly, the commercial sector was gradually being adjusted to allow the market mechanism to play a role under the “guidance” of state planning. Thirdly, there was more investment in transport and communications. Fourthly, the rate of accumulation by the state was reduced while the rate of consumption by the people was raised through higher incomes and the availability of more consumer goods. Fifthly, there were attempts to readjust the investment pattern between agriculture, heavy industry and light industry. Last, but not least, reform measures were introduced in the management of state enterprises. The article is concerned with this reform.

In the five years between the disappearance of Lin Biao in 1971 and the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 the Chinese political scene was highly volatile. Mass campaigns erupted regularly, disrupting and diverting efforts to normalize political, economic and social activities, which had originally been thrown into chaos during the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution. After the 10th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in August 1973 the question of succession to the ageing Mao and ailing Premier Zhou Enlai became a matter of urgency to the political elite. At issue was the direction China would take in the post-Mao era, central to which was an assessment of the validity of Mao's thesis concerning the continuation of class struggle in socialist society, and his attempt to put into operation the conclusions he drew from this analysis.

Hong Kong has never taken the path of constitutional development towards democratic self-government followed by the rest of Great Britain's colonial empire. In 1984 the Legislative and Executive Councils were still composed entirely of officials and unofficials nominated by the Governor without a single elected member, just as they have been for the past 140 years. This anomalous position has commonly been justified in two ways: the official explanation is that there have been no demands for democratic institutions voiced by the people of Hong Kong; unofficially ministers and officials have claimed that the People's Republic of China objects to free elections and Britain has found it expedient to give heed to China's views. This has never been publicly and unambiguously admitted by any Minister of the Crown while in office to avoid diplomatic embarrassment, but a large number of comments and replies to parliamentary questions can be quoted which leave little doubt that this is in fact the case. It seems that the Chinese People's Government has always equated democratic constitutional advance in Hong Kong with moves to grant independence to the territory and so has imposed her veto on any changes which might preclude the future resumption of Chinese sovereignty. But now that Britain has formally declared her intention to restore the whole of Hong Kong to China in 1997 China has in turn declared that after 1997“The legislature of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be constituted by elections,” and is apparently prepared to waive her longstanding objections to democratic developments in the intervening 12 years before Hong Kong reverts to Chinese sovereignty.

A vital key to Zhou Enlai's diplomacy in Indo-China during 1954 and 1955 was his systematic effort to “neutralize” the region. Zhou, as Chinese premier and foreign minister, laid the foundations of China's approach to Indo-China. Subsequently, his policy of neutralization and its application to Indo-China focused on the enlargement of the “area of collective peace” along China's southern frontiers. This general formula reflected Zhou's primary concern for China's territorial security and economic development. In Zhou's estimation the immediate western military threat to China's security could be curbed effectively if Indo-China became a “neutralized” region in which the three local states, that is, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, were not allowed to enter into alliances with any outside major powers. Only by terminating French colonial domination in Indo-China and restraining major-power interference in the internal affairs of these three states could the peace and stability of Indo-China be secured.

Sino-Japanese ties have been expanding since formal diplomatic relations were established in 1972. Recently, both governments organized a China–Japan Friendship Committee for the 21 st Century, a Sino-Japanese version of the U.S.–Japan Wiseman's Group, which has played an important role in cementing links between the United States and Japan through the years. The new China–Japan Committee is jointly headed by Tadao Ishikawa, president of Keio University and a scholar of Chinese politics, and by Wang Zhaoguo, the 45 yearold head of the general office of the Chinese Communist Party. This committee holds annual meetings to explore Sino-Japanese relations in depth. In addition, since 1982, a China–Japan Civilian Meeting has been convened, alternately in Tokyo and Beijing, bringing together over 100 Chinese and Japanese businessmen, politicians and scholars to survey Sino-Japanese relations. Finally, since 1980, at an annual ministerial meeting, the top ministers of each government review their activities.

The publishing world, like everything else in China at the moment, manifests both signs of change and resistance to change. Some publishers are cautiously hopeful about the current reforms, others feel change is not happening fast enough, and yet others do not ally themselves with reform at all but would prefer to have more stringent controls. This field note will attempt, therefore, to offer a portrait of how Chinese publishing is organized at the moment with areas of likely change, as well as highlighting the relations between Chinese publishing establishments and their counterparts in the west.