China-U.S. Relations: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy
Congressional research reportNov 20, 2009
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China-U.S. Relations: Current Issues and
Implications for U.S. Policy
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November 20, 2009
Congressional Research Service
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R40457
CRS Report for Congress
Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress
China-U.S. Relations: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy
Summary
The bilateral relationship between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is vitally
important, touching on a wide range of areas including, among others, economic policy, security,
foreign relations, and human rights. U.S. interests with China are bound together much more
closely now than even a few years ago. These extensive inter-linkages have made it increasingly
difficult for either government to take unilateral actions without inviting far-reaching, unintended
consequences. The Administration of President Barack Obama has inherited from the George W.
Bush Administration not only a greater array of policy mechanisms for pursuing U.S.-China
policy, but a more complex and multifaceted U.S.-China relationship where the stakes are higher
and where U.S. action may increasingly be constrained.
Economically, the United States and China have become symbiotically intertwined. China is the
second-largest U.S. trading partner, with total U.S.-China trade in 2008 reaching an estimated
$409 billion. It also is the second largest holder of U.S. securities and the largest holder of U.S.
Treasuries used to finance the federal budget deficit, positioning China to play a crucial role, for
good or ill, in the Obama Administration’s plans to address the recession and the deteriorating
U.S. financial system. At the same time, China’s own substantial levels of economic growth have
depended heavily on continued U.S. investment and trade, making China’s economy highly
vulnerable to a significant economic slowdown in the United States.
Meanwhile, other bilateral problems provide a continuing set of diverse challenges. They include
difficulties over the status and well-being of Taiwan, ongoing disputes over China’s failure to
protect U.S. intellectual property rights, the economic advantage China gains from not floating its
currency, and growing concerns about the quality and safety of products exported by China.
China’s more assertive foreign policy and continued military development also have significant
long-term implications for U.S. global power and influence. Some U.S. lawmakers have
suggested that U.S. policies toward China should be reassessed in light of these trends.
During the Bush Administration, the U.S. and China cultivated regular high-level visits and
exchanges of working level officials, resumed military-to-military relations, cooperated on antiterror initiatives, and worked closely on the Six Party Talks to restrain and eliminate North
Korea’s nuclear weapons activities. These and other initiatives of engagement are likely to
continue in some fashion during the Obama presidency. Obama Administration officials already
have made known their views about China’s importance for U.S. interests. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton included China in her first official trip abroad as Secretary in February 2009,
which included stops in Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, and China (February 20-22). In addition,
the Administration established a new Strategic and Economic Dialogue with the PRC in 2009,
and President Obama in November 2009 made his first official visit to China.
This report addresses relevant policy questions in current U.S.-China relations, discusses trends
and key legislation in the current Congress, and provides a chronology of developments and highlevel exchanges. It will be updated as events warrant. Additional details on the issues discussed
here are available in other CRS products, noted throughout this report. For background
information and legislative action during the 110th Congress, see CRS Report RL33877, ChinaU.S. Relations in the 110th Congress: Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy, by (name
redacted). CRS products can be found on the CRS website at http://www.crs.gov/.
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China-U.S. Relations: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy
Contents
Recent Developments..................................................................................................................1
Background and Overview ..........................................................................................................1
China’s Importance and Implications for U.S. Policy.............................................................2
Current Issues in U.S.-China Relations........................................................................................3
President Obama State Visit to China, 2009.....................................................................3
Chinese Tire Imports.............................................................................................................4
Global Financial Crisis..........................................................................................................4
Uighur Protests in Xinjiang: July 2009 ..................................................................................5
Military and National Security Issues ....................................................................................6
South China Sea Incidents...............................................................................................7
China’s Growing Military Power.....................................................................................7
PRC Space Activities ......................................................................................................8
Economic and Trade Issues ...................................................................................................9
Currency Valuation .........................................................................................................9
Unfair Trade Subsidies .................................................................................................. 10
Intellectual Property Rights ........................................................................................... 10
Concerns about Product Safety............................................................................................ 11
Tibet ................................................................................................................................... 12
U.S.-PRC Official Dialogues............................................................................................... 13
The Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) ............................................................. 13
Taiwan ................................................................................................................................ 15
Prospects for U.S. Taiwan Policy................................................................................... 16
U.S. Arms Sales to Taiwan ............................................................................................ 16
Taiwan’s Bid for U.N. Observer Status.......................................................................... 17
Resumption of PRC-Taiwan Talks................................................................................. 18
China’s Foreign Relations ................................................................................................... 20
Environmental Issues .......................................................................................................... 22
Domestic Political Issues..................................................................................................... 23
Social Stability.............................................................................................................. 23
Human Rights ............................................................................................................... 24
China-Related Legislation in the 111th Congress ........................................................................ 26
Chronology of Events ............................................................................................................... 29
Appendixes
Appendix A. Selected Visits by U.S. and PRC Officials............................................................. 32
Appendix B. Selected U.S. Government Reporting Requirements.............................................. 34
Contacts
Author Contact Information ...................................................................................................... 36
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China-U.S. Relations: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy
Recent Developments
November 15-18, 2009—President Obama made his first official visit to China. During the visit,
President Obama and PRC President Hu Jintao released a Joint Statement on U.S. and PRC
interests in the 21st century.
October 5, 2009—The Dalai Lama arrived in Washington as part of a U.S. visit which will not
include a meeting with President Barack Obama. According to the White House, a meeting with
the Dalai Lama will be postponed until after the President’s November trip to China to meet with
PRC President Hu Jintao.
October 4, 2009—PRC Premier Wen Jiabao began a three-day, high-profile “goodwill” visit to
North Korea.
October 1, 2009—The PRC celebrated the 60th anniversary of its founding, with celebrations
including a massive military parade showcasing the latest military technology.
September 26, 2009—Beijing announced it would ease restrictions on foreign investments in the
culture industry, to include film, publishing, entertainment, online games, and multi-media.
Background and Overview
The Administration of President Barack Obama has inherited from the George W. Bush
Administration a relationship with China that is smoother than in the past, but also has grown
significantly more complex, multifaceted, and intertwined. During the Bush Administration,
Washington and Beijing cultivated regular high-level visits and exchanges of working level
officials, resumed military-to-military relations, cooperated on anti-terror initiatives, and worked
closely on the Six Party Talks to restrain and eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons activities.
These and other initiatives of engagement are likely to continue in some fashion under the Obama
Administration. In addition, the Obama Administration has indicated that it would like to forge
greater cooperation with China on the international financial crisis, global climate change, and a
range of security interests. These issues were the points of focus during Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton’s first official trip to China in February 2009.1
Despite these new avenues of cooperation, ongoing bilateral issues provide a constant set of
challenges for U.S. policymakers. They include difficulties over the status and well-being of
Taiwan, ongoing disputes over China’s failure to protect U.S. intellectual property rights, China’s
economic and trade policies, and growing concerns about the quality and safety of exported PRC
products. The PRC’s more assertive foreign policy and continued military development also have
significant long-term implications for U.S. global power and influence and have been of concern
to U.S. policymakers. Some U.S. lawmakers have suggested that U.S. policies toward the PRC
perhaps should be reassessed in light of these trends.
1
Secretary Clinton left for Asia on February 15, 2009, and made stops in Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, and China
(February 20-22).
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China’s Importance and Implications for U.S. Policy
Many U.S. observers have become increasingly concerned about China’s growing economic and
political reach in the world, often referred to as “China’s rise,” and what it means for global U.S.
economic and political interests. Some in this debate believe China’s growing global power and
influence is a malign threat that needs to be thwarted; others believe that it is an inevitable
phenomenon that needs to be guided and managed. Complicating this debate are the effects of
globalization, which have bound together U.S. and PRC interests much more closely than in the
1990s. These extensive inter-linkages make it increasingly difficult for either government to take
unilateral actions without inviting far-reaching, unintended consequences that could adversely
affect other policy interests. Like the 110th Congress before it, the 111th Congress is facing
recurring issues involving this debate and what policies and approaches may best serve and
protect a broad range of U.S. interests.
This policy debate is animated by continuing uncertainty over how China ultimately may choose
to wield its rising capabilities. According to one school of thought, China’s economic and
political rise in the world is inevitable and needs to be accommodated and managed. In this view,
as China becomes more economically interdependent with the international community, it will
have a greater stake in pursuing stable international economic relationships. China has a vested
interest, for instance, in cooperating on ways to address the global economic crisis by helping to
craft a new international financial system. Growing wealth in the PRC also is likely to encourage
Chinese society to move in directions that will develop a materially better-off, more educated,
and cosmopolitan populace. Such a populace, according to this view, is likely to be more
conservative and more desirous of avoiding conflict with the United States. Already, say such
proponents, these developments have led China’s population to press its government for greater
political pluralism, transparency, and inclusiveness—key U.S. objectives—and this trend is likely
to continue as China’s capabilities grow.
From this perspective, U.S. policy should seek to work more closely with the PRC, not only to
encourage these positive long-term trends, but to seek ways to mutually benefit by cooperating on
important global issues such as the international financial system, alternative energy sources,
climate change, and medical research. Ultimately, some proponents of this view say, the United
States simply will have to make room for the economic and political appetites of the superpower
that China is likely to become. Viewing the PRC as a “threat” or attempting to contain it, these
proponents say, could produce disastrous policy consequences. In addition to possible military
conflict with the PRC, these consequences could include the possible creation of greater Chinese
nationalism with a strong anti-American bias, a breakdown in PRC governance, the bolstering of
party power and subsequent retrenchment of reforms, and/or an increasingly isolated United
States that the international community may see as out of step with global trends.
Other proponents of the “inevitability” of China’s rise especially stress the extreme competitive
challenges of China’s growing power. They say these challenges, even if benign, pose potentially
huge consequences for U.S. global interests. Beijing officials, say this group, view the world as a
state-centered, competitive environment where power is respected, and are determined to use the
means at their disposal to increase their nation’s wealth, power, and influence in a largely
opportunistic fashion. A militarily muscular China with substantial international economic ties
will be able to exercise considerable political power that could prompt U.S. friends and allies to
make different choices, eroding U.S. influence around the world. These observers charge that the
PRC already is exploiting the international financial crisis to strengthen its access to international
energy sources and other commodities. The United States, they argue, should develop a
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comprehensive strategic plan in order to counter China’s growing power by strengthening its
existing regional alliances and making new ones, expanding overseas investments, sharpening
American global competitiveness, and maintaining a robust military presence in Asia and
elsewhere as a counterweight to growing PRC power and influence.
Others in the American policy debate see malign factors at work in China’s growing power. PRC
leaders, they argue, may be portraying their growth as a “peaceful rise” with no harmful
consequences, but actually they are biding their time, simply conforming to many international
norms as a strategy while China is still weak. In reality, these proponents say, Beijing seeks at
least to erode and at best to supplant U.S. international power and influence. In conducting their
international relations, they maintain, Chinese leaders seek to cause rifts in U.S. alliances, create
economic interdependence with U.S. friends, and arm U.S. enemies. Despite the statements of
support for the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign, according to this view, the PRC’s repeated
violations of its non-proliferation commitments actually have contributed to strengthening nations
that harbor global terrorists. Furthermore, they maintain that the PRC under its current
authoritarian form of government is inherently a threat to U.S. interests, and that the PRC
political system needs to change dramatically before the United States has any real hope of
reaching a constructive relationship with it. From this perspective, U.S. policy should focus on
mechanisms to change the PRC from within while remaining vigilant and attempting to contain
PRC foreign policy actions and economic relationships around the world where these threaten
U.S. interests.
Current Issues in U.S.-China Relations
With this broad array of difficult and challenging policy choices in mind, U.S.-China relations
today are defined by a comprehensive list of bilateral and multilateral issues. Some of these
remain key irritants in the relationship, while others are rooted in significant inter-dependence
and mutual benefit. Likewise, some are characterized by vigorous competition, while others are
founded on bilateral and multilateral cooperation.
President Obama State Visit to China, 2009
President Barack Obama made his first official state visit to China on November 15-18, 2009.
The visit resulted in a U.S.-China Joint Statement discussing the importance of the relationship,
highlighting its key accomplishments, and enumerating in what areas the two sides seek further
cooperation. 2 These last areas included cooperation on increased educational exchanges; global
economic recovery; and climate change, energy, and the environment.
