Both the United States and China will run risks as Beijing moves ahead with membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), but the potential payoffs for both countries are well worth it. This is the central finding of this independent Task Force. The group also says that increased trade and investment will provide considerable economic benefits to both nations and thereby improve overall Sino-American relations, thus creating a better context for managing security and human rights issues.

China Joins the World: Progress and Prospects offers fresh, timely insights into U.S. policy choices toward China by providing historical accounts of approaches that have worked and failed since the thawing of U.S.-China relations in the early 1970s, and by synthesizing these accounts to suggest the direction the United States should take today.

The rise of China in world affairs is a major feature of our era. An increasingly contentious debate has erupted in the United States over how to respond to this development.This report states that figuring out a successful policy toward China is no easy task, but any sound strategy must be rooted in a sense of history.

This report considers a number of important trends that are shaping the Sino-American-Taiwan relationship, evaluates U.S. interests in this relationship, and arrives at a set of recommendations for the United States concerning how it should define its priorities and assert its interests with respect to this potentially volatile situation in the Taiwan Strait.