Such an approach provides a framework for analysis and should facilitate a better understanding of Chinese foreign policy, its principal characteristics, and its future directions as well as the policy making process itself. This approach, at the same time, recognizes the importance of each individual element, as well as the linkages among them. It argues that both international and domestic conditions are crucial for the formation of Chinese foreign policy, and we need to apply the linkage approach to better understand these conditions. One of the major topics of the discussion is about Chinese foreign policy choices in the post-Cold War era. Although it is always dangerous to predict the character of a country's foreign policy and its choices, general trends in China's recent foreign policy are evident and seem likely to continue into the post Deng era.
China today is relatively stable politically and is prospering economically.
The confirmation of Deng's reform policy at the Communist Party's 14th national congress in October 1992 was a signal that Beijing will continue its reform and open-door policy in the post Deng era. Given this apparent dedication to modernization, the only circumstance under which China might readopt a Maoist policy would be a drastic internal political shift toward radicalism akin to that of the Gang of Four. Such a shift would necessarily isolate China from the outside world and damage its modernization drive. However, a return to isolationism seems highly unlikely for a variety of reasons. In addition, the policy of reform and openness launched by Deng has gained a momentum of its own and has already transformed the Chinese policy making structure from vertical to horizontal authoritarianism.