"This report provides the essential context for understanding China's modernization program and its impact on U.S. interests. It also offers some guidelines for U.S. policy, beginning first with a comprehensive review of what is known from the open, unclassified literature about China's nuclear weapons and strategic modernization program. Building on this foundation, the report then considers the alternative trajectories ahead for China's force modernization as well as the interests and perspectives informing China's plans. Central to this analysis is an understanding of how the U.S.-Russian offense/defense relationship - especially the movement toward ballistic missile defenses by the United States - influences China's modernization program. The study goes on to explore how modernization affects U.S. interests. The authors then elaborate a preliminary agenda for exploring with China the requirements of strategic stability in the emerging era and of testing Beijing's intention to continue some form of restraint in the years ahead."--BOOK JACKET.