Reports
12.19.08Sino-Japanese Relations: Issues for U.S. Policy
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
After a period of diplomatic rancor earlier this decade, Japan and China have demonstrably improved their bilateral relationship. The emerging detente includes breakthrough agreements on territorial disputes, various high-level exchanges, and...
Reports
10.08.08U.S. Foreign Aid to East and South Asia: Selected Recipients
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
Since the war on terrorism began in 2001 and the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) and Global HIV/AIDS Initiative (GHAI) were launched in 2004, the United States has increased foreign aid spending dramatically in some regions, including East and...
Reports
09.17.08Taiwan: Overall Developments and Policy Issues in the 109th Congress
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
U.S. officials saw relations with Taiwan as especially troubled during the 109th Congress in 2005-2006, beset by the increasing complexity and unpredictability of Taiwan’s democratic political environment as well as by PRC actions underscoring...
Reports
08.24.08Energy Interests and Alliances: China, America and Africa
EastWest Institute
According to conventional wisdom, the United States and China are locked in a high-stakes competition for energy resources around the world, particularly in Africa. Against the backdrop of highly volatile oil prices, mounting concerns about global...
The NYRB China Archive
08.14.08China: Humiliation & the Olympics
from New York Review of Books
The IncidentOn a snowy winter day in 1991, Lu Gang, a slightly built Chinese scholar who had recently received his Ph.D. in plasma physics, walked into a seminar room at the University of Iowa’s Van Allen Hall, raised a snub-nose .38-caliber Taurus...
Reports
08.05.08Taiwan: Recent Developments and U.S. Policy Choices
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
In a large turnout on March 22, 2008, voters in Taiwan elected as president Mr. Ma Ying-jeou of the Nationalist (KMT) Party. Mr. Ma out-polled rival candidate Frank Hsieh, of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), by a 2.2 million...
Reports
07.01.08Appeasing China: Restricting the Rights of Tibetans in Nepal
Human Rights Watch
This report concerns human rights issues surrounding the suppression of Tibetan protesters in Nepal. Following a Chinese governmental crackdown in Tibet in 2008, many Tibetans in Nepal began to protest. Nepali authorities have harshly suppressed the...
Reports
07.01.08China’s Forbidden Zones: Shutting the Media out of Tibet and Other “Sensitive” Stories
Human Rights Watch
This report focuses on the treatment of foreign journalists by the Chinese government. In the buildup to the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the authors contend, the Chinese government has tried to force foreign journalists to avoid sensitive issues. As a...
Reports
06.30.08Tibet: Problems, Prospects, and U.S. Policy
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
On March 10, 2008, a series of demonstrations began in Lhasa and other Tibetan regions of China to mark the 49th anniversary of an unsuccessful Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. The demonstrations appeared to begin peacefully with small...
The NYRB China Archive
06.26.08Casting a Lifeline
from New York Review of Books
Sixty pages or so into Ma Jian’s novel Beijing Coma, the hero, Dai Wei, is troubled by the memory of a harrowing anatomy lecture that he attended as a university student. Taught by “a celebrated cardiovascular specialist,” the class observed the...
Reports
06.01.08Tibet Autonomous Region: Access Denied
Amnesty International
This report, written in the aftermath of the widespread Tibetan unrest in Tibet and Tibetan regions of China in the spring of 2008, addresses the Chinese government with immediate demands. In cracking down on unrest, the Chinese government sealed...
The NYRB China Archive
05.29.08Thunder from Tibet
from New York Review of Books
1.Every so often, between the time a book leaves its publisher and the time it reaches its readers, events occur that change the ways it can be read. Such is the case with Pico Iyer’s account of the fourteenth Dalai Lama, the exiled leader of Tibet...
Reports
05.21.08China’s Space Program: Options for U.S.-China Cooperation
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
China has a determined, yet still modest, program of civilian space activities planned for the next decade. The potential for U.S.-China cooperation in space—an issue of interest to Congress—has become more controversial since the January 2007...
The NYRB China Archive
05.15.08Twelve Suggestions for Dealing with the Tibetan Situation, by Some Chinese Intellectuals
from New York Review of Books
At present the one-sided propaganda of the official Chinese media is having the effect of stirring up inter-ethnic animosity and aggravating an already tense situation. This is extremely detrimental to the long-term goal of safeguarding national...
