The articles in this book were written over a period of more than a decade and a half. They cover a variety of topics relating to China's deepening integration with the global system of political economy. None of the articles has been altered in the light of subsequent events.

Chapter 1 was written in the months immediately following the June 4th events. It was presented at seminars and lectures in numerous locations. Extracts from it were published in various places. The response to the ideas expressed in the article was almost uniformly hostile. Most people in the West believed then that the Chinese Communist Party could not last long, perhaps only a few months. Nor did they believe that it deserved to last long or that it could preside over a successful market economy. They considered that the Soviet Union's path of comprehensive political transformation and high-speed economic liberalisation was the correct path of system reform in communist countries. In fact, the Chinese Communist Party has survived and prospered. The collapse of the Soviet political and economic system destroyed the credibility of large-scale high-speed political and economic reform in China. It paved the way for cautious, experimental economic reform within the framework of stable communist party rule. The most dynamic part of the global market economy is now presided over by the 60 million members of the Chinese Communist Party.