U.S. officials described the President’s discussions in China as having achieved progress on many
issues, and some officials appeared frustrated that the visit did not receive more uniformly
positive press coverage. 3 Some human rights activists and Chinese dissidents expressed
disappointment that the visit had not met their expectations. They criticized the discussion
agenda, for instance, for focusing on economic and financial issues and by-passing human rights
2
See U.S.-China Joint Statement, November 17, 2009, Office of the Press Secretary, The White House. See text at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/us-china-joint-statement.
3
U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, for example, said that some of the reporting was “off the mark.” Bodeen,
Christopher, “U.S. envoy pans media coverage of Obama China visit,” Associated Press, November 20, 2009.
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issues, Iran’s nuclear program, and progress on North Korea. According to one news account,
several dissidents in China said they had been detained by police after seeking a meeting with
President Obama in Beijing.4 According to another press account, President Obama did raise
human rights issues in his discussions, in particular the case of American geologist Xue Feng who
had been detained several years earlier, charged with stealing state secrets, for signing a contract
to purchase a commercial geological database.5
Chinese Tire Imports
On September 11, 2009, the White House, on the June 2009 recommendation of the International
Trade Commission (ITC), imposed increased tariffs on Chinese tires for three years effective
September 26, 2009, at rates of 35% in the first year, 30% in the second year, and 25% in the
third year. This decision represents a departure from the previous administration of President
George W. Bush, which denied import relief in six previous cases of petitions filed under section
421. The petition for import relief was first filed on April 20, 2009, by the United Steel, Paper and
Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International
Union. China has requested consultations with the United States under the World Trade
Organization’s (WTO) Dispute Settlement Understanding.6
Global Financial Crisis7
With the continued troubles in the U.S. financial system, the PRC is positioned to play a crucial
role in any policy that Congress and the Obama Administration design to address the U.S.
economic problems. 8 China has amassed a huge supply of foreign exchange reserves, totaling
$1.9 trillion as of December 2008, and the Chinese central government has become an ever more
important purchaser of U.S. Treasuries and other U.S. debt. The financial rescue and economic
stimulus program thus far enacted—and any further program that may be needed for the U.S.
economy—will require a substantial level of new U.S. government borrowing, with China
positioned to be a major purchaser of this new U.S. government debt. Some U.S. policymakers
have expressed concern that this poses an economic risk to the United States should China’s
foreign exchange purchase patterns change, and a political risk should China use this position to
seek advantages on other bilateral issues.
Some are worried that China may be re-thinking its policy on purchasing U.S. Treasuries. In a
January 2009 statement in London, PRC Premier Wen Jiabao said, “Whether we will buy more
U.S. Treasuries, and if so, how much—we should make that decision according to China’s own
needs ... ”9 U.S. observers and Members of Congress also have raised concerns that other PRC
initiatives, such as the new sovereign wealth fund it established in 2007, signal that PRC officials
4
5
Branigan, Tania, “Chinese activists detained after seeking Obama meeting,” guardian.co.uk, November 20, 2009.
Hutzler, Charles, “China holds, mistreats U.S. geologist,” Associated Press, November 20, 2009.
6
See CRS Report R40844, Chinese Tire Imports: Section 421 Safeguards and the World Trade Organization (WTO),
by (name redacted), Legislative Attorney, American Law Division.
7
See CRS Report RS22984, China and the Global Financial Crisis: Implications for the United States, by (name red
acted).
8
See CRS Report RL34742, The Global Financial Crisis: Analysis and Policy Implications, coordinated by (name re
dacted).
9
“China’s Wen wants review of U.S. bond purchases,” Nikkei Report, English, February 3, 2009.
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may be interested in changing their investment strategies. 10 The PRC also is implementing a $586
billion stimulus package for its own slowing economy, ostensibly designed to build major
infrastructure projects, which may draw investment away from U.S. Treasuries. The plan has
been criticized by some in China who say that its lack of project details or spending safeguards is
an invitation for corruption, misuse, and malfeasance. According to one western news account, a
group of Party elders has pressed the senior leadership on the need to establish oversight and
accountability for the recovery spending program. 11 China’s stimulus plans pose other
complications for U.S. officials, who have long pushed Beijing to stimulate Chinese domestic
consumption, but now have the added complication of needing Chinese capital.
The scope of the current financial crisis suggests that global economic decision-making in the
future is moving beyond the confines of the smaller “G” groups and into the broader arena of the
Group of 20 (G20) countries, where China and other growing economies participate.12 PRC
President Hu Jintao participated in a G20 summit meeting in Washington, DC, on November 15,
2008, held to discuss the financial crisis, and also in the G20 meeting in London on April 2, 2009.
(Hu cancelled his plans to attend the G8 meeting in Italy in July 2009 because of unrest in
China’s Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region.) There are reports of increasing demands in PRC
publications that China be a key player in helping to shape a new international financial system.13
Nevertheless, China’s broad approach to global economic policy remains unclear.
Uighur Protests in Xinjiang: July 2009
For years, the PRC government has maintained repressive security measures and policies
restricting religious and ethnic practice in the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region. These are
directed primarily against members of a Muslim ethnic minority, the Uighurs. The PRC
government has sought to justify such policies by arguing that some Uighur groups seek to
establish an independent state in Xinjiang, and that these groups are acting as part of the global
anti-terrorism campaign. U.S. officials have warned that the anti-terror campaign should not be
used to persecute Uighurs or other minorities with political grievances against Beijing, although
the U.S. government appeared to make a concession to Beijing on August 26, 2002, when it
announced that it was placing one small group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, on the U.S.
list of terrorist groups.14
The most serious Chinese confrontation with its Uighur minority to date occurred over a period of
days beginning July 5, 2009, when a group of 1,000 Uighurs reportedly began to demonstrate
peacefully in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumchi, to protest PRC policies toward Uighurs. Among other
10
See CRS Report RL34337, China’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, by (name redacted).
Ansfield, Jonathan, “Party elders press for checks on China’s stimulus plan,” New York Times, March 4, 2009, p. 8.
12
The “G-7” is comprised of the developed countries of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom,
and the United States; “G-20” members include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Great Britain, Canada, China, the
European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, South
Korea, Turkey, and the United States.
13
A Hong Kong news editorial on February 15, 2009, issued a call for China to use the financial crisis to “ ... help
shape the world’s agenda, which have long been dominated by the rich and powerful west.” A member of China’s
Academy of Social Sciences opined that China should “demand G7 members to acknowledge its market economy
status in an effort to promote a new international financial system.” Both cited in “Confident diplomacy signals China’s
emergence as key global player,” FEA20090303824089, OSC Feature, BBC Monitoring, March 3, 2009.
14
The 107th Congress considered a number of human rights resolutions relating to the PRC. For relevant bills, see the
“China-Related Legislation in the 111th Congress” section of this report.
11
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things, the protesters were objecting to the way PRC authorities handled a June 2009 incident at a
factory in Guangdong Province in which ethnic Han Chinese workers allegedly attacked Uighur
workers, killing at least two. Amidst an increasingly heavy police presence, the protests turned
violent, resulting ultimately in the reported deaths of 156 people and the injury of 1,000. In the
ensuing days, additional incidents were reported that indicated long-simmering ethnic tensions
were boiling over, including a reported march by large numbers of armed Han Chinese vigilantes
apparently intent on revenge for the initial protests.15
PRC authorities have reacted aggressively to counter the demonstrations and further unrest. All
the protest efforts reportedly have been countered by paramilitary troops and riot police.
According to unconfirmed reports, PRC authorities have arrested over a thousand people,
imposed curfews, and cut Internet access and other information sources to major parts of
Urumchi.16 Citing the intensity and apparent spread of the protests to other cities such as Kashgar,
and Yili, PRC President, Hu Jintao cancelled his plans to attend the G-8 summit in Italy and
instead returned to China.17 At least one U.S. China analyst has found Hu’s decision to return to
China a worrisome sign about the state of political decision-making, crisis-management abilities,
and civilian control of the military in China.18
The July 2009 protests highlight increasing tensions and resentments between the majority Han
Chinese population and its ethnic Uighur and other minorities – tensions which some observers
believe the PRC exacerbates by its harsh responses to such expressions of social disaffection.
PRC officials see the aspirations of ethnic minorities for greater autonomy to be expressions of
outright separatism or even advocacy for independence from China. Consequently, PRC officials
impose restrictive policies in Xinjiang at which many Uighurs chafe, including the enforcement
of limits on religious practice, emphasis of education instruction in the Chinese language instead
of the Uighur language, and perceived greater employment preferences and economic benefit for
Han Chinese immigrants over the local Uighur population. Many Han Chinese, however, see
Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in China as being given unfair advantages over the ethnic
Chinese majority, including affirmative action in determining university placement, provision of
housing benefits at remote job sites, and waivers of the “one-child” policy that applies to the
majority Chinese population.
Military and National Security Issues19
For some years, U.S. officials in the executive branch and in Congress have voiced both private
and public concerns about China’s expanding military budget, and other issues potentially
involving U.S. national security. U.S. security concerns include the ultimate focus of China’s
military build-up; lack of PRC military transparency; recurring instances of apparent PRC
15
Wong, Edward, “New clashes in Chinese city shed strong light on ethnic divide,” New York Times, July 6, 2009, p. 4.
Oster, Shai and Dean, Jason, “Han mobs seek revenge after riot – Chinese with makeshift weapons hunt Uighurs
amid massive security presence in Urumqi,” The Wall Street Journal, Asia, July 8, 2009, p. 1.
17
Cha, Ariana Eunjung, “As unrest spreads, Chinese president skips summit; clashes continue in western city amid
crackdown,” Washington Post, July 8, 2009, p. A01.
18
A view of Drew Thompson, Director of China Studies at the Nixon Center in Washington DC.
19
See the following CRS reports: CRS Report RL33153, China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy
Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress, by (name redacted); CRS Report RL32496, U.S.-China Military
Contacts: Issues for Congress; and CRS Report RL31555, China and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction
and Missiles: Policy Issues, both by Shirley Kan.
16
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attempts to gain U.S. military secrets; evidence of improving PRC military and technological
prowess; and PRC military and technological assistance to rogue states and other international
bad actors. Although the United States and PRC maintain some degree of high-level dialogue on
military matters—and in fact resumed deputy-ministerial defense consultations in June 2009 after
an 18-month hiatus—this is the aspect of the relationship that is most marked by lack of
communication and mistrust of each others’ motives.
South China Sea Incidents
On March 9, 2009, the Pentagon reported that PRC ships and aircraft operating in the South
China Sea had been acting in increasingly aggressive ways toward two U.S. Navy ocean
surveillance ships operating in the area, the USNS Impeccable and the USNS Victorious. The
U.S. vessels reportedly were operating about 75 miles south of Hainan Island, home to the PRC’s
Yulin Naval Base, where China has been operating new ballistic missile and nuclear attack
submarines. According to reports, the PRC ships at one point approached to within 25 feet of the
USNS Impeccable, halted abruptly in its path forcing an emergency stop, and dropped pieces of
wood in the U.S. ship’s path. Some observers were particularly troubled that such a confrontation
occurred just a week after military negotiations with the PRC on February 27-28, 2009, that the
Under-Secretary of Defense for East Asia, David Sedney, described as the best negotiations in
which he had participated. 20
The United States lodged a protest with the PRC government about the harassment, saying the
USNS Impeccable ship had been operating in international waters. The Pentagon reported it had
dispatched a guided-missile destroyer, the USS Chung-Hoon, to the South China Sea to escort the
USNS Impeccable as it continued its surveillance. 21 Under the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law
of the Sea, a country’s territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles and its “Exclusive Economic
Zone” (EEZ) extends 200 nautical miles from its coast. Under the U.N. Convention, vessels from
other countries are allowed free navigation in a country’s EEZ, including freedom to fish, lay
pipelines and cables, and conduct scientific research. It is within this EEZ that the USNS
Impeccable was operating. In the March 2009 incident, PRC officials claimed that as a military
vessel, the USNS Impeccable’s activities violate the U.N. Convention’s EEZ provisions.
Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 10, 2009, Director of National
Intelligence Dennis C. Blair testified that in recent years, the PRC has become “ ... more
aggressive in asserting claims for the EEZ which are excessive under almost any international
code.” The March 2009 maritime incidents reflect the increasing potential dangers of China’s
expanding military operations in areas where U.S. military forces routinely operate.
