America's Future Update on China

Update on U.S. National Security

The U.S. trade deficit with China reached $162 billion last year, an all-time high with any country. Associated Press, 10-6-05

North Korea's government is producing high-quality counterfeit $100 bills and is working with criminal groups in China to sell the fake U.S. money internationally. The North Korean operation is linked to a major Asian crime ring trafficking in fake money, arms, drugs and cigarettes. U.S. officials made arrests in several U.S. cities of people using these so-called "supernotes." One of the 10 indictments in the case contains the first disclosure of the North Korean government's role in the counterfeiting. According to a Heritage Foundation researcher, North Korea has been circulating forged $100 bills for more than a decade and profits $250 million a year from the bills.

These profits support the North Korean government's drug trafficking, money laundering and gambling. U.S. officials believe that the Chinese government knows all this and is not doing anything to stop it. The U.S. Treasury recently redesigned our $100 bills in part because of North Korean counterfeiting. Washington Times, 9-26-05

Update on Trade with China

China's government secretly tried to buy U.S. electronic equipment that would allow Beijing to intercept U.S. intelligence data sent to the ground by satellites, according to a declassified FBI report in the spy case of Katrina Leung. The evidence was found in her possession after her arrest in 2003. Two Chinese nationals are believed to have stolen $140 million to accomplish "a high-tech transfer/purchase of a most-up-to-date satellite retrieval systems technology manufactured by a U.S. firm." The FBI report said the "highest level of the Chinese government had ordered the operation." Katrina Leung was a double agent for years, was paid $1.7 million for her work as an FBI informant, and had long-term sexual relations with two of the FBI's most senior counterintelligence agents. Washington Times, 9-19-05

China is stepping up its overt and covert efforts to gather intelligence and technology in the United States, and these activities have boosted Beijing's plans to rapidly produce advanced-weapons systems. David Szady, FBI chief of counterintelligence operations, said, "Where something that would normally take 10 years to develop takes them two or three." Washington Times, 7-4-05

Update on China's Population

China will soon find itself with a tremendous social problem: 23 million more young men than women available to marry in this decade and the next. This surplus of unattached young men could be a driving force behind increased crime, explosive epidemics of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and threats to the security of other nations. The Chinese government has not yet faced up to this problem.

What is called the "marriage squeeze" or the "bachelor bomb" is largely the legacy of the government's one-child policy. China's fertility rate has fallen from 6 children per woman in the 1960s to 1.7 today. China's strong cultural preference for sons has not changed, and access to ultrasound technology has led to widespread female-specific abortion. What can the government do with these millions of men except send them to war? According to sociology professor Dudley Poston of Texas A&M, "The surplus of boys and shortage of girls 'made in China' could soon become not just a concern for China, but for the world." International Herald Tribune, 9-14-05