ABSTRACT
Evaluating the foreign relations of the People's Republic of China (PRC) during the reform period involves two assumptions and three questions. The assumptions are that (1) 1978 was a watershed in terms of Chinese foreign policy as much as it was in terms of domestic policies and (2) this not being the case, a changed foreign policy environment would provide an otherwise unreformed Peking approach with new relevance. The three questions would try to identify shaping factors of this old or new policy such as (1) the domestic setting, (2) the global and regional environments, before asking whether either or both of the former would permit confident guesses as to (3) whether China can be 'tied in' globally and/or regionally over the medium term, so that potentially conflictual side effects of its transformation would be mitigated.
