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Now in its 38th year, the biannual Guangzhou Trade Fair is China's biggest foreign-trade event. Last spring's fair hosted 2,700 Chinese businesses interested in foreign trade and generated nearly $6 billion in joint-venture contracts, mostly for the export of Chinese goods. Don't ignore the hundreds of smaller, regional, industry-specific trade fairs. Joe Leonardi personally trundles his company's booth from province to province. "What you get in China depends on who you are and who you know," he says. He brings his own interpreter to these events to ensure that he both understands and is understood. "There is simply no substitute for the personal touch," he says.

Resources: China Council for the Promotion of International Trade/China Chamber of International Commerce (202-244-3244) provides a list of trade-promotion offices in the United States and China.

Hal Plotkin is a writer based in Palo Alto, Calif., who specializes in international business.

Is it proper for U.S. entrepreneurs to do business in China?

The fourth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising -- this past June 4th -- was marked by demonstrations at Beijing University, and there were reports of disturbances elsewhere in China. Earlier this year, Levi Strauss & Co. severed its relationships with 30 contract sewing and finishing houses in China owing to what the company termed "pervasive violations of basic human rights." (Still, the company continues to purchase fabric from Chinese suppliers.) And U.S. customs officials have seized Chinese imports upon learning that the goods had been produced by Chinese prison laborers. Here are two opinions to consider:

Joe Leonardi, founder and president, Conveyant Systems Inc.:

"The best way to improve the human-rights situation in China is through increased business ties. There is now a much wider bandwidth of information available in China, and information is what leads to change. It's impossible for the state to censor what comes across a fax machine."

Ignatius Ding, chairman, Communications Committee, Silicon Valley for Democracy in China (408-446-2011):

"Simply doing business in China is not enough. U.S. companies must press the Chinese government for meaningful political reforms, including the protection of basic human rights. Without such protection, U.S. companies will continue to endure chaotic conditions and will suffer financially from the unresolved human-rights issues that will likely cost China its most-favored-nation status after July 1994."

The People's Republic of China

Population: 1.2 billion. Ninety-five cities have more than 1 million people. Five cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, and Wuhan) have more than 4 million people

Official language: Mandarin is the common written language throughout China, but there are many mutually unintelligible spoken dialects

Education: Compulsory through 6th grade. More than 4 million people are university graduates

Unemployment: 2.3% in 1992, according to official Chinese government figures

Gross domestic product: The International Monetary Fund estimates China's GDP at $1.66 trillion, making it the world's third-largest economy

Inflation: Nationwide, soared to 14.1% in the first quarter of 1993 (15.7% in major cities)

Joint ventures with U.S. and other foreign companies*: U.S. companies have invested in more than 2,000 projects in China, with a combined contract value in excess of $6 billion. The United States is the third-largest foreign investor in China, behind Hong Kong and Taiwan, and just ahead of Japan. In 1992 a total of 48,764 new foreign direct-investment projects, worth $58 billion, were initiated in China

Total merchandise imports (U.S. included)*: $80.6 billion in 1992, up 26.4% from 1991

Currency: The Foreign Exchange Certificate (FEC), a convertible scrip, was introduced in 1980 to control foreign-currency transactions. Recent market reforms now permit foreigners to use RMB, the nonconvertible local currency, for approved business transactions. Last July the U.S. dollar was trading officially for around 5.7 FEC and for RMB 8 to RMB 9

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