America's Future Update on China

Update on U.S. - China Relations

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) sharply attacked China's leadership, demanding that the U.S. forge a trade agreement with Taiwan despite Chinese opposition. Calling China "backward, corrupt anachronism, run by decrepit tyrants, old apparatchiks clinging to a dying regime," DeLay said the U.S. will resist Beijing's longstanding goal of absorbing Taiwan into Mainland China. He added, "The notion that these oppressive and dangerous men could convince the United States that their murderous ideology should be imposed on a free and independent Taiwan is absurd." In his speech before the American Enterprise Institute on June 2, DeLay said the Bush Administration will not allow "a thriving economy to be swallowed up by a dictatorship." Washington Post, 6-3-03

China and Taiwan entered the World Trade Organization in 2002. Taiwan has complained that China has been trying to downgrade Taiwan's "permanent mission" status in the WTO to the less influential rank of an "office."

U.S. observers were shocked by the Chinese government's censorship of information about the SARS epidemic. China gagged publications that reported independently about SARS. Beijing has even banned China's Shakespeare Association and 60 other academic and cultural groups. China Reform Monitor No. 500, 6-19-03

Update on Free Trade

The biggest weapons seizure in Oregon's history happened on June 27 when Department of Homeland Security agents seized an illegal shipment of small arms coming from China and bound for El Salvador. The shipment worth $421,521 included 450 shotguns, 780 handguns, and 950 ammo magazines. The weapons were concealed on the ship Nordstrand in a 20-foot container labeled "chilled rainbow trout." The shipper was a Chinese arms manufacturer on the U.S. Office of Foreign Asset Control's denied parties list. Associated Press, 7-11-03

China's state-owned banks urgently need a government bailout estimated at more than $500 billion (40% of China's total gross domestic product) to help them deal with their bad loans, reports the Dow Jones wire service. This huge bad-debt burden renders China's state banks technically insolvent and obstructs government plans to restructure the four large state-owned commercial banks into shareholding companies. China Reform Monitor, No. 502, 7-8-03

Discussing alternative economic systems carries grave risks. Four friends who met on university campuses to discuss politics and occasionally posted essays on the Internet were sentenced to long prison terms for "subverting state power." New York Times, 5-30-03

Update on Human Rights

In Hong Kong on July 1, a crowd of 500,000 people marched to protest the government's plans to impose new stringent internal-security laws. Many wore black as a sign of mourning for what they see as Hong Kong's impending loss of civil liberties. This was the largest demonstration since the 1989 march to protest the killing of students in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. On July 9, tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in front of the legislature building to demand free elections and the resignation of Hong Kong's chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa.

The proposed laws are described as the real handover of Hong Kong to Chinese rule (which formally took place six years ago when Britain handed over Hong Kong to China). Hong Kong's Basic Law, a mini constitution drafted by Britain and China prior to the transfer of power, called for Hong Kong to retain its own political and economic system for 50 years. But it also required Hong Kong to enact new security legislation. The proposed laws set long jail terms for sedition, secession or treason, and impose restrictions on freedoms long enjoyed in Hong Kong. The most controversial provision would allow the government to ban any organization in Hong Kong if it has links to an organization banned elsewhere in China. New York Times, 7-2-03 and 7-9-03