ABSTRACT
The year 1986 was a very good one for Chinese foreign policy. The tension between possibility and actuality of shaping a stable and peaceful external environment were reduced. There is a shift from the habit-driven projection of Chinese foreign policy as one of principled constancy and continuity to the public acknowledgment of an adjusting and adaptive quality of foreign policy. There is a subtle but significant shift in post-Mao China's world outlook from the negative Manichaean obsession of forming the broadest united front against Soviet hegemonism to a more positive vision of building economic and functional foundations for world peace. Marxist ideology no longer provides relevant norms in international relations. However, on the level of actual practice, the policy of peace reveals conceptual inconsistencies and uneven application. The American bankers who embarked on exploratory missions to China failed, despite repeated prodding, to receive even such basic information as the saving rate for China's wage earners.
