The World: Chou: The Man in Charge

PEKING looms as a summit wreathed in mystery and uncertainty—and not only because no one can predict its outcome with any certainty. China is still emerging from the throes of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and muffled convulsions continue in the highest reaches of the regime. Who, in fact, rules China? So far as is known, there is no vertical hierarchy, no line of succession. There is Chairman Mao, 78, the Chinese revolution's ever more remote deity. Then there is Premier Chou Enlai, 73, the government's chief—and almost only —public presence.

President Nixon...