China’s Growing Military Power
In its annual, congressionally mandated report on China’s Military Power (most recently released
on March 25, 2009) the Pentagon concluded that the pace and scope of China’s military
modernization has increased in recent years, and includes “acquisition of advanced foreign
weapons, continued high rates of investment in its domestic defense and science and technology
industries, and far-reaching organizational and doctrinal reforms ... ”22 In March 2009, the PRC
20
Wines, Michael, “U.S. praises military talks with China,” New York Times, March 2, 2009, p. 2.
Tyson, Ann Scott, “Destroyer to protect ship near China,” The Washington Post, March 13, 2009, p. A12.
22
See http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/China_Military_Power_Report_2009.pdf (The cited language is identical
(continued...)
21
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announced that it would increase its military budget during the year by 14.9% over 2008 (to
480.69 billion RMB, or about $70.2 billion), making this the 21st year of double digit increases in
PRC military spending. 23
U.S. military planners and other American military specialists maintain that PRC improvements
appear largely focused on a Taiwan contingency and on strategies to “deny access” to the military
forces of a third party—most probably the United States—in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.
The report maintains that this build-up poses a long-term threat to Taiwan and ultimately to the
U.S. military presence in Asia. The report also highlights U.S. concerns about how little is known
of the motivations, decision-making processes, or capabilities of the PRC’s military. The PRC
released its most recent defense white paper, entitled China’s National Defense in 2008, on
January 20, 2009.24 (Appendix B of this CRS report contains a list, legislative authority, and text
links for selected mandated U.S. government reports on China, including the report on China’s
Military Power.)
PRC Space Activities
On January 11, 2007, the PRC carried out its first successful anti-satellite (ASAT) test by
destroying one of its moribund orbiting weather satellites with a ballistic missile fired from the
ground. Previously, only the United States and the Soviet Union had conducted successful ASAT
tests—tests both countries reportedly halted more than 20 years ago because of resulting space
debris that could endanger other orbiting satellites. U.S. officials reportedly received no advance
notice from Beijing, nor did Chinese officials publicly confirm the ASAT test until January 24,
2007, 13 days after the event and almost a week after the U.S. government had publicly revealed
the PRC test.25
China’s ASAT test is illustrative of the country’s ambitious and growing space program. In the
21st century, China has become only the third country, after Russia and the United States, to send
manned flights into space—the first on October 15, 2003 (Shenzhou 5), with a single astronaut
orbiting the earth; the second on October 11, 2005 (Shenzhou 6), with two astronauts;26 and the
third on September 25, 2008 (Shenzhou 7) with three astronauts after the 2008 Olympic Games.
This latter mission included a space walk and the reported release of a small “companion”
satellite into orbit, a move with potential military implications.27 Meanwhile, China’s official
space plans include a three-stage lunar program, to include landing a rover on the moon by 2012
and launching a manned lunar mission by 2020. China completed the first of the three stages on
October 24, 2007, launching its first unmanned lunar probe, the Chang’e 1 orbiter, aboard a Long
March 3A rocket.
(...continued)
to language in the 2008 report: see http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/China_Military_Report_08.pdf.
23
Er Shan, “NPC spokesman Li Zhaoxing: China’s military spending will increase this year,” Hong Kong Zhongguo
Tongxun She in Chinese, translated in FBIS, CPP20090304004007, March 4, 2009.
24
See full text at http://www.gov.cn/english/official/2009-01/20/content_1210227.htm
25
See CRS Report RS22652, China’s Anti-Satellite Weapon Test, by (name redacted).
26
China’s manned space program was begun in 1992.
27
Sargent, Sara, “China’s space launch raises fears,” United Press International, October 3, 2008.
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Noted American space experts have suggested that China’s space program should not be viewed
in isolation, but as part of a comprehensive drive to achieve “great power status.”28 In addition to
serving national security needs, China’s space activities act as a multiplier for science and
technological innovation, a vehicle for generating high-tech jobs, a diplomatic tool
internationally, and a growing source of nationalist pride. China is emerging as an international
competitor in the market for satellite sales, satellite data-sharing, and launch services. 29 The U.S.China Joint Statement issued during President Barack Obama’s state visit to China in November
2009 included a reference to expanding discussions on space science cooperation and “starting a
dialogue on human space flight and space exploration.”30
Economic and Trade Issues31
Economic and trade issues remain extremely complicated and are a lingering source of contention
in U.S.-China relations. The PRC remains the second-largest U.S. trading partner, with total U.S.China trade in 2008 at $409 billion. In addition to the substantial and growing U.S. trade deficit
with China (which climbed to $266 billion in 2008), bilateral issues include repeated PRC
inability or unwillingness to protect U.S. intellectual property rights and the PRC’s trade and
currency policies. Issues involving allegations about tainted or faulty PRC exports to the United
States are dealt with elsewhere in this report.
Currency Valuation
On April 15, 2009, the U.S. Treasury Department released its latest, congressionally mandated,
semi-annual report on international exchange rates.32 As in previous reports, the report concluded
that China’s economy was out of balance—overly dependent on exports and with weak consumer
spending at home—but that the country’s large new fiscal stimulus package is aimed at
rebalancing the economy by encouraging domestic consumption. Treasury declined to cite China
as a currency manipulator. This was a significant departure from the statement made by Secretary
of the Treasury-designate Timothy Geithner during his confirmation hearing on January 21, 2009,
when he stated that China is “manipulating its currency ... ”—a more loaded term than previous
U.S. administration officials had used. Both Vice President Biden and President Obama later
backed away from Geithner’s assertion.33
U.S. concern about China’s exchange rate policies have been building for several years. Formerly,
the PRC pegged its currency, the renminbi (RMB), to the U.S. dollar at a rate of about 8.3 RMB
to the dollar—a valuation that many U.S. policymakers concluded kept the PRC’s currency
28
See, for instance, writings by Dean Cheng, a specialist on China’s space program with the Center for Naval Analysis;
Kevin Pollpeter, China Program Manager of Defense Group Inc.’s Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis; and
Scott Pace, Director of the Space Policy Institute at the George Washington University.
29
Day, Dwayne A., “The new path to space: India and China enter the game,” The Space Review, October 13, 2008.
30
U.S.-China Joint Statement, ibid.
31
See CRS Report RL33536, China-U.S. Trade Issues, by (name redacted).
32
The Treasury report can be found at http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/reports/
fxreportfinalfor%20webapril152009.pdf.
33
Vice President Biden was quoted in a CNBC interview on January 29, 2009 as saying, “There’s been no judgment
based in the administration that there has been a manipulation. That word triggers within trade agreements certain
responses.” President Obama reportedly gave his reassurances in a telephone call to PRC President Hu Jintao. “Obama
backing down on China,” in The China Post, English, February 4, 2008.
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undervalued, making PRC exports artificially cheap and making it hard for U.S. producers to
compete. U.S. critics of the PRC’s currency peg charged that the PRC unfairly manipulated its
currency, and they urged Beijing either to raise the RMB’s value or to make it freely convertible
subject to market forces. On July 1, 2005, the PRC changed its currency valuation method,
allowing the RMB to float within a specified range against a basket of currencies.
The resulting 22% appreciation in the RMB, which traded at 6.8 RMB to the dollar in early
March 2009, from this action have not been sufficient to assuage ongoing U.S. congressional
concerns.34 Since August 1, 2007, both the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Banking,
Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee have reported legislation addressing currency exchange
rate issues.35
Unfair Trade Subsidies
U.S. allegations that the PRC unfairly subsidizes some of its exports also have led to contentious
bilateral trade issues. The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) filed a case against China in the
WTO in December 2008 charging that the PRC’s “Famous Chinese” brand program amounted to
unfair export subsidies to promote PRC products overseas. On March 20, 2007, the U.S.
Department of Commerce announced a preliminary decision to apply countervailing duties (an
anti-subsidy remedy) to two PRC companies exporting “coated free sheet” (glossy) paper to the
United States. The announcement broke with a 23-year U.S. policy, adopted in 1984, of not
applying U.S. countervailing duty laws to non-market economies. Citing a 177% increase in
imports of PRC glossy paper products from 2005-2006, then-Secretary of Commerce Carlos M.
Gutierrez said that the PRC economy had evolved significantly in the last two decades and that
U.S. tools to address unfair competition needed to evolve in response. The move signaled a new
U.S. willingness to be assertive in challenging PRC trade policies and suggests that other
American industries affected by the PRC’s exports, such as textiles, steel, and plastics, may soon
be seeking similar remedies. Beijing sharply criticized the U.S. move.
Intellectual Property Rights
China’s failure to live up to many of its World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments to
protect intellectual property rights (IPR) has become one of the most important issues in U.S.China bilateral trade. According to calculations from U.S. industry sources, IPR piracy cost U.S.
firms $3 billion in lost sales in 2007, and the IPR piracy rate in China for software products was
estimated at around 82% in 2006 – compared with 92% in 2003.36 The Motion Pictures
Association of America, Inc. has charged that China may be blocking the import of American
films, creating more opportunities for pirated versions to circulate in China. On April 25, 2008,
the U.S. Trade Representative issued its Special 301 report stating that many counterfeit products
from China, including pharmaceuticals, electronics, and toys, posed a threat to U.S. and global
consumers. In 2007, the USTR filed several cases in the WTO: one alleging that the PRC had
34
See CRS Report RS21625, China’s Currency: A Summary of the Economic Issues, by (name redacted) and (name
redacted).
35
The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs reported S. 1677, the Currency Reform and
Financial Markets Access Act of 2007; the Senate Finance Committee reported S. 1607, the Currency Exchange Rate
Oversight Reform Act of 2007.
36
“PC Software piracy rate in China drops 10% in three years, 864 million dollars in losses was saved,” Business
Software Alliance survey, May 15, 2007. http://w3.bsa.org/china/press/newsreleases/2007-global-piracy-study-eng.cfm
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failed to comply with its commitments under the WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights agreement (TRIPS); and one charging that the PRC failed to provide adequate
market access to U.S. products.37
Concerns about Product Safety38
Since early 2007, China has been plagued with reports of tainted and unsafe food and consumer
products. New complaints emerged in March 2009 about PRC-made drywall which is suspected
to be emitting corrosive gases. 39 In September 2008, concerns began to mount about infant
formula and milk powder in China tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical that makes
products appear more protein-rich. Amid an extensive public outcry after some babies died and an
estimated 294,000 babies were sickened by the milk products, the PRC government took
increasingly assertive measures to close down suspect producers and make arrests. On October 9,
2008, Beijing announced it was imposing limits of 1 milligram of melamine per kilogram in
infant formula and 2.5 milligrams per kilogram in liquid milk. Among other related actions, PRC
officials have initiated nation-wide inspections of various products and have arrested officials
found to have violated product safety standards, sentencing at least two to death.40 On December
16, 2008, the PRC government issued a list of 17 additional banned food additives, including lye,
boric acid, and formaldehyde. Leaders in Beijing appear concerned about the implications that
product recalls may have regarding the reputation of PRC products, and new policies have been
announced periodically to address consumer product safety concerns.
Initial questions about the safety of imported products from China surfaced in March and April
2007, when an investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) linked tainted
PRC exports of pet food with wheat gluten to reports of pet deaths from kidney failure in the
United States. The pet food contamination was the beginning of a series of well publicized recalls
of PRC imported products including fish, tires, toothpaste, and toys.
Bilateral efforts on the quality of Chinese exports to the United States have been underway for
several years. In 2004, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and China’s General
Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine (AQSIQ) signed a
memorandum of understanding (MOU) to cooperate on increasing the public safety of specific
consumer products, including clothing, toys, cigarette and multipurpose lighters, home
appliances, hazardous chemical consumer products, and bicycle helmets. The two agencies held
their first biennial Consumer Product Safety Summit (CPSS) in Beijing in 2005, and the second
biennial CPSS meeting in Washington on September 11, 2007. The tentative target time-frame for
the third meeting, to be held in China, is October 2009.41 In November 2008, the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services opened its first Food and Drug Administration (FDA) offices in
China, in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai.
37
See CRS Report RL33536, China-U.S. Trade Issues, by (name redacted).
See CRS Report RS22713, Health and Safety Concerns Over U.S. Imports of Chinese Products: An Overview, by
(name redacted).
39
Hanna, Jason, “Chinese-made drywall ruining homes, owners say,” CNN.com, March 18, 2009.
40
McDonald, Mark, “Death sentences in China milk case,” International Herald Tribune, January 22, 2009.
41
Provided in a phone call with a Consumer Product Safety Commission official on February 4, 2009.
