This document discusses the shift in political leadership and the instability of the government in the wake of Mao Zedong's death. It also reports on China's economic situation and the beginnings of efforts to modernize the country, as well as foreign relations, especially with the Soviet Union.

Notes on a meeting between the Ambassadors to China of the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, the Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Mongolia, and Poland in which they discussed a broad range of domestic and international concerns related to the People’s Republic of China including the Cultural Revolution, Vietnam, and provocations at the Soviet border. They report throughout on conversations with other Ambassadors in China.

Erich Honecker and Qiao Shi discuss economic and political reform in China, attempts to foster Sino-Soviet rapprochement, and East German and Chinese attitudes toward chemical and nuclear weapons.

In anticipation of a visit by Zhao Ziyang to East Germany, the Ambassador of the GDR in Beijing reports on China's economic reforms, the leadership within the Chinese Communist Party, and China's relations with the GDR, the Soviet Union, the United States, and Japan.