The Fifteenth Party Congress of the Chinese communist Party was held on September 12, 1997. ts economic policy orientations included:continuing to push for further market-oriented reform; expanding its open door policy: keeping the economy stable and prosperous; establishing a share-holding system which will be a breakthrough method for state-owned enterprise reform; and diversifying the structure of ownership. The political implications of these policies include: economic reform and the open door policy continuing to be implemented in the post-Deng era; ideology having fewer limits for further market-oriented reform; the gap of policy preferences decreasing within Chinese leadership;the urgent necessity to solve the crisis of state-owned enterprise; and unbalanced economic and political reform。