38
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Tibet42
March 10, 2009, marked the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising against PRC rule
in 1959, the year the current Dalai Lama fled to Dharamsala. Important anniversaries tend to be
focal points for protests in China. The PRC dramatically increased its security presence in Tibetan
regions of the country, maintaining special vigilance and a high alert level in Tibet for the
anniversary date. On February 18, 2009, PRC officials announced that all tourist travel to Tibet
would be restricted for the foreseeable future; in March 2009 officials announced Tibet would be
reopened to tourists on April 5, 2009. The Dalai Lama used the occasion of the 50th anniversary of
the Tibetan National Uprising to deliver an especially harsh statement, saying that the PRC had
turned Tibet into a “hell on earth” and that “ ... the religion, culture, language, and identity [of
Tibetans] ... is nearing extinction.”43 The 111th Congress also may use the 2009 anniversary year
as a vehicle for reviewing U.S. policy toward Tibet and the state of Sino-Tibetan relations.
Tibet remains an issue of concern for Congress and a sensitive issue in U.S.-China relations.
Controversy continues over Tibet’s current political status as part of China, the role of the Dalai
Lama and his Tibetan government-in-exile, and the impact of Chinese control on Tibetan culture
and religious traditions. The U.S. government recognizes Tibet as part of China and has always
done so, although some dispute the historical consistency of this U.S. position.44 But the Dalai
Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, has long had strong supporters in the U.S. Congress who
have continued to pressure the White House to protect Tibetan culture and give Tibet greater
status in U.S. law. It was largely because of this congressional pressure that in 1997, U.S. officials
created the position of Special Coordinator for Tibetan issues. Paula Dobriansky, Under Secretary
of State for Global Affairs, served as the Special Coordinator in the Bush Administration, and was
the highest-ranking U.S. official to date to have held this position. As of the date of this report,
the Obama Administration had not yet named a new Special Coordinator.
An enhanced PRC security presence in Tibet has existed since March 2008, when a series of
confrontations involving Tibetans and Chinese officials marked the 49th anniversary of the 1959
uprising. In those demonstrations, the most serious in Tibet since the 1980s, a peaceful protest
launched by Buddhist monks in Lhasa expanded to other places in Tibet over the ensuing days,
escalating to clashes between Tibetan protestors and Chinese riot police. By March 14, 2008,
mobs of angry people were burning and looting establishments in downtown Lhasa. Authorities
of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) responded by sealing off Tibet and moving in largescale security forces.
42
43
See CRS Report RL34445, Tibet: Problems, Prospects, and U.S. Policy, by (name redacted).
Wong, Edward, “Dalai Lama says China has turned Tibet into a ‘hell on earth’,” New York Times, March 10, 2009.
44
Some assert that past U.S. actions which treated Tibet as if it were an independent state in effect signaled U.S.
recognition. Michael C. van Walt van Praag, for instance, in The Status of Tibet: History, Rights, and Prospects in
International Law, (Westview Press, Boulder Colorado, 1987) states that “Washington supported Tibet and treated it as
an independent State, even recognizing its de facto (italics included) independence ... ” p. 139. In the daily press
briefing of October 8, 1987, responding to a question concerning what year the United States formally recognized Tibet
as a part of China, the State Department’s Public Affairs office issued the following statement: “We have never
recognized Tibet as a sovereign state independent of China. We first made the statement that we considered Tibet to be
a part of China in 1978; however, our earlier formulations were not inconsistent with the statement, and we have never
challenged China’s claim. No third country recognizes Tibet as a state independent of China.”
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U.S.-PRC Official Dialogues
The Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED)
On April 1, 2009, on the sidelines of the G-20 Financial Summit in London, President Obama and
China’s President Hu Jintao announced the initiation of a new annual high-level dialogue, to be
called the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), designed to focus on economic,
security, and other issues. The S&ED is a broad diplomatic mechanism that brings together senior
officials from the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on an annual basis to
discuss a range of issues including bilateral economic and trade relations, security and
international development, climate change, energy, public health, and others. It has two
diplomatic “tracks” – a “Strategic Track” co-chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo, and an “Economic Track” co-chaired by U.S. Treasury
Secretary Timothy Geithner and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan. The first round of the new
S&ED was held in Washington, DC, on July 27-28, 2009, and featured the participation of senior
officials from the State Department, Treasury, the White House, and other agencies.45
The S&ED instituted by the Obama Administration emerged from two high-level U.S.-China
dialogues formed during the George W. Bush Administration: the U.S.-China Strategic Economic
Dialogue (SED), coordinated under the auspices of the Treasury Department; and the U.S.-China
Senior Dialogue (SD) under the auspices of the State Department. Splitting coordination of the
S&ED between the State and Treasury Departments brings the Secretary of State formally into
the S&ED process—thereby granting the dialogue greater diplomatic prestige—but it also risks
creating rivalries and overlapping responsibilities that critics say could impede substantive
progress on some issues.
The U.S. State and Treasury Departments have each appointed S&ED coordinators. There are
also a range of officials coordinating U.S. (and PRC) approaches to the substantive issues.
According to officials associated with the process, the Departments of State and Treasury are
attempting to act jointly on matters involving the S&ED, including the provision of both internal
and cross-departmental procedures of inquiry on S&ED matters. There appears to be less
“jointness” on the PRC side, where government bureaucracies traditionally have been “stovepiped” with little inter-departmental interaction or coordination. U.S. officials associated with the
SED, the predecessor to the S&ED, have stated that the SED process was one of the few venues
in which PRC ministers interacted with each other across departmental jurisdictions. U.S.
policymakers appear to consider this one of the incidental benefits of the SED/S&ED process.
At the end of the July 2009 S&ED meeting, the two sides signed a memorandum of
understanding reaffirming their commitment to cooperate on addressing climate change, and said
they would work to reform the governance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the
World Bank to better reflect China’s growing economic status. The meeting also resulted in an
announcement by Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, that the
United States and China would resume routine military contacts and high-level military
exchanges. The Administration emphasized that the goal for this initial round was to lay the
groundwork for future dialogues.46 Critics, however, argued that the concrete achievements of this
45
The First U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue Economic Track Joint Fact Sheet, available at
http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/tg240.htm.
46
President Obama, in a speech to the Dialogue’s opening session, set these expectations with a speech: “ ... as a new
(continued...)
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first round were modest, and that substantial time and effort had gone into the event’s
coordination without producing major policy agreements.
The new S&ED joins dozens of other recurring official U.S.-China dialogues that hold regular
meetings and have endured through multiple U.S. administrations. Generally these have been
held on either an annual or biennial basis. These include the following:
•
The Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT), initiated in 1983 and
elevated in 2003 to a senior level. Participating agencies are the U.S. Department
of Commerce, the U.S. Trade Representative, and the PRC Vice Premier
responsible for trade. The 18th session was held in Beijing in December 2007.
•
The U.S.-China Joint Economic Committee (JEC), initiated in 1979.
Participating agencies are the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the PRC
Ministry of Finance.
•
The U.S.-China Joint Commission on Science and Technology (JCM),
initiated in 1979. Participating agencies are the Office of Science and Technology
Policy (White House), the State Department’s Office of Science and Technology
Cooperation, and the PRC Ministry of Science and Technology.
•
The U.S.-China Economic Development and Reform Dialogue (State-NDRC
Dialogue), initiated in 2003. Participating agencies are the U.S. Department of
State and the PRC National Development and Reform Commission.
•
The U.S.-China Energy Policy Dialogue (EPD), negotiated in 2004 and
initiated in 2005. Participating agencies are the U.S. Department of Energy and
China’s National Development and Reform Commission.
•
The Global Issues Forum (GIF), negotiated in 2004 and initiated in 2005.
Participating agencies include the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau for Global
Affairs and the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
•
The U.S.-China Healthcare Forum (HCF), initiated in July 2005. Participating
agencies are the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Department of Health
and Human Services and the PRC Ministry of Health and Ministry of Commerce.
Notably absent from the robust U.S.-China dialogue process has been an official U.S.-China
military or defense dialogue at a comparable level of intensity or public scrutiny. The primary
mechanism that had existed to date, the Defense Consultative Talks (DCT), has been intermittent,
plagued with recurring setbacks, and of dubious value for a number of reasons.47 Senior-level
military talks periodically were suspended in protest to a perceived offense, such as in October
2008, when the PRC suspended talks in protest to the Bush Administration’s approval of a $6.5
billion arms sale to Taiwan. Admiral William Fallon, attempting to revitalize U.S.-China military
ties as Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, was quoted in 2006 as saying that there had
been so much decline in U.S.-China military ties in recent years that he was “starting from
(...continued)
President and also as a basketball fan, I have learned from the words of Yao Ming, who said, ‘No matter whether you
are new or an old team member, you need time to adjust to one another.’ Well, through the constructive meetings that
we've already had, and through this dialogue, I'm confident that we will meet Yao’s standard.”
47
See CRS Report RL32496, U.S.-China Military Contacts: Issues for Congress, by (name redacted).
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virtually zero” in trying to rebuild contacts.48 Still, this intermittent process has resulted in a
number of agreements and understandings with the PRC military over the years. These have
included signing of a Military Maritime Consultative Agreement (1998); agreement to establish a
military “hotline” (November 2007); participation in several search-and-rescue joint exercises;
and an understanding to plan for joint military exercises (July 2008).
As indicated by the announcement at the first S&ED meeting that Sino-U.S. military exchanges
would resume, U.S.-China military relations look to be improving under the Obama
Administration. President Obama and President Hu announced a shared commitment to better
military-to-military relations on the sidelines of the March 2009 G-20 Financial Summit in
London. Several high-level military exchanges have taken place, and in June 2009, both sides
resumed deputy-ministerial defense consultations, concluding the 10th annual round of Defense
Consultative Talks. The two sides reportedly discussed U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, anti-terrorism
efforts, the North Korea nuclear issue, the overall security situation in the Asia-Pacific, and the
travel of U.S. planes and ships through China’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone, to which
Beijing objects. The two sides agreed to discuss issues involving military security at sea in
Beijing. (At that meeting, held in August 2009, Beijing renewed its objections to U.S. military
surveillance operations in its coastal waters, a policy U.S. officials said remained unchanged.)
Finally, the two sides announced in late July 2009 that they soon would be resuming routine
military contacts and high-level military exchanges.
Taiwan
The island democracy of Taiwan remains the most sensitive and complex issue that U.S.
policymakers face in bilateral Sino-U.S. relations.49 It is the issue that many observers most fear
could lead to potential U.S.-China conflict. Beijing continues to lay sovereign claim to Taiwan
and vows that one day Taiwan will be reunified with China either peacefully or by force. Beijing
has long maintained that it has the option to use force should Taiwan declare independence from
China. Chinese leaders support these long-standing claims with a continuing build-up of hundreds
of missiles deployed opposite Taiwan’s coast and with a program of military modernization and
training that defense specialists believe is based on a “Taiwan scenario.”
Until May 2008, China watchers had been especially concerned with potential cross-strait conflict
because of Taiwan’s unpredictable political environment, where the balance of political power
had teetered precipitously between two contending political party coalitions of nearly equal
strength. One of these—the “Pan-Green” coalition led by the Democratic Progressive Party
(DPP), controlled the presidency for eight years and is closely associated with advocates of
Taiwan independence.
Fears of cross-strait contention were eased on March 22, 2008, when, in a large turnout, voters in
Taiwan elected Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT Party as president. Ma out-polled rival DPP candidate
Frank Hsieh by a 2.2 million vote margin of 58% to 42%. Coming on the heels of the KMT’s
sweeping victory in January’s legislative elections, the presidential election result appeared to be
a further repudiation of former President Chen Shui-bian’s eight-year record of governance.
48
Scott Tyson, Ann, “Admiral tries to revive Chinese ties,” Washington Post, September 23, 2006, p. A14.
For an analysis of current problems and challenges for U.S. policy toward Taiwan, see CRS Report RL33684,
Underlying Strains in Taiwan-U.S. Political Relations, by (name redacted).
49
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President Ma, who began his tenure on May 20, 2008, moved quickly to implement
improvements in cross-strait relations, expanding on foundations laid by the previous Chen
administration.50 Official talks reopened on June 12-13, 2008, in Beijing, resulting in
groundbreaking new agreements to allow regular weekend direct charter flights, to open
permanent offices in each other’s territories, and to boost PRC tourism to Taiwan, among others.
