America's Future Update on China

Update on Education

Here is how history is taught in Communist China. Most Chinese students finish high school convinced that their country has fought wars only in self-defense, never aggressively or in conquest, despite the People’s Liberation Army’s invasion of Tibet in 1950 and the ill-fated war with Vietnam in 1979. Chinese students are taught that Japan was defeated in World War II largely as a result of Chinese resistance, rather than by the United States. Students never learn that 30 million Chinese died from famine during the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s because of catastrophic decisions made by the founder of Communist China Mao Zedong.

Coverage of the Tiananmen Square demonstration is almost non-existent. But one textbook calls them a "storm" created by the failure of leaders to stop the spread of "bourgeois liberalism," and states that "the Central Committee took action in time and restored calm."

Ge Jianxiong, director of the Institute of Chinese Historical Geography at Fudan University in Shanghai, admitted: "In China, history is still used as a political tool, and at the high-school level, we still must follow the doctrine."New York Times, 12-6-04

Update on Free Trade

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says its inventory of stock produced in China hit $18 billion in 2004. More than 70% of the commodities sold in Wal-Mart are made in China. The annual growth rate of 20% per year has been consistent.

If Wal-Mart were a country, it would rank as China’s 8th biggest trading partner, ahead of Russia, Australia and Canada. Last year, Wal-Mart bought $15 billion in products from China. More than 5,000 Chinese enterprises have steady supply alliances with Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is a big part of the U.S. trade deficit with China, now running at $150 billion a year. China Business Weekly, 11-29-04

The Bush Administration rejected a request from 30 Members of Congress that it bring a World Trade Organization case against China (under Section 301 of U.S. trade law) for manipulating its currency to gain unfair trade advantages against the United States. U.S. manufacturers contend that China’s practice of pegging its currency, the yuan, to the U.S. dollar at a fixed rate undervalues the Chinese currency by as much as 40%, giving Chinese products a tremendous competitive ad-vantage over U.S. products.Las Vegas Sun, 11-12-04

Update on Human Rights

China’s political and human rights climate remains oppressive despite the economic and social gains of the past decade, according to three exiled leaders of the famous 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests. "In terms of democratic politics and political reform, there really has been no change or progress whatsoever," said Wang Dan, who was expelled to the U.S. in 1998 after spending the previous decade in jail.

Miss Tong Yi, now a lawyer in New York City, served 2-1/2 years in a government "re-education through labor" camp before being allowed to come to the U.S. in 1997. She said that police corruption and abuses continue daily under the "custody and repatriation" system used by the police and security forces. She testified that the system has become a means for authorities to extort money from detainees, build up a source of cheap labor, and remove potential protesters from the streets.

The third exiled leader, Liu Gang, an engineer working in Denver, spent 6 years in prison for his political activities. He said the system is a source of income for the police, who extort bribes from detainees seeking early release.