It was apparently a close call, but the Chinese leadership decided in the last 24 hours that the Chinese premier, Mr Zhu Rongji, should after all go ahead with a long-planned visit to the United States next week, the first by a Chinese prime minister since the 1980s.
This is despite the NATO strike against Yugoslavia which China vehemently opposes and which on Thursday seemed to have derailed the visit. The Beijing leadership appears to have calculated that the postponement of the April 6th14th trip would further jeopardise China's already-strained policy of a "constructive strategic partnership" with the United States, which is a cornerstone of President Jiang Zemin's foreign policy.
This approach is now in crisis, and to break off the high level of dialogue between Washington and Beijing would have sent relations into a deeper trough. Sino-US ties have in fact been on a downward spiral for some time and reached a new low under the impact of the NATO action.
There were compelling arguments for Mr Zhu to stay at home. It would have sent a "wake-up call" to the White House that China was pursuing an independent course of international action, said Prof David Shambaugh, director of China policy at George Washington University, and one of the leading experts on Chinese-US relations, who was in Beijing yesterday. It could also have rescued Mr Zhu from a hostile climate in the US, with likely demonstrations over an accumulation of grievances, including human rights, Tibet, a missile build-up against Taiwan, a trade deficit, and alleged Chinese theft of nuclear technology.
A cancellation would moreover have avoided the prospect of coming away empty-handed. A complex deal between Beijing and Washington, opening the door for China to enter the World Trade Organisation, recently seemed tantalisingly close after weeks of to-ing and fro-ing between the two capitals, but hopes that it will be completed in time for Mr Zhu's five-city visit have faded.
The fact that Mr Zhu is going ahead shows that, despite the risks, China wants to prevent its main foreign policy goal collapsing, said a western ambassador. Driven by the importance of trade, the Chinese policy of close engagement with the US has been pursued by the Beijing leadership for half a decade. It reached its high point last year with the visit to China of President Clinton. This raised expectations to what many believe now were an unrealistic level. American policy has in turn been designed to integrate a rapidly-growing China into the world order and give it an interest in the international system.
Evidence of China's big stake in the US relationship could be found in the ambiguity of its actions since the strike against Yugoslavia began.
America's chief US trade negotiator, Ms Charlene Barshefsky, was in Beijing this week to try to finalise negotiations for China's entry into the WTO, as was US Commerce Secretary, Mr William Daley, and both got the usual Chinese red-carpet treatment. At the same time the leadership and the official media have been furiously attacking NATO and US actions.
Though no anti-American demonstrations have been tolerated or staged, as in other capitals, the mood among the Chinese is strongly critical of NATO.
All week the officially-controlled Chinese newspapers have blasted NATO for the assault on Yugoslavia. Newspaper editorials have charged the US with aggression and hypocrisy, and with the indiscriminate killing of Yugoslav civilians. Editorial writers have hailed President Milosevic as a latter-day Tito, a hero fighting against aggression.
Polls have been published to show that a big majority of Chinese are concerned and upset about the NATO action - hardly surprising given that people are only getting one side of the story.
There have been no reports in the Chinese media of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and the stream of Albanian refugees has been blamed on NATO bombing. The China Daily newspaper yesterday described the strikes as "detestable" and "hypocritical".
"Nothing can change the fact," it said, "that NATO has attacked and declared a de facto war against the sovereign state of Yugoslavia." In a swipe at President Clinton - the subject of a rash of mocking cartoons in Chinese newspapers - it asked "should the issue of sovereignty be decided arbitrarily by a head of a state of a far-flung country?"
The anti-American hostility expressed in the Chinese media reflects the fact that the communist Chinese leadership is in fact not just hostile to, but deeply disturbed by, developments in the Balkans.
Beijing has strongly opposed the use of force in international relations and this line has been pushed hard by President Jiang at international summits. It is now seen to be ineffective. China has been powerless to influence events in the Balkans. It has voiced opposition to military intervention at every occasion in the United Nations, to no avail. In following this line, it undoubtedly has its own interests uppermost in mind.
Approving intervention elsewhere would weaken Beijing's case, which it passionately advocates, that such issues as Tibet and Taiwan are of concern to the Chinese and no one else. The strike against Yugoslavia has thus, in the words of Mr Shambaugh, pitted American hegemony against Chinese nationalism. It comes against a background of increasing strains in the relationship on the Chinese side also.
Beijing is furious that the Clinton administration has decided, where Europe opted not to take any action, to table a motion censuring China's human rights record at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
It is angry that America is proposing a Theatre Missile Defence system for Japan and South Korea, a "star-wars" shield which would change the balance of strategic power in the Asia Pacific region in Washington's favour. If the anti-missile umbrella was extended to protect Taiwan, an idea which is mooted in Washington, China would see this as an encroachment on sovereignty and tensions would rise dangerously.