The second round, held on November 4–7, 2008, produced four agreements on food safety, direct
air and sea transportation, and direct postal links. The third round, which began in Nanjing,
mainland China on April 26, 2009, resulted in a number of agreements and a consensus on jointly
promoting, for the first time, mainland investment in Taiwan.
Prospects for U.S. Taiwan Policy
Some China-watchers have speculated on whether U.S. policy toward Taiwan will continue along
its current path in the Obama Administration or whether the White House will undertake a
reassessment similar to the Taiwan Policy Review that the Bill Clinton Administration conducted
in 1993-1994.51 Such a prospect has support among some American scholars and policymakers,
who suggest that there are a variety of reasons why the original U.S. policy framework on Taiwan
should be revisited. Some cite, for instance, the need to support Taiwan’s evolution as a full
democracy since 1994; others cite concerns about what U.S. policy should be if Taiwan’s Ma
Administration should choose closer relations, or even alignment, with the PRC.52 Along with
these new potential policy challenges, the Obama Administration will be faced with other
challenges familiar from past years, including decisions on new arms sales; how to accommodate
requests for visits to the United States by President Ma and other senior Taiwan officials; the level
of U.S. relations with the Ma government; whether to pursue closer economic ties with Taiwan;
what role, if any, Washington should play in cross-strait relations; and more broadly, what form of
defense assurances to offer Taiwan.
U.S. Arms Sales to Taiwan53
On October 3, 2008, the George W. Bush Administration notified Congress of its intention to sell
a package of defense articles and services, worth as much as $6.4 billion, to Taiwan. The
announcement marked the end of a period where no arms sales were made—what some suggested
was a U.S. arms sales “freeze” to Taiwan prior to the 2008 Olympic Games (as Admiral Timothy
Keating appeared to confirm in a briefing on July 16, 2008).54 Barack Obama, then a U.S.
50
Among other initiatives during the Chen Administration, in January 2005, Taiwan and the PRC launched the first
non-stop holiday direct charter flights flown in 55 years across the strait. These were expanded in 2006 with an
agreement to allow up to 168 direct annual round-trip charter passenger flights between China and Taiwan.
51
The principal change in this policy review appeared to be the initiation of U.S. high-level engagement with Taiwan
for economic entities. The only public issuance concerning the modifications was given in the 1994 testimony of
Winston Lord, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Hearing on
Taiwan Policy, Senate Foreign Relations Committee/East Asian and Pacific Affairs, September 27, 1994.
52
At least one press account has speculated that an informal State Department review of U.S.-Taiwan relations would
be conducted early in the Obama Administration. Lowther, William, “Clinton may visit PRC, discuss Taiwan ... ”;
Taipei Times, English, February 2, 2009.
53
See CRS Report RL30957, Taiwan: Major U.S. Arms Sales Since 1990, by (name redacted).
54
Admiral Timothy Keating, “A Combatant Commander’s Perspective on the Asia-Pacific,” The Heritage Foundation,
July 16, 2008.
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Senator, expressed support for this arms sale decision, suggesting that U.S. arms sales policies
will not change in the Obama Administration:
Senator Obama welcomes the Bush Administration’s decision to notify Congress concerning
the package of weapons systems for Taiwan. This package represents an important response
to Taiwan’s defense needs.55
Taiwan’s Bid for U.N. Observer Status
In 2009, it became apparent that Beijing has reassessed its past efforts to keep Taiwan from
participating more meaningfully in U.N. organizations. On January 13, 2009, the WHO sent a
letter to Taiwan stating that the island henceforth would be included in the International Health
Regulations (IHR), a set of legally binding rules governing international commitment to disease
surveillance, alert, and response. As an IHR participant, Taiwan will be included in the Global
Outbreak and Alert Response Network, receiving the latest updates directly from the WHO on
global epidemics.
On April 29, 2009, Taiwan authorities announced that the World Health Organization (WHO) had
invited Taiwan to attend the 2009 World Health Assembly meeting from May 18-27 as an
observer. The invitation marked the first time that Taiwan has been permitted to participate in an
activity of U.N. specialized agency since it lost its U.N. seat to the PRC in 1971. The invitation
came in a letter to “the Department of Health, Chinese Taipei” and signed by WHO DirectorGeneral Margaret Chan of Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of the PRC. Taiwan’s
Department of Health sent a 15-member delegation to the meeting, led by Yeh Ching-chuan,
Taiwan’s health minister.56
Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou attributed the 2009 invitation to his moderate and flexible
approach toward Beijing during the first year of his tenure. In its first WHO bid on August 14,
2008, the Ma Administration submitted a proposal to the U.N. Secretariat asking to be allowed to
have “meaningful participation” in U.N. special organizations such as the WHO. 57 The PRC had
raised objections on August 18, 2008, saying that as a non-state, Taiwan was not qualified to
participate in U.N. activities.58 Because of these objections, on September 19, 2008, a U.N.
subcommittee decided not to include Taiwan’s request for “meaningful participation” in U.N.
activities on the agenda for the 63rd General Assembly.
Some observers in Taiwan have bristled at the suggestion that PRC officials essentially had given
“permission” for Taiwan to participate in 2009 by negotiating directly with the WHO to include
Taiwan. 59 Taiwan’s Foreign Minister, Francisco H.L. Ou, earlier had said that Taiwan would only
55
Kessler, Glenn, “Obama commends Taiwan arms sales,” The Washington Post online, October 9, 2008.
Low, Y.F., “CNA: World Health Assembly’s Invitation Raises Taiwan’s International Profile,” Taipei Central News
Agency, in English, April 29, 2009.
57
According to The China Post of August 16, 2008, the resolution was titled “The Need to Examine the Fundamental
Rights of the 23 Million People of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to Participate Meaningfully in the Activities of the
U.N. Specialized Agencies.”
58
The objection came from the PRC’s U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya in an August 18, 2008 letter to U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Cited by Jenny Hsu, “MOFA unsurprised by PRC reaction to U.N. participation,”
Taipei Times, August 28, 2008, p. 1.
59
Xie Yu, “Taiwan put under WHO health rules,” China Daily, February 12, 2009.
56
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accept an invitation extended directly by the WHO Secretariat, not one routed through Beijing.60
Taiwan had been unsuccessful in 15 previous attempts to gain either membership or non-member
status in the U.N. and its affiliates such as the WHO. Taiwan’s efforts under the DPP
Administration of President Chen included an application both for full U.N. membership as well
as for use of either the name “Republic of China” or “Taiwan.” These applications had been of
particular concern to both China and the United States.
U.S. government officials, on record in the past as supporting Taiwan’s membership in
organizations “where statehood is not an issue,”61 had been unusually blunt and outspoken in
opposition to some of Taiwan’s past U.N. application efforts under President Chen. In August
2007, for instance, a senior U.S. officials said:
We are very supportive of Taiwan on many many fronts.... However, membership in the
United Nations requires statehood. Taiwan, or the Republic of China, is not at this point a
state in the international community. The position of the United States government is that the
ROC ... is an issue undecided, and it has been left undecided ... for many, many years.62
In response to the 2009 announcement, however, the U.S. State Department issued a statement
saying that the United States has “long supported Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the WHO,
including observers status at the WHA.”63
Resumption of PRC-Taiwan Talks
With PRC-Taiwan talks having resumed for the first time in a decade in 2008, U.S.-China
relations under the Obama Administration are positioned to benefit from the resulting easing of
cross-strait tensions. As a presidential candidate in Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou had sought to reduce
tensions with the PRC by pledging adherence to a “three no’s” approach: no unification, no
independence, and no use of force—a pledge he repeated in his inaugural address. He called for a
“diplomatic truce” with the PRC and pledged to stop using “dollar diplomacy” to win foreign
country recognition. President Ma has moved quickly to implement his new cross-strait approach,
signaling greater flexibility. In an unprecedented move, Taiwan in May 2008 worked jointly with
the PRC in providing disaster relief after the Sichuan earthquake. By late May 2008, Taiwan had
accepted a PRC invitation to resume official talks in Beijing for the first time since October
1998.64 The chairman of the KMT, Wu Poh-hsiung, met with PRC President Hu Jintao on May
28, 2008, the highest-level encounter between the two sides since 1949. Since then, Taiwan and
China have had three rounds of direct talks, with a fourth expected in Taichung City, Taiwan, in
mid- to late December, 2009:
60
Chen, Jian, “WHA arrangements directed by China unacceptable: foreign minister,” Central News Agency, March
19, 2009.
61
A State Department spokesman, in response to a press question at the State Department press briefing of March 20,
2002.
62
Dennis Wilder, National Security Council Senior Director for Asian Affairs, at a White House press briefing on the
President’s September APEC trip, August 30, 2007.
63
U.S. Department of State, Statement by Robert A. Wood, Acting Spokesman, dated April 29, 2009.
64
The Taiwan and PRC government still do not negotiate directly. In Taiwan, cross-strait talks are handled by the
Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), a private organization authorized by the government to handle these exchanges.
The corresponding body in the PRC is the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS). The June 13
talks were conducted by these two bodies.
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•
A first round in Beijing on June 12-13, 2008, resulting in groundbreaking new
agreements to allow weekend direct charter flights and boost PRC tourism to Taiwan.
•
A second round in Taiwan on November 4-7, 2008, resulting in four agreements on direct
sea transportation, air transportation, food safety, and direct postal links.
•
A third round in Nanjing on April 26-28, 2009, resulting in agreements on cross-strait
crime fighting, mutual judicial assistance, and others, plus a consensus, for the first time,
on promoting mainland investment in Taiwan.
Taiwan also has undertaken several unilateral initiatives, including:
•
June 26—Taiwan announced a number of financial liberalization measures, including
allowing conversion of the RMB into Taiwan dollars; allowing Chinese companies on the
Hong Kong stock exchange to have secondary listings on Taiwan’s stock exchange;
allowing PRC-backed mutual funds to invest in Taiwan’s stock market; and allowing
Taiwan brokerage houses to double their investments in PRC counterparts.
•
June 30—Taiwan’s Government Information Office announced that two major PRC
media outlets would be allowed to station reporters in Taiwan effective immediately.
•
July 8—Taiwan’s Ministry of Economics announced it would ease investment restrictions
with the PRC in three broad steps over the coming six months: raising the cap on Taiwan
companies’ investment in the PRC from 40% to 60%; lifting restrictions preventing
Taiwan companies in certain sensitive sectors (such as advanced semiconductors) from
investing in the PRC; and lifting restrictions preventing PRC companies from investing in
Taiwan.
PRC President Hu Jintao in a speech on December 31, 2008, suggested a further avenue for
improvements in cross-strait ties, offering six proposals. Among these was a new proposal to
establish military contacts and a “mechanism of mutual military and security trust” within the
context of the formal ending of hostilities between the two sides. 65 As President Hu was quoted,
... the two sides may start pragmatic discussions on the political relations in the special
circumstance of absence of unification. And in order to stabilize the situation in the Taiwan
Straits and reduce military and security concerns, the two sides may have contacts and
exchanges regarding military issues in due course to explore the topic of establishing a
mechanism of mutual military and security trust. We, again, call for consultation between the
two sides on formally ending hostility, reaching a peace agreement and conceiving a
framework for the peaceful development of the cross-Straits relations on the basis of the one
China principle.66
65
“President Hu Jintao offered new proposals on further promoting cross-Straits peaceful development,” ConsulateGeneral of the PRC in Houston, http://houston.china-consulate.org/eng/nv/t532187.htm.
66
Ibid.
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China’s Foreign Relations67
China’s robust international engagement since 2000 has caught some by surprise and has
prompted growing American debate over the PRC’s motivations and objectives. The fact that
much of this international engagement has expanded while the United States has been
preoccupied with its military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has caused a certain degree of
American introspection. Of particular concern are the implications that China’s growing
international engagement could have for its “soft power” projection around the world, and
consequently what this means for U.S. economic and strategic interests.
Experience shows that abrupt, unexplained shifts in policy still occur with a fair degree of
regularity in the PRC system. Still, some fundamental objectives appear to be motivating
Beijing’s foreign policy outreach. These include an imperative to promote and enhance China’s
economic development, particularly its voracious appetite for energy resources and raw materials
to sustain its impressive annual growth rate; an effort to separate Taiwan from its 23 remaining
official relationships; and a desire to increase China’s international stature and compete more
successfully with U.S. supremacy. To achieve these ends, China in recent years has crafted
multiple bilateral agreements and partnerships, joined and become more active in existing
multilateral organizations, and founded new multilateral institutions that tend to exclude the
United States.
