China has made great success in improving its foreign relations with other countries in 1998. Jiang Zemin's visit to the United States and Japan clearly showed that China would continually uphold its open-door policy and economic reform. It is significant to most economic analysts that China has still recorded 7.8% economic growth under the Asian financial crisis. China Review 1999, the ninth volume of this series, is an expert survey of China's major sectors of interest, which critically summarizes the development of the previous year in core chapters covering politics, the economy, and social change.This volume has several in-depth presentations on political and social-economic issues, such as the Sino-U.S. relations, Mainland-Taiwan relations, the economic performance of 1998 -- all major concerns to those interested in the development of the People's Republic. Additional studies describe rarely featured areas of Chinese society.