Reports
05.14.08China’s Protestants
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
The number of religious believers in China continues to grow almost exponentially, far outpacing population growth. Of the officially tolerated faiths, Christianity has grown at the fastest pace. As of 2005, Christians were approaching 5 percent of...
Reports
04.04.08Security Implications of Taiwan’s Presidential Election of March 2008
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
Taiwan’s presidential election of March 22, 2008 indicates a reduction in future cross-strait tension, as winner Ma Ying-jeou is less provocative toward Beijing than Chen Shui-bian has been. The near-term outlook for Taiwan’s future is positive for...
The NYRB China Archive
04.03.08He Would Have Changed China
from New York Review of Books
In trying to make sense of their country’s turbulent modern history, Chinese intellectuals sometimes resort to counterfactual speculation. How might things have been different if one or another accidental event had happened differently? For decades...
Reports
04.02.08Taiwan’s 2008 Presidential Election
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
In a large turnout on March 22, 2008, voters in Taiwan elected as president Mr. Ma Ying-jeou of the Nationalist (KMT) Party. Mr. Ma out-polled rival candidate Frank Hsieh, of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), by a 2.2 million...
Reports
04.01.08Walking on Thin Ice: Control, Intimidation and Harassment of Lawyers in China
Human Rights Watch
While major gains have been made in terms of the rule of law over the past thirty years, this report from Human Rights Watch details consistent patterns of abuses against legal practitioners. These include intimidation, harassment, suspension of...
The NYRB China Archive
02.14.08He Won’t Give In
from New York Review of Books
On June 4, 1989, having heard that the Tiananmen demonstrations had been lethally crushed, Kang Zhengguo, a professor of literature at a university in Shaanxi province, pinned a piece of paper to his chest displaying the words “AIM YOUR GUNS HERE.”...
Reports
01.22.08Taiwan’s Legislative Elections, January 2008: Implications for U.S. Policy
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
On January 12, 2008, Taiwan’s ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), suffered a crushing defeat in elections for the Legislative Yuan, the national legislature. The DPP won only twenty-seven seats in the new 113-member body, while the...
The NYRB China Archive
01.17.08The Quiet Heroes of Tibet
from New York Review of Books
Earlier this year, shortly before boarding the new Chinese train from Beijing to Lhasa, I met Woeser, a Tibetan poet and essayist (she uses only one name). Unusual among Tibetans in China, who tend to avoid talking to foreigners, she spoke frankly...
Reports
01.10.08Prospects for Democracy in Hong Kong: China’s December 2007 Decision
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
The prospects for democratization in Hong Kong became clearer following a decision of the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPCSC) on December 29, 2007. The NPCSC’s decision effectively set the year 2017 as the earliest date...
Reports
12.01.07Africa-China-U.S. Trilateral Dialogue
He Jianan
Council on Foreign Relations
Over the course of the last thirteen months, delegates from Africa, China, and the United States have met three times in an effort to identify strategies of cooperation among their respective nations with the goal of accelerating economic...
Reports
10.01.07What Drives China’s Growing Role in Africa?
Sara Segal-Williams
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
What role does China play in Africa’s development? What drives China’s increasing economic involvement in the continent? This paper attempts to provide a quantified assessment of China’s multifaceted influence as market, donor, financer and investor...
Reports
06.30.07China, the Philippines, and U.S. Influence in Asia
Sara Segal-Williams
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
During his January 2007 visit to Manila, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao and Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared that Sino-Philippine relations are experiencing a “golden age of partnership” as the two countries upgrade bilateral...
Reports
06.29.07Hong Kong’s Return to Chinese Sovereignty: Ten Years On
Amnesty International
Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty on 1 July 1997 after more than one hundred years as a British colony. This report looks at how certain basic human rights have fared since the handover and assesses how far the HKSAR government has taken the...
The NYRB China Archive
06.28.07Mission to Mao
from New York Review of Books
“This was the week that changed the world” was Richard Nixon’s summing up at the end of his trip to China in February 1972.1 The hyperbole was justified, for this visit to China by an American president was a turning point in the cold war. Hitherto...
Reports
06.12.07State Secrets: China's Legal Labyrinth
Human Rights in China
This report describes and examines the PRC state secrets system and shows how it allows and even promotes human rights violations by undermining the rights to freedom of expression and information, and by maintaining a culture of secrecy that has a...