China’s foreign policy approach has several competitive advantages over the United States. The
unrestricted nature of Beijing’s overseas loans and investments is attractive to foreign
governments wanting solutions to their development problems that in many cases are swifter,
more efficient, and less intrusive than western lenders can offer. Beijing’s large state-owned
companies, with deep pockets and no shareholders to answer to, also can afford short-term losses
in pursuit of longer-term, more strategic gains. But China’s approach also has structural
limitations in areas where the United States is strong. Beijing’s foreign development policy
operates from a narrower base, with China’s “win-win” approach tackling easy issues first and
postponing difficult issues, perhaps indefinitely. Acquiring an international presence also brings
certain complications that are new to the PRC, including multiple opportunities for international
misunderstanding, resentment, and cultural backlash. Finally, unlike the United States, China
lacks the advantage of a substantial private-sector investment presence overseas.
Still, it is clear that China increasingly is competing more directly with the United States both
economically and politically in the international arena. For instance, in 2005, China took part in
the first East Asia Summit (EAS), a fledgling grouping of 16 Asian and Pacific nations including
China, the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Japan, South
Korea, India, Australia, and New Zealand, but excluding the United States.68 The fourth EAS
summit, scheduled to be held in Thailand in 2009, has been rescheduled several times due to
political unrest. It now is expected to be held late in October 2009.
67
See CRS Report RL34588, China’s Foreign Policy: What Does It Mean for U.S. Global Interests?, by (name
redacted).
68
First established in 1967, ASEAN in 2005 includes Brunei-Darassalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The United States maintains military alliances
with the Philippines and Thailand, and has significant naval and air base arrangements with Singapore.
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China also has pursued both economic and security arrangements with the Central Asian
countries of the former Soviet Union, including Russia, through the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO), founded in 2001.69 Within the SCO context, China has cooperated on border
enforcement, signed pipeline and rail link agreements, and conducted joint military maneuvers.
The PRC held joint military exercises with Russia in 2005 (“Peace Mission 2005”) and with
Russia and the other members of the SCO (“Peace Mission 2007”).
China also is becoming an increasing competitor to the United States for influence and access to
energy resources in the Middle East. PRC President Hu Jintao made an official state visit to Saudi
Arabia February 10-12, 2009, in a move to strengthen Sino-Saudi Arabian energy ties. In
addition, China’s trade with the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries has steadily
increased in recent years, reportedly reaching $32 billion in 2005 (although this is still small by
comparison with the United States, whose total trade with Saudi Arabia alone in 2005 was
approximately $34 billion). 70 In January 2009, PRC Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi met with
Oman’s Foreign Minister, Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, to discuss China’s willingness to
improve Sino-Arab cooperation, including efforts to resolve Palestinian-Israeli conflicts.71 In
addition, the PRC in December 2008 began to provide navy task forces to protect its commercial
ships navigating the Gulf of Aden from Somali pirate attacks. This is the first time in modern
history that the PRC has deployed its navy for an operational mission.
PRC relations with some countries considered to be “bad actors” have been particularly
nettlesome for U.S. policy. China has cultivated resource-rich African nations such as Sudan and
Angola for energy-related development, for instance, despite increasing U.S. and international
pressure on Beijing to influence the Sudanese government to do more to resolve the humanitarian
crisis in Darfur. U.S. officials also find PRC relations with Iran problematic, seeing U.S.sponsored diplomatic pressure against Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program as being
hampered by PRC opposition to U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran.
The PRC’s growing international outreach also extends to U.S. allies. China has been courting the
European Union (EU) intensively. PRC Premier Wen Jiabao made an early visit in 2009 to six
countries in Europe (excluding France, reportedly because of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s
decision in December 2008 to meet with the Dalai Lama). On October 24, 2006, the European
Commission released a new paper to the European Parliament entitled “EU-China: Closer
Partners, Growing Responsibilities.” The document reinforced the trends once remarked upon by
then-European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso—that the EU considers China a
“strategic partner” and has made developing Sino-EU ties “one of our top foreign policy
objectives in the years to come.”72 Finally, China has expanded its economic and trade
relationships with Latin American and Caribbean countries. In September 2004, China sent a
“special police” contingent to Haiti, marking Beijing’s first deployment of forces ever in the
Western Hemisphere. The PRC signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Chile in 2005, and in
2007 surpassed the United States as Chile’s largest trading partner. 73 Beijing built upon this
69
The SCO is a more recent expansion of the “Shanghai Five” formed in 1997. SCO members include China, Russia,
Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
70
The six GCC countries are the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman.
Statistics for two-way U.S.-Saudi Arabia trade are from the U.S. Census Bureau, Foreign Trade Statistics.
71
“FM: China to boost cooperation with Arabs,” Chinaview online (www.chinaview.cn), January 13, 2009.
72
http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/china/summit_1204/ip04_1440.htm
73
Jiang Wei, “China-Chile FTA Talks Smooth,” China Daily, January 31, 2005, online at http://www.bilaterals.org/
article.php3?id_article=1237.
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foundation in November 2008, signing another FTA with Peru, a mineral-rich country with large
deposits of copper and iron ore.
Environmental Issues
China’s economic development and need for greater energy resources is having a rapidly
increasing impact on the environment, both within China and for its regional and global
neighbors. Although China alone has been the source of 40% of the world’s oil demand growth
since 2000,74 its continued heavy dependence on soft coal in recent years has ranked it with the
United States as the world’s largest contributors to global carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, carbon emissions related to China’s energy use
more than doubled between 1980 and 2003, an increase that had a corresponding impact on air
and water quality, agriculture, human health, and climate change. PRC leaders have recognized
that this trend is not sustainable and have undertaken efforts to address environmental quality,
including establishment in 1998 of the State Environmental Protection Administration, adoption
of a series of environmental laws and regulations, and mandatory conversion of many
government vehicles to non-polluting liquefied petroleum and natural gas.75 Despite this, PRC
efforts to date have been unable to keep up with the extensive and worsening pollution from
China’s growing economic development.
Beijing’s push to meet more of its development needs through the cleaner technology of hydropower has exacerbated other long-term environmental problems in China. To generate electric
power, the government has launched massive dam construction projects, continuing an effort that
has occurred throughout centuries of Chinese history to tame recurring floods.76 Projects such as
the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River have been criticized heavily by environmental
scientists who blame this and other such construction for significantly contributing to the
country’s worsening desertification and flood damage woes. Moreover, since some of the region’s
most significant rivers originate in the mountains of Tibet, China’s hydro-power development
programs are increasingly affecting its neighbors. China began multiple dam construction on the
upper Mekong River in Yunnan Province with little thought to the resulting impact on Burma,
Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, the dams’ downstream neighbors. Other important
regional rivers originating in Tibet include the Brahmaputra (India and Bangladesh); Irrawaddy
(Burma); the Indus (Pakistan); and the Salween (Burma and Thailand).
The United States and China engage in energy and environment-related dialogue through the
U.S.-China SED (Strategic Economic Dialogue). As an outgrowth of that dialogue, on December
15, 2006, both countries announced that China would become the third country to join the United
States in the FutureGen International Partnership, a collaborative effort to reduce carbon
emissions. The two countries also signed an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Protocol,
an effort to promote clean, renewable energy technology. The third SED, which ended on
74
CRS Report RL32466, Rising Energy Competition and Energy Security in Northeast Asia: Issues for U.S. Policy, by
(name redacted).
75
“China: Environmental Issues,” in Country Analysis Briefs, Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of
Energy, published in July 2003. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/China/Environment.html
76
According to Jasper Becker in a series of environmental articles in the Asia Times, China is home to 22,104 dams,
compared to 6,390 in the United States and 4,000 in India. Becker, Jasper, “Peasants bear the brunt of China’s energy
plans,” Asia Times Online, 2003.
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December 13, 2007, produced an agreement to establish a working group to explore cooperation
in energy and environmental fields.
Domestic Political Issues
Despite China’s rapid economic advances and its expanded international influence, its internal
political and institutional development have not kept comparable pace. Increasing social and
economic inequities have led to growing strains in China’s political and societal fabric—between
the central government in Beijing and the provincial and municipal governments in the interior;
between the socialist left and the increasingly capitalist right; between those arguing for
economic growth at all costs and those advocating more sustainable and equitable development;
and between the few newly wealthy who have thrived under economic liberalism and the many
desperately poor who have not. Civil society remains hobbled by stern regulations on
organizations, and the press is constrained from aggressive reporting in many areas. Leaders in
Beijing are thought to be deeply concerned about the political and social implications of these
internal strains and deficiencies, and increasing debate on and maneuvering around these issues is
likely to continue affecting the political environment in China in the foreseeable future.
Social Stability
In addition to grievances and resulting demonstrations by Uighurs in the Xinjiang-Uighur
Autonomous Region and Tibetans in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, the 2008 Sichuan
earthquake and the 2008-2009 global financial crisis provided potential opportunities for public
dissatisfaction with the PRC government—the latter focusing on the government’s plans to
reverse the rising unemployment among China’s rural migrant workforce and export-oriented
industries, and the former focusing on the issue of shoddy construction that led to more
earthquake deaths than might have occurred with sturdier buildings. The far-reaching economic
changes the PRC continues to undergo have led to increasing disgruntlement among a number of
social groups. 77 Peasants and farmers in rapidly developing parts of China have labored under
heavy tax burdens and fallen farther behind their urban contemporaries in income. Some have had
their farmland confiscated by local government and Party officials. Officials then sell the
confiscated land for development, often reportedly offering little or no compensation to the
peasants from which the land was seized, resulting in sometimes sizable protests. One widely
publicized case occurred on December 6, 2005, in the southern Chinese city of Dongzhou
(Shanwei), when paramilitary forces opened fire on villagers demonstrating against the
confiscation of their land for the construction of a new power plant, killing an unknown number
of villagers.
In an effort to address rising rural complaints, the government early in 2005 proposed a new
measure, the “2005 Number 1 Document,” to reduce taxes on rural peasants, increase farm
subsidies, and address the widening income gap between urban and rural residents. Rising labor
unrest, particularly in northern and interior cities, is another particularly troubling issue for
Beijing, a regime founded on communist-inspired notions of a workers’ paradise. Increasing labor
unrest also has placed greater pressure on the authority and credibility of the All-China Federation
of Trade Unions (ACFTU), China’s only legal labor organization.78 In October 2008, the
77
See CRS Report RL33416, Social Unrest in China, by (name redacted).
The ACFTU is controlled by the Communist Party. For background and further details, see CRS Report RL31164,
(continued...)
78
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government issued new measures allowing farmers to lease and transfer or sell rights to the
property allocated to them by the state, in order to help strengthen their control over their land.
The effect of the global financial crisis, which has closed factories in China and thrown many
migrant workers out of work, suggests that rising social unrest will grow as a problem for PRC
policymakers.
Human Rights79
During her first trip to China in February 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton generated some
controversy when she downplayed the issue of human rights in her discussion of the three key
challenges for U.S.-China relations: the global financial crisis, climate change, and a range of
security issues.80 In response to a press question about human rights and other issues on February
20, 2009, the Secretary said, “ ... our pressing on those issues [Taiwan, Tibet, and human rights]
can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security
crisis.”81 The Bush Administration generally favored selective, intense pressure on individual
human rights cases and on rule of law issues rather than the broader approach adopted by
previous American administrations. There has been little sign that the U.S. position on human
rights has had much affect on PRC policies, although there is growing evidence of increasing
social demands within China for greater accountability, transparency, and responsiveness in
government.
Religious Freedom
The PRC continues to crack down on unauthorized religious groups and to restrict the freedoms
of ethnic communities that seek greater religious autonomy. Some of this repression focuses on
what PRC officials have classified as illegal religious “cults” such as the Falun Gong.82 Reports
about religious freedom in China suggest that state persecution of some religious and spiritual
groups will likely continue as long as the Chinese Communist Party perceives these groups to be
threatening to its political control. However, religions in the PRC have also attracted increasing
numbers of adherents as well. Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims, two PRC ethnic
minorities, are particularly vulnerable to official religious persecution because of the extent to
which Beijing links their religious beliefs to ethnic separatist sentiments.
