This issue features a political report from Zhou Enlai, which discusses the Five-Year Plan, the transformation of Chinese intellectuals, the United States, and Taiwan. It also conveys instructions from the Department of Higher Education, the Ministry of Health, the Sports Committee, and the New Democracy Youth League (later the Communist Youth League) to further develop sports in colleges and universities. Other sections cover various administrative concerns, including the division of districts in Shanghai, the establishment of Guixi Tong Autonomous Prefecture in Guangxi, and the transfer of towns from Jilin Province to Inner Mongolia.

The CIA's National Intelligence Daily for 18 May 1989 describes the latest developments in China, the Soviet Union, Ethiopia, Panama, El salvador, Venezuela, West Germany, Bolivia, Poland, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Philippines.

Socialist bloc ambassadors discuss China’s domestic and foreign policy, with some emphasis on Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Ambassadors to China from Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria, and Mongolia discuss the situations in Guangzhou and Shanghai, Chinese preparations for war, Chinese anti-Sovietism in the New Year Editorial, and Chinese foreign relations.

A Cultural Revolution-era newsletter from a group of Shanghai radicals denouncing North Korean leader Kim Il Sung.

An "Internal Reference" report on attitudes amongst students in Shanghai following China's entry into the Korean War.

Teimuraz Stepanov-Mamaladze diary entry describing his time in Shanghai during negotiations to normalize Soviet-Chinese relations. Notes that Shanghai, like Beijing, "is in the power of the student strikers," and speculates that the student strike is "seemingly heated up by [the Soviet delegation's] visit."

Teimuraz Stepanov-Mamaladze notebook from May 18 of visit to China. Describes a dinner in Shanghai.

An overview of sister-city ties between Japanese cities in the Kansai region, which has been traditionally the center of Chinese influence in Japan, and Chinese cities and provinces.