Reports
06.01.07No One Has the Liberty to Refuse: Tibetan Herders Forcibly Relocated in Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, and the TAR
Human Rights Watch
This report describes the effects on Tibetan herders of Chinese government policies of resettlement, land confiscation, and fencing. The author draws on interviews with about 150 Tibetans from the areas directly affected, including Gansu, Qinghai,...
Reports
04.30.07Dissident Dissonance
Sara Segal-Williams
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
The United States has applied a different standard on human rights and dissent to China than it did to the Soviet Union. Several things explain this. First, beginning in 1972, relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were intended to...
Reports
04.23.07China’s Anti-Satellite Weapon Test
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
On January 11, 2007, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) conducted its first successful direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons test in destroying one of its own satellites in space. The test raised international concerns about more space...
Reports
04.20.07Underlying Strains in Taiwan-U.S. Political Relations
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
The U.S. policy framework for Taiwan was laid down in 1979 when Washington severed official relations with the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan and instead recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the legitimate Chinese government. The...
Reports
04.01.07U.S.-China Relations
He Jianan
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations established an Independent Task Force to take stock of the changes under way in China today and to evaluate what these changes mean for China and for the US-China relationship. Based on its careful assessment of the...
Reports
03.01.07Will India Be a Better Strategic Partner Than China?
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
The Joint Declaration signed on July 18, 2005, by President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been heralded in some quarters as the equivalent of President Richard Nixon’s opening to China. The opening to China under...
Reports
02.01.07China: Minority Exclusion, Marginalization and Rising Tensions
Human Rights in China
This report documents the serious impediments to the fulfillment of China's human rights obligations, in the areas of ethnic minority political participation, development, and preservation of cultural identity. Given the destabilizing levels of...
Reports
01.13.07Is China a Threat to the U.S. Economy?
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
The rise of China from a poor, stagnant country to a major economic power within a time span of only twenty-eight years is often described by analysts as one of the greatest economic success stories in modern times. From 1979 (when economic reforms...
Reports
01.04.07China’s Trade with the United States and the World
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
As imports from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have surged in recent years, posing a threat to some U.S. industries and manufacturing employment, Congress has begun to focus on not only access to the Chinese market and intellectual property...
Reports
11.30.06America and Japan Approach a Rising China
Sara Segal-Williams
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
America’s post-Cold War China policy was premised on the hope that multidimensional engagement with Beijing would result in a strong, rich, peaceful, and democratic China. Almost two decades later, America’s attitude toward China reflects the fear...
The NYRB China Archive
10.19.06Court Favorite
from New York Review of Books
At seven feet six inches tall and about three hundred pounds, Yao Ming, the basketball superstar who plays for the Houston Rockets, is, for many Americans, the most famous living Chinese. In 2002 he was the number-one overall pick in the National...
Reports
10.10.06Taiwan-U.S. Political Relations: New Strains and Changes
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
The U.S. policy framework for Taiwan was laid down in 1979 when Washington severed official relations with the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan and instead recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the legitimate Chinese government. The...
The NYRB China Archive
09.21.06Why They Hate Japan
from New York Review of Books
1.Those who think that the Japanese are a little odd will have been confirmed in their prejudice by the behavior of Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro during his June visit to the United States. The social highlight was a trip to Graceland, home of...
The NYRB China Archive
09.21.06China’s Great Terror
from New York Review of Books
Long before August 1966, when immense chanting crowds of young Chinese Red Guards began to mass before Chairman Mao in Tiananmen Square, alerting those in the wider world to the onset of the Cultural Revolution, senior figures in the Chinese...
The NYRB China Archive
08.10.06‘June Fourth’ Seventeen Years Later: How I Kept a Promise
from New York Review of Books
The weekend of June 3, 2006, was the seventeenth anniversary of the Beijing massacre and also the first time I ever received a summons. It happened, as the police put it, “according to law.” Twice within twenty-four hours Deputy Chief Sun Di of...
Reports
08.01.06Race to the Bottom: Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship
Human Rights Watch
China’s system of Internet censorship and surveillance, popularly known as the “Great Firewall,” is the most advanced in the world. In this report, Human Rights Watch documents how extensive corporate and private sector cooperation—including by some...
