From the Editors

Perspectives, Vol. 3, No. 5

The OYCF's fourth annual retreat took place during the Memorial weekend (May 24-27) in the beautiful suburb of Philadelphia. The theme of the retreat was "WTO, Olympics and 9/11: A New China Facing a New World." Through nine panels, twenty-one speakers discussed the challenges and opportunities facing China and Chinese people in today's world. In this issue of Perspectives, we present to you a special report summarizing these discussions. Also in this issue, under the "Political Theory and Practice" column, Kambhampati S. SASTRY discusses various aspects of participatory democracy, economic management and the state's obligation to meet the basic needs of the citizens.

Pension reform is an urgent issue in order to preserve social stability while continuing other aspects of the economic reform in China. Under the "Economics" column, Professor Pieter BOTTELIER shares his views on the design and implementation of China's pension reform. Also under this column, we publish the second part of Professor Ronald McKinnon's article on East Asian exchange rate dilemma.

Under the "Law" column, Professor Randy PEERENBOOM starts the first part of his discussion of the theory of rule of law and how it applies to China. Richard GUO comments on the China Securities Regulatory Commission's Independent Directors Guiding Opinion published last year.

Finally under the "Society and Culture" column, Yuanheng Sally WANG analyzes the biculturalism of white Americans interested in the Chinese culture.

We hope you enjoy reading this issue of Perspectives. If you have comments on any of these articles, we would like to hear from you. We also welcome you to submit your articles to us.

Best regards,

The Editors