We study the sharp threshold for blow-up and global existence and the instability of standing wave eiωtuω(x) for the Davey–Stewartson system
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in ℝ3, where uω is a ground state. By constructing a type of cross-constrained variational problem and establishing so-called cross-invariant manifolds of the evolution flow, we derive a sharp criterion for global existence and blow-up of the solutions to (DS), which can be used to show that there exist blow-up solutions of (DS) arbitrarily close to the standing waves.