In the China section of its most recent annual International Religious Freedom Report, released
September 19, 2008, the U.S. Department of State judged China’s record on religious freedom to
remain poor and substantially the same as during previous years. The State Administration for
Religious Affairs, SARA, (formerly known as the Religious Affairs Bureau, or RAB) continues to
require churches to register with the government. Churches that are unregistered, so-called house
(...continued)
China: Labor Conditions and Unrest, by (name redacted).
79
See CRS Report RL34729, Human Rights in China: Trends and Policy Implications, by (name redacted) and (name r
edacted).
80
Secretary Clinton’s remarks at a press roundtable, “Working toward change in perceptions of U.S. engagement
around the world,” Seoul, South Korea, February 20, 2009, http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/02/119430.htm.
81
Press roundtable in Seoul, Korea, “Working toward change in perceptions of U.S. engagement around the world,”
Secretary of State Clinton, February 20, 2009. http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/02/119430.htm
82
See CRS Report RL33437, China and Falun Gong, by (name redacted).
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churches, continue to be technically illegal and often repressed by the government, but still they
reportedly attract tens of millions of adherents. Treatment of unregistered churches varies widely
from locality to locality, with some local officials highly repressive and others surprisingly
tolerant. Communist Party officials continue to stress that religious belief is incompatible with
Party membership.
Family Planning Policies83
Because of allegations of coercion in PRC family planning programs, direct and indirect U.S.
funding for family planning practices in China is prohibited in provisions of several U.S. laws. In
addition, legislation in recent years has expanded these restrictions to include U.S. funding for
international and multilateral family planning programs, such as the U.N. Population Fund
(UNFPA), that have programs in China. Section 7077(c) of the House-passed version of H.R.
3081, the FY2010 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill, prohibits
funds for a UNFPA country program in China, requires the Secretary of State to report on the
UNFPA China program, and requires a dollar-for-dollar deduction of U.S. contributions if
UNFPA proceeds with a program in China. The House passed the measure on July 9, 2009, by a
vote of 318 – 106. The Obama Administration has pledged to work with Congress to restore these
UNFPA contributions.84
Although the PRC has maintained its restrictive and at times coercive “one-child” program for
several decades, there are indications that the government may be re-thinking this policy. Early in
2004, China’s new leadership appointed a task force to study the country’s demographic trends
and their implications for economic development. In October 2004, reports surfaced that Beijing
was considering at least one proposal to eventually scrap the one-child policy because of
currently low PRC birth rates and the economic implications this has for supporting China’s huge
aging population. On January 6, 2005, the director of China’s National Population and Family
Planning Commission stated that the government intended to modify criminal law to make it
illegal to selectively identify and abort female fetuses. 85
There also is growing evidence that citizens of the PRC are becoming more assertive about their
reproductive rights.86 In mid-May 2007, news accounts reported violent public protests in
Guangxi Province (Bobai County) over the “savage implementation” of family planning policies
by local authorities, including the retroactive imposition of extraordinarily heavy fines and the
confiscation or destruction of household goods and food.87 Revision of the “one-child” policy has
also been mentioned in connection with the Sichuan earthquake of May 12, 2008, where the
widespread destruction of schools meant that many parents lost their only child.
83
See CRS Report RL33250, International Population Assistance and Family Planning Programs: Issues for
Congress, by (name redacted).
84
Crossette, Barbara, “’Global gag rule’ lifted,” The Nation, January 25, 2009. In addition, President Obama has
pledged to work with Congress to reinstate U.S. contributions to the UNFPA.
85
PRC statistics show that nearly 120 boys are born for every 100 girls—a gender ratio suggesting selective abortion of
female fetuses. The “natural” male-female gender ratio is about 105-100, according to a United Nations estimate.
“Analysts View Problems with Huge PRC Gender Gap,” South China Morning Post, January 7, 2005.
86
Pan, Philip, “Who controls the family? Blind activist leads peasants in legal challenge to abuses of China’s
population-growth policy,” Washington Post, August 27, 2005, p. A1.
87
Reported in Tung Fang Jih Pao, May 21, 2007, translated in FBIS, FEA20070522158306.
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China-Related Legislation in the 111th Congress
H.R. 2647/S. 1390 (Skelton/Levin)—P.L. 111-84
National Defense Authorization Act for FY2010. Section 828 of the bill requires the Department
of Defense to report by April 1, 2010, on the value that foreign nations, specifically including
China, place on rare earth materials and the importance that rare earth materials have in the U.S.
defense supply chain. Section 1223 of the bill also expanded the annual reporting requirement on
military and security developments in the PRC. Introduced June 2, 2009, and referred to the
Committee on Armed Services. The Committee reported the bill in two segments: H.Rept. 111166 (Part I) on June 18, 2009; and a supplemental report, H.Rept. 111-166 (Part II) on June 23,
2009. The House passed the bill on June 29, 2009, by a vote of 389-22. The measure was referred
to the Senate on July 6, 2009. On July 23, 2009, the Senate substituted the language of its own
version, of S. 1390 (introduced on July 2, 2009). The Senate version contained no similar
provision on rare earth minerals, but does contain a provision requiring a report assessing the
current state of Taiwan’s air force. On October 6, 2009, the House by voice vote agreed to
disagree to the Senate amendment, asked for a conference, and chose conferees. The final version
that passed both houses and was signed into law omitted the House language on rare earth
minerals and the Senate language requiring a report on the Taiwan Air Force. The expanded
reporting requirements on military and security developments in the PRC remained. The House
agreed to the conference report (H.Rept. 111-288) on October 8, 2009, by a vote of 281-146. The
Senate agreed to the conference report on October 22 by a vote of 68-29. The bill became P.L.
111-84 on October 28, 2009.
H.R. 2997 (DeLauro)—P.L. 111-279
Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act,
2010. Section 723 of the act prohibits funds from being used to allow poultry imports from the
PRC. The House Appropriations Committee reported an original measure on June 23, 2009
(H.Rept. 111-181). The full House passed the bill July 9, 2009, by a vote of 266-160. The Senate
considered the bill on August 4, 2009, and passed it, amended, by a vote of 80-17. The House
disagreed to the Senate amendment and on September 29, 2009, voted to instruct conferees (35941). Conference Report 111-279 was filed on September 30, 2009. The House agreed to the
conference report on October 7, 2009 (263-162) and the Senate agreed on October 8, 2009 (7622). The final public law contained the poultry import prohibition.
H.R. 471 (Altmire)
The Supporting America’s Manufacturers Act. The bill would limit the President’s discretion to
deny relief under the special China safeguard provision of the Trade Act of 1974. Introduced
January 13, 2009, and referred to the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Rules
Committee.
H.R. 2312 (Israel)
The U.S.-China Energy Cooperation Act. The bill authorizes the Secretary of Energy to make
grants encouraging cooperation between the United States and China on joint research,
development, or commercialization of carbon capture and sequestration technology, improve
energy efficiency, or renewable energy sources. Introduced on May 7, 2009, and referred to the
House Energy and Commerce and House Science and Technology Committees.
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H.R. 2410 (Berman)
Foreign Relations Authorization Act, FY2010 and FY2011. Section 237 of the bill deals with
Tibet, proposing amendments to the Tibetan Policy Act of 2002. The bill requires that U.S. policy
on Tibet be coordinated among and communicated to all U.S. Executive Branch Agencies dealing
with China; strengthens the authority and resources of the U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibet; and
established a Tibet section within the U.S Embassy in Beijing. Section 618 of the bill requires the
Secretary of State to seek to establish a U.S. consulate in Lhasa. The bill was introduced on May
14, 2009, and referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The Committee reported the bill
on June 4, 2009 (H.Rept. 111-136), and the House passed the measure on June 10, 2009, by a
vote of 235-187. The bill was referred to the Senate and its Committee on Foreign Relations on
June 22, 2009.
H.R. 2454 (Waxman)
American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. As reported from Committee, the bill’s Section
3 requires an annual report to Congress on whether China and India have adopted greenhouse gas
emissions standards at least as stringent as those in the act. Introduced on May 12, 2009, and
referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and multiple other committees. After
several other committees were discharged, the House Energy and Commerce Committee ordered
the bill reported on May 21, 2009. The House considered and passed the bill on June 26, 2009, by
a vote of 219-212. The bill was received in the Senate on July 6, 2009.
H.R. 3012 (Michaud)
The Trade Act of 2009. Requires a review (and potential renegotiation) of existing trade
agreements to evaluate their economic, environmental, national security, health, safety, and other
effects. Introduced June 24, 2009, and referred to the House Ways and Means Committee.
H.R. 3081 (Lowey)
Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. The
bill authorizes funds for expenses for both the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Section 7070(a) of the bill
concerns Tibet, including provisions that the United States should support projects in
international financial institutions that preserve and protect Tibet’s culture and environment, and
provides $7.3 million in funds for NGOs supporting Tibetan culture and sustainable development.
Section 7070(e) of the bill prohibits funds for export licenses for U.S. satellites for launch in
China unless the Appropriations Committee is notified 15 days in advance; and provides funding
restrictions for any activities of the People’s Liberation Army or its affiliates. The House
Appropriations Committee reported an original measure on June 26, 2009 (H.Rept. 111-187), and
the House passed the bill on July 9, 2009, by a vote of 318-106. Received in the Senate July 13,
2009.
H.R. 3237 (Conyers)
A bill to enact laws relating to national and commercial space programs. Section 30701 of the bill
requires certification 15 days in advance of any agreement with the PRC concerning space
programs, spacecraft, launch systems, or scientific and technical information, that such an
agreement is not detrimental to the U.S. space launch industry and will not improve PRC space or
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missile launch capabilities. The bill was introduced on July 16, 2009, and referred to the House
Committee on the Judiciary, which marked up the bill on October 21, 2009. The Committee
reported the bill on November 2, 2009 (H.Rept. 111-325). A page further explaining the bill is
available from the Office of the Law Revision Counsel at http://uscode.house.gov/cod/t51/.
H.R. 4094 (Melancon)
Drywall Victims Insurance Protection Act of 2009. A bill to prohibit insurers from cancelling or
refusing to renew homeowners insurance for homes containing toxic drywall made in China.
Introduced November 17, 2009, and referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.
H.Con.Res. 18 (Linder)
A resolution expressing the sense of Congress that the United States resume diplomatic relations
with Taiwan and abandon the “One-China Policy.” Introduced on January 9, 2009, and referred to
the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
H.Con.Res. 55 (Berkley)
Recognizing the 30th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act. Introduced February 23, 2009 and
referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee (Subcommittee on Asia) and the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee. The House Subcommittee held markup on March 19, 2009, and forwarded
the bill, amended, to the full Committee. The full House considered the measure on the
suspension calendar, passing it by voice vote on March 24, 2009. The bill was referred to the
Senate on March 26, 2009.
H.Con.Res. 72 (Forbes)
A resolution condemning any action of the PRC that unnecessarily escalates bilateral tensions,
including the incidents in the South China Sea against the USNS Impeccable in March 2009.
Introduced on March 12, 2009, and referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
H.Res. 44 (Poe)
A resolution condemning the PRC for unacceptable business practices, including manufacturing
unsafe products, disregard for environmental concerns, and exploitative employment practices.
Introduced January 9, 2009, and referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
H.Res. 156 (McCotter)
A resolution supporting Charter 08 and the ideals of the Charter 08 movement. Introduced on
February 11, 2009, and referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
H.Res. 226 (Holt)
A resolution calling for a peaceful and durable solution to the Tibet issue and for a sustained U.S.
effort consistent with the Tibetan Policy Act of 2002. Introduced on March 9, 2009, and referred
to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The full House considered the bill on March 11, 2009,
on the suspension calendar; the measure passed on March 11 by a vote of 422-1.
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H.Res. 590 (Wu)
Introduced June 26, 2009, and referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The measure
expresses grave concerns about the sweeping censorship, privacy, and cyber-security implications
of China’s Green Dam filtering software, urging U.S. high-tech companies to promote the
Internet as a tool for transparency and freedom of expression.
H.Res. 604 (Ros-Lehtinen)
The measure recognizes the vital role of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), and urges nonparticipating countries, specifically including China, to cooperate with U.N. Security Council
resolutions 1718 and 1874 to prevent dangerous exports from North Korea to countries posing a
threat to the United States. Introduced June 26, 2009, and referred to the House Foreign Affairs
Committee.
