Even as AOL Time Warner and China's largest PC manufacturer Legend Computer celebrate a $200 million joint venture to provide online services in China, the country's leaders remain deeply ambivalent about the role of the Internet in Chinese society. With an estimated 30 million users, the Internet is both a source of outside information and a forum for Chinese to communicate their views on such sensitive issues as party corruption, human rights, and U.S.- China relations. What are the likely political and economic ramifications of the development of information industries in China? How effectively will the government be able to control the medium? Who will profit from the Internet in China? What role will America business be able to play?

Lyric Hughes is the founder of ChinaOnline LLC, a popular Internet-based news and information service. Kathleen Hartford, in addition to teaching at UMass/Boston, is a research affiliate at the Program on Information Resource Policy at Harvard University. She is currently writing a book on China's "computerization and informationization." Nina Hachigian, a former special assistant to the National Security Advisor, is the author of the recent Foreign Affairs article, "China's Cyber-Strategy."

Contact: Eric Aldrich at ealdrich@cfr.org / 212-434-9642.

Much of America’s unusual and tumultuous relationship with China from 1945-1996 was conducted behind closed doors. China Confidential, a new collection of oral histories edited by award-winning historian Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, takes us behind these doors and into the minds of the remarkable men and women of the U.S. diplomatic corps that have helped shape America’s China policy. The book provides new insights into such landmark events as the Chinese civil war, the Taiwan Strait crises, the Nixon trip to China, the normalization of Sino-American relations, and the protests at Tiananmen Square.

Nancy Bernkopf Tucker is professor of history at Georgetown University and the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. She is the author of Uncertain Friendships: Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, which received the 1996 Bernath Book Prize of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. She is a Director of the National Committee on U.S.- China Relations and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

As president of the National Committee on U.S.- China relations for much of the 90s, Professor David M. Lampton had ongoing contact with top Chinese and American officials, scholars, and NGO leaders. In Same Bed, Different Dreams, Professor Lampton shares his insights and recollections from more than a decade of intimate meetings with the key players on both sides. Why has this relationship been so difficult for Washington and Beijing to manage? How has the relationship been influenced by the personalities of individual leaders like Zhu Rongji or Bill Clinton? What lessons does history hold for President-elect Bush as he attempts to navigate a turbulent Sino-American relationship?

David M. Lampton is George and Sadie Hyman Professor and Director of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Director of Chinese Studies at The Nixon Center.

R. S. V. P. (acceptances only)

Please respond no later than 12:00 noon on Friday, January 26, 2001. Attendance is limited. You may fax your response to (212) 434-9813, call the China Studies Office at (212) 434-9642, or e-mail us at ealdrich@cfr.org. You may receive notice of this event from the National Committee on U.S.- China Relations as well. Please respond only once. All responses should be sent to the Council.

The Chinese leadership confronts a range of well-known domestic challenges,

including social unrest, endemic corruption, leadership succession and an uncertain economic future. What are the priorities of the Chinese leadership in meeting these and other challenges? What are the implications of WTO accession for the Chinese economy and society? What challenges and opportunities does China's domestic situation present for the Unitedm States? Combined, Jaime FlorCruz, Matt Forney and Susan V. Lawrence have over 25 years of reporting experience in China. Please join us to hear their latest "on- the- ground" insights on China's evolving social and economic system.