Beijing, capital of the People's Republic of China, is one of the world's renowned ancient cultural centres. The past thirty and more years have witnessed the capital's rapid advance and enormous achievements in every area of work. In 1980 the Secretariat of the Party Central Committee put forward four directives regarding Beijing's construction after summing up past experience. Since then, the capital's modernization programme has gone into a new phase, advancing along a sound path of development. Recent years' reforms have brought Beijing political stability and solidarity, economic prosperity, scientific and cultural advancement and an ever-improving city environment. "Beijing, the Capital of China", offers readers a true and up-to-date picture of the ancient capital as it marches towards modernization at an impressive pace. Beijing is a developing city at present. In order to make Beijing more worthy of its name as the nation's political and cultural centre, we must...