Reports
07.11.06Who’s Manipulating Whom? China’s Currency and the U.S. Economy
Cato Institute
Congress and the Bush administration continue to pressure China to allow its currency to appreciate against the U.S. dollar under threat of trade sanctions. Critics contend “currency manipulation” gives Chinese producers an unfair advantage against...
Reports
03.27.06Taiwan’s Security: Beyond the Special Budget
Sara Segal-Williams
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Dr. Chang Ya-chung is a professor of political science at the prestigious National Taiwan University who carries a powerful message: America has lost touch with popular sentiment on Taiwan. Professor Chang leads a growing movement called the...
The NYRB China Archive
02.09.06Liu Binyan (1925-2005)
from New York Review of Books
Liu Binyan, the distinguished Chinese journalist and writer who died of cancer on December 5, 2005, in exile in New Jersey, at the age of eighty, was an inveterate defender of the poor and the oppressed, a man with a powerful analytic mind. But the...
Reports
01.26.06Ending Financial Repression in China
Cato Institute
Chinese economic liberalization largely stopped at the gates of the financial sector. Investment funds are channeled through state-owned banks to state-owned enterprises (SOEs), there are few investment alternatives, stock markets are dominated by...
Reports
01.13.06The Rise of China and Its Effect on Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea: U.S. Policy Choices
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
The economic rise of China and the growing network of trade and investment relations in northeast Asia are causing major changes in human, economic, political, and military interaction among countries in the region. This is affecting U.S. relations...
Reports
12.09.05East Asian Summit: Issues for Congress
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
Fundamental shifts underway in Asia could constrain the U.S. role in the multilateral affairs of Asia. The centrality of the United States is now being challenged by renewed regionalism in Asia and by China’s rising influence. While the United...
Reports
12.01.05“We Could Disappear at Any Time”: Retaliation and Abuses Against Chinese Petitioners
Human Rights Watch
This 2005 report is the first in-depth look at the treatment of Chinese citizens who travel to Beijing to demand redress to their complaints of mistreatment by officials. While petitioning has long been in use in China, it is now on the rise; an...
Reports
11.22.05Internet Development and Information Control in the People’s Republic of China
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
Since its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has often been accused of manipulating the flow of information and prohibiting the dissemination of viewpoints that criticize the government or stray from the official Communist party...
The NYRB China Archive
10.06.05China: The Uses of Fear
from New York Review of Books
Instilling deadly fear throughout the population was one of Mao Zedong’s lasting contributions to China since the late Twenties. In the case of Dai Qing, one of China’s sharpest critics before 1989, fear seems to explain the sad transformation in...
Reports
07.15.05Hong Kong 2005: Changes in Leadership and Issues for Congress
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has recently recovered from an economic downturn and the SARS virus outbreak of 2002-2003 which crippled trade and tourism. There has also been a major change in top government personnel, with the...
Reports
04.20.05China’s Growing Interest in Latin America
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
Over the past year, increasing attention has focused on China’s growing interest in Latin America. Most analysts appear to agree that China’s primary interest in the region is to gain greater access to needed resources—such as oil, copper, and iron—...
Reports
04.15.05European Union’s Arms Embargo on China: Implications and Options for U.S. Policy
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
The European Union (EU) is considering lifting its arms embargo on China, which was imposed in response to the June 1989 Tiananmen Crackdown. France, Germany, and other EU members claim that the embargo hinders the development of a “strategic...
The NYRB China Archive
03.24.05Chinese Shadows
from New York Review of Books
There are many reasons for getting tattooed. But a sense of belonging—to a group, a faith, or a person—is key. As a mark of identification a tattoo is more lasting than a passport. This is not always voluntary. In Japan, criminals used to have the...
Reports
03.07.05Nonmarket Nonsense: U.S. Antidumping Policy toward China
Cato Institute
In stark contrast to its broader restraint in the face of anti-China protectionist pressure, the Bush administration has adopted an unabashedly bellicose approach to antidumping matters. The administration should take a hard look at its antidumping...
Reports
03.01.05European Union’s Arms Control Regime and Arms Exports to China: Background and Legal Analysis
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
In recent months, discussions have been held within the European Union (EU) on the question of lifting the embargo on arms exports to the People’s Republic of China that was imposed on China on June 27, 1989. The prospect that the EU would lift its...