ABSTRACT
In most nations, ultimate power to make decisions on major foreign policy issues is fairly concentrated; usually only a few leaders manage foreign policy; frequently, one person makes the final decisions. In China, decision making on major foreign policy issues has been even more highly concentrated. In a July 1984 interview that focused on how and where Chinese foreign policy is made, Premier Zhao Ziyang revealed that, even though individual Politburo members continue to play key policy-making roles, a very significant institutional change has taken place in the pattern of top-level policy-making. On all foreign policy positions that lack a solid consensual basis, Deng Xiaoping unquestionably plays an extremely important personal role in making compromises. In the late 1970s and at the start of the 1980s, Deng seemed able to dominate most policy-making in the fields of foreign policy and science and technology, but was less able to have his way in policy-making on economic issues and cadre policy.
