Crisis in China: Prospects for U.S. Policy. Report of the Strategy for Peace, U.S. Foreign Policy Conference (30th, Warrenton, Virginia, October 19-21, 1989).

This report summarizes the roundtable discussion of 19 China experts at a conference on the development of U.S. policy convened four months after the democracy demonstrations that took place in China in spring, 1989. The group's discussion highlighted five major areas of uncertainty over China's course in the short-term to intermediate future: (1) the extent of changes in Chinese life caused by the abrupt political changes of May and June 1989, and the eroding economy; (2) understanding key relationships within the Chinese military and between the military and civilian leaders; (3) how much change has occurred in the balance of power between the center in Beijing and the provinces; (4) the degree of consolidation of power by China's current leaders; and (5) the effect of stricter central economic policies on the long-term performance of the economy. The keynote address by Richard H. Stanley, which is given in full, asked the conferees to consider two underlying issues in their deliberations: (1) the changing national power relationships including the relative erosion of U.S. power; and (2) the profound global systemic changes that are rendering old policy assumptions obsolete. (NL)