This book explores the forces that impelled China, the worlds largest socialist state, to make massive changes in its domestic and international stance during the long 1970s. Fourteen distinguished scholars investigate the special, perhaps crucial part that the territory of Hong Kong played in encouraging and midwifing Chinas relationship with the non-Communist world. The Long 1970s were the years when China moved dramatically and decisively toward much closer relations with the non-Communist world. In the late 1970s, China also embarked on major economic reforms, designed to win it great power status by the early twenty-first centuries. The volume addresses the long-term implications of Chinas choices for the outcome of the Cold War and in steering the global international outlook toward free-market capitalism. Decisions made in the 1970s are key to understanding the nature and policies of the Chinese state today and the worldview of current Chinese leaders. 

Priscilla Roberts spent over 30 years at the University of Hong Kong working in the Department of History.  She has published extensively on the Cold War, Anglo-American relations, Asian-Western relations, and international history.
Odd Arne Westad is the ST Lee Professor of US-Asia Relations at Harvard University, USA. His previous publications include The Global Cold War, which won the Bancroft Prize, and Restless Empire: China and the World since 1750, which won the Bernhard Schwartz Award from the Asia Society.

Chapter 1: Introduction: China and the Long 1970s: The Great Transformation; Priscilla Roberts.- Chapter 2: Untrusting and Untrusted: Maos China at the Crossroads, 1969; Sergey Radchenko.- Chapter 3: Building Chinas 1970s Green Revolution: Commune Responses to Population Growth, Decreasing Arable Land, and Capital Depreciation; Joshua Eisenman.- Chapter 4: China and South Asia in the 1970s: Contrasting Trajectories; Jon Wilson.- Chapter 5: Reimagining and Repositioning China in International Politics: The Role of Sports in Chinas Long 1970s.- Xu Guoqi.- Chapter 6: From Chinas Barefoot Doctor to Alma Ata: The Primary Health Care Movement in the Long 1970s; Zhou Xun.- Chapter 7: Chinas Economic Statecraft During the 1970s; Shu Guang Zhang.- Chapter 8: The Roots of a Globalized Relationship: Western Knowledge of the Chinese Economy and US-China Relations in the Long 1970s; Federico Pachetti.- Chapter 9: Sino-Australian Relations in the Long 1970s; Nicholas Thomas.- Chapter 10: 1967 as the Turning Point in Hong Kong-British-PRC Relations; Valeria Zanier and Roberto Peruzzi.- Chapter 11: Crisis or Opportunity? Britain, China, and the Decolonization of Hong Kong in the Long 1970s; Chi-kwan Mark.- Chapter 12: Bat lau dung laai: Shifting Hong Kong Perspectives Towards the Vietnamese Boat People; John D. Wong.- Chapter 13: Bringing the Chinese Back In: The Role of Quasi-Private Institutions in Britain and the United States; Priscilla Roberts.- Conclusion: China and the Long 1970s as a Field of Research; Odd Arne Westad.