Starburst Over China takes Detective Jim Sato, a psychic cop, and Gilda Dobrowski, a small city psychic, back to StarCenter at Defense Intelligence Agency Headquarters to work on a Top Secret project to telepathically manipulate a Chinese bureaucrat in intelligence by applying their enhanced brainwaves as augmented by UB-X-00, a giant AI super computer, and Dr. Wayne Trunnell, its inventor. The plan is to stir up trouble–any kind of trouble–that the President of the United States can use in his dealings with China, the No. 2 power, in his bid to maintain U.S. hegemony.