ABSTRACT
During the late 1990s, China's leaders have built on the achievements of two decades of economic reform, and the economy has taken new steps forward in industrialization and technological upgrading. The activity of recent years can readily be seen as a continuation of longstanding trends, as it has advanced both reform and modernization. Yet recent measures also represent some of the most difficult—and the most contested—steps in the long and ongoing transformation process. And after many years in which the external environment was extremely favorable to China's economic objectives, recent economic trends in Asia and elsewhere have heaped problems onto China's already difficult economic transition. As a result, China approaches the turn of the millennium with more than a little extra uncertainty.