H.Res. 877 (Wu)
A measure calling on China to adhere to the principles contained in its own Human Rights Action
Plan, and expressing support for two Chinese activists under detention for seeking answers from
the government for the parents of children killed in the collapse of schools during the Sichuan
earthquake. Introduced October 29, 2009, and referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Passed the House on November 7, 2009, by a vote of 426–1.
S.Res. 91 (Nelson)
A resolution calling on the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Secretary of the Treasury,
and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to take action on issues relating to drywall
imported from China. Introduced March 30, 2009, and referred to the Committee on Commerce,
Science, and Transportation.
Chronology of Events
11/15/09—President Barack Obama began his first state visit to China.
10/05/09—The Dalai Lama arrived in Washington as part of a U.S. visit which will not include a
meeting with President Barack Obama. According to the White House, a meeting with the Dalai
Lama will be postponed until after the President’s November trip to China to meet with PRC
President Hu Jintao.
10/04/09—PRC Premier Wen Jiabao began a three-day, high-profile “goodwill” visit to North
Korea.
10/01/09—The PRC celebrated the 60th anniversary of its founding, with celebrations including a
massive military parade showcasing the latest military technology.
09/26/09—Beijing announced it would ease restrictions on foreign investments in the culture
industry, to include film, publishing, entertainment, online games, and multi-media.
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09/25/09—Taiwan refused a visa for Uighur activist and former PRC resident Rebiya Kadeer.
Taiwan officials cited fears of terrorist links to Ms. Kadeer’s World Uyghur Congress. Ms.
Kadeer said that Taiwan was caving in to opposition from Beijing.
09/11/09—The White House announced the imposition of a 35% tariff on imports of automobile
and light-truck tires imported from China.
07/27-28/09—The first U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue was held in Washington,
DC. The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding reaffirming their commitment to
cooperate on addressing climate change, and said they would work to reform the governance of
the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to better reflect China’s growing economic
status.
07/27/09—China criticized Japan for permitting a visit by exiled Uighur businesswoman Rebiya
Kadeer.
07/17/09—The PRC government shut down the Open Constitution Initiative, an NGO legal aid
group working on sensitive cases against the government. The group was shut down allegedly
because it was improperly registered.
07/13/09—The Beijing Bureau for Legal Affairs instructed lawyers representing Uighurs charged
with July 2009 Xinjiang protests to accept guidance and monitoring from government-controlled
legal associations.
07/09/09—The Beijing Justice Bureau cancelled the annual licenses of 53 lawyers who had been
involved in litigating high-profile cases against the government. The licenses were cancelled
allegedly because they had failed to reapply for re-registration.
07/07/09—Utah Governor Jon Huntsman was nominated formally to become the next U.S.
Ambassador to China.
07/05/09—A riot involving a reported 1,000 or more people broke out in Urumqi, the capital city
of China’s Xinjiang Province. The riots reportedly began when police confronted a protest march
conducted by ethnic Uighurs, a Muslim minority in China. News accounts reported that the riots
left 140 people dead and more than 800 injured.
07/05/09—Several employees of Australia’s mining company, Rio Tinto Ltd., reportedly were
detained in China allegedly for revealing state secrets. Rio Tinto at the time had been in difficult
negotiations with the China Iron and Steel Association over the pricing of the iron ore it would
sell to China.
07/04/09—In defiance of a U.N. Security Council resolution, North Korea fired 7 ballistic
missiles into the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan. The United States, South Korea,
and Japan protested the firings; Beijing and Russia issued statements counseling restraint by all
parties.
05/13/09—A civilian DOD employee was arrested on espionage charges that he sold sensitive
information to a spy for the PRC government.
05/12/09—PRC officials and citizens held vigils and services in memory of those who died in the
Sichuan earthquake on this date in 2008.
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04/26/09—The third round of cross-strait talks took place in Nanjing between mainland China
and Taiwan. The talks resulted in a consensus to promote, for the first time, mainland investment
in Taiwan.
04/01/09—On the eve of the G-20 Summit in London, President Obama announced the initiation
of a new high-level dialogue with the PRC: the Strategic and Economic Dialogue. The dialogue is
expected to focus on economic, security, and other issues, and will follow a two-track approach:
an “Economic Track” and a “Strategic Track.”
03/31/09—According to news reports (Xinhua, NYT), the PRC will reopen Tibet to tourists on
April 5, 2009.
03/29/09—The Information Warfare Monitor published findings showing the existence of a
cyber-espionage network based in China.
03/25/09—The Pentagon released its annual report on China’s Military Power.
03/18/09—The World Bank lowered its forecast for economic growth in China in 2009 to 6.5%—
down from its earlier forecast of 7.5% and well below the 8% growth forecast by the PRC
government.
03/18/09—Shanghai’s Food and Drug Administration announced an investigation into baby
products made by Johnson & Johnson due to allegations that some chemicals in the products
could cause cancer.
03/18/09—U.S. American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) chairman Ray Burghardt said that the United
States was “comfortable with what’s happening” in Taiwan-PRC engagement. The same day,
former President Chen Shui-bian appeared at his final pre-trial hearing before going on trial for
corruption, scheduled to begin March 26, 2009.
03/09/09—The Pentagon reported that PRC ships and aircraft operating in the South China Sea
had been acting in increasingly aggressive ways toward two U.S. Navy ocean surveillance ships
operating in the area, the USNS Impeccable and the USNS Victorious. In an unrelated visit the
same day, PRC Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi arrived in the United States for official meetings.
03/05/09—China’s national legislature, the National People’s Congress, began its annual meeting
in Beijing. The meeting focused on the government’s economic stimulus package and other
economic issues.
03/04/09—An article in the Los Angeles Times reported that China’s highest court for the first
time had agreed to accept lawsuits against companies whose milk products had sickened tens of
thousands of children.
01/31/09—Premier Wen Jiabao cast doubt on the PRC’s willingness to continue to buy U.S.
Treasuries, saying that it would depend on China’s own needs and the security of PRC Treasury
holdings.
01/26/09—The WTO ruled that China had failed to protect and enforce copyrights and
trademarks in a wide range of goods.
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Appendix A. Selected Visits by U.S. and PRC
Officials
November 15-18, 2009—President Barack Obama made his first state visit to China. While
there, he and PRC President Hu Jintao issued a U.S.-China Joint Statement discussing the
importance of the relationship, highlighting its key accomplishments, and seeking further
cooperation on increased educational exchanges; global economic recovery; and climate change,
energy, and the environment.
October 24-31, 2009—General Xu Caihou, vice chairman of the PRC’s Central Military
Commission, visited the United States. In addition to meeting with Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates, General Xu visited U.S. military facilities, including the U.S. Naval Academy in
Annapolis, Maryland; the U.S. Strategic Command in Nebraska; Nellis Air Force Base in
Nevada; Fort Benning, Georgia; the North Island Naval Station in San Diego, California; and the
U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii.
September 4-5, 2009—Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. Special Envoy to North Korea, visited China
for two days, meeting with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei.
September 6, 2009—PRC National People’s Congress Chairman Wu Bangguo arrived for a
week-long U.S. visit. While in Washington, he met with President Barack Obama, Vice President
Joseph Biden, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among others.
July 27-28, 2009—The first meeting of the new Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) in
Washington DC, comprised of senior U.S. and PRC officials, including Secretary Hillary Clinton,
Secretary Timothy Geithner. Councilor Dai Bingguo, and Vice Premier Wang Qishan.
July 14-17, 2009—Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke
visited China to discuss, among other things, clean energy issues.
July 3, 2009—Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis began a five-day visit to
China to discuss U.S. poultry exports.
May 31, 2009—U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner made a three-day official visit to
China to discuss plans for the new Strategic and Economic Dialogue scheduled for July 2009.
April 16 , 2009—U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead began a six-day visit
to China to discuss U.S.-China navy and military relations. During his visit, Roughead
acknowledged China’s efforts to help combat piracy off the coast of Somalia.
April 2, 2009—U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and PRC Vice Premier Wang Qishan
met in London after the G-20 Financial Summit closed.
April 1, 2009—President Barack Obama and PRC President Hu Jintao met for an hour on the eve
of the G-20 Financial Summit meeting in London. They agreed to build a more cooperative and
comprehensive relationship, to increase exchanges at all levels, and to establish the U.S.-China
Strategic and Economic Dialogue.
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February 27, 2009—The Under-Secretary of Defense for East Asia, David Sedney, held two
days of military consultations in Beijing with counterpart PRC Major General Qian Luhua.
February 20-22, 2009—Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made her first official visit to China as
Secretary. The visit was part of a larger visit to Asia beginning on February 15, with stops in
Japan, Indonesia, and South Korea.
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Appendix B. Selected U.S. Government Reporting
Requirements
International Report on Economic and Exchange Rate Policies (semiannual report)
Most recent date available: April 15, 2009
Agency: U.S. Department of the Treasury
Legislative authority: P.L. 100-418, the Omnibus Trade & Competitive Act of 1988
Full text: http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/reports/fxreportfinalfor%20webapril152009.pdf
International Religious Freedom Report, China (annual report)
Most recent date available: October 26, 2009
Agency: U.S. Department of State
Legislative authority: P.L. 105-292, the International Religious Freedom Act
(IRFA) of 1998, Section 203
Full text: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2009/127268.htm
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (annual report)
Most recent date available: May 2009
Agency: U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)
Legislative authority: P.L. 105-292, the International Religious Freedom Act
(IRFA) of 1998, Section 203
Full text: http://www.uscirf.gov/images/AR2009/final%20ar2009%20with%20cover.pdf
Reports on Human Rights Practices, China (annual report)
Most recent date available: February 25, 2009
Agency: U.S. Department of State
Legislative authority: The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (FAA), as amended, Sections
116(d) and 502(b); and the Trade Act of 1974, as amended, Section 504
Full text: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/eap/119037.htm
Military Power of the People’s Republic of China (annual report)
Most recent date available: March 25, 2009
Agency: U.S. Department of Defense
Legislative authority: P.L. 106-65, the National Defense Authorization Act for
FY2000, Section 1202
Full text: http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/China_Military_Power_Report_2009.pdf
Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons
of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions (annual report)
Most recent date available: January 1-December 31, 2008
Agency: Director of Central Intelligence
Legislative authority: FY1997 Intelligence Authorization Act, Section 721
Full text: http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/wmd-acq2008.pdf
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International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (annual report)
Most recent date available: February 2009
Agency: U.S. Department of State, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
Matters
Legislative authority: Section 489 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended (the “FAA,”
22 U.S.C. § 2291); sections 481(d)(2) and 484(c) of the FAA; and section 804 of the Narcotics
Control Trade Act of 1974, as amended). Also provides the factual basis for designations in the
President’s report to Congress on major drug transit or major illicit drug producing countries
pursuant to P.L. 107-115, the Kenneth M. Ludden Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and
Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2002, Section 591.
Full text Volume I: http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2009/vol1/index.htm
Full text Volume II: http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2009/vol2/index.htm
Report to Congress on China’s WTO Compliance (annual report)
Most recent date available: December 11, 2008
Agency: United States Trade Representative
Legislative authority: P.L. 106-286, the U.S.-China Relations act of 2000, authorizing extension
of Permanent Normal Trade Relations to the PRC, Section 421.
Full text: http://www.ustr.gov/sites/default/files/asset_upload_file192_15258.pdf
Report Monitoring to Congress on Implementation of the 1979 U.S.-PRC Agreement on
Cooperation in Science and Technology (biannual report)
Most recent date available: April 15, 2005
Agency: U.S. Department of State, Office of Science and Technology Cooperation
Legislative Authority: P.L. 107-314, Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act Section for
FY2003, Section 1207
Full text: http://www.state.gov/g/oes/rls/or/44681.htm
Report on Tibet Negotiations (annual report)
Most recent date available: March 2009
Agency: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Legislative Authority: P.L. 107-228, Foreign Relations Authorization Act, 2003, Section 613
Full text: http://www.tibetpolicy.eu/attachments/
278_2009%20Tibet%20Negotiations%20report.pdf
Congressional-Executive Commission Report (annual report)
Most recent date available: October 10, 2009
Agency: Congressional-Executive Commission on China
Legislative Authority: P.L. 106-286, Normal Trade Relations with the People’s Republic of China,
2000
Full text: http://www.cecc.gov/pages/annualRpt/annualRpt09/CECCannRpt2009.pdf
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Author Contact Information
(name redacted)
Specialist in Asian Affairs
[redacted]@crs.loc.gov, 7-....
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