China in the Nineties continues to be a source of fascination and controversy. Some observers concentrate entirely on human-rights issues and the events of Tiananmen Square in 1989. Others speculate on the future international influence of a country with one fifth of the world's population. James Hore-Ruthven recently visited the city of Tangshan, flattened by an earthquake in 1976. He tells one woman's story of suffering and of Rebuilding earthquake city

What an irony that the Chinese People's Republic, established only 40 years ago with considerable popular support, now faces such a popular uprising!

In his address, Bishop Wheeler spoke of meeting Frank Buchman, the initiator of Moral Re-Armament, in Oxford in the 1930s. `And, God forgive me, I did not take to the man,' he said. `Looking back, I think this must have been my loss... I began to see things in a different light when I read of the extraordinary achievement of postwar reconciliation brought about by his establishment and labours in the Mountain House at Caux in Switzerland.

Last year the Government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) for the first time allowed the establishment of political parties in opposition to the ruling National Party (Kuomintang). In December the Government lifted the prohibition of Chinese in Taiwan - provided they were not in the armed forces or government officials - from visiting relatives on the mainland.

My wife and I were back in the area and often met little groups of Tibetan refugees, straggling down through the Himalayan foothills, offering to sell their few possessions for Indian rupees. It was then I began to fear that the world might be losing a precious culture.